Gam zeh l’tovah
This is also for the good. (Talmud, Taanit 21a)

Nachum, a great sage who was Rabbi Akiva’s teacher was nicknamed Ish Gamzu, the Gamzu man, because no matter what happened, he would say about it, “This is also for the good.” He experienced a lot of what looked to other as very bad things- illness, misfortune, suffering.

I don’t think that he was saying that even those terrible things were good. Nachum Ish Gamzu was doing a very advanced practice of dedication to the larger Good. This larger Good holds inside of it everything we think of as good and bad. And he was stepping inside a vast and radical place of Not-Knowing.

My version of his practice lets me point to all the countless events, situations, fates, adventures and misadventures of my life, as I vow to use everything, yes everything in service to the greater good of awakening through it all.

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• For the Good

To download the PDF file for this chant, click For the Good PDF. For the musical notation, click For the Good Music.