Vulnerability Hide and Seek
and other Jewish mystical teachings
Though I have always loved to write, telling my own story is not always easy for me. For one thing, I want to try to maintain some semblance of humility and privacy. I don’t want to use the people I care about as “content.” Fundamentally, I don’t want to make myself emotionally or physically vulnerable.
Last week, through a series of unexpected opportunities, I had an article published in the Jewish News Syndicate, telling the story of what it is like to have my son learning in Israel right now.
That felt vulnerable. And believe me, there was a lot of checking with my son to make sure he didn’t mind. (He didn’t… phew.) Given how scared I was the night before it came out, I’m grateful to the people who told me they loved it. I hope you will too.
There are also times when I feel absolutely compelled to share something and I’m not sure who might be interested in hearing it. On Sunday, I taught a class to explore an important Jewish mystical teaching as elucidated in a book called You Are What You Hate: A Spiritually-Productive Approach to Enemies by Sarah Yehudit Schneider.
I had been learning this text with the author for years, focusing mostly on the small, individual challenges of life. Now, it felt critically important to share with those who would listen.
As I was preparing the class, I reminded myself that it didn’t matter how many people came on short notice to a Sunday evening zoom session. My heart (my ratzon) was telling me to teach it and that is what I had to do.
(I did record it; let me know if you’d like an audio or video version.)
I share these stories because I believe this is a time for following our heart calling. Neither of these things were easy for me, but they felt true and important and right.
For many of us, it’s a time of tremendous stress, grief and anxiety. But I also believe it’s a time in which we all have tremendous opportunity for meaningful growth. So if you hear a calling for you, something that would bring a little bit of peace and blessing into your world at whatever scale, maybe you can hear me whispering in your ear:
Do it.
Even if it feels uncomfortable or scary. Even if it doesn’t look as important as what someone else is doing. Bring your Light into the world.
May your family and loved ones be safe, and may we see lasting peace soon at the right time.
Evonne
P.S. Cyberspace being what it is, this email may have been flagged as spam in your inbox. I promise, it's really me, stressed enough at this point that I have been periodically forgetting to sleep and eat. (No bot would know that but you do, right?) If you want to see more messages from me, please let your email service know I'm real and writing to you from my author account, evonnewrites@gmail.com.