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Good afternoon, Chaverim/Chaverot, 

This quote, following last week’s theme centered on love, felt like something that we might all appreciate …

Here is today’s Gratitude Thought in the Midst of a Pandemic:

“There’s a power in love to help and heal when nothing else can. 
There’s power in love to lift up and liberate when nothing else will. 
There’s power in love to show us the way to live.”

Bishop Michael B. Curry 

Bishop Curry is obviously not Jewish.  (He is the first African American leader of the Episcopal Church, elected in 2015.)  So, his thinking about the “power in love” likely derives from his upbringing and his training in the Christian tradition.  But, I am grateful this morning that our tradition and liturgy are also filled with references to love.  

Indeed, we are commanded to “love” our “neighbors” and “ourselves”.  And, while it can sometimes be quite challenging to act and live in accordance with this commandment, we KNOW the way to live.  We KNOW the power in and of love…it’s in our DNA, our souls are filled with it…we are powered and empowered by it.  Love undergirds many (most? all?) of our Jewish values, e.g., rachamim (compassion/mercy),  chesed (lovingkindness), and g’milut chasidim (acts of lovingkindness), to name but a few of the most obvious.   And, one need not be a Torah scholar to know that we are called upon to take our love out into the world to “help”, to “heal”, to “lift up”, and to “liberate”…even those who were raised without any formal Jewish education (or who skipped as much Hebrew School as possible…you know who you are!) know about tikkun olam, that doing our part to “repair of the world”  is our obligation as Jews.      

There is so much hate loose in our world these days and we are desperately in need of the “help”, “healing”, “lifting up” and “liberation” for which Bishop Curry is calling.  So, let each of us put love in the driver’s seat, let each us seek to live our values as often and with as much passion as we possibly can and let’s see where all that powerful love can take us…   

Love and Shabbat Shalom to all,
Marci