25 Days of Israel: Day 19 - Infinite Imperfect Steps

This is Day 19 in a series of posts I have chosen to write during the time of my current - and last, for a while - trip to Israel in March 2023. My experience of Israel in these last 7 years of my residence has been vivid, inspiring, nerve wracking, debilitating, and wholly, precisely, profoundly the medicine I've needed. Words will not (yet) fully express the treasures I've received from my presence here, but I believe the commitment, challenge, and confidence of these 25 Days of Israel are a beautiful homage to their glory in my life.

“It is not incumbent upon you to finish the task, nor are you free to desist from it.”

This trip is really starting to come to a head. The clock winds down, there remains a huge list of tasks to complete before I fly, and the enormity of the whole movement weighs on me constantly.

Today was my first full day in Jerusalem, and how glorious it was. I don’t come too often and have never chosen to live here, but I can’t help but keep thinking how magnificent it is to be ending my time in Israel in such a ceremonious way.

One aspect that makes it so sacred is, of course, the high presence of religiosity in the city. It is, after all, still Jerusalem.

I’m not here today to talk about religious Jerusalem in depth, though. Instead, I wanted to highlight one powerful and very famous teaching of the Mishnah that came back around to me this evening after many years inspiring my activities here.

Rabbi Tarfon, in Pirkei Avot 2:16, says: “It is not incumbent upon you to finish the task, nor are you free to desist from it.” In my words: we do not need to, nor cannot, bear the weight of the entire world of one task or responsibility, but it is nonetheless our sacred and inherent duty to answer the calls of those responsibilities when we hear them. Our capability and privileged birthright as human beings is not to achieve perfection (by way, in this case, of completion and “wholeness”), but simply to walk the path of embodying our fullest and brightest.

My wonderful, beloved, wise friend shared this quote with me in the context of my panic relating to this move, not knowing it was one that had moved me at the beginning of my time in Israel during my volunteer days. Just before, I had been contemplating the nature of the giving and receiving taking place with my logistics right now and from the last 7 months, and how I sensed a great and discouraging imbalance between them.

As she told me last fall, perhaps November 2022, and as I interpret now in my own words, a sense of forward motion and a true, vivid connection to my light would perhaps come by taking real action to exercise my own giving. I replied by expressing an instinctive fear that kept warning the generosity of my joy may not “be enough,” or may not “finish” the giving that was “necessary” to complete the whole exchange. With the latter, it wasn’t a sense that I wouldn’t provide a “suitable” one-for-one physical reciprocation to help received, but rather, that the energy behind my own offerings would not fully honor it. It was at this point that she offered this thought from Rabbi Tarfon.

There are a few pearls of wisdom that come from this experience, and this insight, for me:

As ever, it is not the destination that most matters, but the journey.

All the challenges, all the problems, all the “struggles” can be held in the light when we make ourselves available to embody forward motion. This translates to being the creator of our lives, from honoring our light, our love, and our life as sovereign and sacred, from choosing a lifestyle and a mindset of self-love through all the circumstances this world may bring us.

There’s no real “end” or “ultimate completion,” especially when it comes to love and light work.

Not only is it not about the destination, but it is to be disconnected from our own divine presence to believe that there is one. We are all beings of such an intimate, infinite strength and love that to believe we must “finish” is to inherently limit all that we bring to that context.

We unlock and actualize more of our potential by trusting our process.

When we let go of the concept of a destination, a standard that we can succeed or fail to meet, we literally create the space to bring, be, and do more along the way. In this case, practically, technically, literally, if I begin to take real steps to exercise my generosity, if I give even in the face of the fears that tell me I won’t “meet” the standard my mind says exists, more will actually, literally, be given and I will create more intimacy with the underlying energy I intend to get closer to anyways.

The mightiest, most expansive of what we offer this world is, primarily, an energy frequency, not an absolute object with a fixed form. It is tangible, and our responsibility is to make it practical and actionable, but the essence is ultimately ethereal. We best serve ourselves and our gifts by moving with awareness of this transcendent nature, and creating space in our lives for it wherever we can.