Earth Etude for Elul 14

Love is the Breath of the Soul

by Rabbi Dr. Nachshon Siritsky

Earth: Adamah

In Hebrew, earth (adamah) is also (adam) which is humanity. Both have the same three-letter root (alef/dalet/mem), but earth/adamah has the extra Hebrew letter “Hey.”

Hey: the double letter in G!d’s Name 

Hey: the vowel that opens us to Life

Hey: (Breath/Ruach) called Avram and Sarai to leave the land where they could not breathe that they could awaken into their destined Blessings…

Hey: the sound of Breath/Ruach that opens to Spirit/Oxygen enlivening us into our Purpose/Bashert.

Hey: the yearning for Breath that pushes us out of the narrowness where we suffocate… this Beckoning of the gravitational pull of Love/Life.

Ani L’Dodi V’Dodi Li: I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is Mine

To forsake this call… this gravitational calling… is to silence Spirit/Neshamah which is also Breath/Neshimah and suffocate under the toxicity of this world, forgetting that at the heart of this world’s physicality is “Hey” (the holiness of the One Who Breathes through us all).

Elul: this is the month of our (re)turning that the seasons may turn and push/pull us into re/turning… enlivening ourselves/our earth… reconnecting us to our essence… for we are all Love at our core… our truest self is Self.

But all this has been lost in translation… all the connections between us: Adam and Adamah… the Hey/LifeForce that flows through us all… we have lost this deep knowing because we have lost our language/tongue.

English is a noun-based language focused objectification. We live a life in translation using a tongue that is dismembered from our shared embodiment… we communicate with words taught to us by those who have conquered. 

Hebrew, like the Mi’kmaq/Indigenous language of the unceded territory upon which I dwell as an uninvited guest, is a verb-based language where words and ideas are fluid and interconnected.

Here, where everything begins with a land acknowledgement, I have been learning of the truths that my Hebrew ancestors sought to transmit but have been forgotten or erased. 

Here too, they count time with the moon, and sometimes add an extra month to align with the sun, that we may remain rooted and guided by the earth’s seasons. 

Elul: this is the season of the return of Love: ReMatriation to heal the patriarchy/pain-triarchy. This is the season of becoming Beloved once again. 

M’sit Nokmaq: All my relations.

This is how Elul is translated by my Mi’kmaq neighbors. 

Ubuntu: I am because you are. I am because we are.

This is how Elul is translated by my African siblings.

When we focus, not on how we are different, but how we are the same… we finally reMember… ReMatriate.

Every three-letter root (alef/dalet/mem) is rooted in two letters. Dalet and mem. Dam. Blood. Beneath our appearance is the same blood/LifeForce. 

Every living being requires oxygen and sunlight and water and this beautiful Earth that we share but have forgotten how to sanctify. May 5785 be the year when ReMatriation/Teshuvah begins that we may all become Beloved once again.

Rabbi Dr. Nachshon Siritsky, MA, BCC, MSSW, RSW-Clinical Specialist (he/they/nekm: we)
The Chavurah Collective: Decolonizing Judaism in Mi’kma’ki and beyond

The Chavurah Collective is a progressive hybrid community across Turtle Island (North America) and composed of Reform Judaism in Atlantic Canada, the Jewish Community Havurah in Newfoundland and KICK: Kol Israel Community of Kentucky dedicated to Jewish Renewal.

I acknowledge that I am writing from the unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq people, and as an uninvited guest on this land, I commit to doing all that I can to dismantling systemic racism, queerphobia and other intersectional injustices as part of my shared commitment to decolonizing myself and this world. May this Etude lead me closer to achieving this goal, and in so doing, in achieving the deeper Tikkun (justice and healing) that led me to ordination and seeking to serve that which I call G!d.

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