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Ha'azinu: Forgetting

9/30/2011

 
Why does God not let Moses enter the land of Israel? It seems cruel to deny Moses the pleasure of feeling the earth beneath his feet in the land that he has spent a third of his life trying to reach. Why, on the brink of fulfilling his mission, does God say to him, "You can see the land from a distance, but you shall not enter it"? (Deuteronomy 32:52)

According to a midrash, Moses cried up to heaven when God decreed he could not enter the land.

Don't feel too sorry for Moses, though, dear reader. Think of it this way: next Shabbat, it will be you who is standing on Mount Nebo. You will be looking over the expanse of your life's work—creating yourself. You will express regret for the things you should have done better. You will make promises to yourself on Yom Kippur that next year will be different. From the heights of the Ne'ilah service, you will point to the distant horizon of the rest of your life, to the north and to the south, and you will express hope for a better tomorrow. 

And then, dear reader, unlike Moses, you will have to cross the Jordan River and actually live in it. You will have to deal with the reality that you will forget the wonderful view from the peak moment of Yom Kippur. You will forget to live your Yom Kippur self and, instead, you will live in the land of your life.

In this week's Torah portion, Ha'azinu, Moses sings a song to the Israelites about to enter the land and he bemoans that they will "neglect the Rock that gave birth to you, forget the God who brought you forth." Moses might as well be singing to you. You, too, will enter the land and you will forget all those hopes and promises of Yom Kippur— just like last year. 

Should you envy Moses for not having to enter the land and experience such forgetting? Would we be better off it we got to stay with Moses on top of Mount Nebo?

We are made to forget. We are created as beings that must learn and relearn Torah all the time. All the promises we make to ourselves, all the worthy goals we hold up for ourselves are forgotten so we can learn them again. 

That is what it is like, living in the land of your life. You are forced to learn and relearn Torah all the time. Except for Moses. On Mount Nebo there is no forgetting and no need to remember what you have forgotten. 

And that is why Moses cried.

Shanah Tovah Umtukah!

9/27/2011

 
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Wishing You a Good and Sweet New Year!
Here is my Rosh Hashanah gift to everyone, a teaching from Rabbi Yehudah Leib Alter of Ger, the S'fat Emet:

"Inscribe us for life." [This phrase from the prayers of Rosh Hashanah] refers to the infinitesimal point of holiness that is within each human heart. That point is the soul of life, of which it is said, "God has placed eternal life within us." However, every year, as we become accustomed to sin, our baser self overpowers and hides this point of holiness. You must seek compassion from the Holy One of Blessing to re-inscribe this spark onto your heart on Rosh Hashanah. This is why we implore God, "Inscribe us for life!" We ask God to re-inscribe life upon our hearts.
-S'fat Emet 5:139

May 5772 be a year of renewal for you. May it awaken the spark of holiness within you and may you taste life's sweetness and joy. May the Holy One inscribe you for life!

Adding Joy to the Days of Awe

9/24/2011

 
There was no day of greater joy in Israel than … Yom Kippur.
-B. Taanit 30b

Who says that the Days of Awe have to be solemn and somber? These are the days in which we wish each other a sweet new year and in which we rejoice in the purification of forgiveness. It is time to rediscover the joy of this season. Here are six ideas for making High Holy Days services more joyful:

• Begin your services by greeting each other. In most congregations, High Holy Days services are the only time of the year that almost the entire community is present in the synagogue. Even in a small congregation, there are going to be long-time members who have never met or who can't remember each other's names. By beginning the service with greetings and words of welcome, we can become true communities. I ask everyone to stand up, find someone they do not know, and wish each other a "Shanah Tovah!"

• Let children behave like children. There is nothing, in my mind, that kills the experience of being in the synagogue for children more than being told to be quiet. Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi tells a great story about a child who is told that the holy ark contains the most wonderful thing in the world—the Torah. The child gets so excited that when the ark is opened during services he yells out, "The Torah! The Torah!" What does he hear in return? "Shhhhhh!" We have no idea how much those shushes hurt a child's Jewish joy. You want to have children in your congregation? You want them to feel welcome and joyful about being there and about being Jewish? Then, please, stop punishing them for acting like children. I begin my services by assuring parents that we consider the cries and laughter of children to be "the most sincere form of prayer." Also, recognize that when children misbehave in the synagogue, it is usually because they are bored. Work on making service more engaging and meaningful for children before assuming that it is their attitude or lax parenting that is the root of the problem.

• Let the congregation participate in the shofar service.  For years, I have been asking the members of the congregation to call out the blasts of the shofar: "Tekiah! Shevarim-Teruah! Tekiah!" It really changes the way people feel about the mitzvah of hearing the sound of the shofar. In the congregation I have come to this year, there is another joyful custom. They ask all the children to bring shofarot on Rosh Hashanah and they all sound the blasts for the final shofar call. I can't wait to hear it.

• Wish people a sweet New Year with sweets. My friend and rabbinic school classmate, Rabbi Michael Latz, hands out Tootsie Rolls at Rosh Hashanah services to give some real flavor to the traditional greeting, "Shanah tovah umtukah," "A good and sweet year!" People who love chocolate and other sweets will love Rosh Hashanah even more—and love being Jewish and being in the synagogue—if you celebrate the holiday with their favorite treats.

• An intimate Ne'ilah. Most congregations that open up the moveable walls and expand their sanctuaries for the High Holy Days will find that they can go back to a small sanctuary by the time the final Ne'ilah service comes around. (What a shame for the people who are missing the best part of Yom Kippur!). Take advantage of the shifting numbers by making Ne'ilah a more intimate experience. If your congregation stands throughout Ne'ilah, as the tradition suggests, they don't need to stand at their chairs. Get them up on the bimah and feel themselves to be part of a community as each person struggles to dig deep within him or herself for the final lunge toward t'shuvah by the final shofar blast. It is one of the most powerful moments of the Jewish year. The havdalah that follows is one of the most joyful!

• Break the fast as a community. Congregational break-the-fasts are one of the best opportunities of the year to create a sense of community and togetherness. Think of it: you have just been through the emotional rollercoaster and liturgical marathon of Yom Kippur, and now you've made it through to the end. What are you going to do? Leave the people with whom you've just shared it and eat a bagel at home? Instead, stay in the synagogue and rejoice as a community in the completion of the year's most important religious and social occasion. Begin the new year with the mitzvah of not separating yourself from the community.

What are your favorite parts of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur that make the Days of Awe a joyful experience? Share your ideas in the comments.

Nitzavim-Vayeilech: Is There Such a Thing as a Religious Reform Jew?

9/22/2011

 
"I'm Jewish, but I'm not religious."

As a congregational rabbi, I must hear someone say something like this at least once a week.  The funny thing is, it usually comes from someone who is a member of a congregation, who keeps his or her kids in religious school, who observes holidays like Chanukah and Passover, and attends synagogue services on the High Holy Days and a few other times each year.  Often, it is a person who gives money to Jewish causes, or even volunteers for the congregation.
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I keep wondering: What do Jews mean when they say that they are "not religious"?  What other religious group in America would define "religious" the way that Jews do?

Obviously, part of the problem is that most American Jews have been trained to believe that it's bad to be "too religious." They have an image of a chasidic Jew wearing a black coat, tzitzit, a shtreimel fur hat, and payos sidelocks. They have an image of a Jew who observes Shabbat and Kashrut in ways that they reject. They know they don't want to be that, and that is what "religious" means to them. 

Even committed Reform Jews, who understand the principles of equality and autonomy that are the foundation of Reform Judaism, still don't believe that they can be religious because they attend a shul where men and women sit together and because they drive to the mall after services on Saturdays. They believe that they cannot be religious, despite the fact that their rabbi tells them they have the right to make their own choices.

Do they think that it is impossible to be a religious Reform Jew? If so, it is a terrible indictment of Reform Judaism if not even its own adherents believe that their Judaism is "real" Judaism.

This week's Torah portion comes to remind us just before Rosh Hashanah that being "religious" is not a matter of donning the Judaism of your grandparents or your grandparents' grandparents. Being a religious Jew is much more a matter of listening to what is already in your heart.

Surely, this commandment which I command you this day is not too wondrous for you, nor is too distant from you. It is not in the heavens, that you should say, “Who shall go up to the heavens and get it for us that we may understand it and do it?” It is not across the sea, that you should say, “Who shall cross the sea and get it for us that we may understand and do it?" Rather, it is very close to you. It is in your mouth and in your heart to do it.  (Deuteronomy 30:11-14)

Real Judaism is not some distant and alien land where no self-respecting modern Jew should ever go. Real Torah, as the Torah says, is found in the very ideals of your heart. It is found in the very words that come to your mouth when you talk about your deepest values and your most profound connection to your Creator. It is not somebody else's version of what you are "supposed to do." It is the truth that you already know; the truth of your Jewish identity that is most dear to you.

Your Judaism is as real and as powerful as any Judaism could be, as long as it is what is in your heart. Listen up, Reform Jews! Being religious is not a matter of being the kind of Jew somebody else wants you to be.  It is about being the kind of Jew you want to be.

So, the next time you hear the word "religious" and you instinctively think, "That's not me; that's somebody else," think instead about what you believe "religious" should mean, according to the dictates of your own heart and mouth. If you can be that, you can be religious.

You are What You Choose to Be

9/18/2011

 
Do not think for a second what the fools and idiots say, both Jews and gentiles: that the Holy Blessed One decrees upon you at the time of your birth whether you will be good or bad. This is not so. You have the potential to be as righteous as Moses our Teacher or as wicked as Jeroboam. You have the power to be clever or stupid, merciful or cruel, miserable or noble, or, indeed, to possess any of the other temperaments.  (Hilchot T'shuvah, 5:2)

Rabbi Moses ben Maimon—known as the Rambam or Maimonides—was not one to mince with words. In his "Laws of Repentance," he lays it out straight: You can be whatever you choose to be.

As liberating as that may sound at first, the Rambam makes it clear that there is also a burden attached to this truth. There are no escape clauses to your responsibility for who you are. If you are weak or inconsistent in being the mensch you are meant to be, you have no one to blame but yourself. It is all a matter of your choice. Don't let anyone—least of all, yourself—convince you that it is not in your power to be a righteous person.

The Rambam did not know about genetics, but he would not have let that be an excuse for bad behavior. Our faults lie not in our genes, but in ourselves. The Rambam understood that not everyone has the benefit of a good upbringing. In the end, though, that is no excuse, either. You cannot blame your parents or your circumstances forever for the choices you make.

I re-read the Rambam's chapters on how to make t'shuvah at this time of year each year, and it is this passage that stuns me every time. I realize that, in my efforts to be self-forgiving for my faults (and I've got plenty), I sometimes use my human imperfections as an excuse. It's not that I don't try hard enough to be good. Rather, the problem is that I put so much energy into avoiding the things I know are right.

I think this is a tendency most of us share. We all know how we ought to behave—to forgive and be giving to others, to take responsibility for our mistakes and to apologize, to be modest in accepting praise and gracious in accepting criticism—yet we end up doing whatever we can to avoid these behaviors. 

It is important to forgive ourselves for our faults. None of us is perfect. But, come on already, do we really need to try so hard not to do what is right? In the end, aren't we just undermining our own happiness by avoiding the things that make life meaningful? Who wants to be stupid, cruel and miserable?

It is all a matter of choice. It is in your power to be as righteous as Moses. Don't let anyone tell you it isn't so.

Ki Tavo: Gratitude in a Recession

9/15/2011

 
All it takes is one world-wide economic recession to spoil your whole day. 

Everywhere I look these days, I see signs of the hard times we are living through: closed storefronts and long lines at social service agencies. Here in southern Florida, the "For Sale" signs sprout on lawns like mushrooms. And here is another sign of the recession: gratitude. 

I have never heard so many people talk about their low-paying, long-hour jobs with so much gratitude. "Thank God I even have a job," is a sentence I hear from congregants week after week. People who are having a tough time holding onto their houses, or even just putting food on the table, express a sense of thankfulness that they are not among the hungry and homeless.

Paradoxically, we tend to feel gratitude more keenly when we have less. This week's Torah portion (Ki Tavo) seems to have a keen awareness of that tendency of the human heart.

The parashah includes a description of a ritual that the Israelites are told to perform after they enter the land of Israel. At harvest time, the time of plenty, they are to take a basket of their first fruits to the Temple, present it to the priest, and make this declaration:

My father was a wandering Aramean. He went down to Egypt in small numbers and lived there and became a great and numerous nation. The Egyptians treated us badly and oppressed us. They forced hard labor on us. We cried out to Adonai, the God of our ancestors, and Adonai heard our voice and saw our oppression, our toil, and our distress. Adonai took us out from Egypt with a mighty hand, an outstretched arm and awesome power, and with signs and wonders. God brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. Now—behold!—I have brought the first fruits of the land which You, Adonai, have given me! (Deuteronomy 26:5-10)

The ritual is self-explanatory. The person who enjoys the prosperity of the land must bring a token of the riches to the priest and tell the story of how the nation became so fortunate. We remember that it was not always this way—we once were slaves with nothing, until God gave us everything. The enthusiasm of the closing verse (hinei - behold!) says it all: I have been privileged to be the recipient of a miracle not of my making.

The Torah seems to understand that it is people who enjoy plenty who are most in need of a prompt to feel gratitude. It is only after the fat and happy Israelites, at the beginning of their harvest, recall the story of past oppression that they are ready to experience gratitude for all they have.

The same, of course, is true for us. We, too, have difficulty remembering to be grateful in times of plenty. It is the tough times that make it easier to be thankful for what we have.

I won't say that I am grateful for a recession that has caused so much hardship for so many people. However, I will acknowledge that there is a silver lining to these days of high unemployment and tight budgets. We who have enough are reminded daily that, no matter what we have, there is reason to be thankful. We have been blessed with enough—perhaps not a feast—but enough.

Angels

9/10/2011

 
Angels

Jacob dreamed
Of angels going up and down,
A link between heaven and earth --
A ladder
With angels going up and
Angels coming down
Linking heaven and earth.
And Jacob wakes
And says,
“I didn't know that
This was the House of God.
I didn't know that.”

But now Jacob’s dream is on television
And I keep seeing those angels
In my dreams,
Even after ten years.
The ladder is a skyscraper,
Two of them,
And I wish I could stop
This dream, playing in my head.
With the angels climbing up the stairs
In their heavy boots and their red hats,
And the other angels falling down to earth
Without wings.

And the angels going up
And the angels coming down
Are on television
And Jacob is still asleep
And I don’t know
How to wake him.
The House of God is on fire.
And these angels keep going up the stairs
When they know they don’t have any wings.
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Ki Tetze: The Bird's Nest and the World Trade Center

9/9/2011

 
How do we make sense of a world in which good people suffer while evil flourishes? How do we reconcile belief in a benevolent and powerful God with a world in which the rewards for doing good are hard to see?

This Sunday will mark the tenth anniversary of one of the most despicable and evil acts of the 21st century. Nearly 3,000 innocent people were murdered on September 11, 2001, by people who claimed to be acting in God's name. How do we understand that? How can God tolerate it?
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This week's Torah portion (Ki Tetze) includes a simple mitzvah that prompted the rabbis of the Talmud to ask these very questions. The mitzvah states:

If you should come upon a bird’s nest while traveling, in a tree or on the ground, and there are chicks or eggs with the mother bird sitting on the chicks or eggs, you shall not take the mother from the children. You certainly must send away the mother and take for yourself only the children, so that it will go well for you and you will lengthen your days. (Deuteronomy 22:6-7)

It really is a lovely mitzvah. While we require food to live, we must do so in a way that is considerate of all life, even the life of a bird. We must not take the mother along with her children.

It is the second part of the mitzvah that was challenging to the rabbis—the part in which the Torah promises, as a reward, that "it will go well for you and you will lengthen your days." The rabbis, who knew about life's tragedies and unfairness, ask the question: Is it really so? 

They raise a hypothetical question (B. Chullin 142a): "Suppose a father says to his son, 'Climb up that tower and fetch me some chicks.' The boy climbs up, sends away the mother bird, takes the children, but on the way down he falls and dies. Where is the 'lengthening of his days'?  Where is the 'going well' for him?"

And then, just to raise the stakes, the rabbis claim that this really did happen once. The Talmud states: "Rabbi Jacob saw it happen."

What then? Does God not care? Do those who observe God's laws, who respect life and act decently, have nothing better to hope for than broken promises?

The rabbis answer this profound question enigmatically. They say, "There is no mitzvah in the Torah with a stated reward that is not connected with the resurrection of the dead." All the promises of good rewards for acts of goodness are fulfilled, but not in this world, the rabbis tell us. It all must be understood as being part of the world beyond this.

The rabbis go on to explain that, rather than expecting a reward in this world, we should understand that “lengthen your days” refers to a world in which everything reaches its ideal length, and “it will go well for you” refers to a world in which everything is well.

Now, before you reject this as a theological cop-out—an empty promise of "pie in the sky when you die"—let us consider what the rabbis are really saying here. They are admitting that there is no promise of material reward for the righteous. The righteous suffer and know pain just the same as everyone else. The Talmud says flatly, "There is no  reward in this world for a mitzvah." That's a gutsy statement for people who believe profoundly in a just and good God.

What the rabbis do promise is hard to pin down. They promise "olam ha-ba," usually translated as "the world to come," but with deeper resonance than we usually think. The word "olam" in Hebrew does mean "world" or "universe," but it also means more. "Olam" is also the "forever" in "l'olam va'ed," meaning "forever and ever." The word "olam" means both "all of space" and also "all of time." It is the ancient Hebrew equivalent of "the space-time continuum." In short, it is another word for "reality."

Taken this way, we can understand the promise of a reward in "olam ha-ba" as a reward in "another reality." But what reality is that? It is the reality of our hopes and dreams. It is the reality we experience when we know that real happiness does not depend on physical comfort and material plenty. 

Our good actions receive reward in the reality we experience when we feel ourselves to be part of something beyond ourselves. It is not in a time far away in the future or up in heaven, rather, it is the reality we can experience any time we wish by entering into awareness of the divine in each moment.

The section of the Talmud that discusses the bird's nest ends with the introduction of another character. It says that Elisha ben Avuyah, the great rabbi who left Judaism and gave up the ways of the Torah, may have committed his apostasy after seeing "this very thing"—a boy falling to his death after sending away the mother bird. We can imagine Elisha, who knew the reward associated with this mitzvah, deciding when he saw this horror that the Torah was all lies and broken promises.

And the Talmud adds that, according to others, Elisha ben Avuyah left Judaism when he saw how the Romans murdered the sages of his generation and left their bodies to rot on dung heaps. 

Can we blame him? Don't we also feel tempted to dismiss God and the Torah as a bunch of fairy tales when we remember images of innocent men and women leaping to their deaths from the World Trade Center? Where is God and where is God's promised reward?

The answer can only be that there is no reward in the reality that only knows material pleasure and physical comfort. There is no balm for the righteous to be found there. Our truest and deepest joy in life is to be found in another reality. The reward for our soul is in the reality where we know ourselves to be part of God. 

If you know people who have really known profound suffering, and yet experience joy, then you know that this reality is real. Olam ha-ba is the place where pain and deprivation do not matter because we are in tune with the miracle of just being alive in a world that was given to us without our asking. That is our reward. That is the source of all true joy.

Repairing Everything in an Instant

9/5/2011

 
I keep having this feeling that Elul is going to be difficult for me this year. Elul, the Hebrew month that proceeds Rosh Hashanah, is supposed to be a month of preparation for the coming Days of Awe and the task of  repentance—returning to God—which is known as "t'shuvah."

I am so overwhelmed by all the changes in my life—a new congregation, a new house, children to settle in a new school and surroundings—when am I supposed to find the time to look deeply inward and ready myself for t'shuvah? I have sermons to write and others to care for. When can I focus on myself?
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Whenever I have this thought, I remind myself that it is the main fallacy of t'shuvah—that it takes a lot of time, that it is something you have to work at. It is not necessarily so.

We tend to think of t'shuvah as being a kind of self-guided psychoanalysis. We place ourselves on the figurative couch and try to probe our lives intellectually—what am I doing right, what am I doing wrong, where do I need to change? Or, we think of t'shuvah as if it were a kind of exercise, like long-distance running, that requires weeks of strengthening practice. 

It is not that analysis and practice are not helpful in reaching t'shuvah. They are. It is just that they are not the main point of t'shuvah.

Rabbi Menachem Nachum Twerski, the author of Me'or Eynayim, wrote that t'shuvah has nothing to do with time. He cites a well-known rabbinic teaching that says that t'shuvah was one of the seven things God created before the world (B. Pesachim 54a):

T'shuvah preceded the world…and the world exists in time. However, prior to the world there was no conception of time at all.  Therefore, there is no quality of time in the repair of t'shuvah, just the moment. Since it comes from beyond the concept of time, it can repair everything in an instant.  T'shuvah has no need of time.  

When you imagine that t'shuvah depends on time, you are not thinking about real t'shuvah, which requires one to believe that it can repair everything in a moment, without time. This is what our beloved rabbis meant in saying, “If not now, when?”  This statement means that if you think that the repair of t'shuvah will be “not now”—since you believe that t'shuvah takes a long time—then you will also think, “When will it ever happen?"—for you believe that, taking time, the repair of t'shuvah could not be complete even if you spent days on end, like the sands of the sea, working on it.

But this is not t'shuvah at all, since it is not rooted in the belief that t'shuvah is beyond time and that it can repair everything in an instant.

"Repair everything in an instant." How does that work? 

It begins with the recognition that I am in need of repair and that I cannot do it myself. It begins with the recognition that in order to be repaired, I have to let go of all the conceits about my own importance, relinquish my grip on my invented self, and return to my Source. That's what the word t'shuvah means—"returning."

It doesn't take time. It does not require lengthy analysis or practice. It just requires a moment to let go and return again.

Shoftim: The Foundation of Environmentalism

9/1/2011

 
My first job out of college, long before I ever thought about rabbinic school, was working in the environmental movement. I spent eight years as a campaign staffer, a writer and editor for a national network of environmental groups. As such, I spent a lot of time thinking about and writing about the principles of environmentalism.

There is a passage in this week's Torah portion (Shoftim) that the rabbis read as a statement of environmental principles. Perhaps it is ironic that, in context, the passage is a rule of warfare. Moses instructs the Israelites:
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When you besiege a city for many days, waging war against it to capture it, you shall not destroy [lo tashchit] its trees, wielding the axe against them. You may eat from the trees, but you may not cut them down—for is the tree of the field a human being to flee from you into the besieged city? (Deuteronomy 20:19-20)

The rabbis took this rule and expanded it into a broad principle which they called "bal tashchit," the prohibition against wasteful destruction. From it they decreed that it was a violation of the Torah to kill animals needlessly, to waste fuel oil, and otherwise to squander resources (B. Shabbath 67b, B. Hullin 7b, B. Kiddushin 32a). Maimonides expanded the principle of bal tashchit even further to include prohibitions against breaking vessels, tearing clothes, demolishing buildings, clogging wells, or wasting food (Yad, Hilchot Melachim 6:10).

It would be easy to see this law as a simple statement of prudence and frugality. Why spoil future opportunity with present excess? But the Torah makes it clear that the principle of bal tashchit is about more than mere thrift. Why should an army not cut down the trees around the walled city? It is not because the trees may prove more valuable for another use. It is because the trees cannot protect themselves, and therefore it is our obligation to care for them. 

Are the trees of the field human beings that can flee into the city? No, of course not. We are in a position of power over the world of God's creation, so we must use that power with care and protect the world.

Our obligation to care for resources is not primarily because it will benefit us. It is because the world is not ours to use in whatever way we wish. The world of creation has its own value and integrity apart from its usefulness to us. The world God created owes us nothing; we owe God and the world everything. 

As a writer for environmental campaigns, I usually tried to convince my readers that clean air, land and water would benefit them personally (and they do). However, there is also a greater truth. The world is not ours to desecrate and exploit. The most fundamental principle of environmentalism, right here in this week's Torah portion, is that we are servant's charged with the protection of a world placed in our safekeeping. 

That should be a source of joy to us. We have been given a great gift. If we can keep it, we will delight in it.  If we can remember who has given it to us, we will know ourselves to be blessed.

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