Y’varech’cha Adonay V’Yish’m’recha
May the Holy One bless you and keep you always.
The Torah portion called “Re’eh” (Deut. 11:26) begins: “See, I place before you a blessing and a curse.” The relevance of this verse to our everyday reality is most striking. We turn on our TV, we open our newspaper and, it seems, we are continuously presented with opportunities to curse. Day after day, we are barraged with everything that is wrong with our world, divisive politics, and doomsday predictions. Fear reigns supreme.
Yet our spiritual masters teach that part of our personal work is to engage in a path of blessing rather than that of cursing; when blessing is a way to say “amen” to what is, exactly as it is. They offer us a practice of finding 100 opportunities to bless our reality each day; and in doing so offer us a choice as to the kind of energies we would want to surround ourselves with. As we practice uttering words of blessing instead of cursing, time and again, the cumulative effect helps us to be increasingly able to respond rather than react to whatever is being presented to us. We become response-able for the energies in which we live, and the energies we, consequently, contribute to our world.
Today I…
… find the words which resonate most within me to bless my reality and engage in the practice of doing so as often as I am able.
… look for opportunities to say “amen” – “it is so” to the blessings I witness.