So I wanted to tell you a little story about how my life rolls and about how I met a rabbi and the rabbi taught me a prayer about how the universe is good and how that prayer helps me.
It starts with a spontaneous meeting, as does much of my life…
I was at breakfast at a diner near here--I'm at Cambridge Zen Center--with my friend Joelle. It was a Saturday morning and a little boy came up and stood at our table and was talking to us and he's about two and his mother came and got him and took him away.
But he came back and talked to us some more and his mother came again and I noticed mother's outfit I said, "oh i really like your outfit"
She said, “It's for a job interview.”
I was like "A job interview, but it's Saturday?"
She said, “Well, the interview is at a temple.”
I put two and two together in my mind and i said, “Oh, you're a rabbi!”
She said, “Yes, I am.”
“So it's kind of an audition,” I said.
And she said, “Yeah, it is. In fact, I led the service last night.”
And then she was going to go do some more at the temple today.
Anyway, she took her little boy away and Joelle and I continued with our breakfast.
A prayer to trust the universe
Then, as we were leaving the diner, we stopped at their table.
I said, “So tell me, tell me a prayer in Hebrew that we can say together to pray that you get this job.”
She said, “Oh that's incredible incredibly sweet" and then she thought for a moment and then she said a prayer in Hebrew.
She said, “It means ‘Bless you, Lord, our God, who is the king of the universe, who is good and does good.’”
That was it. That was the prayer she chose. She chose a prayer that said nothing about getting the job.
I really love that because it wasn't a petition. She actually didn’t ask for something.
“Blessed are you, our God, our Lord, King of the universe, who is good and does good.”
Now, I’m off the hook
I really like that prayer because it's not a hope for a particular thing to happen, even though we want something to happen, even though I want so many things to happen.
There's this prayer, this way of being, which is aligning my will with God, the universe, whatever you want to call it, which lets me off the hook and lets me trust. Let’s me be at peace and ease.
“Bless you, our Lord, our God, who is the king of the universe, who is good and does good.”
This is what I wanted to gift to you, this prayer. It’s why I am telling you this story.
And then we made friends
Then, we exchanged names, me and this rabbi.
She said, “What about you? What are you doing?”
I said, “Oh, I'm a teacher at the Zen Center around the corner.”
She said, “Oh, you're a spiritual leader too.”
I was like—I don't usually talk about myself that way—”Yeah, I guess.”
Anyway, and then we arranged to have a Zoom conversation.
So in all of that, not only did I get a great prayer, but I made a new friend.
Love,
Colin
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