משלי י״ב:כ״ה
כה דְּאָגָ֣ה בְלֶב־אִ֣ישׁ יַשְׁחֶ֑נָּה וְדָבָ֖ר ט֣וֹב יְשַׂמְּחֶֽנָּה׃
If there is anxiety in a man’s mind let him quash it, And turn it into joy with a good word.
-Proverbs 12:25
Before opening my phone, I have a new spiritual practice these days. I whisper these words from Proverbs to myself as an incantation for more than perspective, but a beckoning of my frontal lobe to command the interaction I am about to have. I don’t know if you feel this, but I find this glass (that you may be holding right now in the palm of your hand) to be an undue burden upon my soul. So many times a day, I hear a whisper emanating as if from the space beyond: “WE ARE NOT MEANT TO KNOW ALL OF THIS, HAVE ACCESS TO ALL OF THIS, BE EXPOSED TO ALL OF THIS…PUT IT DOWN, BEFORE IT BESMIRCHES YOUR SOUL!” (yes, the outer universe of my inner life uses the word besmirch). And as it is but a whisper, I am too often in the habit of its betrayal.
Our attention is held as prey to this Leviathan amidst a tsunami of information washing us away from our spiritual attentiveness as it feeds our anxiety. Even our commanding 11th Century commentator Rashi acknowledges that we must “divert our attention from our worry!” There is only one way through, friends, and our invitation into this path approaches.
This year’s Passover Seder Quest offers a Threshold into reclaiming a personal spiritual practice despite the Pharaohs in our Midst. Through joy, disruption, radical ritual and a lot of critical thinking as we pilgrimage through Venice, CA, our objective is to collectively reclaim our mind’s (and heart’s) discipline of attention.
[As I write these words, the Nefarious Notifications Chime ceaselessly commands my attention towards a response at this very moment, and the demi-anxiety it seeds begins to sprout and root and branch out through my hand to click onto it…I pause.]
Pause.
Yes, Pause.
And Breathe.
Breathe…
And say: Break the Manacles of the Glass and Set Me Free.
Passover Seder Quest invites all of us into this re-discovery of what Breaking the Glass towards Redemption means in 2025. In a post-LA Fires, post-inauguration, post-antisemitism-is-real, post-oh-my-Gawd-what-is-going-on-in-the-world way, Open Temple’s Seder Quest is that full mind, body, and soul workout towards catharsis that releases the inflammation of the soul caught up in modern-day spiritual slavery. We will be asked to THINK and PROBLEM SOLVE WITH OTHERS, to DANCE AS IF WE WERE NAKED AND FREE, and LOVE OURSELVES AS A SPIRITUAL PRACTICE OF ACCEPTING OTHERS as we Quest Through Venice in a Pilgrammation of Transformation, emerging through the parted waters to a feast where friendship and sustenance will nurture us and the final taste of the Afikomen will have never met our tongue as sweetly.
Rabbi Lori
Seder Quest 5785: Break the Glass
Passover Seder Quest at The Open Temple takes place on Sunday, April 13, 2025
Learn More and Register here.