Magnificence in the Ocean

This first posting, on the afternoon preceding Kol Nidre (Erev Yom Kippur), I dedicate to my beloved Eitz Or community in Seattle.  Joe and I have been on this road journey with our dog Iena, and with our little 1985 Burro travel trailer, since Nov 1, 2013.  We have been mostly in wilderness and mountain areas in Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Utah, and Colorado.  We came down from the Rockies to the high desert town of Grand Junction, and there celebrated Erev Rosh Hashanah with the local shul.  It was short and sweet, and people were very welcoming...   and I found myself deeply missing the spirit, beauty, music, poetry, inspired leadership, and mostly the sweet fellowship at Eitz Or.  Ok, I was seriously depressed the day of RH.

We are preparing to join the community here in Durango, CO for Yom Kippur.  They have meditation prior to services, and offer Mussar practice during the year, so hopefully a good match. I want to share one story with you, and maybe I'll be lucky enough that you will see this and think of us during Yom Kippur!

This is one of many stories told by a gregarious older lady driver and guide, of a shuttle bus from  Aspen to Maroon Bells Lake, surely one of the most beautiful places on the planet.  There was a New York Jewish quality to her voice, but I may be just imagining.  Anyhow, the Aspen trees were at their prime with their brilliant gold of Fall, and our driver could not withhold her emotion.  "Ach, my heart melts seeing this...."   I imagine she has driven this route for forty years; it doesn't change the emotion, the love she has for this place.

She tells us that there is a place not far away in the Rockies, where there is an ocean of Aspen trees.  These trees are one magnificent organism, as this forest has propagated by sending up genetically identical shoots.  This ocean could be seen by the astronauts in the Space Shuttle.  The place, accessible by a well-maintained dirt road, is called Kebler Pass.  Later that day, a local hiker at Maroon Bells told me Kebler Pass is not to be missed.

A few days ago, there was a break in the rain, and we headed out for Kebler Pass.  I share these photos with you (more will come later), with the words of our wonderful song...

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There is so much magnificence

in the ocean

Waves are coming in

Waves are coming in

Halleluyah!

I want to bless all my dear chevra with a sweet New Year, with Gamar Chatima Tovah, and with the blessing, that like the dear bus driver at Maroon Bells, we may infuse our prayer with emotion.

I leave you with these words of the Piaseczner Rebbe, also known as the Rebbe of the Warsaw Ghetto (thanks to Yiscah Smith for her inspiring teaching):

"The human soul loves to be emotional (lehitragesh).  Not just with joy, rather it simply (stam) loves to be emotional.  It even desires to be emotional with pain and crying..  Only a person who fulfills this law through his spiritual practice (avodah) and through emotionality (hitragshut) in Torah study and prayer preserves his soul.

I interpret "Torah study and prayer" to mean any study and practice of the heart.

Blessings from Joe and me,
Barak