Bleeding Edge

Springtime is a Season of Joy, Peace, Renewal & Celebration — all the good things at this time of the advancing Light…

And so is Passover that is our festival of EXODUS and the memory of our ancestors journey to freedom from slavery as we all need some reprieve, rebirth and liberty from all those things and people who enslave us.

Yet, we ought to recall that memory is not about nostalgia.

It is about aspiration and courage, because we do not live in the past; we live in the absolute present of this moment in time — yet we also carry the past with us, as we envision and create the future.

So each and every year we close the Seder dinner with the words: “Bashanah Haba’ah – Next Year in Jerusalem.”

Our Jerusalem is not a place but an ideal, its not history and geography, but a point of reference and a moral compass to follow our true North.

Jerusalem has been at the heart of our concern during the tumultuous past few months when Israelis have demonstrated to protect the democratic values of justice, equality, and peace enshrined in our prophetic tradition and in Israel’s Declaration of Independence.

Passover’s story of liberation, the Haggadah narrative reminds us, did not happen just once. It happens in every generation when we are called upon to be protect the freedoms we can easily take for granted, whether as Jews, as Americans, or as citizens of the world.

May the Festival of Passover, in confluence with the Christian celebrations of Holy Week and Easter, and the Muslim observance of Ramadan — usher the main three blessings of joy and health of the Abrahamic faith and the change of the Seasons for rebirth to all of our families and friends.

May we all find strength in unity, peace and harmony within our nation;

May we gather freedom and peace for Ukraine, for Jerusalem, for America and for Eretz Israel, and all who love to bring hope, prosperity, and renewal to this beautiful world.

And let us remember that we can always choose to be Wise or Foolish, and respectively to seek Wisdom or

Here is an ancient tale equally shared amongst the ancient Hebrew nomadic shepherding & trading people and amongst the ancient Greek seafaring navigating shipping people, who often found themselves together because it was always the Greek Sea Captains who carried the Jews, their trade goods and their finance — far and wide in this bountiful world full of opportunities for business, commerce and culture exchanges that have created what we today call Civilization…

And perhaps that is what joins these two people together, the seafarers and the desert dwellers in their common destiny to spread their seed far and wide in this Good God’s Earth.

And because both People believe that we always have a choice of how to proceed in our Life — the ancient Philosophy of Freewill and Goodwill; we best believe that story if we want to see and live in Peace and Prosperity through Learning, Wisdom and Sharing the fruits of knowledge — or we choose to go to war and rape & pillage by falling down into our primitive state of being at war, constantly and forever attempting to steal from each other, to enslave and to destroy, instead of sharing as equals in from of the eyes of the Lord…

So the ancient story goes as follows:

Around this time of Spring, Pascha, Passover, Ramadan, Renewal, Rebirth and the Coming of Light — the Mother of the World delivered, at the end of her pregnancy; twins.

A beautiful boy and a serene girl, that looked alike each other but with a vastly different disposition.

She knew what their names would be for a long time now — and she announced to the world that she had brought forth the Goddess of Wisdom and the God of War, as her children were destined to fulfill these two important roles.

And as they both wanted to nurse at the same time, she was blessed with plenty of milk for both of her babies and her twins grew fast and furious till they were able to reach her breasts themselves and spend their time nursing there, sitting onto her lap and making sense of the world as they built their own strength..

But as it happens — they both wanted to be in their Mother’s lap all the time and staring fighting with each other in order to get to be there first and if possible to nurse alone from both breasts, because as their need for milk increased — their Mother’s milk diminished.

So here we have a conundrum and while her twins were fighting the Mother of the World gave in to their bickering, and said:

“I can’t put both of you on my lap and keep on nursing both of you at the same time because you have grown too bog and too demanding for my breasts — so we will play a little game and whoever wins, gets to sit first on my lap and nurse from my breast…

Ok?

The children agreed hastily because they were getting hungry again…

So the Mother of the World continued:

“Go now — go travel around the world, and whoever comes back first, will get to sit on my lap and nurse first from my teats.”

Immediately, the God of War, jumped on top of his great black horse and rode away trotting as fast as he could…

Yet, his sibling, the Goddess of Wisdom (SOPHIA), didn’t move an inch.

She continued sitting at her Mother’s feet, and waited until she heard her brother’s horse hooves retreating into the distance.

Then, she got up, bowed down to her Mother, went around her Mother three times, and then climbed up and sat on her lap, to start suckling Mother’s milk from a grateful set of teats

Peace ensued…

For a while…

Hag Same’ach!

Yours,

Dr Churchill

PS:

Happy Ramadan, Happy Easter, Happy Passover and Happy Spring to one and all of my friends of the Abrahamic faith, as well as all others such as Buddhists, Jainists, Hindi, Shig, Native pagans etc — including atheists, agnostics and expedients, who all together make up the mosaic of this Humanity that we are all such a small part of.