FOR JOSHUA

FOR JOSHUA:

Hi favorite neph-dude.  I hope things are well and that you're feeling great about and increasingly ready for your big day.  By now you have hopefully navigated through the myriad of adult voices inputting into the substance of your drasch.  I am very much looking forward to hearing what YOU decide to say, and to benefit from whatever wisdom you uncover and share.  I hope my minor and intentionally non substantive input -- of one idea per paragraph, taking your time, remembering to breath, etc. -- proves to be of some help.  I trust you with the substance and remain happy and available if you'd like any help working through it.  But mostly i'm looking forward to what YOU have to say...from YOUR  heart, in YOUR voice!

I want to thank you for agreeing to read something I co-wrote with a friend a few years ago...she actually wrote the first draft after we decided what we wanted to say, which I then edited.  We used the attached version to apply for a grant.  We didn't get the grant and she got married and moved to Israel.  Which is great!  In fact its a great example of a key theme in the grant and something we've discussed from time to time, uncovering and renewing Jewish ways to manifest abundance.  I know that abundance is a teaching you have absorbed online from non-Jewish sources, which is terrific.  I'm hoping that the grant proposal will inspire you to let abundance cross your mind on your Bar Mitzvah day, and perhaps many a day in the future.  

You may recall seeing Reb Zalman a few years ago (shortly after the grant proposal was written) at a church where he received an honorary doctorate degree.  He capped his acceptance drasch that day with this teaching, not frequently voiced in Jewish circles, and sadly emphasized even less:  "Abundance is possible.  Abundance needs to be invited."  Zalman as you know had deep Jewish roots, was one of the founders of Jewish Renewal, a Sufi priest, a friend and spiritual brother of the Dalai Lama, and much more.  I hope your Bar Mitzvah opens you to experiencing and co-creating an expansive, hopeful, happy, alive, love based, blissful and big hearted Judaism, bearing in mind Zalman's gift of pointing us to embrace the joyful challenge of abundance.  To me, that is where spiritual life resides and Tikkun Olam begins.

I love you Joshua Lev Abrams Rubin.  Happy Bar Mitzvah very soon.  And an invitation to abundance, now and always.

Mark

11/16/2015


Josh, here's a link to the attachment.  http://marksrubin.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-jewish-ashram-project-vision-draft.html