A Persian Salt Circle
Dear Friends,
The short of what I’ve been preaching lately -- that every exchange sits somewhere on the spectrum between gift and commodity, and that the commodity end of the spectrum demands no connection or intimacy, but the gift side of things invites connection and communion. And in a culture where we’ve grown so far from each other, profoundly socially distant, because so many of our exchanges are rooted in the ethos of capital, there is a grave spiritual demand to bestow gifts upon one another of all kinds -- gifts of time, presence, compassion, love, dollars, trinkets, books, songs, vessels, for the sake of bridging the social distance and creating community.
Someone was listening. My friend MJ was going to be in the neighborhood for a lunch and she said she had a surprise for me. She’d meet me in our new courtyard to deliver it. But timing was off and instead I picked up R and then drove past Greenwood cemetery to meet her beside the appointment and receive the gift.
She lovingly demanded I open it in her presence so she could witness the reception of the gift. Rumi sat in her car seat exhausted after school and watched as I leaned against the car and opened the silk blue satch it was gifted in. I had never seen anything like it -- a persian salt circle, inscribed with farsi calligraphy I cannot read, by artisan hands that knew a sculpture fading from the world. MJ delivered the gift on behalf of her husband L who had received it a lifetime ago from a friend, a fellow academic whom he used to folk dance with.
I said to MJ, we’ll keep it on our shabbes table for sixty years or so and think of you every time our bites are enhanced by your salt. Then we’ll pass the gift along to someone else. If you’re looking for a way to tap into the spiritual work of the season, get in the game, bestow gifts on people you know, people you don’t know. Imagine what our culture could be if we defined ourselves by the gifts we gave rather than the ones we possess.
Shabbat Shalom,
Zach
PS -- I’ll send an email Sunday morning with details for Yom Kippur.