Hod SheBeNetzach.
Wow! within Day-to-Day.
"Hod is like a Ferrari. Netzach is like a Jeep." - Reb Zalman Schachter Shalomi. It can be so easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day. Today, can we challenge ourselves to not succumb to boredom? The morning meditation book I've been reading for almost 20 years reminds us to look up, out, and around ourselves. It is so easy to get stuck in a computer screen, to feel trapped inside at work if we work outside the home, or at home if that is where our work is. I've written in past days about the gift of taking out the trash and other simple tasks I face each day. Perhaps today I can celebrate the Day-to-Day, while also taking moments of Wow! outside the normal routine.
My favorite and most reliable road to Wow! is gratitude, which is part of Hod. It connects me to my surroundings and to the miraculous workings of my inner life. Most importantly, for me, it connects me with G8d. Most of my practice of Gratitude comprises three simple words: Thank You, G8d. This practice is part and parcel of Jewish life through the brachas we say for any number of things. I think of a bracha as the long form of "Thank You, God." I don't know as many of these formalized blessings as I'd like to, but "Thank You, G8d" does the trick! With this G8d-centered Gratitude, I am not only amazed by even the simples doings of the Day-to-Day, but I am in awe of the Great Eternity, the Ein Sof.
Today is a good day to take some extra moments to practice gratitude for our lives exactly as they are. Go ahead, take some time to experience the Wow! of Eternity and of the simple, mundane things that make life Life.
For the abbreviated version, visit me on Twitter.
For a couple of different Omer counting guides try mishkan.org or chabad.org.