A Personal Journey
There are periods in our lives when we are asked to juggle more than we think we are capable of handling. For me, this is one of those times. I have found it helpful to look through the lens of the Jewish calendar as I navigate the journey I’m on. This week’s parashah speaks of purification and the sacred process of becoming whole. Rosh Chodesh Iyar arrives with its deep association with healing — its very name a reminder that we are not alone on the hard road. We have entered the week of Tiferet in the counting of the Omer — the sefira of balance, beauty, and compassion. And I am trying to hold everything together as I accompany both my daughter and my father on their respective cancer journeys.
Since my blog tends to focus on the weekly Torah portion, I usually post on Friday afternoons. This week, just as I was about to post my blog, my dad’s oncologist called and said that the latest MRI results showed a metastasis in his spine that is compressing the spinal cord, and that he should get to the ER immediately. I canceled the talk I was supposed to give at Congregation Beth Or — my apologies to anyone who made a special trip to see the exhibit and meet me! — packed a bag, got my parents into the car, and headed for the ER. It was a long day and an even longer night. I suspect that the next few days will ask me to practice mindfulness as I try to maintain a sense of equanimity.
I came back to the house for my Havurah’s weekly Havdalah Zoom and decided to update what I’d written, and post it before heading back to the hospital.
Torah Reflection
The verse at the heart of my Torah illumination for parshat Tazria is Leviticus 13:6: “He shall immerse his garments and become clean.”
Immersion. Going under — fully — and emerging changed.
In the priestly world of Tazria, healing is not instantaneous. The person who is ill waits. They are examined, watched over time, and returned to community in stages. There is no rushing the process. The body has its own wisdom, its own calendar. Healing asks us to honor that — even when we desperately wish it were otherwise.
This Torah portion brings us into an uncomfortable territory many would rather avoid. I feel that way about emergency rooms — places I would rather not be. Parashat Tazria asks us to look at what is vulnerable, what is altered, what is painful, what requires care.
Spending many hours in the emergency room yesterday — filled with people in pain, whose fear and anxiety were palpable — actually reinforced a concept from this week’s parashah: we should not rush past suffering, nor pretend that what is broken can simply be ignored. Rather, we should pay attention to brokenness and honor the process of becoming whole.
Journaling is one of my most cherished spiritual practices, and I wanted to share a page from a journal I kept in 2018 with a quote by Reb Nachman, “Nothing is as whole as the heart that has been broken“.
Rosh Chodesh Iyar
This week we also welcome the new month of Iyar. Jewish tradition teaches that the very letters of the word Iyar form an acronym for Ani Adonai Rofecha — “I am God, your Healer” (Exodus 15:26). This is a rabbinic folk etymology, the kind of sacred wordplay our tradition loves, but the meaning it points to is real: Iyar is a month saturated with the intention of healing. It falls between the freedom of Passover and the revelation of Shavuot, holding us in the in-between — the wilderness time, the not-yet — and asking us to trust that healing is happening even when we cannot see it.
Counting the Omer: The Week of Tiferet
We are also in the third week of counting the Omer, the week of Tiferet. Tiferet sits at the heart of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, the meeting point of mercy and judgment, of strength and tenderness. It is translated variously as beauty, compassion, harmony, and balance. This week of the Omer invites us to explore where are we being called to hold opposites — not choosing between them, but somehow integrating them. What a powerful time to try to balance strength and vulnerability, hope and heartbreak.
A Personal Update
My daughter was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer in October. Her latest set of scans showed that the tumors have grown by 30%, and new nodules have appeared in her lungs. She has just switched to a new chemo regimen, and the side effects are brutal, debilitating, painful, and exhausting.
Loving someone through this kind of suffering is excruciating.
And maybe that is part of what this parashah is teaching me this year.
We are not asked to deny what is hard. We are asked to let challenges hone us.
We are not asked to pretend that brokenness does not exist. We are asked to believe that brokenness, too, can be met with care.
We are not asked to manufacture certainty. We are asked to keep journeying toward the light.
Even before my dad’s oncologist called yesterday, I had been thinking, “How am I going to get through this with my soul intact?” I have yet to find the words to express the depth of the heartbreak I’ve been feeling. Accompanying a child through a life-threatening illness is its own kind of immersion — in fear, in love, in grief, in hope, all at once. Some days I don’t know what to pray for. Do I pray for more time, knowing what that time may cost her in suffering? Do I pray for the miracle I cannot let myself stop believing in, even as each medical update grows harder to hear? Do I pray for her peace, for my own, for the ability to be fully present with her in whatever time we have?
I don’t have answers. What I have is this: the tradition tells us that God is our healer — not that God will cure every illness, but that God is present in the healing. In the immersion. In the wilderness time. In the not-yet. Ani Adonai Rofecha. I am here with you.
That is what I am holding onto. Not certainty. Not a promise of the outcome I long for with every cell of my being. Just presence. Just the belief — sometimes shaky, sometimes fierce — that showing up day after day matters, and that I will somehow find the strength not only to endure, but to discover meaning and purpose even in this unimaginably difficult journey.
Tiferet. Balance and beauty, even here. Compassion for Sam. Compassion for her husband, her 18-month-old daughter, and all those who love her, including my parents. Compassion for myself as I try to find steady ground on a path I did not choose and do not want to be on.
That, too, is the work of this week.
I would be grateful if you would add my father, Gordon Fink, and my daughter, Samantha Trattner, to your Mi Shebeirach healing prayer list.
Weekly Prayer
Immerse Me in Your Light
Source of Renewal,
Immerse me in Your light.
Strip me of all that prevents me
from being my best self.
Ground me in gratitude and
guide me to the path of growth.
Inspire me to focus on
what really matters
and to Be Still
long enough to recognize that
my insatiable need for busyness
is counter-productive
to living a life of meaning and purpose.
Immerse me in Your light.
Wash the weight of worry from my weary soul.
Sanctify my sacrifice; help me to feel whole.
Immerse me in Your Light.
Guide me with Your Truth.
Bless me with Your Love.
Immerse me in Your Light.
Blessing for the Month of Iyar
Iyar is linked with healing — both physical and spiritual. In tradition, it connects to the journeys in the desert and the promise of wholeness.
May the month of Iyar be a season of healing —
of mending, restoring, and strengthening.
May we open ourselves to wholeness,
and the faith that brokenness can lead to renewal.
May we honor the journey of body and spirit,
and find ways to nurture health and harmony.
May we walk through this season,
grounded in gratitude,
sustained by compassion,
and uplifted by song.
May the sparks of holiness in every breath
illuminate our path with love, balance, and peace.
Ken yehi ratzon — may it be so.
Creative Coloring:
Guided Journaling Questions
- Tazria teaches that healing happens in stages, not all at once. Where in your life are you being asked to trust a slow process rather than force a quick resolution?
- Tiferet is the sefira of balance — the meeting point of strength and tenderness. Where do you need more of that balance right now?
- Is there someone in your life you are accompanying through something painful? What does it ask of you to be fully present with them — and what do you need in order to sustain that presence?
- As the month of Iyar begins, what healing intention do you want to carry with you?
- In times when you are struggling to hold on to hope, who or what do you reach for?
Closing Blessing
May you be held in light
when the path feels uncertain.
May you be surrounded by love
when the journey feels hard to make alone.
May you be blessed with the quiet strength
to meet each day as it comes.
May the Holy One
wash the weight of worry from your weary soul
and bless you with comfort, balance, and peace.
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