As I thought about today’s holiday I began to wonder why these events all fell on the same calendar date. If you believe that our thoughts are creative – an idea that can be traced all the way back to God creating the world by speaking it into existence (“God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” Speech consists of spoken thoughts, and thoughts consist of words.) – it seems clear that by focusing our thoughts on this fact, we open ourselves to creating more disasters on the 17th of Tammuz. In other words, by thinking about the bad things that have happened in the past, we perpetuate the possibility of more bad things happening on the same day. The focus of our thoughts and attention manifests more of the same.

We celebrate this holiday with a fast, which marks the beginning of a three-week period of mourning during which Jews are not supposed to participate in celebrations. We focus on the destruction of the Holy Temple and the resultant galut, or physical exile and spiritual displacement, in which we still find ourselves. However, I think that by focusing on these things we open manifest more of the same. We continue our feeling of physical and spiritual disconnection from Source and perpetuate a belief that on this particular day of the year bad things happen to Jews.

I have nothing against remembering what happened in the past. I have nothing against hoping and praying for the rebuilding of the Temple. However, I believe strongly that we can feel remember and honor the past while focusing our attention on a more positive future, thereby creating positive events on a day that has heretofore been one of negative events. I believe we can focus our attention on feeling connected to Source or God physically and spiritually. In this way I believe we can build a mishkan, a sacred space, anywhere we like – in our homes, our communities, our synagogues – and have God dwell among and with us so we have a spiritual home right here and right now even without a physical Temple in Jerusalem. Indeed, I think our bodies are our modern temple and our souls the spark of and the link to God. We can turn inward to find that home and to feel our connection.

We need not feel ourselves in exile or without connection to God. We need not continue to manifest horrible events on a certain day of the year. It’s all about where we focus our attention. Where will you focus yours today?

Shefa explained to us that she sees the Red Heifer as the mother of the Golden Calf. Of course, the Gold Calf was created out of the Israelites fears. As they waited for Moses to return from atop Mt. Sinai, they lost their faith and turned back to idol worship, creating the Golden calf out of that fear. So, we got in touch with our fears by getting a “spirit buddy” and asking each other, “What are you afraid of?” Then we placed our fear into the fire pit to be burned along with cedar, hyssop and crimson. We allowed ourselves to do this with humility while raising ourselves up to our highest selves. And to the ashes we added living waters and then we anointed each other with the water and ash mix. During the ritual we sang and we drummed and we chanted while the dark clouds gathered outside the windows, the sun setting golden behind them, as if we were dancing at the foot of Mt. Sinai itself with a priestess leading us through our purification ritual and God’s presence hiding behind the clouds.

I must say, this was one of the most powerful rituals in which I’ve participated. I got in touch with some very deep-seated fears that have been holding me back and not allowing me to unfold and reach my fullest potential. I believe not living our lives fully, not fulfilling our purpose…these are sins indeed.

We may not have stuck to the letter of the ritual as outlined in our sacred Jewish texts, but it worked for me. And maybe Shefa’s interpretation of the Red Heifer isn’t classic, but that, too, worked for me.

If you’d like to know now a bit more about the traditional ceremony, lots of sources exist on line. The rarity of the animal, combined with the mystical ritual in which it was used, have given the Red Heifer special status in Jewish tradition. It is cited as the prime example of a chok, or biblical law for which there is no apparent logic, and is, therefore, supposedly of absolute Divine origin. The state of ritual purity obtained through the ashes of a Red Heifer, which was burned as a sacrifice, is a necessary prerequisite for participating in any Temple service. For this reason, efforts have been made in modern times by Jews wanting to rebuild the Temple to locate a red heifer and recreate the ritual. Most recently, a cow that was considered a potential candidate was disqualified because it sprouted several black hairs. Just two are enough to disqualify the cow. The ashes of the Red Heifer are combined with pure living waters to purify a person who has become ritually contaminated by contact with a corpse.

If you are wondering, we had no Red Heifer. We had no fire pit. We had no herbs. We placed paper into a dollar-store roasting tin, we symbolically spoke our fears into that tin, we symbolically added the herbs with a different chant and drum beat for each one. Then, someone took the tin outside and burned the paper. The ashes were brought back in and combined with living waters collected earlier in the day. We did anoint ourselves with that concoction.

You can do the same. And you can ask yourself what you fear and what  you create in your life out of your fear. Look at your life. Look carefully. What have you erected as a testament to your fear? What do you worship each day as part of your faith in your fear? How do you uphold your faith in your fear each day? How do you stay stuck in that fear, bowing to the statues you’ve built in its honor? And what would happen if you tore down those idols and began to worship the truth in yourself, the part of you created in God’s image? What would happen if you moved through your fear to create something new…a connection to God built on faith that allows you to be your true self? What would you have to leave behind? What would you gain? What new things would you create and would you create them in the name of God instead of in the name of fear?

You might say the ritual in which I participated at the kallah wasn’t “real.” I say, it’s all about the kavanah…the intention. And, I can tell you it felt awfully real to all the people in that room.