And You Shall be a Blessing

My cousin Jeremy learned a lilting melody to L'cha Dodi at summer camp, back in 1968 or so. I was so captivated by the joyful tears in this little tune, I played it for years as a sort of signature nign on my guitar.
Then in 2000 I sat in a crosslegged circle with my sister Janie's friends, in a grassy Toronto park, just after my mom's breast cancer surgery. One of the friends suggested we sing Mi Sheberach for Janie's and my mother. I was lifted, carried, by the healthy words to this song. It didn't say, "Make her all better". It said, "Help us find the courage to make our lives a blessing".
Mi sheberach avotenu
M'kor habracha l'imotenu
May the Source of Strength
Who blessed the ones before us
Help us find the courage
to make our lives a blessing
and let us say
Amen

Mi sheberach imotenu
mkor habracha laavotenu
Bless those in need of healing
with refua shlema
the renew al of body
the renewal of spirit
and let us say
Amen.

The pure, healing melody of that prayer sang me through Mommy's surgery and into that first visit when I saw Mommy so tiny in the hospital bed with a tube coming from her nose and wondered if she would wake up again. And soon the hospital room door opened and there was Susie, and the next knock brought flowers from Randy and Eva, and Mommy woke up to a happy party there in her recovery room.
And we sang Debbie Friedman's Mi Sheberach. (as I type, this faraway Monday morning, me so sick with a flu, the memorial service for Debbie is just beginning. What beautiful beautiful healing harmonies. What an outpouring of sweet, accepting love. Debbie's melodies each walk that tender line between comforting, familiar singability and heartopening brilliance, so that we're singing along the first time we hear the song, yet lifted to a certain windowmoment of clarity, through which we begin to understand what prayer can be.)
And then, when we were new to Victoria, and living in the Regent Hotel, I walked the rainy block to the the downtown shul to find out what a healing service was. Maybe I'd meet some nice people in this new town of mine. It takes such an energy to start fresh in a new town. I opened the heavy door to the shul, and heard three women's voices in the most otherworldly, exquisite harmonies, Shma Kolenu, with a long and everchanging lalalalalala la la so touching, so releasing, so healing. I thought, I want to celebrate my 50th birthday with the sounds of these voices. The melodies were Debbie Friedman's. The voices were Josie Davidson, still my soul's inspiration and the opener to wider thought and feeling. Also Helena and Nehama. Josie sang gloriously at my 50th birthday, and continues to sing to me. She and I sang together at monthly healing services throughout my dear time in Victoria, and Debbie Friedman's songs opened us to new thought each time. We explored the notion of a pure, totally pure core soul in each of us, no matter how muddied we can get at times.
Elohai
neshama
shenatata bi
tehora hi.
So many times, so many many times have Debbie Friedman in them. My first Yom Kippur fast in the Kolot Mayim choir, singing out Shma Kolenu over a room of loving people. Debbie's melody. My soul soaring in such entire love.
The day Janie first heard Debbie's Ahavat Olam, and added to it such rich velvet harmonies, with Eva and me. I can hear this right this moment, and feel Mommy's listening smile. Sunny was a baby.
We should not have left Victoria. I was dumb to leave Victoria. I dashed into the shul on our way out to the ferry, to buy a gift to bring to Tala on our way across the country. I hadn't realized the shop would be closed and a service would be going on, for the second day of sukkot. Well, they wafted me up onto the bima, and the Rabbi said to me, "Be Solid, in Israel. Be solid". And everybody sang to me, Debbie Friedman's song,
L'chi lach
to a land that I will show you
Lech l'cha to a place you do not know
l'chi lach on your journey I will bless you
and you will be a blessing
you will be a blessing
you will be a blessing
l'chi lach.