Elohai neshama she-natata bi tehorah hi
November 4th, 2024. I am anxious, in distress. The US election is tomorrow. Surely goodness will prevail. Surely? To make everything significantly worse, today is the fourth anniversary—the fourth yahrzeit—of the loss of our beloved son Eli, who died of liver disease, at 52.
November 6th, 2024. Many are in a state of disbelief and horror. Trump is overwhelmingly elected as president for a second term. While I know that everyone does not think and feel the way I do, that many are in celebration, I fear that the world may be changed forever. I am confused, shocked, heartbroken.
I have done my spiritual journalling in the early morning, written to and with the Holy One of All Being. Yet by midday I need help. I retreat to my chair in the sunroom and look out the window at the yellow leaves of the maple tree. Death seems close.
It is a very bleak time, my Love, I write, a time where the dark Shadow of man is in ascendency. I write of my grief, my fear about devastating climate change, refugees, Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, Ukraine, Sudan, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia. And now this, I write to my Love, THIS! The strangulation of democracy. I am bereft. What now, my Love? I write. What do I do? What do You want of me? I think of beloved Eli and wonder what he would have made of this period we are living through. I honour his quiet, undramatic wisdom, his depth and maturity, his unwavering faith and religious observance.
I sit quietly, and then I hear. I don’t “hear,” yet I receive words that are distinctly other. Almost a waking dream. Elohai neshama she-natata bi tehorah hi. God, You tell me I am never to forget that the soul You have given me is pure.
I am reminded in this anguished time of seeking the Divine, that my soul, my essence, is incorruptible, pure. What gift. Tears of “yes” moisten my face and I then remember an earlier “message” I received some weeks ago. In this time of darkness in the world I need to be a force for goodness. I do not need to be a heroine or an activist. I need to be an intentional daily force for goodness.
Time to up my game, I write to the Beloved. Thank You. I decide I will visit my neighbour, the one who is petulant, boring, and wants to talk politics all the time. For a short while anyway, I think. I grimace and look out the window. The sun has moved to the West and the yellow maple is ablaze, lit up from behind. Our table of orchids seems to gentle my heart.
—Jennifer (Jinks) Hoffman
