Kabbalat Shabbat with Friends, Sarasota 2015

The sun has set on two days not yet posted, due to Shabbat and my work in the community today. So let's catch up! Day Seven was Malchut sheh b'Chessed. Malchut is also called Shechinah, the divine experience of creation manifesting after moving through the sefirot this week to arrive  gloriously gift-wrapped in Chessed, the lovingkindess it takes to create such a thing.

From your perch on the Tree of Life, what does contemplating Shechinah paired with Lovingkindness bring? I found myself steadily innovating, preparing and storing one gourmet dish each day for her wedding guests--our friends who joined us in a spontaneous Kabbalat Shabbat by the water here in Sarasota at sunset (pictured).

The cumulative dinner was a channelling of the week's Chessed practice into manifesting a joyful and yummy Shabbat dinner for our visioning meal:

Mango Coconut Curried Fish (Day 5),
Iced Minted Spinach Pea Soup (Day 4),
Wheatberry Apricot Cranberry Salad (Day 3),
Roasted Fennel, Green Beans & Shallots (Day 2).

All of which enhanced our reflections on gratitude for where we are now in our lives, bonding through sharing about individuals and events that shifted the course of our lives' journeys, zemirot, and then over dark chocolate matzah layered cake with orange sauce and fruit salad brought by our guests, we shared about projects for helping the homeless throughout our community, gathering new possibilities and inspiration for increased personal activism after Shabbat.

In delightful synchronicity, tonight, Day 9, I began catching up on emails from earlier in the week, including one from Mark Wasserman, founder of the Houses for Change initiative, and his link to an important piece by Rabbi Louis Riesser on the Imolkee Tomato workers. May they soon be blessed to soon live and eat as well as we do! It's almost midnight, so catch up for Day 8's practice outcome, and Day 9 will have to await the morrow.

This posting reflects Omer Day 7.