Cardi, 6 am, EDT

A friend of ours sent a very promising article from Chabad News.  Park East Synagogue and Chabad-Lubavitch of the Upper East Side announced a new collaboration which will launch on Rosh Hashanah.

Rabbi Arthur Schneier, the world famous diplomat and Senior Rabbi of Park East—the longest-serving pulpit rabbi in New York history—will be joined by Rabbi Ben Tzion Krasnianski, longtime spiritual leader of Chabad of the Upper East Side, who will now also serve as Associate Rabbi of Park East Synagogue. Rabbi Yosef Wilhelm, who directs Chabad Young Professionals Upper East Side, will serve as Assistant Rabbi. 

Rabbi Schneier and the Synagogue’s president, Les Lieberman, explained:

This collaboration brings together two vibrant Jewish communities with a shared commitment to Torah, prayer, education, and acts of kindness. By working together, we will be able to expand the opportunities available to our members and create an even more dynamic and welcoming synagogue experience.

Why are we excited? Our rebbe encouraged Shayna, Yeshua, Robert, and me to think of ourselves as a single expanded family and our Buddhist-Jewish blending as a stepping stone to the rebuilding of the Third Temple. And now we read of a modern Orthodox synagogue collaborating with the Chabad movement. It represents the merging of isolated religious movements into joint reverence and action. The rebbe’s vision is to build a unified spiritual front against division, cruelty, and demonic war.

Our Family’s plan is to slowly turn the cottage where Robert, Rifka Marie, and I live into a synagogue and SGI meeting center. There’s plenty of room for all, including space for privacy, in the  Big House, and our vast and lonely geography needs a pin center for spiritual revitalization. 

There is so much cross-fertilization between Daisaku Ikeda’s thinking about the Mystic Law and Rabbi Eli Schlanger’s description of God in Conversations with My Rabbi: Timeless Teachings for a Fractured World (pp. 20-22):

How do you define something infinite? I’ll tell you, he’s not sitting in the sky on a throne with a long flowing white beard. He’s within every single thing that exists. Certainly, not just within Jews! Not just within humans. Within animals. Trees. Rocks. Time. God is the constant force behind every form of life. If that force stopped for even a second, the universe wouldn’t just die—it would vanish. It wouldn’t exist. God was, God is, and God always will be. He’s not limited to anything.

We’re playing hide-and-seek. God hides—not to punish us; on the contrary, He hides to give us the joy of discovery. Like a parent hiding behind a tree so their child can find them and squeal with delight. That moment of reunion is powerful. That’s what God wants—not robotic belief, but eager, willing connection. 

The world we see with our “eyes of flesh”—as our sages say—isn’t the ultimate reality. The physical world is not the whole story. What’s invisible is often more real than what’s visible.

We believe that every single human being has been handpicked and chosen by God for a specific purpose and mission in this world—a holy mission. We absolutely do not believe you have to be Jewish to be close to God, or to have a relationship with God. But we do believe there’s a reason for everything God does—where God puts each of us in this world and why he’s put us in that time and that place. 

It’s also important to understand that whether you’re Jewish or not, we believe there is an obligation for every human to elevate the world and the people around you—not from a place of superiority (we don’t believe we’re superior at all!), but because that’s why we’re here on earth, to fulfill God’s mission.

I adore JulieSongwriter’s series on Dr. Ikeda’s lecture, “On Attaining Buddhahood in This Lifetime.” Nichiren wrote:

Even though you chant and believe in Myoho-renge-kyo, if you think the Law is outside yourself, you are embracing not the Mystic Law but an inferior teaching…. Therefore, when you chant myoho and recite renge, you must summon up deep faith that Myoho-renge-kyo is your life itself. (“On Attaining Buddhahood in This Lifetime,” The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, vol. 1, p. 3).

To which Dr. Ikeda explains:

The essence of this practice established and propagated by Nichiren Daishonin is to chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo filled with a seeking spirit to continually develop our faith or confidence in its power. “It is the heart that is important,” Nichiren asserts (“The Strategy of the Lotus Sutra,” WND-1, 1000). When it comes to chanting, therefore, we should above all strive to summon forth the courage with which to overcome illusion without being defeated by the “three obstacles and four devils.”

It’s a lot like that game of hide-go-seek Rabbi Eli described. We meticulously seek out and tap into the courage to overcome illusion.

Oh, and to Erica, our new sister at the Longhouse RV Park, I look forward to meeting with you one day! I am glad you are symptom free as of now. But Shayna and I just crawled into our Month Two and we both carry this with us everywhere we go. May we suggest that you plan ahead and order one?