I have shared with you how I connect the making of pottery with my spiritual tradition. Pottery making brings me joy, and Judaism is my spiritual path, the guiding principle for the way I live. That these two parts of my life can be understood one in light of the other, that they create a beautiful spiritual harmony, is awesome. I love that my tradition understands the human being as made from the earth, from clay, a material that both is humble and humbles the artist as well as the people who use it.
In the Jewish daily liturgy there is a prayer to be recited in the morning which celebrates the daily restorative power of the connection between our bodies and our souls, our bodies created from the earth and our souls that are the breath of God that animates the body: “The soul which you, my God, have given me is pure. You created it, You formed it, You breathed it into me; You keep body and soul together. One day you will take my soul from me, to restore it to me in life eternal. So long as this soul is within me I acknowledge you, my God, my ancestor’s God, Master of all creation, sovereign of all souls. Praised are you, God who restores the soul to the lifeless, exhausted body.” (Sidur Sim Shalom)
Our bodies are an amazing structure, the palace that houses our soul. And while sometimes we might feel that our bodies are exhausted and we are unable to move forward, we know that it is with our bodies that we do amazing things, that we partner with God in the world. The humble body whose origin is clay is the body that builds, plants and harvests, hugs, kisses, writes, dances and does thousands of things every day. It is through this humble body that we do God’s work in this world. Jewish texts reflect this point in beautiful ways. In the Pesikta de Rav Kahana (Shuva 5) we read:
Said Rabbi Abba bar Yudan, all that God disqualified in the animals, God permitted in human beings. In animals, it is forbidden to bring as a sacrifice one that is blind, or lame, or broken, or ulcerous. But in human beings, God will not despise a broken and crushed heart. Rabbi Alecsander said: If a person uses a broken vessel, it is a shame, but the Holy One is not like this. All that God uses are broken vessels, as it is stated in the psalms, (64) God is close to the brokenhearted, and helps those who are crushed in spirit or, (147) God heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds.
Our tradition imagines that we are broken vessels, that we are fallible, that we make mistakes. And yet we are the vessels used by God to do things in this world. The expectation of our tradition is that as humans we will have something broken sometime in our lives. I had a ceramics teacher that would say the following every time we would complain about a glaze application that looked horrible, or an “s” crack that would render the pot unusable: “ceramics will break…your heart.” A clay vessel will break if mishandled, be in the process of making it or if it falls, or if there are sudden changes of temperature—and so do human beings. It is in our nature—we will probably have a broken body part, and inevitably, a broken heart. It is very interesting that in Jewish Law a clay vessel can be made kosher by re-firing (as I wrote last week) or by breaking. A clay vessel can be used for something else if it is broken. The brokenness makes it kosher. And so it is with human beings. We cannot be a useful vessel if we do not acknowledge our potential for breakage. Moreover, as Rabbi Alecsander said, all that God uses are broken vessels. I don’t know anyone who did not have their heart broken sometime, which makes us all a fit vessel for carrying out the Eternal’s ideas in the world.
I love the feeling of the clay in my hands, connecting with it in a deep level, breathing deeply until it is centered, feeling the fluidity of the developing walls, seeing a form develop as I push the clay according to my vision. I love seeing the vessel develop, the colors of the glaze, and the places where the clay lays bare. I know this vessel I made is bound to break, that the odds are that its life span is short, that I cannot hold on to it forever, and still, they give me so much pleasure, from making it to using it, that I would never give up pottery. In my imagination the Energy that created us from clay understood that just as vessels made out of clay, we could bring joy and beauty to this world, developing and growing, having broken bodies and hearts, and a short lifespan, with no possibility of eternal living, and God would still be proud of creating us, knowing that this perfect imperfection is capable of bringing many wonderful things to the world—joy, love, connection, comfort, and sweetness. When you next pick up a handmade clay vessel, I hope you will feel a physical and spiritual connection because you understand how it was created and the connection with Judaism, and that it fills you with joy as you use it.