(note: since there's a time warp going on with the posts right now I wanted to be sure and anchor us chronologically by specifying that this event is from here and now, Berkeley in February, not Jerusalem in December)
In the middle of class the other day, one of Rebecca's students shouted out of nowhere. "Va'ed, va'ed!" he was yelling.
"I'm sorry, does someone have a question?" Rebecca asked in a very diplomatic, teacher-speak way.
"Va'ed! I hear that all the time in our prayers, it's in a lot of blessings that we say!" the student exclaimed.
"Yes, true, and right now we are doing math so maybe you want to talk about that with the Judaics teacher," Rebecca replied. Moving on...
So I have been thinking about va'ed recently, especially today. It is an expression in Biblical Hebrew which is used almost exclusively as part of the phrase "l'Olam Va'ed," which means "the world to come." Traditional Judaism does not speak specifically of heaven but rather of the world to come, where and whenever that world may be for each one of us. So as I sit here in Berkeley, folding laundry and washing dishes and sorting the recycling and preparing to go for a walk to Pet Food Express I am considering va'ed, that which is to come for me. I was supposed to be on a plane to Heathrow right now, today was the day I was originally scheduled to leave for Accra. Instead my departure is still part of what is va'ed as I continue to conduct my business and prepare myself here in California for the next ten days. There is a lot va'ed right now, it seems. It is hard to be patient and it is hard not to know, but I am reminded by the wisdom of Rebecca's student that there has been, and there continues to be, much va'ed for each of us and for all of us together, too. At least I am not the only one who doesn't know what is going to happen.
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