Your blueprint is set down on paper and you have “signed off.”  The blueprint though is just a map, an outline for growth, your plan for leaving an aspect of personal constriction.  It is not yet taking action and the process toward freedom remains fluid.  In the desert the Jews have now moved from the oasis, back into the desert, with all its challenges.  Choices abound and there are many potential course corrections.  Why is change for us similar to traversing a desert?  In our determination to move toward freedom the landscape is often bare and can feel very lonely and fear can set in.  Questions that often arise when looking at change are: Am I really ready?  Am I capable of sticking to the change or will I revert back to old patterns? Might I even say—“I want to return to Egypt—to my old ways; the comfort of enslavement.”  Or is Egypt itself beckoning?  What will others think about my ‘leaving’, about my growing in freedom; implementing my blueprint for change?

We are interpreting Netzach to mean the determination to overcome obstacles.  Netzach is usually translated as victory.  Whether the definition is endurance or perseverance (per Rabbi Jacobson and Rabbi Kantrowitz) Netzach is energy of active trust—trust in one’s own capacities and in working with other to overcome any and every obstacle.  This is your task for each day of this week of Netzach—reflecting on the obstacles (both internal and external) and the determination needed to overcome them.

Day 22 – Chesed in Netzach

How do we remain open today to the challenges of change without losing our determination?  Chesed is an energy that connects us.  As an obstacle to change is loyalty—to old patterns, to people or a community (outside and inside you) who are not ready to ‘release’ you.  Loyalty is a very powerful emotion, an obstacle to overcome if it holds us back from moving forward.

Meditation: What are my loyalties? I have my plan for growth and how may loyalty not allow me to implement it?  Hold loyalty in the palm of your right hand and feel whether it weighs you down or lifts you up.  A  balance will be found in the left palm (Gevurah).