This week’s Torah portion is Nasso. It is a continuation of the census of the Levites which began in the previous chapter. Nasso is an amalgam of several different topics. It contains a section about committing sins and the Trial by Ordeal, in which a jealous husband could bring the wife he suspected of adultery, before the Priest. It also contains the laws of the Nazirite, a temporary monk or nun who took vows to dedicate a period of time to God, and it contains the Priestly Benediction, with which rabbis still bless their congregations, Finally the giving of gifts to God by each of the 12 Tribes is catalogued.
In the section about committing sins, it reads: When a man or woman shall commit any sin that men commit, to do a trespass against God, and if that person is guilty; Then they shall confess their sin which they have done; and he shall make restitution for his trespass in full, and add to it its fifth part, and give it to him against whom he has trespassed. In another translation it says, When a man or woman shall commit any sin that men commit, by committing treachery toward God. But in actuality, what the Hebrew really says, is, When a man or woman shall commit any sin that men commit, to do a trespass in God, B’Adonai. This phrase, in God, is a very profound teaching. It tells us that when we do anything, right or wrong, that we really dwell within God’s being. The fact that we are alive, and that we live within all existence is another way of saying that we live within God, the same concept given to us in the Shema. It also leads to the idea that in our strivings, spiritual and mundane, we are really fighting against ourselves, fighting against that which we are: our true nature.
And we know this: the struggles we have in life are really against ourselves. The teaching in Judaism is that we struggle with the two sides of ourselves: the right side, which is characterized by the good impulse or the Yetzer hatov; and the left side, which is characterized by the contrary or bad impulse, the yetzer hara. In the Talmud it says, A person should always incite the good impulse to fight against the evil impulse. For it is written: Tremble and sin not. If a person subdues it, well and good. If not, let that person study the Torah. For it is written: ‘Commune with your own heart’. If he subdues it, well and good. If not, let him recite the Shema’. Berachot 5a and also, a part of the Mishna: You SHALL LOVE THE Eternal Your GOD WITH ALL Your HEART… WITH ALL Your HEART, MEANS WITH Your TWO IMPULSES, THE EVIL IMPULSE AS WELL AS THE GOOD IMPULSE. Berachot 54a When we think of ourselves as having a good and a bad impulse, it’s very clear that these are both within us: that goodness, compassion, generosity, and love comes from us; and that selfishness, hatred, meanness, and anger also come from us. That recognition is part of the maturing self. A person who acknowledges that my own hatreds are projections onto others of my own inner passions is in a position to willingly modify existing habits and behaviors.
But also, this knowledge can lead to the recognition that, as our warring impulses, what Rabbi Schneur Zalman calls the divine soul and the animal soul, are both us; that we are also at war with God, which is also part of us. Perhaps it is more polite to say that we are part of God, but the concept is the same: we struggle against God, which is also part of who we are. Our separation from God is as illusory as the separation between the two sides of ourselves.
The laws of the Nazarite also teach this lesson. The word, Nazir, according to Rashi, comes from the Hebrew root, to separate. The Nazarite separates her or himself from others. She is not allowed a haircut or the coming in contact with the dead. A Nazirite must not eat grapes or grape products or drink any wine. After the period of separation is completed, the nazarite must bring a sin offering. Our sages have puzzled over this: why would a person who has dedicated this time to holiness have the obligation to bring a sin offering? Surely, as a nazarite, the person would be committing less sin rather than more sin. The answer given is that the nazarite has deprived himself of the pleasures created by God for humankind to enjoy, and by not enjoying them, has committed a sin. But I think the sin is also about separation. In Pirkei Avot, Rabbi Hillel says, do not separate yourself from the community. The separation the nazarite indulges in is not approved of in Judaism. Monks in Judaism have been abolished. We don’t go to a hermitage up on a mountaintop to meditate, to become better Jews: we strive to improve ourselves in the midst of life in the community. I would suggest that it is easier to be a good person all by oneself; or even in a community of monks who strive for self improvement. What is harder is to become holy in the midst of every kind of person, every kind of experience, every kind of situation. But that is existence: that is true oneness; that is God. When we separate our good from our less worthy impulses, we know that we speak in a metaphor. It is harder for us to live as if we knew that we are living within God. Our struggle is finally, within existence and within God. After mentioning sin the Torah continues: But if the man has no redeemer to to whom to return the debt, the returned debt is for God, for the priest.This teaches that we can redeem each other, with the recognition that we are part of one another and part of God. Each person I meet is someone who may save my life. Each person has something to teach me. Each person allows me the privilege of performing a deed of Lovingkindness. When I separate myself from another person, redemption is farther away, because both of us dwell within God. The Divine Presence is can never be fragmented when I acknowledge my kinship with each person. When I send love to you, I send love to God. When I overcome my baser instincts, I repair my relationship with God. We can feel the great oneness in our natures with every act of love. R. Eleazar said in the Talmud: May it be Thy will, O Eternal God, to cause us to dwell in love and brotherhood and peace and friendship; confirm us with a good companions and a good impulse in Your world, Berachot 16bMay each of us feel this truth in our hearts and live that truth in our lives.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Hearing in the Nothingness
This week’s Torah portion is Bemidbar, which means, in the Wilderness. It is the first portion in the book of Numbers, so named because in the beginning of the portion, God asks Moses to take a census of the male Israelites who are eligible for the fighting force which will, in time, be called upon to conquer the land.
This portion takes place in what the Torah called the Wilderness of Sinai. The place of giving the Torah was barren, arid, desolate, rugged, and empty, a fitting place for the Torah to be received, for many reasons. As there were no distractions and no other groups of people there, Israel could be alone with God for that moment of Divine communion in which the 10 commandments were revealed and the laws of Torah were expounded.
The late 19th Century sage known as S’fat Emet quotes a Midrash: “there was a prince who entered one city after another, only to see the populace flee before him, until he came to a ruined city, where he was greeted with praise. Said the prince, this is the best of all the cities. Here I will set my throne.” Perhaps this story accurately depicts both the desperation of the prince and the lack of choice of the inhabitants, and mirrors the position of God and the Israelites. The S’fat Emet derives the word, “midbar”, from the root which means to lead or rule. We were a people without power, ripe for teaching and leadership. In this sense, perhaps the wilderness was itself a school, as was also suggested by the Israeli historian Nachman Ran. The setting, itself, was to teach us something. We were captive, and out of desperation, receptive; and in fact, Israel was ready to accept a body of laws that was unknown to them and say to God, we will do and we will hear.
But what really happened, as we read in the Torah, was not that simple. After hearing the 10 Declarations, the Israelites pleaded with Moses that hearing God’s voice was too frightening to bear. They wanted Moses to hear God’s voice and they would listen to Moses, receiving the information second hand. It was terrifying to be alone with God; yet only in that aloneness could be found the connection to God that we have been trying to recover every since. The Talmud teaches that in order to truly receive the gift of the Torah, we must make ourselves open like the desert (Nedarim 55a) But being open is difficult: it is fraught with danger, vulnerability, and more than that; it means giving up that which we think we know. The sage Or Chayim claims that the real effort in learning Torah is in negating our own mind in order to understand the mind of God. In metaphoric terms, we have to leave Egypt: the life we know and understand, the life that makes logical sense to us; and enter the wilderness of the soul, which is called nothing. In kabbalistic thought in the Zohar, “the Ancient Holy One is called ayin (nothing)… the hidden, unapproachable, the transcendent”. In order to understand God, we have to enter the state of Nothing. As Helen Keller once said, through my handicaps, I found my work and my God.
The aloneness of nothing is what is sought in meditation. Meditating on the breath or the name of God allows one to leave the realm of the “I” and enter the space of the oneness of all being. The Torah teaches us to reach this state, not by meditating, but in the midst of life, by negating our ego desires for the will of God. That is what is meant by the passage we read after the V’ahavta, which speaks about wearing the fringes of the tallit: not to go about after our own heart and own minds, but to be guided by God’s will, as revealed to us in the Torah. In detaching our power of action from our own desires, we truly recreate the nothingness of the wilderness and allow God’s voice to be heard within us. The commentary Mechilta reminds us of this. It says, the Torah, like the desert belongs to no one. It is accessible, open, and free to all. But in order to hear, understand, and accept the ancient wisdom, we must first ourselves, become like the desert, and empty ourselves of the inner voices that are not God but ego, in order to hear the true ones that are spirit and soul. Abraham Joshua Heschl says it this way: “ We have so much to say about the bible, that we are not prepared to hear what the bible has to say about us.” What the Torah says about us is that God is accessible through self negation and deeds of love. The wilderness is really a fertile place where we are taken care of with great compassion. We are never abandoned in this wilderness, but are taken by the hand and led to holiness.. I end with a quotation from the Zohar which comments on the Song of Songs (191a): When Israel “is very lovesick for her Beloved, she shrinks to nothing until only a dot is left of her, and she is hidden from all her hosts and camps. … He knows that his Beloved is lovesick like himself, so that none of her beauty can be seen, and so through the voices of those warriors of hers her Beloved comes forth from his palace with many gifts and presents, with spices and incense, and comes to her and finds her black and shrunken, without form or beauty. He then draws near to her and embraces and kisses her until she gradually revives from the scents and spices, and her joy in having her Beloved with her, and she is built up and recovers her full form and beauty” As Heschl points out, God has never given up on humankind: always hoping to find righteousness among us, and showing us how to travel there. May each of us find a true home in the quiet of the wilderness, guided by the loving Presence who gave us the great gift of Torah.
This portion takes place in what the Torah called the Wilderness of Sinai. The place of giving the Torah was barren, arid, desolate, rugged, and empty, a fitting place for the Torah to be received, for many reasons. As there were no distractions and no other groups of people there, Israel could be alone with God for that moment of Divine communion in which the 10 commandments were revealed and the laws of Torah were expounded.
The late 19th Century sage known as S’fat Emet quotes a Midrash: “there was a prince who entered one city after another, only to see the populace flee before him, until he came to a ruined city, where he was greeted with praise. Said the prince, this is the best of all the cities. Here I will set my throne.” Perhaps this story accurately depicts both the desperation of the prince and the lack of choice of the inhabitants, and mirrors the position of God and the Israelites. The S’fat Emet derives the word, “midbar”, from the root which means to lead or rule. We were a people without power, ripe for teaching and leadership. In this sense, perhaps the wilderness was itself a school, as was also suggested by the Israeli historian Nachman Ran. The setting, itself, was to teach us something. We were captive, and out of desperation, receptive; and in fact, Israel was ready to accept a body of laws that was unknown to them and say to God, we will do and we will hear.
But what really happened, as we read in the Torah, was not that simple. After hearing the 10 Declarations, the Israelites pleaded with Moses that hearing God’s voice was too frightening to bear. They wanted Moses to hear God’s voice and they would listen to Moses, receiving the information second hand. It was terrifying to be alone with God; yet only in that aloneness could be found the connection to God that we have been trying to recover every since. The Talmud teaches that in order to truly receive the gift of the Torah, we must make ourselves open like the desert (Nedarim 55a) But being open is difficult: it is fraught with danger, vulnerability, and more than that; it means giving up that which we think we know. The sage Or Chayim claims that the real effort in learning Torah is in negating our own mind in order to understand the mind of God. In metaphoric terms, we have to leave Egypt: the life we know and understand, the life that makes logical sense to us; and enter the wilderness of the soul, which is called nothing. In kabbalistic thought in the Zohar, “the Ancient Holy One is called ayin (nothing)… the hidden, unapproachable, the transcendent”. In order to understand God, we have to enter the state of Nothing. As Helen Keller once said, through my handicaps, I found my work and my God.
The aloneness of nothing is what is sought in meditation. Meditating on the breath or the name of God allows one to leave the realm of the “I” and enter the space of the oneness of all being. The Torah teaches us to reach this state, not by meditating, but in the midst of life, by negating our ego desires for the will of God. That is what is meant by the passage we read after the V’ahavta, which speaks about wearing the fringes of the tallit: not to go about after our own heart and own minds, but to be guided by God’s will, as revealed to us in the Torah. In detaching our power of action from our own desires, we truly recreate the nothingness of the wilderness and allow God’s voice to be heard within us. The commentary Mechilta reminds us of this. It says, the Torah, like the desert belongs to no one. It is accessible, open, and free to all. But in order to hear, understand, and accept the ancient wisdom, we must first ourselves, become like the desert, and empty ourselves of the inner voices that are not God but ego, in order to hear the true ones that are spirit and soul. Abraham Joshua Heschl says it this way: “ We have so much to say about the bible, that we are not prepared to hear what the bible has to say about us.” What the Torah says about us is that God is accessible through self negation and deeds of love. The wilderness is really a fertile place where we are taken care of with great compassion. We are never abandoned in this wilderness, but are taken by the hand and led to holiness.. I end with a quotation from the Zohar which comments on the Song of Songs (191a): When Israel “is very lovesick for her Beloved, she shrinks to nothing until only a dot is left of her, and she is hidden from all her hosts and camps. … He knows that his Beloved is lovesick like himself, so that none of her beauty can be seen, and so through the voices of those warriors of hers her Beloved comes forth from his palace with many gifts and presents, with spices and incense, and comes to her and finds her black and shrunken, without form or beauty. He then draws near to her and embraces and kisses her until she gradually revives from the scents and spices, and her joy in having her Beloved with her, and she is built up and recovers her full form and beauty” As Heschl points out, God has never given up on humankind: always hoping to find righteousness among us, and showing us how to travel there. May each of us find a true home in the quiet of the wilderness, guided by the loving Presence who gave us the great gift of Torah.
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