Today we will read in the Torah about the birth of Isaac to Abraham at 100 years old and Sarah at 90: a joyous and miraculous event. Then tomorrow we read the test of Abraham, the Akeda or Binding of Isaac, God’s asking of Abraham to bring his beloved Isaac up as a sacrifice, which Abraham does. An angel of God saves Isaac; and Abraham is blessed through his willingness to follow God whole-heartedly. There are many ways to understand this, and I’ve spoken previously about how much prior reassurance God had given to Abraham, the deep personal bond of trust between them, and the promise that Isaac would have many descendants. But this year I’ve come to also see another aspect of this story.
One way to understand it might be to see it through the prism of our life’s goals. As we gaze ahead into a busy fall and beyond we may have immediate to do lists for the week or month. We may also have things we’d really like to do: travel to a country we’ve never seen, study a new subject, or even just get through the next year without any major health crises for us and our families, being as decent a human being as we can be. You’ve all heard the line, Man plans and God laughs. Why is that? Why should it be that life is so shockingly unpredictable? I would like to suggest that it is because our goals, wants, and needs are so different from God’s goals for us. Speaking about wants is easy. We need food and shelter; and we need money to buy those things, so we need to work or to have worked so that the Divine Presence can help us provide and so that we can contribute to providing for others. We also need love, human interaction and connections, intellectual stimulation, and spiritual nourishment. My teacher of blessed memory, Rabbi Gelberman, once gave a talk about wants and needs. In it he quoted Martin Buber who said, “The difference between the Holy and the Unholy is that the Holy are waiting to be sanctified.” Buber wrote; “We are called to the world in order to hallow it, to redeem it. The world needs us for its hallowing. It is waiting to be hallowed by us// and in hallowed contact with the world, with the things and people we meet on the way, we find our way to God.” So it is not that we should not have material wants, as long as we make the distinction between what we need and what we would like. And we can sanctify what we receive and what we achieve.
Goals are more elusive to speak about. It’s easy to identify short term goals. But how many of us can articulate long term goals? You all know the famous joke: A man goes into the hospital for surgery. The operation is successful. The nurse comes in and says, Mr. Shapiro, "Are you comfortable?" he says, "I make a good living." That’s the middle or upper middle class ideal: a comfortable, peaceful life, earning enough to enjoy our existence here on earth and not having to worry. This is probably the opposite of what God wants for us. Being what I call a spiritual naturalist, someone like Charles Darwin who observes events and draws conclusions from observations, it appears to me that God is interested in our spiritual growth. We are not allowed to stay on one level or in one place for very long. It is obvious that the world is in need of great improvement. How is this going to happen? It can only happen if we are forced to grow, through a series of tests, challenges, opportunities, and acts of Divine Grace: both the carrot and the stick. Every day of our lives we are in Life University: a school from which we will never graduate until we leave this plane of existence. And what are we tested on in this school of life? Compassion, Kindness, generosity, selflessness, caring, humility, and love. This is our life’s course work. This is why life has so many tests and challenges. There is a clash between what we want and what God wants. The world can only improve if we improve. We want a peaceful, easy life. God wants growth. God wants action.
The S’fat Emet, Rabbi Yehuda Leib Alter of Ger, has written “We have already been on a very high rung [of spiritual attainment] on Mt. Sinai. Because of that we can raise ourselves back up to Heaven….From now on [there will be] a way to find everything by means of struggle, as it is said, your deeds will draw you near.” A life of spiritual struggle is therefore our lot, in order to be raised up, in order for the world to keep improving. This is why each person is precious to God: each human being has been given challenges in their personalities and life circumstances to struggle with. We are all one soul, there is only one life between us. Each person is precious because they are purifying their small bit of the soul matter for all of us. Our sages taught, angels can’t rise in holiness. Only human beings can become greater than they are. Similarly, in the Talmud, R. Abbahu, said: The place occupied by repentant sinners cannot be attained even by the completely righteous (Sanhedrin 99a). It is improvement that God notices and requires. That’s why we must not ever be completely satisfied with our level of goodness. Life will not allow us to stand still. Norman Mailer famously wrote: “There was that law of life so cruel and so just which demanded that one must grow or else pay more for remaining the same.”
In the book, Duties of the Heart, by Rabbi Bachya ben Paquda it says that Abraham understood the Torah before it was given. He was already a kind, gracious, generous, compassionate, loving person. Yet God still gave him a further test: the ultimate test: was his faith and trust in God’s goodness so great that he would offer up his own will, his own son, in love, knowing that there must be an explanation and a blessing beyond his comprehension? He did, and he was greatly blessed. There were no other tests for him that we know of. There could not possibly be any other major tests Abraham could be given. He had passed them all. Luckily, none of us are or ever will be at his spiritual level. Our tests are such that we can pass them. Our sages taught, no one is given a test he cannot pass.
In this New Year, we will have many tests, challenges, and opportunities for growth. How will we respond? Most probably, this is what will be asked of us: We will be asked to care about each other more; to be of help and service to each other; to be generous: to keep our hearts open and loving, to let go of any anger, hurt, or hatred and to teach by example. By being willing to grow in goodness and by participating in the goals God has for us, we can not only deepen our understanding of the events in our lives, but also experience all the goodness and joy of God’s great gifts to us. By doing good, we increase goodness in the world and experience that goodness. Buber teaches: “… rejoicing in the world, if we hallow it with our whole being, leads to rejoicing in God.” We are on a magnificent journey on the road that leads to holiness. Angels can only stand still but humankind can rise to unimagined heights, and God is leading us there. May all of us grow in goodness in this New Year, passing our tests, hallowing life, expressing our love and kindness, living joyously, and striving to be grateful and thankful for our continual unfolding.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Thursday, September 13, 2012
The Power of the Gift
This week’s Torah portion is Nasso, which means take. Moses continues to take a census of the Levites; and the Levites are assigned tasks for dismantling and carrying the Tabernacle. Instructions for purifying the camp are given, there is a process to atone for sins, and laws that have been abandoned, such as the trial by ordeal, when a husband is suspicious of a wife; and the rules for temporary nuns and monks, the Nazarites, are outlined. This portion famously includes the Priestly Benediction; and concludes with the description of identical offerings of the tribal families for the dedication of the altar.
Sometimes when I read the Torah, something catches my attention. I make a note of it, and it’s only later that I realize that most of the portion actually addresses this one concept. Here are some verses to consider: “God spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the Children of Israel: a man or woman who commits any human sins, by committing treachery toward God and that person shall become guilty – they shall confess their sin that they committed; he shall make restitution for his guilt in its principal amount and add it’s fifth to it, and give it to the one to whom he is indebted. If the man has not kinsman to whom the debt can be returned, the returned debt is for God, for the Kohen, aside from the ram of atonement with which he shall provide him atonement.” (Num. 5:5-8)
This verse speaks about atonement, but also about giving. The entire sacrificial system is predicated on giving. Giving, in the Torah, is the mechanism for drawing closer to God, for atonement, and for celebrating. Also, in this Torah portion specifically, the Levites give their labor to God, the Tabernacle, and to the community of the Israelites. The Nazarites give their time and good intentions. The priests give their blessings, as well as their time, labor, and attention. The Tribal families give gifts. Giving, then, is very important for a number of reasons. We might ask, why is it that giving effects atonement and why is giving so important? We might think that confession effects atonement, or perhaps confession and personal change, and that certainly is true. But personal transformation is also a form of giving, one in which we dedicate ourselves and give ourselves over to acting in consonance with what we know is right, which is almost always what the Source of Life has asked us to do.
The verses from Nasso also teach us that in order to repair whatever we have done or have taken, we need to give more than we might expect; just the way one who has stolen something must return the stolen goods and also pay a fine. It’s the giving that reestablishes our harmonious relationships with each other and with the Divine Presence; and it doesn’t matter what we give, as long as our intentions in giving are good and pure. In a sense, all we have to give is ourselves. All of life, including giving, works the way love works. By giving love we set in motion the conditions for receiving it. By giving to each other, we set in motion the forces that allow us to receive and to grow, to feel good about ourselves and be able to share with each other.
The converse is also true. In the Talmud: R. Yochanan said, If someone keeps for himself the gifts he is required to turn over to the priests, God will punish him by depriving him of his prosperity and leaving him with nothing more than the small amount that he should have given away to God’s servants. R. Nachman b. Yitzchak affirms that giving causes us to receive: “Whoever has priestly gifts and gives them to the Kohen will be come wealthy, as it says, figuratively, whatever a person gives to the Kohen will belong to the giver.” (The Torah Revealed, R. A.Y. Finkel). As always, in spiritual life, our participation is required, and we are the impetus for our own growth, well-being, and prosperity. Not that we have total control, but that without our giving of ourselves, we make no progress. We can give time, Money, kindness, and teaching. We can give love, we can give help. The more we give the happier we become, as long as we are giving with open hearts and balanced judgment.
In the Midrash it says, (Midrash Rabba Numb. 8:7): “ by virtue of his own merit he will enjoy the fruit of his actions both in this world and in the next. Hence it is written, When thou eat the labor of your hands, meaning, the good deeds which he has painstakingly performed in this world; as you read, And there the weary are at rest (Job III, 17), and also, Whatsoever your hand attains to do by your strength, that do… (Eccl. IX, 10). What is his reward? Happy shall you be, and it shall be well with you.” Giving is the way the world works. One metaphor is seeing the world as a giant pocketwatch, whose many gears and springs work harmoniously together, each part contributing to the whole. In human interactions, withholding causes relationships to break down, but giving builds them up, gives us joy, and allows us to feel connected to God and each other. When we are sad, when we need to atone, when we want to reconnect, giving is the mechanism by which we can make a change. The Source of Life provides us with countless opportunities to give. All we have to do is to open ourselves to the awareness that opportunities are constantly being sent to us, and then seize them by giving generously to ourselves and the universe. May we be givers to each other, of whatever we are, and whatever we have to give, and by so doing, be among those who enrich life and live in great joy.
Sometimes when I read the Torah, something catches my attention. I make a note of it, and it’s only later that I realize that most of the portion actually addresses this one concept. Here are some verses to consider: “God spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the Children of Israel: a man or woman who commits any human sins, by committing treachery toward God and that person shall become guilty – they shall confess their sin that they committed; he shall make restitution for his guilt in its principal amount and add it’s fifth to it, and give it to the one to whom he is indebted. If the man has not kinsman to whom the debt can be returned, the returned debt is for God, for the Kohen, aside from the ram of atonement with which he shall provide him atonement.” (Num. 5:5-8)
This verse speaks about atonement, but also about giving. The entire sacrificial system is predicated on giving. Giving, in the Torah, is the mechanism for drawing closer to God, for atonement, and for celebrating. Also, in this Torah portion specifically, the Levites give their labor to God, the Tabernacle, and to the community of the Israelites. The Nazarites give their time and good intentions. The priests give their blessings, as well as their time, labor, and attention. The Tribal families give gifts. Giving, then, is very important for a number of reasons. We might ask, why is it that giving effects atonement and why is giving so important? We might think that confession effects atonement, or perhaps confession and personal change, and that certainly is true. But personal transformation is also a form of giving, one in which we dedicate ourselves and give ourselves over to acting in consonance with what we know is right, which is almost always what the Source of Life has asked us to do.
The verses from Nasso also teach us that in order to repair whatever we have done or have taken, we need to give more than we might expect; just the way one who has stolen something must return the stolen goods and also pay a fine. It’s the giving that reestablishes our harmonious relationships with each other and with the Divine Presence; and it doesn’t matter what we give, as long as our intentions in giving are good and pure. In a sense, all we have to give is ourselves. All of life, including giving, works the way love works. By giving love we set in motion the conditions for receiving it. By giving to each other, we set in motion the forces that allow us to receive and to grow, to feel good about ourselves and be able to share with each other.
The converse is also true. In the Talmud: R. Yochanan said, If someone keeps for himself the gifts he is required to turn over to the priests, God will punish him by depriving him of his prosperity and leaving him with nothing more than the small amount that he should have given away to God’s servants. R. Nachman b. Yitzchak affirms that giving causes us to receive: “Whoever has priestly gifts and gives them to the Kohen will be come wealthy, as it says, figuratively, whatever a person gives to the Kohen will belong to the giver.” (The Torah Revealed, R. A.Y. Finkel). As always, in spiritual life, our participation is required, and we are the impetus for our own growth, well-being, and prosperity. Not that we have total control, but that without our giving of ourselves, we make no progress. We can give time, Money, kindness, and teaching. We can give love, we can give help. The more we give the happier we become, as long as we are giving with open hearts and balanced judgment.
In the Midrash it says, (Midrash Rabba Numb. 8:7): “ by virtue of his own merit he will enjoy the fruit of his actions both in this world and in the next. Hence it is written, When thou eat the labor of your hands, meaning, the good deeds which he has painstakingly performed in this world; as you read, And there the weary are at rest (Job III, 17), and also, Whatsoever your hand attains to do by your strength, that do… (Eccl. IX, 10). What is his reward? Happy shall you be, and it shall be well with you.” Giving is the way the world works. One metaphor is seeing the world as a giant pocketwatch, whose many gears and springs work harmoniously together, each part contributing to the whole. In human interactions, withholding causes relationships to break down, but giving builds them up, gives us joy, and allows us to feel connected to God and each other. When we are sad, when we need to atone, when we want to reconnect, giving is the mechanism by which we can make a change. The Source of Life provides us with countless opportunities to give. All we have to do is to open ourselves to the awareness that opportunities are constantly being sent to us, and then seize them by giving generously to ourselves and the universe. May we be givers to each other, of whatever we are, and whatever we have to give, and by so doing, be among those who enrich life and live in great joy.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Guest Blogger Barbara Bova, PhD: Review of Show: Siren's Heart
Siren's Heart {about Marilyn Monroe} is a wonderful musical originally shown at Theater For The New City -- it is currently at The Actors' Temple Theatre. The play runs for 90 minutes with 8 original songs.
Louisa Bradshaw captures the sensitivity and kindness of the real Marilyn/Norma Jean from her room in Purgatory. Marilyn talks/explains/contemplates/sings about her life and death with us and we relive it with her. She remembers with fondness her appearance before 17,000 troops in Korea--there she sensed complete love and acceptance. with absolutely no lack of self-confidence with them, her live audience, (and also with us her live audience) and thinks that perhaps she would have gone on to become a stage actress. It also shows the downturns in Marilyn's confidence as her GI appearance was downplayed by someone close to her. But in yet another example of Marilyn's kindness she forgives everyone. I highly recommend this one-woman show.
Friday, July 13, 2012
How To Be A Priest
This week’s Torah portion is Bemidbar, the very first portion in the book of Numbers. Bemidbar means, “in the wilderness.” It’s always read just at the time of Shavuot, when we commemorate the receiving of the Ten Commandments and celebrate the great gift of Torah. This portion begins with a charge to take a census, hence the name of the Book, Numbers. The plan of how the tribes will encamp around the Tabernacle is laid out, with banners and insignias for each tribe. The Levites replace the first born and are appointed to dismantle, carry, and re-erect the tabernacle on their journeys.
All the drama the Israelites have witnessed: the plagues, the parting of the Sea of Reeds, the giving of the Ten Commandments; all the building of the tabernacle, the crises of not enough food and water have stopped. We are all alone in the desert – but not alone. We are with God. Now we have to begin to just live. How do we do that?
The Torah has very practical advice for the Levites, that for us, can take on deeper meaning. But before we can take this advice into ourselves, we must go back to something God said to us right before the giving of the Ten Commandments. God said, “ V’atah t’hiyu li, ma-m’lechet Cohanim v’goi kadosh. You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.”(Ex. 19:6) Of course, this is both an offer and a prophecy: a commandment and the beginning of a brand new religious system. In idol worship, the priest spoke through the idol to the God, who spoke back to the priest, who then reported to the people. Judaism was to begin the democratization of religion. Each of us was to be our own priest. We, then, are the Levites: the priests. We are to interact directly with God and to become holy individually, so that we can be a holy nation.
Here is God’s advice. “…you shall appoint the Levites over the Tabernacle of the Testimony, over everything that belongs to it. They shall carry the tabernacle and all its utensils and they shall tend, (guard, and watch) over it; and they shall encamp around the Tabernacle. When the tabernacle journeys, the Levites shall take it down and when the tabernacle encamps, the Levites shall erect it….and the Levites shall protect the guarding of the tabernacle of the testimony.”
We have to remember what was in the center of the Tabernacle: words. We also have to imagine how weird that must have seemed: no idol, rather laws that were available to all. The sages interpreted the commandment to safeguard the charge of the Tabernacle literally. In ancient times, Levites were stationed around the Tabernacle, and later the Temple at 21 different stations, according to Nachmanides, as an Honor Guard. Our task is to go deeper into the symbolic meaning of the text. Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach said a beautiful thing: “Imagine if I knew the Torah was given only to me, all its holiness was made just for me – how I would throw myself at every word! How I would cry over every word to understand it! When I receive a letter from someone I love I can’t stop reading. This is how we have to learn Torah, as a love-letter from God to us.”
Rabbi Carlebach captures the spirit of the verses from Bemibar. We are to carry the Torah: to carry it with us, because it truly is within us, as it says in Deuteronomy (30:14), “in your heart and in your mouth.” It is part of us and we are part of it. We are to tend, guard, and watch over it, by developing within ourselves that sense of awe and gratitude which we must have once felt, when we received it, and by putting it into practice in our lives so that we can become Torah; not just know it, but live it and be it. We can encamp around it by making it central to the way we live our lives; not something that is part of our cultural and religious heritage only, but by taking it seriously enough to believe that its wisdom is greater than our own. We can take it down when we have searched our hearts in total honesty, and know with all our being that there is something in the text which we, as a society, cannot agree with any longer: such as the practice of slavery or the exclusion of people on the basis of sexual preference. And we can erect it when we look to it for guidance, when we have a difficult choice and don’t know which way to go. Finally, we can protect it by nurturing its truth within our hearts and by refusing to abandon its teachings; by proudly standing up as Jews, and refusing to abandon our unique destiny as guardians of this precious teaching. By protecting Torah, it protects us. By loving it, it will send loving blessings to us.
In the Zohar it says, “How beloved… is the Torah before the Holy One, blessed be God, …. wherever words of the Torah are heard the Holy One, blessed be God, listens together with all the hosts. Indeed, the Divine Presence comes to lodge with the one that gives utterance to those words, (III:118a)... In all one’s deeds it behooves a person to imitate the celestial model, and to realize that according to the nature of a deed below there is a responsive stirring on high ….When one … turns one’s eyes to the heavenly light, that person will be illumined by the light that God will cause to shine upon him. (III: 118b-119a). At this time of Shavuot, when we ready ourselves to receive the Torah once again, may we all be bathed in the heavenly light of understanding, that we may honor and love the Torah. May we carry it with us, tend it within us, strive to understand the spirit of what it is saying to us, and live by its light.
All the drama the Israelites have witnessed: the plagues, the parting of the Sea of Reeds, the giving of the Ten Commandments; all the building of the tabernacle, the crises of not enough food and water have stopped. We are all alone in the desert – but not alone. We are with God. Now we have to begin to just live. How do we do that?
The Torah has very practical advice for the Levites, that for us, can take on deeper meaning. But before we can take this advice into ourselves, we must go back to something God said to us right before the giving of the Ten Commandments. God said, “ V’atah t’hiyu li, ma-m’lechet Cohanim v’goi kadosh. You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.”(Ex. 19:6) Of course, this is both an offer and a prophecy: a commandment and the beginning of a brand new religious system. In idol worship, the priest spoke through the idol to the God, who spoke back to the priest, who then reported to the people. Judaism was to begin the democratization of religion. Each of us was to be our own priest. We, then, are the Levites: the priests. We are to interact directly with God and to become holy individually, so that we can be a holy nation.
Here is God’s advice. “…you shall appoint the Levites over the Tabernacle of the Testimony, over everything that belongs to it. They shall carry the tabernacle and all its utensils and they shall tend, (guard, and watch) over it; and they shall encamp around the Tabernacle. When the tabernacle journeys, the Levites shall take it down and when the tabernacle encamps, the Levites shall erect it….and the Levites shall protect the guarding of the tabernacle of the testimony.”
We have to remember what was in the center of the Tabernacle: words. We also have to imagine how weird that must have seemed: no idol, rather laws that were available to all. The sages interpreted the commandment to safeguard the charge of the Tabernacle literally. In ancient times, Levites were stationed around the Tabernacle, and later the Temple at 21 different stations, according to Nachmanides, as an Honor Guard. Our task is to go deeper into the symbolic meaning of the text. Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach said a beautiful thing: “Imagine if I knew the Torah was given only to me, all its holiness was made just for me – how I would throw myself at every word! How I would cry over every word to understand it! When I receive a letter from someone I love I can’t stop reading. This is how we have to learn Torah, as a love-letter from God to us.”
Rabbi Carlebach captures the spirit of the verses from Bemibar. We are to carry the Torah: to carry it with us, because it truly is within us, as it says in Deuteronomy (30:14), “in your heart and in your mouth.” It is part of us and we are part of it. We are to tend, guard, and watch over it, by developing within ourselves that sense of awe and gratitude which we must have once felt, when we received it, and by putting it into practice in our lives so that we can become Torah; not just know it, but live it and be it. We can encamp around it by making it central to the way we live our lives; not something that is part of our cultural and religious heritage only, but by taking it seriously enough to believe that its wisdom is greater than our own. We can take it down when we have searched our hearts in total honesty, and know with all our being that there is something in the text which we, as a society, cannot agree with any longer: such as the practice of slavery or the exclusion of people on the basis of sexual preference. And we can erect it when we look to it for guidance, when we have a difficult choice and don’t know which way to go. Finally, we can protect it by nurturing its truth within our hearts and by refusing to abandon its teachings; by proudly standing up as Jews, and refusing to abandon our unique destiny as guardians of this precious teaching. By protecting Torah, it protects us. By loving it, it will send loving blessings to us.
In the Zohar it says, “How beloved… is the Torah before the Holy One, blessed be God, …. wherever words of the Torah are heard the Holy One, blessed be God, listens together with all the hosts. Indeed, the Divine Presence comes to lodge with the one that gives utterance to those words, (III:118a)... In all one’s deeds it behooves a person to imitate the celestial model, and to realize that according to the nature of a deed below there is a responsive stirring on high ….When one … turns one’s eyes to the heavenly light, that person will be illumined by the light that God will cause to shine upon him. (III: 118b-119a). At this time of Shavuot, when we ready ourselves to receive the Torah once again, may we all be bathed in the heavenly light of understanding, that we may honor and love the Torah. May we carry it with us, tend it within us, strive to understand the spirit of what it is saying to us, and live by its light.
Friday, July 6, 2012
We Were There
This week’s Torah portion is Ki Tissa, which means.” when you take.” It begins with the taking of a census, goes on to appoint two people to oversee the work of the Tabernacle and holy vestments, and reiterates that Shabbat observance supersedes work on the tabernacle for God. Later in the portion, while Moses is gone, the people make and worship a golden calf. Moses wins forgiveness for them and has an intimate encounter with God, in which he hears a description of God’s attributes: that God is compassionate and gracious; slow to anger, forgiving, and great in kindness and truth.
I’d like to tell you about something I saw while in Peru. My husband and I traveled to Cuzco, which used to be the capital of the Inca Empire. It is over 11,000 feel above sea level, where the oxygen is pretty thin. It has been called the bellybutton of the world. On one of the hills, overlooking the city of Cuzco, there is a major archeological site, whose name is Sacsayhuamán. This site dates from the middle ages, and in Inca times, probably during the 1400’s & 1500’s it was a religious site associated with the worship of the Condor. The Incas had many gods who represented what they called the 3 worlds: the sky, the earth, and the underworld, the world of death. So this site was part of the worship of the forces of the sky. It is a vast site, a very grand plateau probably the size of several football fields, capable of holding thousands of people, with three levels of undulating walls on one side. The guide for our group told us that in 1536, Francisco Pizzaro and his troops began the siege of Cuzco. It took almost a year.
At the end of the siege, the Spanish came up to Sacsayhuamán. There was a religious ritual being enacted there, in which the Inca placed grain on the ground for the condors to descend and eat. The Spanish soldiers massacred every person there: many, many people, and managed to capture a number of condors. They brought the condors down into the city and massacred them too. Thus the Spanish destroyed the religious site, the people, and the Inca religion all in one day. Later they removed stones from the walls there to build churches and cathedrals in Cuzco.
Standing there, I could feel that I was standing on holy ground. It was sanctified by the blood: the deaths of the hundreds and perhaps thousands who were killed there. And I realized that we were the ones who died and we were also the ones doing the killing. God and life are all one. We are one soul, past present, and future. Our Jewish sages have said that to God, there is no past, present, and future. This is also what Einstein believed. Einstein wrote a letter to the family of his friend, Besso, after Besso passed away. He indicated that although Besso had died before him, it was of no consequence, since "...for us physicists believe the separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, although a convincing one."
In Ki Tissa we read about the making and worship of the Golden Calf. We may fault the Israelites for their abandonment of the sole worship of one God, but we were there too: not always being able to live up to the level of our knowledge and experience; not always able to live up to our own values and ideals. We are they, but we are also Moses, who knew with a deep, natural knowing, that he must plead for the people, since they were a part of him and he of them. When Moses asked God to give him more information and let him know why Moses found favor “in God’s eyes,” God gave him what we call the 13 attributes: a description of God’s personality: They are: Being, Existence, God; compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abundant in kindness and truth, forgiving willful sins and errors, and who cleanses, but who does not cleanse completely, allowing us to take responsibility for our decisions (the last especially, being an interpretation).
We have made progress since the worship of the Golden Calf. We have made progress since the massacre of the Inca and their sacred birds. But in our world, killing still goes on: in Sudan, in Syria, in the Congo, and elsewhere. Part of us has come so far, but not all of us. The closer we come to being gracious and kind and forgiving to each other; the closer we come to compassion, and truth; to being slower to anger, more patient and more accepting, the closer we will come to what God said to Moses: my Presence shall provide you rest. God’s Presence, that Divine Rest is what we will experience eventually; but also what we can experience occasionally, right now, out of our choosing to live from our knowledge of what we should be striving for. We have been given the goal and the answers. They are right here in Ki Tissa. We can sanctify life not only through death, but through goodness and holy action. May we choose the path of life, of beauty, and of God’s Presence, experiencing the flashes of inner peace and holiness that are truly ours to possess.
I’d like to tell you about something I saw while in Peru. My husband and I traveled to Cuzco, which used to be the capital of the Inca Empire. It is over 11,000 feel above sea level, where the oxygen is pretty thin. It has been called the bellybutton of the world. On one of the hills, overlooking the city of Cuzco, there is a major archeological site, whose name is Sacsayhuamán. This site dates from the middle ages, and in Inca times, probably during the 1400’s & 1500’s it was a religious site associated with the worship of the Condor. The Incas had many gods who represented what they called the 3 worlds: the sky, the earth, and the underworld, the world of death. So this site was part of the worship of the forces of the sky. It is a vast site, a very grand plateau probably the size of several football fields, capable of holding thousands of people, with three levels of undulating walls on one side. The guide for our group told us that in 1536, Francisco Pizzaro and his troops began the siege of Cuzco. It took almost a year.
At the end of the siege, the Spanish came up to Sacsayhuamán. There was a religious ritual being enacted there, in which the Inca placed grain on the ground for the condors to descend and eat. The Spanish soldiers massacred every person there: many, many people, and managed to capture a number of condors. They brought the condors down into the city and massacred them too. Thus the Spanish destroyed the religious site, the people, and the Inca religion all in one day. Later they removed stones from the walls there to build churches and cathedrals in Cuzco.
Standing there, I could feel that I was standing on holy ground. It was sanctified by the blood: the deaths of the hundreds and perhaps thousands who were killed there. And I realized that we were the ones who died and we were also the ones doing the killing. God and life are all one. We are one soul, past present, and future. Our Jewish sages have said that to God, there is no past, present, and future. This is also what Einstein believed. Einstein wrote a letter to the family of his friend, Besso, after Besso passed away. He indicated that although Besso had died before him, it was of no consequence, since "...for us physicists believe the separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, although a convincing one."
In Ki Tissa we read about the making and worship of the Golden Calf. We may fault the Israelites for their abandonment of the sole worship of one God, but we were there too: not always being able to live up to the level of our knowledge and experience; not always able to live up to our own values and ideals. We are they, but we are also Moses, who knew with a deep, natural knowing, that he must plead for the people, since they were a part of him and he of them. When Moses asked God to give him more information and let him know why Moses found favor “in God’s eyes,” God gave him what we call the 13 attributes: a description of God’s personality: They are: Being, Existence, God; compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abundant in kindness and truth, forgiving willful sins and errors, and who cleanses, but who does not cleanse completely, allowing us to take responsibility for our decisions (the last especially, being an interpretation).
We have made progress since the worship of the Golden Calf. We have made progress since the massacre of the Inca and their sacred birds. But in our world, killing still goes on: in Sudan, in Syria, in the Congo, and elsewhere. Part of us has come so far, but not all of us. The closer we come to being gracious and kind and forgiving to each other; the closer we come to compassion, and truth; to being slower to anger, more patient and more accepting, the closer we will come to what God said to Moses: my Presence shall provide you rest. God’s Presence, that Divine Rest is what we will experience eventually; but also what we can experience occasionally, right now, out of our choosing to live from our knowledge of what we should be striving for. We have been given the goal and the answers. They are right here in Ki Tissa. We can sanctify life not only through death, but through goodness and holy action. May we choose the path of life, of beauty, and of God’s Presence, experiencing the flashes of inner peace and holiness that are truly ours to possess.
Friday, June 8, 2012
What is Fair and What is True
This week’s Torah portion is Mishpatim, which means ordinances or laws or judgments. It contains a code of civil law that directly follows the Ten Commandments and includes wonderful laws: like the ones that encourage people who have indentured servants to treat them as human being and not as property, that prohibit harm to others through negligence or theft, that provide for interest- free loans to the poor, that prohibit maltreatment of strangers, widows, and orphans, and that encourage people to come to the aid of their enemies, among many other laws. Also, in a spirit of full disclosure, it contains laws that we don’t understand and others that most people don’t agree with.
Twice in this portion it says that God listens to those in pain or in need. The first one says, “You shall not taunt or oppress a stranger for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall not persecute any widow or orphan. If you will persecute him! For if he will cry out to me I shall surely hear his cry (Ex. 22:20-22)” And the second one, referring to loans to the poor: …”if you will take your fellow’s garment as security until the sun sets shall you return it to him for it alone is his clothing. It is his garment for his skin. In what should he lie down? So it will be that if he cries out to me, I shall listen for I am compassionate.”
These two quotations give us a window into what it being asked of us. The Torah tells us that there is an ultimate standard of justice that is inherent in the way our world is constructed. The laws in Mishpatim also give us a window into God’s thinking, in a sense. There is a delicate balance in these laws, between what is fair to everyone and what is true. For example, it was true that slavery existed at the time the Torah was given. It is also true that, since there was no consumer credit, that people who found themselves unable to support themselves and pay their bills could sell themselves for a period of six years into indentured servitude. This acted somewhat like our military does today. People can enlist in the army and serve for a period of time while receiving room, board, a salary, and educational opportunities. Of course, this is preferable to indentured slavery, but we can see that both institutions were or are helpful to people, which partially explains why they exist. So God balances what needs to be with the ultimate ideals of justice, and right, and fairness. With our Universal and Divine Parent: no one is favored over anyone else. This is because we are all part of God and live within God. Do we love one of our teeth or one of our fingers more than the others? They are all part of us and we love them (even if we may not like them) equally.
When we don’t understand some of the laws in Mishpatim, it’s important to remember what they are trying to accomplish: instilling respect in us; teaching us to treat each other fairly, enlightening us as to what is cosmically and fundamentally true; helping us to live more peaceful, happy lives; and making allowances for social institutions that existed at that time for the good of society. We know that although there may be good laws and there may be courts; well meaning people and honest judges, that justice is not always served. God and the Torah recognizes this too, which perhaps is why there are the quotations I referred to earlier: If you cry out to me I will hear. If there is a wrong, there is a higher authority to appeal to. God says, in another quotation from Mishpatim, “for I shall not exonerate the wicked (23:7),” meaning that ultimate justice rests with God. This is why the Apter Rebbe said, “If one wishes to judge flawlessly, one must put one’s mind and heart in order and realize that the judgment is in the Presence of God who sits among the Judges (p. 65 The Heschel Tradition).”
This is true for us too: we should put our minds and hearts in order, realizing that God sees what is happening, knows how we feel and what we think about it, cares about us, about others, and about justice, balances all our claims, loves us all equally, and is the court of highest appeal for those who are injured and in need: the One who insures that goodness overcomes our errors and selfishness. May we do our best to help God in these matters: to make the ideals of Torah manifest in the world – to promote fairness and equity; and may we be grateful for the laws, guidance, and understanding God has allowed us to have and to know.
Twice in this portion it says that God listens to those in pain or in need. The first one says, “You shall not taunt or oppress a stranger for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall not persecute any widow or orphan. If you will persecute him! For if he will cry out to me I shall surely hear his cry (Ex. 22:20-22)” And the second one, referring to loans to the poor: …”if you will take your fellow’s garment as security until the sun sets shall you return it to him for it alone is his clothing. It is his garment for his skin. In what should he lie down? So it will be that if he cries out to me, I shall listen for I am compassionate.”
These two quotations give us a window into what it being asked of us. The Torah tells us that there is an ultimate standard of justice that is inherent in the way our world is constructed. The laws in Mishpatim also give us a window into God’s thinking, in a sense. There is a delicate balance in these laws, between what is fair to everyone and what is true. For example, it was true that slavery existed at the time the Torah was given. It is also true that, since there was no consumer credit, that people who found themselves unable to support themselves and pay their bills could sell themselves for a period of six years into indentured servitude. This acted somewhat like our military does today. People can enlist in the army and serve for a period of time while receiving room, board, a salary, and educational opportunities. Of course, this is preferable to indentured slavery, but we can see that both institutions were or are helpful to people, which partially explains why they exist. So God balances what needs to be with the ultimate ideals of justice, and right, and fairness. With our Universal and Divine Parent: no one is favored over anyone else. This is because we are all part of God and live within God. Do we love one of our teeth or one of our fingers more than the others? They are all part of us and we love them (even if we may not like them) equally.
When we don’t understand some of the laws in Mishpatim, it’s important to remember what they are trying to accomplish: instilling respect in us; teaching us to treat each other fairly, enlightening us as to what is cosmically and fundamentally true; helping us to live more peaceful, happy lives; and making allowances for social institutions that existed at that time for the good of society. We know that although there may be good laws and there may be courts; well meaning people and honest judges, that justice is not always served. God and the Torah recognizes this too, which perhaps is why there are the quotations I referred to earlier: If you cry out to me I will hear. If there is a wrong, there is a higher authority to appeal to. God says, in another quotation from Mishpatim, “for I shall not exonerate the wicked (23:7),” meaning that ultimate justice rests with God. This is why the Apter Rebbe said, “If one wishes to judge flawlessly, one must put one’s mind and heart in order and realize that the judgment is in the Presence of God who sits among the Judges (p. 65 The Heschel Tradition).”
This is true for us too: we should put our minds and hearts in order, realizing that God sees what is happening, knows how we feel and what we think about it, cares about us, about others, and about justice, balances all our claims, loves us all equally, and is the court of highest appeal for those who are injured and in need: the One who insures that goodness overcomes our errors and selfishness. May we do our best to help God in these matters: to make the ideals of Torah manifest in the world – to promote fairness and equity; and may we be grateful for the laws, guidance, and understanding God has allowed us to have and to know.
Friday, June 1, 2012
Bringing Ourselves to Sinai
This week’s Torah portion is Yitro – named after Jethro, Moses’ Father in Law. Jethro, Moses’ wife, and two sons meet Moses and the Israelites at Mt. Sinai. Jethro advises Moses to establish a system of judges and courts. Moses takes his advice and Jethro departs. The people prepare themselves for the great and terrifying day on which God will speak to them, what we call The Revelation – the only time in human history that God’s words were heard simultaneously by a whole group of people. God speaks the Ten Commandments and subsequently the people become afraid, asking Moses to speak with God and let them know what God requires of them.
The Ten Commandments, which are: I am God, Do not worship idols, Do not take God’s name in vain, Remember the Sabbath, to make it holy, Honor your parents, Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not lie about a legal case, and Do not covet are clearly Divine. They are the only code of law that has never been amended, modernized, or superseded in all of human history. They are the minimum that God asks of us, they fit us humans perfectly, and they work: in that they are the recipe for a successful, happy, productive life. But why do they work and how do they work?
The sages of the Zohar used to say that it was by means of the Torah that the Holy One created the world (I 5a).It was said that, like an engineer, God had a kind of blueprint, the Torah, by which the world was created. But this can be inverted too: that as part of creation, part of God, the Torah reflects the fundamental structure of reality. The Torah’s moral laws, not just the Ten Commandments, but also such precepts as do not gossip, do not hate; love your fellow as yourself, are not only an accurate portrayal of realty, but that they are in fact embedded in reality, an integral part of the way our world is structured and made of the same stuff. They are inseparable from our reality and they are testable.
I like to think of myself as a Religious Naturalist: in the way Darwin was a naturalist – an observer of nature in order to form theories of cause and effect. I, too, am an observer of cause and effect, but my special interest is not natural law but moral law: the spiritual laws of nature. So if you want to test these 10 commandments, it’s easy. You can keep them and see how things go, or you can choose one and break it, and see how the dysfunction in life occurs. Now I’m not really suggesting that anyone break one of the Ten Commandments, but in looking back on our lives, most of us can see how things we’ve done in the past which have transgressed the Torah’s moral precepts have not worked out well. They created hardship or a breakdown in our lives; an interruption in the flow of blessings. This means that these commandments are not just laws of society but are truths: a part of Divinity itself – a part of God and nature: not matter, not energy, but an explanation of the interaction of matter and energy: a key to us, and life, and God. If this is so, then all the Torah’s moral laws have the power to unlock love and goodness in our lives. This is the essential Jewish spiritual path.
In this week’s portion it says: “You have seen what I did to Egypt and that I carried you on the wings of eagles and brought you to me. (Ex. 19:4)” The Ten Commandments are the bringing. God brought us to Mt. Sinai and set us down gently and lovingly, giving us actual Divinity to grapple with in the guise of the Ten Commandments. We bring ourselves to God by living in accordance with these life giving laws: life giving because being made of Divinity by our Creator, they actually create more life and goodness. The Zohar says: (II:83a-b) Then the Divine word descended from heaven, being on its way engraved upon the four winds of the universe; and then rose once more and again descended. When it rose up it drew from the mountains pure balsam and was watered with the heavenly dew, and when it reached this earth it encompassed the Israelites and brought them back their souls.
This mutual bringing: of us to God by God and of we ourselves approaching God is for the purpose of bringing unification of our souls with God and each other; and of bringing blessings not just to ourselves but to the entire world by exposing ultimate truth and allowing it to come into human understanding. Our task is to realize that we can bring ourselves to a holy place and be a bridge between earth and heaven. We are of the same stuff as the Torah and God. As the Chassidic sages said, “God, the Torah and Israel are all one.” Holiness is God’s gift to us through our being alive. The Torah is the blueprint for our growth into that holiness. May we recognize the holiness we have been blessed with, and may we bring ourselves forward to encounter our own Divine souls on our unique Jewish spiritual path.
The Ten Commandments, which are: I am God, Do not worship idols, Do not take God’s name in vain, Remember the Sabbath, to make it holy, Honor your parents, Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not lie about a legal case, and Do not covet are clearly Divine. They are the only code of law that has never been amended, modernized, or superseded in all of human history. They are the minimum that God asks of us, they fit us humans perfectly, and they work: in that they are the recipe for a successful, happy, productive life. But why do they work and how do they work?
The sages of the Zohar used to say that it was by means of the Torah that the Holy One created the world (I 5a).It was said that, like an engineer, God had a kind of blueprint, the Torah, by which the world was created. But this can be inverted too: that as part of creation, part of God, the Torah reflects the fundamental structure of reality. The Torah’s moral laws, not just the Ten Commandments, but also such precepts as do not gossip, do not hate; love your fellow as yourself, are not only an accurate portrayal of realty, but that they are in fact embedded in reality, an integral part of the way our world is structured and made of the same stuff. They are inseparable from our reality and they are testable.
I like to think of myself as a Religious Naturalist: in the way Darwin was a naturalist – an observer of nature in order to form theories of cause and effect. I, too, am an observer of cause and effect, but my special interest is not natural law but moral law: the spiritual laws of nature. So if you want to test these 10 commandments, it’s easy. You can keep them and see how things go, or you can choose one and break it, and see how the dysfunction in life occurs. Now I’m not really suggesting that anyone break one of the Ten Commandments, but in looking back on our lives, most of us can see how things we’ve done in the past which have transgressed the Torah’s moral precepts have not worked out well. They created hardship or a breakdown in our lives; an interruption in the flow of blessings. This means that these commandments are not just laws of society but are truths: a part of Divinity itself – a part of God and nature: not matter, not energy, but an explanation of the interaction of matter and energy: a key to us, and life, and God. If this is so, then all the Torah’s moral laws have the power to unlock love and goodness in our lives. This is the essential Jewish spiritual path.
In this week’s portion it says: “You have seen what I did to Egypt and that I carried you on the wings of eagles and brought you to me. (Ex. 19:4)” The Ten Commandments are the bringing. God brought us to Mt. Sinai and set us down gently and lovingly, giving us actual Divinity to grapple with in the guise of the Ten Commandments. We bring ourselves to God by living in accordance with these life giving laws: life giving because being made of Divinity by our Creator, they actually create more life and goodness. The Zohar says: (II:83a-b) Then the Divine word descended from heaven, being on its way engraved upon the four winds of the universe; and then rose once more and again descended. When it rose up it drew from the mountains pure balsam and was watered with the heavenly dew, and when it reached this earth it encompassed the Israelites and brought them back their souls.
This mutual bringing: of us to God by God and of we ourselves approaching God is for the purpose of bringing unification of our souls with God and each other; and of bringing blessings not just to ourselves but to the entire world by exposing ultimate truth and allowing it to come into human understanding. Our task is to realize that we can bring ourselves to a holy place and be a bridge between earth and heaven. We are of the same stuff as the Torah and God. As the Chassidic sages said, “God, the Torah and Israel are all one.” Holiness is God’s gift to us through our being alive. The Torah is the blueprint for our growth into that holiness. May we recognize the holiness we have been blessed with, and may we bring ourselves forward to encounter our own Divine souls on our unique Jewish spiritual path.
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