What Is Kabbala?

BaMidbar, BaMidbar

Based on Parasha U’Pishra by Rabbi Moshe Grylak

Blond, blue-eyed, and all of six years old, Davy ran into the kitchen breathless and flushed. “Mommy, mommy! You won’t believe what Rachel just brought home from school! Come quickly!”
 

Davy’s mother dried her hands on a dish towel and followed her youngest son out into the living room. Rachel sat on the couch cradling something carefully between her two hands. Davy and their mother peered over Rachel’s shoulder to see a small egg.

“Mom, can we keep it? I want the baby bird to hatch and then we can set it free,” said Rachel.

“Sure,” replied their mother. Davy was thrilled.

From that day on, Davy’s favorite activity was checking on the egg to see whether it had hatched. “Give it time,” his mother warned.

But one day Davy felt like he just couldn’t wait. Rushing to Rachel’s room where the egg lay nestled in a softly lined shoe-box, Davy gently poked a small hole in the delicate shell. Seeing that nothing had happened, Davy poked another hole, and another. When Davy finally caught sight of his beloved baby bird, he realized that something had gone terribly wrong.

“Mommy, mommy! Something’s wrong with the birdy! It came out of its egg but it isn’t moving!”

Davy’s mother walked into Rachel’s room to find the tiny baby bird lying still. It was dead. How could she explain to Davy that his eagerness had killed the very thing he had been yearning for?

Those Who Know Don’t Tell and Those Who Tell Don’t Know

Yearning is a double-edged sword. It is the irreplaceable gasoline fueling us to pursue our dreams and aspirations. It can also push us too far, too fast, into situations where the very thing we yearned for is spoiled by our prematurity.

A common example of this today is the popularity of so-called kabala. Some spell it qabbala, some call it Jewish mysticism, but no matter what they call it they are all missing the point. Because those who know don’t say and those who say don’t know.

Real kabbala is the deepest inner secrets of the Torah. Just as you can rip away dry wall to see the plumbing and electrical wiring running a home, so too this part of Torah reveals the mechanisms and structures that makeup the bone marrow of all of creation.

Longing to come close to G-d can translate as a longing to know His secrets. Kabala is certainly His secrets, but if you don’t know  the secret code you will not understand it. Just as word pain in English means “uncomfortable sensation” and in French means “bread”, so too the very words will mean something entirely different in your language. Worse still, the concepts being conveyed will have no meaning to you at all. It will be like someone trying to describe the color blue to a blind person.

Until we have studied and integrated the entire Torah, we remain blind. We simply do not have the sensitivities and perceptual abilities to “see” what kabala describes.

But the problem with trying grab a hold of something beyond our grasp in every sense of the word is that we delude ourselves. We read words on a page and think we understand what they are talking about. We listen to a lecture or meditate on the Tetragrammaton and think we have gained a new way of being. A few days later we go home and lose our temper at our kids. Again.

We are like David’s little bird, stillborn. Where there was an opening, a place where truth may have lodged deep in our hearts, there is now a cancerous lie. We have filled the opening, the yearning place where we longed to drink of cool, true waters, with misconceptions that lead us to painful consequences. That dog won’t hunt. Lies and misconceptions serve us poorly.

Don’t answer a question unless the question is real and the answer is real, warns the Torah. Like the metaphor of David’s mother, Torah cautions us that everything must come in the right time.

Sacred and Dangerous

Parashas BaMidbar depicts this vividly. Although the Jewish people traveled through the desert in a formation that provided every tribe with their own space and status, everything centered around the tribe of Levi, bearers and guardians of the Mishkan (tabernacle) :

“The Children of Israel shall encamp, every man at his camp and every man at his banner, according to their legions. The Levites shall encamp around the Mishkan…” (BaMidbar-Numbers 1:52-53)

As for the Levites themselves, the honor of their position was great, but so was the danger. Their mission placed them closer to the holy vessels of the Mishkan than anyone else. When the Jewish nation was stationary, the Levites’ job was to assemble the parts of the Mishkan together for use. When the Jews traveled, their job was to carry them.

They were privileged to carry even the very aron itself, the ark of the covenant. The aron, unspeakably beautiful, bore the original tablets of the Torah and others of the most sacred, powerful objects in the universe. It was the meeting point between heaven and earth, the physical location where Moshe (Moses) and Aharon (Aaron) heard that voice of the Almighty speak.

Carved golden angels spread their wings on the top of the aron, coming close or distancing from each other to divinely indicate the temperature of the relationship between the Jewish People and their Creator on a moment-to-moment basis.

What would you have given to see such an object? But no one could gaze at the aron and live unless very specifically appointed to the task. The Levites were warned:

“Thus shall you do for them so that they shall live and not die when they approach the kodesh hakodashim (holy of holies)… They shall not come and look as the holy is inserted, lest they die.” (ibid 4:19-20)

Rashi explains that this verse commanded the vessels of the Mishkan to be wrapped in cloth before and during travel lest the Levites take a fatal peek.

Laws of Spiritual Nature

Just as there are physical laws of nature, so there are spiritual laws of nature. Gravity is neither vengeful nor forgiving. It is what it is.

Looking at the aron caused death. Period. Attempting to study kabala out of the context of a genuinely ripened Torah personality causes spiritual stillbirth. It isn’t personal, it’s just a fact. A reaction as simple as the exposure of a fetus to air before it has grown lungs.

Besides, Torah is rich and satisfying every step of the way. We don’t need to warp ourselves with the heroine of false spirituality when a lasting, genuine high is so accessible. We can ride our yearning like a stallion, making sure that it takes us where we really want to go.

 

Thanks to photographer Seba Chuffer for the beautiful image.

Why Do I Have to Keep Rabbinical Decrees?

Achrey Mos-Kedoshim, VaYikra

“Sure, I want to keep the Torah. I just don’t want to keep all that stuff the rabbis added on to it. Why do I have to do all that stuff anyway?”

This is a sensitive subject because people aren’t usually asking this question out of open-minded curiosity. They’re usually asking this question with an agenda to get out of as much religious obligation as possible. Even the words sound oppressive: religious obligation. Let’s try that in caps: Religious Obligation. Oooh, I can hardly breath. RELIGIOUS OBLIGATION. Whew, I’m sweating, can somebody open a window in here?!

It’s a personal question because it’s a personal issue. As personal as it gets. No healthy human being wants to feel restricted. (Dare I say especially Jews?) Healthy men, women, and even children want to feel able to exercise their independence and to be respected for it. Revolutions the world over tear apart monarchies designed to undermine this basic human need. “I am a human being, not an animal. You can’t cage me!”

To say that the commandments of the Torah, including the rabbinical decrees, don’t undermine but rather encourage the development of liberated, healthy, fully independent adults would be true – but it wouldn’t be enough. You wouldn’t believe me. You wouldn’t believe me because this isn’t a simple matter of two people debating down an issue to a fine point of clarity and mutual agreement. You and I live in different realities. There is a fundamental difference in how we each see our worlds.

This article will invite you into my world, but I only want you to come if you come willingly. It is not the Torah way to manipulate anybody. Consider this a test-drive. If you feel good with it, we’ll take down the convertible top, go for another spin, and shake our hair out laughing.

Have You Ever Been in Love?

Are you in love? Have you ever been in love? Some say love is a cage, but others could tell you what happily married folks around the world know. Love is liberating. Love can motivate and support you to achieve accomplishments that otherwise would not be within your reach. Love wakes you up and vaults you over the barriers keeping you from your own potential.

Best of all, love is its own reward. Fall in love, and the world feels rosy. Can’t keep that cheeky smile off your face. You walk down the street and notice all the butterflies. The only reason love is scary is because the person you love might hurt you, but let’s say that you were in love with someone truly kind and trustworthy, someone who loved you back unconditionally. Who wouldn’t want to be in love?

Sign me up! When you’re in love, it isn’t a burden to meet the needs of your beloved. It’s a joy. Not only that, but you want to go above and beyond in showing your caring and sensitivity. It’s not just that you like to bring her a cup of hot chocolate when she’s sitting and reading quietly in the evening. It’s that you happily grab the keys and drive over to the supermarket once a week to make sure that you don’t run out of cocoa powder. It’s not a burden, it’s a pleasure. That’s love.

How do I say this without sounding trite? The truth is, you buy it or you don’t. To some of my readers, the statement I am about to make will sound trite, but that doesn’t take away from the big smile on my face when I wake up every morning: living a Torah life is living in love.

I don’t keep Torah commandments because of some antiquated, superstitious religious obligation! I believe in a God who loves me unconditionally. That means that every event that takes place in my life, no matter how joyous or painful, is entirely for my good. It doesn’t matter what I do – the love stays unconditional. That pretty much takes care of superstition. I don’t keep the Torah to “earn divine favour” or some other perverted form of paranoid spiritual manipulation. I already have divine favour just because I’m me and God loves me. Period. The same applies to you.

So why do it? I keep the Torah because I am in love. Believe it or not, I am deeply in love and that is why I find no commandment, Jewish law, or rabbinical decree anything like an oppressive “religious obligation”. I know God gave the Torah. (How I know that is a different discussion. An important discussion, but a different one.) Because I know that God gave the Torah, I don’t find it burdensome.

Again, some will find the next statement trite, but I get to live with it: He gives me flowers every spring (and every week for Shabbos), and a sunset every evening. He gives me the beauty of the ocean, and the majesty of the woods. He gives me my smile, and the smiles of all the people I love. He gives me meaning when things look bleak, and hope when despair would threaten to engulf me. He gives me growth out of pain, a miraculous alchemy, and lifts my simple pleasures from just that – simple pleasures – to profound expressions of a deep, precious relationship. I don’t find it difficult, annoying, hard, or tiresome to fulfil His wishes.

For one thing, I know that He only commands me as He does because it’s good for me. He has no needs or selfish interests, only love for me, so there goes my great self-sacrifice. But secondly, and perhaps more importantly, His commandments are a gift. They are an opportunity to, excuse the anthropomorphism, to make Him smile. And that is worth everything. How could I not want to do that? He is so good to me, all I want to do is express my love and gratitude in return.

From Religion to Relationship

Okay. Ride over. Hand over the keys. Like it? I told you that it was a little bit of a different world-view than the norm.

Most people think Judaism is a religious, but it’s not. It is a relationship. Rabbinical decrees are called fences – they protect what is precious. Keeping mitzvos (commandments) is precious, and in order to make sure that I don’t stumble, the rabbis very considerately established practices to ensure that the bottom line is never overstepped. For example, I don’t light Shabbat candles at sunset. I light them at least twenty minutes beforehand. Is that more difficult? No. It’s my way of saying, “I love You. What is important to You is important to me.” (It’s also a way of making sure that I don’t get carried away in the pre-Shabbos rush and miss the deadline!)

Now we can get into the discussion of whether love is ever difficult. Anyone happily married would agree that the answer is an unequivocal yes. But it’s a different kind of difficult. It’s difficult in the context of love. It’s a difficulty that you want in your life. It’s not something that you want to get out of, or get rid of; it’s an essential part of your identity. Gotta love the hot chocolate.

Gotta love the Torah – including every last one of those rabbinical decrees.

You Can't See Me

BaMidbar, BaMidbar

One of the strangest moments I ever experienced was when a rabbi standing in front of a Torah class turned to us, a group of some thirty women, and said, “You can’t see me.”

I was taken aback. In front of me stood a tie, a suit, a gesturing hand, even bold blue eyes, but the being who was animating all those physical things was not visible to my eyes. Even if the person standing in front of me donned different clothing – a different tie, skis instead of a suit, a different hand, even a different face – he would still be him.

Today you can have heart replacement surgery. They take out your heart and give you a new one. They can even replace parts of the brain.

If they took away everything you have – your money, your house, your clothing, even your body – would you still be you? This is question that the mitzvah of tznius forces us to confront.

I once read a quote that said, “The most valuable things in the world are not things.” Like you. You aren’t just pair of hands and a bladder. You have inner content. You are a thinking person and an emotive person. You have meaningful relationships with ideas, with other people, with G-d, and with yourself. You can have self-respect because you often make good choices and learn from your mistakes.

Being tznius means that you are aware of all this and allow it to fill you up. When your feeling of worth comes from genuine self-knowledge and self-respect, you don’t need to grab attention by dressing provocatively, behaving provocatively, or flashing money.

Tznius is usually translated as modesty, but it does not mean modesty in the typical sense. Tznius means internality. The tzanuah person draws attention to her inner content by de-emphasizing those factors that might distract people from who she really is. Ever heard the expression, “My eyes are up here?” Instead of drawing attention to your body, tznius draws attention to the fact that you are more than a body.

Flashy externals can distract others from who you really are. However, once another person gets to know you for who you really are, then your beautiful externals can become meaningful expressions of the relationship instead of distractions.  

An example of this takes place in Parashas BaMidbar. “When the camp is to journey, Aharon (Aaron) and his sons shall come and take down the partition-curtain and cover the ark of testimony with it.” (Bamidbar-Numbers 4:5) The vessels of the Mishkan (Tabernacle)  were gorgeous. Gold and silver, silks and leathers, incredible hand-made dyes, amazing carvings and exquisite weaves. But these beautiful things were not flashed and displayed for all the world to see.

The beauty of the Mishkan wasn’t used to gain the admiration of other nations. In fact, it was hidden from other nations.

When the Jewish People set up camp and settled down, the Mishkan was set up with them. Only then was the beauty of the Mishkan displayed. The purpose of the beauty of the Mishkan was to express the relationship that the Jewish People had with G-d, but the relationship itself didn’t depend on physical, external pleasures or beauties. He wasn’t our “trophy husband”.

We had committed to Him unconditionally, regardless of whether He showered us with a Mishkan of silver and gold. We didn’t marry Him for His money. We knew Him for who He is, the essence that the eyes can’t see.

Tznius is the foundation for that kind of relationship, and that’s the kind of deep, loving relationship that every human being deserves.

Written originally for www.ArachimUSA.org

Thanks to Claudio for the fantastic picture!

Creative Mastery

Parashas VaYakhel, Chumash Shemos

The concept of a first cause is common sense, but just in case you’re in the fossil record camp, let’s take a look at some of the scientifically compelling evidence for an original, intentional, creative intelligence.

In 2012, the crux of the debate seems to center around the issue of consciousness. Sure, a whole bunch of inert matter banged itself into existence, we can all agree on that, but that isn’t even the biggest monkey wrench in the atheist’s anxiety closet.

Don’t get me wrong – the statistical probability of our universe achieving the conditions to support sentient life in the first place is so slim that there has not been enough time in the scientifically known span of existence to allow for all the correct random details to fall into place by themselves. Billions and billions of years? Nope, not enough. Small technical problem.

But even if you leave aside the fact that the entirety of the known universe appears to have been, in the words of the scientific community, fine-tuned for life – and it’s a lot to leave aside, but whatever, suit yourself – nonetheless, the rise of consciousness itself is even more of a conundrum. It’s the atheists’ Rubik’s Cube. It’s their Immovable Rock. (Ehem, cough-cough, Richard Dawkins, APOLOGETICS, cough.)

The truth is, “He didn’t fall, Jim. He was pushed.” How did inert matter organize itself into sentience? As of 2012, there is no known answer to that question. Except the ones that begin to sound suspiciously theological.

“It’s Alive!”

For all its mystery, consciousness remains the most unique, beautiful – dare I say, creative – creation of them all. Sure, all the scientists in the world can’t jazz their brains up enough to find a way to pop even a lump of rock out of nothing at all, but far more impressive than a lump of rock was, say, Mozart or Tolkien or Rabbi Cohen. (Which Rabbi Cohen? Take your pick. They’re all more impressive than a lump of rock, I assure you, by virtue of the simple fact that they are human.)

G-d asserts creative mastery over His universe by bringing it into existence moment by ineffable moment, a fact that even the physical sciences have impressed upon us of late due to the persistent and growing voice of quantum physics, despite all Newtonian evidence to the contrary. Particles of a scale beyond ken arise out of nothingness at a rate more similar to ideas than to physical matter, these being the fundamental building blocks of our everything – milkshakes and nerve endings and comets and walrus tusks!

And still, as awe-inspiring as it is, as inconceivably amazing as it is, all this assertion of G-d’s mastery pales in the face of His ongoing creation of human intelligence. Look: G-d gave lumps of rock (okay, not rock precisely, more like protons, neutrons and electrons) the ability to up and assert their own creative mastery. What could be more mind blowing than that? The ability to reflect and assert creative mastery over one’s reality, in a word, human consciousness – this is a gift. Not even the most dedicated and brilliant of scientists can explain it without asserting a purposeful, masterful intelligence.

Purposeful, masterful intelligence? We call that G-d. What best proves G-d in 2012? That G-d created creativity.

And once a week He asks us to keep Him in mind.

Creative Bloodstream

The thirty-nine general categories of forbidden behaviors on Shabbos are based on the thirty-nine general categories of creative work it took to construct the Mishkan. The various labors that comprise farming and landscaping, the culinary arts, textile development, the visual and literary arts, urban development, business: in Jewish consciousness, these and the other thirty-nine melachos are thought to be the basis of how humans assert our creative mastery over our world. The Almighty gives us the ability to imitate Him on something like His own terms.

We revel and thrive in this unique capacity but it can also lead us to be a little too big for our britches. When we forget that our strength stems from an Infinite Source of strength, our wisdom from an Infinite Source of wisdom, our creativity from an Infinite Source of creativity, we cripple ourselves. We block our access to our own Source. Why is Shabbos is called mekor habracha, the source of blessing? It’s not just a flowery metaphor. Refraining from creative mastery once a week does not limit us, it reconnects us with the Source of creativity.

In making time to connect with the Almighty, we replenish our capacity to do everything that matters. We revive our capacity to be human instead of machine. We tap the bloodstream of our creativity and all our other strengths. Shabbos is a twenty-six hour island in time that allows us to let go of anything holding us back.

After all, tap into G-d and you’ve tapped into everything. Plug into His Torah and you’re back in the captain’s chair – the controls are all laid out before you, all the secrets of the universe at your command.

The Presence

Shabbos is often thought of as a day of rest due to a mistranslation of the word menucha. On the seventh day, G-d had menucha. Does that mean that the Almighty grabbed an easy chair and whipped up a Pina Colada? Give me a break. An accurate translation of menucha is less akin to couch-potato and more akin to letting go.

On Shabbos we let go. We let go of our worries and troubles. We let go of our illusory and grasping sense of control. We let go of fear. (Nobody will die if you stop checking your e-mail for one day.) We let go of our busywork and let in our family. We let go of what we do and let in who we are. We let go and let G-d.

What comes in when you let go? A Presence. Call the Presence the Shabbos Queen. Call the Presence the Shechina. Call the Presence the Source, the Force. Call the Presence the First Cause, a Creative Intelligence, Oraysa. Call the Presence what you will, He is there. He is not an “it” (or a “he” in the sense of gender, but that is a different story). The point is that He is so alive that He is the very source of life.

And what happens when consciousness taps into its Source? What sparks fly? What creativity is apt to occur? What amazing possibilities are brought to into being? That’s between you and Him, an intimacy called Shabbos that is at the center of all time and space. Big bang? Boom.

Originally written for http://www.arachimusa.org/.

Much thanks to Brentbat for use of his rather glorious photo.

How to Become a Prophet

Parashas Tetzaveh, Chumash Shemos

Parashas Tetzaveh introduces the Urim and Tumim. To even begin to describe what these words refer to, we almost have to excuse ourselves from the English language. Watch this:

The Urim and Tumim were the oracle associated with the choshen mishpat (breastplate of judgment) of the kohen gadol (High Priest).

The Urim and Tumim could only be consulted by a king, the Sanhedrin, or a public official in the interest of the entire community. This oracle was in use until the destruction of the First Temple (421 BCE).

When the Urim and Tumim would be consulted, the High Priest would have to wear all eight vestments. Both he and the questioner would face the ark. The questioner would then make his inquiry in such a low voice, that no one else but he would hear it.

The High Priest would then meditate on the stones of the breastplate until he reached a level of Divine Inspiration. He would then see the breastplate with inspired vision. The letters containing the answer would appear to stand out. With his Divine Inspiration, the High Priest would then be able to combine the letters to spell out the answer.

Only one question at a time could be asked of the Urim and Tumim. If more than one question were asked, only the first would be answered.

The Urim and Tumim were necessary even while there were prophets. While a prophet cannot receive a message at will, the Urim and Tumim could be used at any time. Moreover, while an evil decree foretold by a prophet could be changed, the message of the Urim and Tumim was irrevocable.

(Excerpted from The Handbook of Jewish Thought by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, Maznaim Publishing)

The Urim and Tumim were only one of the ten miracles that would take place regularly during the various activities and services of the beis hamikdash. Prophets and prophetesses abounded. And although all of the above may be very interesting, it sure doesn’t sound like real life. Oracle? Meditate? Divine Inspiration? Help!

In English these things sound incomprehensible, but the Torah wasn’t written in English, phonetically or culturally.  Comprehending the Torah’s supernatural phenomena doesn’t require a suspension of reason or a leap of faith. It just requires a bit of definition.

Up Close and Personal

Like a lot of other words in the English language, the word “prophet” is rather murkily defined. Isn’t a prophet some deranged fellow with a bird’s nest of hair, ranting and raving about upcoming dooms day?

No, that’s Jerusalem Syndrome, a clinically documented form of psychosis making a small percentage of visitors to Jerusalem abruptly begin to tie white bed sheets into togas, shout biblical verses in public, and earnestly believe that they are the messiah. Not kidding. Just visit the Old City and you’ll see. Or the Knesset.

But prophecy in Torah Judaism doesn’t look anything like Jerusalem Syndrome.

Judaism is really a very pragmatic religion. As far as religions go, we don’t really buy into spirituality in any typical way. Ever seen religious Jews studying Talmud? We aren’t interested in being indoctrinated. When the Torah says “prophecy”, it doesn’t mean “superstitious feel-good mystical experience.” When it says “Urim and Tumim”, it doesn’t mean “ancient ritual good-luck charm”.

To appreciate the Torah definition of prophecy, you have to appreciate the Torah perception of reality. We are not, as in some other paradigms, living in a physical universe run by some impersonal heavenly bureaucracy. And let me make this perfectly upfront: we are not living The Secret either. I’m not G-d and neither are you.

Rather, Torah explains that the Almighty is the infinite source of all reality. One of the names Jews assign to the Infinite is HaMakom which literally means The Place. To paraphrase that title, the Almighty is the Context that you and I live within. Another name, HaRachaman, The Compassionate One, is related to the word rechem, womb. He holds us within Him.

Just as a mother is greater than her fetus can know, so the Almighty is infinitely greater than we can comprehend. Yet, nonetheless, we live finite lives in the context of an infinite Creator. It isn’t such an easy idea to wrap your head around.

The thing is, what with all our being limited, physically-bound human beings as opposed to His incomprehensible infinitude, there is one aspect of our being that is a direct expression of His essence. That aspect of every human being, called a nefesh or neshama, is actually as infinite as He is. The word neshama is etymologically related to the word neshima, breath. As the Torah describes, the Infinite figuratively blew from the innermost of His being a breath of life into an inert clod of earth and called the new creature Adam.

Of course, that was where things began to get interesting.

Breaking the Rules

If you find yourself feeling a little confused at this stage, that’s a good sign. It means you’re following. The concepts of G-d’s transcendence and G-d’s immanence really are paradoxical to the human mind. It feels like they can’t live in the same logical universe until you start realizing that G-d doesn’t play by anybody’s rules.

I mean, ask the Jews. We haven’t played by anybody’s rules for millennia. We’re called a stiff-necked people. We’re known for our chutzpa. Throughout the course of history, we have known that rules are meant to be broken. Limits are meant to be transcended. And by keeping the right rules, you end up breaking much better ones. Like the so-called laws of nature.

You see, there’s a slim volume on most Torah observant Jews’ bookshelves called the Mesilas Yesharim. It looks like nothing more than a Jewish ethical treatise about how to become a really, really nice guy, but those who have read it know that the final chapter describes how to receive prophecy and revive the dead. This is no accident. It isn’t like Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto decided to add a little mystical addendum at the end of his Jewish ethics guide as a pick-me-up bonus section.

Rather, the Jewish perception of reality is that when you work on ethics, becoming a really, really nice guy, you begin to transcend human nature. You begin to make miracles within yourself. (Ever tried to hold back when you were genuinely furious at someone? Animals can’t do that.) When you learn how to transcend your own nature, the Almighty opens up the door for you to transcend all of nature.

Prophecy takes place when a Jewish man or woman has refined himself or herself to such an extent that G-d’s presence within and around him or her becomes completely revealed. As the Mesilas Yesharim explains, “It begins with effort and ends with a gift”. When a person has undertaken the greatest extent of effort that he or she can undertake to fulfill G-d’s will and come close to Him, He makes His presence overwhelmingly clear. Sometimes that clarity transcended time and prophets would have a glimpse of the future. Other times, prophets would have crystal clarity about the present, helping people to find lost objects, make important decisions, or resolve relationship issues.

At the height of the period of prophecy, the same period when the first beis hamikdash was standing, Jewish history recounts literally thousands of prophets and prophetesses throughout the land of Israel. It wasn’t uncommon. It was exquisite. As generations sunk to lower spiritual levels, prophecy became more and more difficult to obtain until it slipped away from the world entirely. Malachi, the last prophet, lived during the early days of the second beis hamikdash, around 313 BCE.

The Urim and Tumim introduced in Parashas Tetzaveh were just one part of a bigger picture. Let’s put it this way: supernatural phenomena happen in Context. Put all the pieces together and you end up with a picture that looks a lot like Aharon HaKohen, the first High Priest.

Aharon’s Personal Freedom

Aharon (Aaron) was divinely appointed as the first kohen gadol  in the Jewish People because his character was the ideal template for all future priests to serve in the beis hamikdash.

The Torah commanded that, “Aharon shall bear the names of the sons of Israel on the choshen mishpat on his heart…” (Shmos-Exodus 28:29) As mentioned earlier, the choshen mishpat was the breastplate bearing the mystical Urim and Tumim. One of the meanings of this commandment was that to serve as a true kohen gadol, Aharon needed to carry Israel in his heart with genuine caring, a caring uninterrupted by jealousy, selfishness, materialism, or any of the other garden-variety limitations we find ourselves bound by.

We have so many role models of personal freedom in the Torah because freedom comes in so many flavors. Aharon was free of anything that kept him from caring about other people. He had removed the barriers keeping him from fully tapping into his neshama. He epitomized the mandate to “love peace and pursue peace”. No limits. The “rules” had all been broken.

Aharon transcended his own human nature. When he made himself supernatural, the Almighty opened the door to the supernatural for him. It wasn’t such a stretch for the miracles of the beis hamikdash to play out for Aharon because Aharon was already living miraculously. The Urim and Tumim were as authentic an expression of G-d’s will as Aharon was…and as we can become.

So, ever wanted to become a prophet? Connect with G-d? Experience miracles? There may seem to be a very wide spectrum between changing your nature to watching nature change, but it’s the same essential mechanism. If you really want to comprehend the supernatural events the Torah describes, you’ll just have to experience them for yourself. Our ancestors have been doing it for about four thousand years.

Originally published by http://www.arachimusa.org/

Thanks so much to badjonni for use of his rad picture, lassoing the stars.

Does God Bribe Us?

Parashas BaChukosai, Sefer VaYikra

Reward and punishment are funny ideas when you try to apply them to God. You see, reward and punishment are ways of manipulating people to do what you want. Think lab rats. If they go to the right, they get zapped. If they go to the left, tasty rat kibble. Do we think of God in such immature terms?

Torah defines the concept of God as the omnipotent, omniscient, loving Source of everything. By “everything”, Torah really does mean everything. Anything you can think of, God made it. Some people like to play a cute little game called “Who Made God?” but they always lose. The Judaic definition of God means that God created the idea of creation. So much for that.

Anyway, it’s very strange to apply the idea of reward and punishment to such a Being. Why would God manipulate anybody? His creation of you, me, and the entirety of the universe we live in took place free of charge – He needs nothing. He created “need”.

As such, although we have no ability to grasp who or what He is, the closest we can come to recognizing Him is as a giver. He gave us life, flowers, the nuclear strong force, kiwis and sunsets with no strings attached. It would be impossible to have any strings attached for G-d. Again, He doesn’t need anything.

So why does He offer us reward in return for keeping His commandments?

Is This Love?

The question gets even stranger when you consider the Jewish value system. Sechar and onesh are some of the central tenets of the Judaic perception of reality. A quick flip through the Chumash (Pentateuch) and Nevi’im (Prophets) displays the concept on almost every page. Yet the western definitions of reward and punishment – manipulative bribery and retaliation – are not particularly congruent with Judaic values.

Rather, Judaism explains that we were created in order to develop and enjoy the most extraordinary relationship humanly possible, a relationship with God Himself. That is what Torah is for.

This relationship encompasses and includes all our other relationships, all our possessions, and indeed every element of our lives. Grab a minute to look up from the computer screen and take in your surroundings with those eyes. It’s a thrill, isn’t it?

Because an amazing relationship is never fifty-fifty. An amazing relationship is 100-100. In an amazing relationship, both partners give their one hundred percent to care for, honor, support, and delight their beloved. Anything less isn’t love; it’s business. If you wanted business, you would go to a job placement agency, not stand under a chuppa.

Cutting a deal – “I’ll scratch your back if you’ll scratch mine” – leaves us jaded. The truth about relationships is that we are not deeply fulfilled by taking. We are deeply fulfilled by giving. We want to love another so much that every time we see him or her it feels like the sun rising inside our chests. We want to feel inspired and virtuous and present. Having our love reciprocated in kind is only an affirmation of how fulfilling it feels to be a giver, a connector.

Yet picture this: A friend of yours sits down on the couch with you and says, “Do you care about me? Because I need you to do something for our relationship, but I only want you to do it out of real caring. Otherwise, it isn’t really real.”

You love your friend, so you say yes, of course you’ll do whatever he needs of you. But then he adds a strange rejoinder, “And by the way, I’ll pay you fifty thousand dollars. But don’t do it for the money…”

Strange, right? Even stranger:

“Be not like servants who serve their master for the sake of receiving a reward; instead be like servants who serve their master not for the sake of receiving a reward. And let the awe of heaven be upon you.” (Pirkei Avos 1:3)

In light of the Jewish value system of giving and connection, why does God offer us a reward for what ought to be done out of unconditional love?

Telling It Like It Is

So far we have seen that God is not trying to manipulate us for His own needs because He doesn’t have needs. We have also seen that the Jewish value system does not support doing mitzvos out of a desire to selfishly accrue stars on some sort of childish heavenly sticker chart. In short, He isn’t trying to manipulate us and He wouldn’t want us to serve Him out of manipulation anyway.

We are left with an odd but inevitable conclusion: God promises us reward just because He wants to give. Imagine that! He likes you! He’s looking for any excuse to bring you a dozen roses.

But on a deeper level, the concept of reward for mitzvos is an existential truth. As we perform His will, we become more and more capable of receiving His love. It just so happens that receiving His love feels very, very good. Were you to experience all the pleasures this world has to offer throughout the entirety of space and time, all compacted into one severely exquisite moment, you would probably feel so electrified that you would lose consciousness – but it still wouldn’t come close to the pleasure of what it will feel like to directly experience intimacy with God in Olam HaBa (the World to Come).

He promises to reward us because that is the truth. He’s just telling it like it is: “A God of faith without iniquity, righteous and fair is He.” (Devarim-Deuteronomy 32:4)

Making Great Even Greater

The benefits of mitzvos in both this world and the next are unbelievable. In this world, consequences for doing the right thing usually mean that you will receive further resources to do more and better of the right thing. For example, give tzedaka – get more money. Use your body properly – enjoy good health. The Torah repeats predictions like this again and again:

“It will be that if you hearken to My commandments that I command you today, to love Hashem, your God, and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, then I shall provide rain for your land in its proper time...that you may gather in your grain, your wine, and your oil…and you will eat and you will be satisfied.” (ibid 11:13-15)

“If you will follow My decrees and observe My commandments and perform them; then I will provide your rains in their time, and the land will give its produce and the tree of the field will give its fruit… You will eat your bread to satiety and you will dwell securely in the land. I will provide peace in the land, and you will lie down with none to frighten you…” (VaYikra-Leviticus 26:3-6)

Of course, this-worldly consequences are not cut and dry because this world is for growth, not reward. This world is not the last stop on the train. This world is called the prozdor, the corridor, leading to the traklin, the palace. We are just passing through, and whatever needs to happen in this world to help us best develop our potentials for enjoyment of the next world is what will take place.

But in the next world? You think it’s your pleasure? Believe me, it’s His pleasure. And all He wants to do, no strings attached, is to share it with you. It really is beautiful.

Using the Carrot

The big concern about the heavenly reward issue is that it could be a distraction from the altruism we are supposed to be growing in to. Promises of infinitely more than fifty thousand dollars could make a person feel a little selfish, a little taavadig, yes?

Herein lies one of the juiciest secrets of Torah. We are meant to be in this world, but not of it. We are meant to elevate material reality, yet not be dragged down by it. We are meant to involve ourselves in various physical pursuits in order to serve God with them, yet not become enslaved by them. We are meant to be the rider, not the horse.

God’s dual promise and challenge of pleasurable reward shows us that we can. We can use our selfish interests as motivation but not purpose. We can get in on God’s game and use promises of reward as a carrot to dangle in front of our bodies’ noses, leading ourselves to do what is good and right, all the while knowing that our true purpose is not selfish pleasure, but the selfless pleasure of altruistic, unconditional giving, connection, and love.

God is nothing if not clever. As much as He promises us reward because He wants to give, and because receiving reward for mitzvos is an existential truth, He also promises us reward in order to bait us to make good choices despite ourselves. But the objective is not to stay baited. The real opportunity in the heavenly-reward conundrum is to join Him in baiting ourselves. To cross over to the other side of the line and be like God.

Mitzvos L’Shma

Pirkei Avos promises that doing mitzvos lo l’shma, for selfish motivations, leads to doing them l’shma, for their own sake. In other words, the Torah endorses bribing yourself to do the right thing.

Yet our sages explain that this promise only works when one is doing mitzvos lo l’shma in order to reach l’shma. One may use superficial, selfish motivations – money, candy, promises of infinite heavenly pleasure – but only in order to eventually come to a place where one does not need those impetuses.

Your heart has to be in the right place. The objective must be to eventually become motivated by love of God alone. What is it that you really want, the candy or the connection with God? If what you really want is the candy, don’t bother. You’re not fooling anyone. But if what you really want is the connection with God, and you’re just using the candy as a crutch, go ahead and use the candy to motivate your mitzvos. You’re only human and growth takes a lifetime. As long as it is growth that you are aiming for.

We can do it. We can dive into our relationships with our loved ones, especially HaKadosh Baruch Hu, with one hundred percent commitment. We can do mitzvos not selfishly, in order to get reward, but with genuine love, just because we want to make Him happy.

Even if we need to use a carrot to lead ourselves on sometimes, we can keep the true yearnings of our hearts focused on Avinu Shebashamayim (our Father in heaven). We can become tzadikim and it can feel great.

Written for www.ArachimUSA.org

Special Attention

Parashas Behar, Sefer VaYikra

What your life would be like if you knew, really knew, that you were being taken care of? Torah teaches a radical spiritual principle that flies in the face of everything our five senses take for granted: nothing happens automatically, and nothing happens by accident. Throw a rock at a window and see it shatter. Think the pressure of the rock smashed the glass?

Think again. Torah explains that God didn’t just create the world over 5,000 years ago. He re-creates the world every moment of existence. Visualize throwing the rock in slow motion. You lift your hand, slowly open your fist, wrist sliding forward…

The picture speeds up as the rock whisks through the air headed straight for the window and then – freeze-frame! The rock stops short one millisecond before touching the glass.

Take a look at the picture in your mind. The rock is hanging in midair. Take a walk around it. Look at it. The glass, vulnerable and empty, shimmers a fraction of an inch away. What will happen?

Everything you have ever experienced leads you to believe that the rock will hit the glass and that in all likelihood the glass will shatter. But Torah peels open the moment like a fresh fruit and squeezes out the secrets inside: God created time, God created matter, and God created everything else. He does whatever He wants! If He wants the rock to hit the glass, it will. If He doesn’t want it to, it won’t, no matter how strange that seems.

Now press play again for the movie in your mind. SMASH! The glass shatters, the rock flies through the window, but you realize that nothing is ever as it seems.

The Reason Behind All Reasons

God is compelled by nothing. He is the reason behind all reasons. “Why” doesn’t apply to Him – He created “why”. The purpose of human existence is for every one of us to become like God. This world is a 3-D playscape designed to allow us the ultimate rush: independent self-actualization. A spark of Godliness within allows us the miraculous ability to exercise genuine free choice in the face of moral issues. Nothing compels us to actualize the heroic and beautiful potentials we have waiting inside of us like so many golden eggs. Nothing forces our hands. We create our own destinies.

It is an opportunity only God could give, and He doesn’t like to ruin it for us. That’s why miracles are scarce. Sure, they happen when we really need them, but He doesn’t like to show His hand very often. He hides behind the veil of “nature” (His creation) in order to make free choice just challenging enough. Amazing modern discoveries in cosmology, neuroscience, and quantum physics notwithstanding.

What we perceive as reality is all just a game, but He provides us with some rules to make playing it a little easier. Call it “the Divine cheat-sheet”. The commandments of the Torah show us how to exercise our spiritual muscles in such a way that eventually, with enough practice, we can break through the illusion. One of those exercises is called Shemitah.

Letting Go of “Nature”

Shemitah asks us to suspend our soporous obsession with nature just long enough to feel our way around it. At first glance, it appears daunting:

“For six years you may sow your field and for six years you may prune your vineyard; and you may gather in its crop. But the seventh year shall be a complete rest for the land, a Sabbath for Hashem; your field you shall not sow and your vineyard you shall not prune…it shall be a year of rest for the land.” (VaYikra-Leviticus 25:3-5)

Nervous? God is ten steps ahead of you:

“If you will say: What will we eat in the seventh year? – behold! We will not sow and not gather in our crops! I will ordain My blessing for you in the sixth year and it will yield a crop sufficient for the three-year period.”

And just to make sure that you don’t miss the point, He adds:

“You will sow in the eighth year, but you will eat from the old crop; until the ninth year, until the arrival of its crop, you will eat the old.” (ibid 19-22)

When farmers and vintners in Israel followed the laws of Shemitah, they knew beyond a doubt what Torah had promised all along: nature is not “natural”. Nature is just of much an expression of His personal attention to us as miracles are. What we call nature is just a series of miracles taking place over and over again.

Another hint on the “cheat-sheet” is that it’s a good idea to live in Israel. One of the many benefits of living in Israel is, whether during Shemitah or not, in Israel it is always easier to see God’s Hand in your life. Rain doesn’t pour out of the sky on a predictable basis like in the Brazilian Amazon or in Mobile, Alabama. You have to pray for it:

“For the Land to which you come, to possess it – it is not like the land of Egypt that you left, where you would plant your seed and water it on foot like a vegetable garden. But the Land to which you cross over it is a land of mountains and valleys; from the rain of heaven it drinks water; a Land that Hashem, your God, seeks out; the eyes of Hashem, your God, are always upon it…” (Devarim-Deuteronomy 11:10-12)

Authentic Relationship

Which leads into another important detail. Did you think having an on-going, meaningful relationship with God was easy? C’mon, easy is for wimps. Real love, and real happiness, take time and effort.

Having an on-going, meaningful relationship with anyone is challenging, and God is no exception. The trick is that living in Israel provides a context for your spiritual efforts. You have to pray for rain because water is scarce. You have to pray for money because employment is scarce. You have to pray for a cool breeze because air conditioning is scarce.

Living in Israel isn’t easy, but just like any great relationship, it’s exciting and joyful. Rain isn’t just rain – it’s bracha, blessing, pouring out of the sky on to your windows in living color. The bus pulls up at just the right moment and you step on knowing that, against all odds, you will make it to work on time. Your two-year-old falls down and everyone on the street rushes over to make sure that she didn’t scrape her knee. Nobody walks on by. Manhattan is far, far away from Jerusalem. Israel is a place of warmth, caring – and special attention.

But even outside of Israel, God’s attention to you at every moment is there to be seen. You just might have to open your eyes and your heart a little more. Stretch… Is it worth it? It’s worth everything.

Imagine the world moving around you like a dance choreographed just for you. The people you meet, the cars whizzing by, even the leaves drifting slowly from the trees… It’s you, Him, and the rest of your life. What are you waiting for?

Written for http://www.arachimusa.org/

Rules of the Game

Parashas Emor, Sefer VaYikra

To play basketball, you need to know the rules. Otherwise, what you’re playing won’t be basketball, it will be make-believe.

The same applies to Judaism. Jewish law is derived from the written  verses of the Torah, but you can’t just derive anything you want. There are rules about how verses may be interpreted, and any interpretation that doesn’t fit within those rules is not Judaism, it’s make-believe. 

The rules of the game of Judaism are called the Oral Torah. Without the Oral Torah, there would be no way of knowing exactly what the Almighty meant to be telling us in His book.

Any of the verses in the Written Torah could serve as an example. Let’s look at these:

“But (ach) on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you gather in the crop of the land, you shall celebrate Hashem’s festival for a seven-day period... You shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of a citron tree, the branches of date palms, twigs of a plaited tree, and brook willows, and you shall rejoice before Hashem, your God, for a seven-day period... You shall dwell in booths for a seven-day period; every native in Israel shall dwell in booths” (VaYikra-Leviticus 23:39-42).

These verses describe the commandments forming the holiday of Sukkos. If we tried to celebrate the holiday based on a superficial reading of the verses, we wouldn’t know where to begin or what to do. Booths? Take fruit? What does that mean? The bare-bone verses need some fleshing out in order to apply them to our lives.

Hidden Treasures

How long is the rule-book of the NBA?

In Judaism, there are 613 rules that you need to follow in order to derive the practices and lifestyle choices that the Almighty wanted us to learn from His verses. These rules allow us to examine the etymological source of each word, the grammatical relationship between the words vis-a-vis each other, sentence structure, and many other telling details that hoard treasures of meaning if we just take the trouble to look.

The Talmud, also called the Gemara, teaches these rules in a debate format. This format allows students to analyze the competing premises of various perspectives on the same issue, leading to a broad and thorough appreciation of both the issue at hand and the intellectual game rules that apply to it.

But let’s get more detailed in our example. The first of the verses says, “But (ach) on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you gather in the crop of the land, you shall celebrate Hashem’s festival for a seven-day period” (ibid).

Some of the words in this verse have already been defined. Many other verses in the Torah use the word “celebrate” to mean “bring korbanos (offerings)”. In biblical times, Jews celebrated the holidays by taking a family vacation to Jerusalem in order to bring korbanos in the Beis HaMikdash (temple). That’s not new.

What we don’t know from previous verses is whether we are supposed to bring these particular offerings even on Shabbos. A superficial reading of the verse leaves us confused about how to handle this eventuality. Shabbos? Sukkos offerings? A Jew living in Israel at that time needed to know what to do.

Game On

The Gemara steps in to resolve our problem: “The academy of Hillel declare: May a person celebrate [by bringing an offering] on Shabbos? It teaches to say: ‘ach’ on the holiday you celebrate, and you do not celebrate on Shabbos” (Sifra on VaYikra).

The Ayelet HaShachar, Rabbi Meir Leibush Weiser’s classic corpus of Hebrew grammar rules, explains, “The word ach limits [the statement of] the sentence in which it appears.” Rabbi Weiser, better known by the acronym of his Hebrew initials, the Malbim, was a Torah leader in the eighteen hundreds whose authority regarding Hebrew grammar rules is universally acknowledged to this day. His observations and teachings make consistent sense through the entire corpus of Torah texts, illuminating concepts and fine points that might otherwise have been obscured or less clear.

His explanation of this Gemara is a perfect example. By applying the grammar rule as the Malbim explained, the sages of Hillel’s academy informed us that Jewish law prohibits bringing holiday offerings on Shabbos. Their decision wasn’t dictatorial. The law was right there in the words of the verse. Hillel’s academy simply told us where to find it: in the word “ach”.

Now whenever we encounter the word ach, we will know that it was placed there to limit the application of the verse it appears in. A quick review of the literature will prove that this rule applies to every verse using the word ach in the entire written Torah.

Without the rules of the game, we wouldn’t know how to play. We would have the ball in our hands, but we wouldn’t know how to score with it. We would have the Written Torah in our hands, but we wouldn’t know how to practically apply what it says.

Bringing Torah to Life

The Oral Torah teaches us the rules of the game, how to apply them, and how to actualize the Almighty’s beautiful vision for every situation in our lives. The Oral Torah brings the Written Torah to life.

Importantly, the rules described in the Oral Torah are nothing but logical imperatives flowing from the linguistic structure of the words themselves. The etymological, grammatical relationship between words, sentences, and sections is not given to flights of fancy. Rather, anyone who masters an accurate understanding of Hebrew etymology and grammar is free to gain his own footing and join the dialogue of Jewish scholars spanning generations.

Conversely, any effort to interpret a verse with even a single word unjustified by these rules sends the entire structure of Torah philosophy and law spinning into no-man’s-land. The secret of the Torah’s brilliance is in its interconnectedness – every rule of the game works together to form a whole picture.

With a puzzle, if one piece is missing, you might still be able to enjoy the rest of the picture, but Torah is more like a bowl of marbles. If you move one marble, all the rest must adjust to settle around it. It’s not that just one part of the picture changes; the whole picture changes. The integrity of every part is crucial for the integrity of all parts, and the integrity of the whole.

And as the secrets of the Written Torah are unlocked by the Oral Torah, oh, what an amazing whole it is. Crack the code – let Torah study unlock the secrets you were born to know. Getting to know the Torah from the inside out will astound you. Pick up a Gemara, find a teacher, and get in the game.

Based on Parasha U’Pishra by Rabbi Moshe Grylak

Written for http://www.arachimusa.org/