What Is Prophecy?

Parashas B'Ha'aloscha, Chumash BaMidbar

 

Prophecy conjures up images of a bent old man with wild white hair flying at all angles, ranting and raving over predictions of doom and gloom. Citizens walk by little moved by the spectacle. But that’s not prophecy. That’s Central Park.

Telling the future was actually a relatively minor side-effect of prophecy. Far from being a social misfit, the prophet was the picture of physical and psychological health. A state of simcha was a pre-requisite for receiving prophecy. Simcha is usually translated as happiness, but what simcha really means is a state of profound, meaningful connectedness to oneself and to G-d, resulting in a very awake, joyful personality.

Prophets were those who had so much refined their own patterns of thought, speech, and behavior that a deeper attunement to reality was almost inevitable. Prophecy took place when an awareness of the presence of God filled them so entirely that knowledge of the future would be left imprinted upon their consciousness like the wet sand left after a wave recedes back into the ocean. That clarity, spiritual and practical, about what must be done to best serve God in the moment and in the future, was what we call prophecy today.

Prophecy also wasn’t a rare phenomenon. During the times of Shmuel (Samuel) texts describe that two hundred prophets covered every hill. “Many prophets stood for Israel, numerous as the number of people who left Egypt. Except only the prophecy needed for generations was written down, and what was not needed for generations was not written.” (Talmud Megilla 14a)

The Rambam (Maimonides) explained that, “Just as in wisdom there are some wise men greater than their peers, so in prophecy are there prophets greater than other prophets.” (Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah 4:2) What made some instances of prophecy greater than others?

Our sages describe the different qualities of prophecy obtained by various prophets as window glass. What makes good window glass? The fact that it looks like it’s not there. A clear pane of window glass displays nothing but the vision to be seen through it. Clear prophecy displayed nothing of the personality of the prophet, but only the Presence that filled him.

The Torah testifies that “Never again has there arisen in Israel a prophet like Moshe (Moses), whom Hashem had known face to face…” (Devarim-Deuteronomy 34:10) The sages added, “All the prophets saw with aspaclaria that did not illuminate, Moshe Rabeinu saw with illuminated aspaclaria.” (Talmud Yevamos 49b). What this means is that Moshe had a clarity of perspective that did not exist in anyone before or after him for all time. While for all other prophets the clarity of the window glass was marred by the assertion of their own personalities, Moshe’s vision was like a window pane so clear that you could not tell at all that it was there.  How did he obtain this clarity?

Humility Unplugged

Parashas Beha’aloscha explains, “Now the man Moshe was exceedingly humble, more than any person on the face of the earth!” (Bamidbar-Numbers 12:3) Humility in Jewish consciousness, anava, is not thinking poorly of oneself. To the contrary, anava is the bone-deep knowledge that all your strength, beauty, and worth comes from Above. It is the visceral knowledge that you are great because God made you great. Moshe  knew with greater clarity than anyone else in history that God alone was the source of all things, including him. There was nothing to defend, nothing to prove. There was zero sense of conflict between him and his own Source.

What would change in our lives if we lived with anava? If we cleaned away our biases and tried to take in what other people had to say as though through clear glass window panes, we wouldn’t judge as quickly, we wouldn’t take things as personally, and we might actually hear what they are really telling us. Our relationships would grow deeper and more fulfilling. Instead of looking out for me-me-me, the confidence of true anava would free us to take care of others, to connect with them, and to experience the joy of loving relationships.

Imagine that attitude applied to connecting with God through the Torah. If we were truly open to what He has to say, what would we hear? It’s tantalizing.

Prophecy was that kind of connectedness multiplied a thousand-fold. Torah promises that reclaiming such clarity of being is our ultimate spiritual trajectory as the Jewish People: “And it will happen after this, that I will pour out My spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and daughters will prophesy, your elders will dream [prophetic] dreams, and your young men will see visions…” (Yoel-Joel 3:1) Want to be a prophet? Start training now.

Thanks to Camdiluv for the beautiful image.

Dancing

Parashas V’Zos HaBracha, Sefer Devarim

Visit Israel and you’ll see them dancing. Standing under a chuppa, they hold the precious scroll close as a mother holds a baby. Their eyes close with a soft smile, faces radiant. They shift their weight in quick, rhythmic succession, back and forth in a gentle, energetic freefall of limbs and music.

It’s more than a dance. It’s an embrace, the most profound of celebrations. A hachnasas sefer Torah, the celebration carrying a new Torah scroll to a synagogue, is probably happening somewhere in the world right now.

What do you call a Jew’s relationship with the Torah? One word: love.

Love stories can be complex, but one thing is certain. Love transcends the rational. Love may be a choice, and may be a verb, but once it has begun, love shoots roots into places where speech barely penetrates. That’s what you will see on their faces, the people holding the Torah scrolls and dancing at a hachnasas sefer Torah. You will see a pleasure that words can barely describe, a connection that transcends and yet somehow is also intrinsic to the foundation of all times and places. I always cry.

The Torah has been called the Jews’ portable homeland. Indeed, the world has swallowed us whole yet the buoy of Torah continues to bare us up despite their cruelest intentions. History sees nations come and nations go. The Jews continue to dance with their precious scrolls.

The Torah is completed in synagogues around the world on the annual holiday of Simchas Torah. As the fifty-four Torah portions that are read, one or two every Shabbos, come to a close with Parashas V’Zos HaBracha, the synagogue erupts in dancing. Because Jews don’t finish reading and learning and living the Torah. Jews celebrate another milestone, and yet another, year after year after year, because our generations continue and the Torah continues with us. We are entangled, meshed together in an inseparable web of soul and ink and parchment and meaning. We dance. We sing. We hold  the Torah scrolls close to our chests.

Simchas Torah is a holiday of profound joy, like every hachnasas sefer Torah, not because joy is a commandment, although it is, but because we are overjoyed to be commanded. The Torah is precious because it is His love letter to us. He spoke to us at Sinai and the conversation never ended. It never will:

“Many waters cannot extinguish the fire of this love, nor rivers wash it away.” (Shir HaShirim-Song of Songs 8:7) “Love is Torah.” (Talmud Sotah 21)

Based on Parasha U’Likcha by Rabbi Moshe Grylak

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

Thanks to Gary VanDenBerg for use of his magnificent photo.

My Yom Kippur Story

Parashas Nitzavim-VaYelech, Chumash Devarim

I was eighteen and everything felt close to the surface. That Yom Kippur, I had already gone through a month of seminary and was keyed up for one of the most spiritually powerful experiences of my life.

But I couldn’t do it. I ran out of shul, siddur clutched to my side. Flinging open the door at home, I rushed into my room, flung myself unto the bed, and burst out in tears.

“How could they go through that?,” I thought to myself in anguish. The congregation had just been reciting the stories of the ten martyrs. The text is not subtle. Flayed flesh, knives, bodies being ripped apart limb by limb…

I continued to cry as I was mentally bombarded with images of the Holocaust, Dr. Mengele mutilating Jewish men, women and children into twisted horrors. The ovens. I travelled back in time to the Inquisition, where the auto-da-fe claimed lives slowly. Victims would often have their skin covered in wet rags to prolong suffering as they were burned alive.

Centuries of individual and mass Jewish suffering came rushing into my head and my heart so fiercely I could barely breath. I gasped through tears as I considered how painful, terrifying, and downright unfair it all seemed. I turned to G-d angrily.

“You did this. They’re reading about it in shul right now. Why? Why?” The tears kept coming as I considered this.

I don’t know what changed in that moment, but the next thing I remember is staring up at the ceiling fan with an entirely new viewpoint. Suddenly, it wasn’t that it all made sense, but it meant something very different.

Tough Love

Yom Kippur isn’t a very American holiday. It’s all about taking the blame:

“You are righteous in all that has come upon us, for You have acted truthfully while we have caused wickedness.” (Vidui)  

Judaism doesn’t believe in a vindictive G-d. Likewise, Judaism also doesn’t believe in human helplessness. We believe that everything that happens to us is a direct consequence of our individual and national choices. Difficult choices lead to difficult consequences. God doesn’t destroy; He heals. “You are righteous in all that has come upon us…” It’s just that surgery sometimes hurts a little.

The prayers of Yom Kippur tell the truth: we are the ones who abandon the relationship, not Him. And it’s not like He didn’t warn us about the consequences:

“All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you, if you hearken to the voice of Hashem, your God… But it will be that if you do not hearken to the voice of Hashem, your God, to observe, to perform all His commandments and all His decrees…then all these curses will come upon you and overtake you…” (Devarim-Deuteronomy 28:1-15)

Walking away from God creates suffering in our lives. Yet a few lines later, Parashas Nitzavim opens a window:

“It will be that when all these things come upon you – the blessing and the curse that I have presented before you – then you will take it to your heart among all the nations where Hashem, you God, has dispersed you; and you will return to Hashem, your God…” (ibid 30:1-2)

Torah promises that ultimately, the suffering we create for ourselves will bring us back to God. No matter how hard we try to run away, the world will keep reminding us of who we are. We are Jewish. We are the chosen people. We are the people chosen to model God-consciousness to the entire world. We are meant for greatness.


Love Story

What I realized in that strange Yom Kippur moment was that, for all our rough patches, God has never given up on us. The stories of the ten martyrs were love stories. These men were willing to do anything, go as far as it takes for the One they loved. And never for one historical minute has He left us alone because He feels the same way.

As I lay on the bed chewing over this realization, I realized that I wasn’t angry anymore. To the contrary, if He hadn’t given up on me, I wouldn’t give up on myself either. No matter how many mistakes I made, He would never abandon me. He would be right there with a wake-up call to remind me of who I really am – and how great I can be. One way or another, I knew that He would help me to fulfill my potential.

That might be tough love, but it’s also real love. I got up and walked back to shul with humility and gratitude.

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

Thanks to Jeremy Price of ForestForTrees for use of his groovy photograph.

The Book of the Desert

Parashas BaMidbar, Sefer BaMidbar

 

The desert sands grow cold at night. I lie on my back looking up at the stars.

The sky splashes a wave of light, galaxies rippling above me in layers. Sands mirror the symphony of stars. Untold grains dance to form vivid undulations of hard rock face and soft sand bank. On one of these I find my perch, prone and level with the earth and sky around and above me. Who I am amongst all this? In the absence of distractions, the fundamental elements of nature, including my human nature, grow vivid and defined. A deep quiet enters my head, my breath, my body, and I seem to float between the great yawn of barren earth and the music of the galaxies.

This environment was the true melting pot of the Jews. New York in the 1920s screamed and echoed with anxieties and distractions, turning many away from the voice within. Egypt, with its wild-eyed gluttonousness and graceless cruelty, did the same. We lost ourselves in these places. The original melting pot, where the impurities of the gold of our hearts burned away, was the desert. There were no distractions there.

After receiving the Torah in fire and light at Mount Sinai, the Jewish People were still not ready to re-enter the fray of ancient society. Israel was the promised land, but the promised land at that time seeped with the sickly-sweet odors of incense and burning flesh: the scents of idol worship. From human sacrifice to institutionalized sexual abuse to petty crime and rampant violence, Canaan of the ancient world was not a pleasant place before the Jews inherited the land. The Children of Israel would have to face these harsh realities and cut them down – but not yet. They weren’t ready.

A period of forty years separated between the exodus from Egypt and the conquering of the land of Israel. These forty years were spent in the desert. It wasn’t a settled existence – constant travel and upheaval characterized Jewish life at that time, yet incredible miracles didn’t allowed this instability to become too much of a burden. Water flowed from rocks. The people were guided by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire at night. All common desert dangers and maladies were warded away by divine protection. Manna rained down from heaven, a source of nutrition so perfect that the human body produced no waste. It was a womb-like experience that allowed us to take a national deep breath and process who we had become and who we would choose to be.

Who are you today? Are you who you want to be? Are you whom you believe that you can be? The desert, in moments of quiet, in moments where stillness asks great questions in a voice of loud silence, allows us to become our potential by finding it within.

Sefer BaMidbar (Numbers) literally means “the book in the desert”. Thirty-two parashos (portions) in this volume of the Five Books of Moses map the way the Children of Israel journeyed from broken slave nation to empowered, unified people. We journeyed through the desert, a place of deep quiet, neither here nor there, blowing sands and the insoluble structures of earth and sky speaking volumes without words. Identity is forged when listening and thinking and breathing grow like seeds in the fertile soil of noiselessness.

Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Visit the desert, where sand and sky roll on forever, and who you can become is masked by nothing. 

Inspired by Parasha U’ Pishra by Rabbi Moshe Grylak

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

Thanks to Anthony Citrano for use of his beautiful photograph.