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Dream Not of Today

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Yes, I know you’re exhausted. I also know about irresponsible roommates, colicky babies, infants with croup, calming kids with school anxiety, waiting up for teenagers at night, and sleeping with arthritis—and that’s only one thin slice of the gamut of life’s sleep disorders. What I’m trying to do here is present at least an ideal towards which, on those occasions that permit some degree of control, you can at least strive.

Study some Torah. Even if it’s late, just immerse yourself in some words of Torah, so that you will sleep with those thoughts. Maimonides writes that a person gains most of their wisdom from Torah studied at night. Fill your mind with it, so that it will process in your dreams. Often, solutions to Torah that you study at this time will come to you in your dreams.

A neat trick is to finish by marking the place from where you’ll start learning the next day. That primes your mind for productive learning in the morning.

Relax, maybe have a hot shower, or go for a walk so you will sleep well and wake up refreshed.

Review the day in your mind. Think of something that went well. Think of something that could be fixed or improved. Think of all the wonderful blessings you have in your life—friends, parents, children—all the things that have real value. Don’t beat yourself—this is not an exercise in self-blaming and guilt. The point is to get a clear perspective of yourself and your day, where you are coming from and where you are going to.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Nighttime Activities”
from the series A Multimedia Guide to Jewish Prayer
Chabad.org

This is a direct continuation of yesterday’s “morning meditation” An Introduction to a Prayer. I mentioned that Rabbi Freeman believes the best way to start the day is to prepare yourself the night before. As such, the last thing a religious Jews does before he or she retires to bed is to recite the Bedtime Shema. Rabbi Freeman deconstructs and presents all of the elements of this blessing in his article on Bedtime Countdown, so not only do you have the text of this set of prayers but their purpose and meaning from a Chasidic perspective.

I’ve been told that many of the mitzvot in Judaism aren’t forbidden to the Gentile as long as the Gentile does not perform them in the manner of the Jew. This not only has to do with the specific “mechanics” of performing a mitzvah such as prayer, but also not considering oneself as obligated to performing the mitzvah as is the Jewish person. However, given the number of times Jesus and his disciples refer to prayer in their teachings, I hardly think it is forbidden, in general, for a Christian to pray. What is in question is how or if a Christian should perform anything that resembles the Bedtime Shema.

To answer the question for myself, I perform a truncated version of this blessing at bedtime:

A song of ascents. Praiseworthy is each person who fears HASHEM, who walks in His paths. When you eat the labor of your hands, you are praiseworthy, and it is well with you. Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine in the inner chambers of your home; your children shall be like olive shoots surrounding your table. Behold! For so is blessed the man who fears HASHEM. May HASHEM bless you from Zion, and may you gaze upon the goodness of Jerusalem, all the days of your life. And may you see children born to children, peace upon Israel.

Tremble and sin not. Reflect in your hearts while on your beds, and be utterly silent. Selah.

Master of the universe. Who reigned
before any form was created,
At the time when His will brought all into being —
then as “King” was His Name proclaimed.
After all has ceased to be,
He, the Awesome One, will reign alone.
It is He Who was, He Who is,
and He Who shall remain, in splendor.
He is One — there is no second
to compare to Him, to declare as His equal.
Without beginning, without conclusion —
His is the power and dominion.
He is my God, my living Redeemer,
Rock of my pain in time of distress.
He is my banner, a refuge for me,
the portion in my cup on the day I call.
Into His hand I shall entrust my spirit
when I go to sleep — and I shall awaken!
With my spirit shall my body remain.
HASHEM is with me, I shall not fear.

I do not believe it is forbidden for the Gentile to desire God to be with us during our nightly rest and to watch over us and, if your last thoughts before entering “the realms of Morpheus” are of God, perhaps your first thoughts upon awaking will be of Him as well (and I’ll cover those “first thoughts” in a subsequent “meditation”).

Like my comments in yesterday’s meditation, I wonder just how practical some of Rabbi Freeman’s suggestions are for late night activities. I know the sages would study Torah late into the evening and even all night, but much after 9 p.m., my head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton candy and rusty Brillo pads. Nothing really complicated “computes” very much, and if I try to read, I find myself in that situation where I read a few sentences and immediately forget what I’ve read, or I try to read the same few sentences over and over again. If I’m not feeling sleepy before reading, “cozying up” in my bed becomes my primary desire after about five minutes of pouring over the printed page, regardless of what I’m reading.

Sorry, I’m not a “night owl.”

I suppose that’s one of the reasons I say a short version of the Bedtime Shema, besides avoiding any appearances of trying to pray like a Jewish person. A few minutes of prayer is all I have brain power for before my mind starts wandering down random paths.

I can’t deny that Rabbi Freeman’s principles are sound, and I suppose if I had a lifetime of habit and training in this sort of prayer life behind me as a foundation, it would be second nature by now, but as the Master said, “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:41) As I recall, he was chiding his closest disciples and friends over falling sleep during prayer as well.

I must admit to being kind of glad the Rabbinic rulings don’t apply to non-Jews if, for no other reason, than the following:

The Talmud (Berachot 13b.) is adamant about not sleeping on your back or on your stomach, but only on your side. Maimonides, who was not only a great codifier and philosopher but also one of the great doctors in history, suggests that you get in the habit of sleeping the first part of the night on your left, and end off on your right.

I tend to fall asleep on my right side but also on my stomach. Once asleep, people move around in bed hundreds of times during the night, so how could I possibly have control of my position? This is certainly an area of Jewish thought that completely eludes me. I also wonder about this:

Best insurance for sweet dreams: read tales of tzaddikim in bed until you fall asleep.

Either the Jewish sages weren’t married or they didn’t sleep with their wives. Can you imagine reading late into the night when your wife is trying to sleep right beside you?

“Moshe! Turn out the light. Can’t you see I’m trying to sleep here?”

On the other hand, how many times have you gone to bed in defeat or disgust because some problem or argument could not be resolved and laid to rest before the end of the day? I have far too many nights just like that. What Rabbi Freeman suggests would be far better, it only it were possible.

Be confident that you’ve put this day behind you, cleared up any misdemeanors between you and G-d, and made peace in your heart with other people. Get ready to turn in a wonderful report of all of G-d’s kindnesses and wonders.

I know Rabbi Freeman’s teachings are generally optimistic and encouraging (otherwise, why would we read them), which includes this brief commentary, taken from the lessons of the Rebbe, Rabbi M. M. Schneerson, called Maturity of the Soul:

The ultimate elevation of the soul is to find it has purpose. To discover that it is not here simply to be, but to accomplish, to heal, to make better. In that moment of discovery, the soul graduates from being G-d’s little child to become His representative.

However, I’m not going to let Rabbi Freeman have the last word this time. Someone commented in response to his wee missive with something just as (or more) profound:

Perhaps our purpose is to “to be” G-d’s little child. It may be that we need to go through a life where we feel we need to accomplish, to heal and to make better, only to find ourselves coming full circle into simply “being” G-d’s child. Perhaps the journey of “finding” our purpose is needed to make this discovery …

“click your heels 3 times … you’ve always had the power … you just didn’t believe it”.

Walking in faith, sometimes you can stand up and actually take a step or two and sometimes you fall flat on your butt. Compared to actually walking with God in faith and trust, being a toddler learning how to take his first steps is child’s play.

Meditation, forgiveness, regret, and supernal compassion. Do night blessings always result in a blessed life? What will happen when I wake up tomorrow?

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An Introduction to a Prayer

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Skill testing question:

Which of these two will be better able to focus on tefillah, and thereby have a great day:

Activity

Goldstein

Goldberg
Retiring to bed Falls asleep watching a rerun of Brain Dead while washing down pizza with cola on the couch. Mentally reviews the day, says the Shema Yisrael, falls asleep in bed reading Baal Shem Tov stories.
Waking up Rudely awakened by e-mail alert. Checks more e-mail and stock report before falling back asleep. Repeats until resigning himself to getting off the couch. Wakes up by circadian rhythm. Says Modeh Ani as approaching consciousness. Smiles when recalling Baal Shem Tov dreams.
Washing up Jumps off the couch in frenzied panic. Grabs mug, car keys and cellphone charger. Runs frantically to the car. Gently slides out of bed to greet the sunrise. Washes, takes care of bodily necessities and gets dressed. Washes hands and says morning blessings.
Breakfast Stumbles into Starbucks on the way to shul to grab a hyper-caffeinated brew. Gets into a yelling match with the attendant over the bill / change / brew / temperature / politics / whatever. Sips a hot drink while engaged in a half-hour Tanya class with the rabbi.
Meditation Listens to news and traffic report on car radio while sipping coffee, texting clients and hurling imprecations at fellow drivers. Sits quietly, pondering the morning lesson. Visualizes the continuous act of creation unfolding about us.
Prayers Takes care of some business decisions by cellphone while the minyan “warms up.” Jumps in late but catches up in no time. Sticks around to chat, then runs out in yet another mad rush. Phone is on buzz. Starts with the minyan, saying each word out loud. Ignores the buzzes.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
from the article “Prepare for Takeoff”
as part of the A Multimedia Guide to Jewish Prayer
Chabad.org

I have to admit that my first thought upon reading this comparison was, “Does Goldberg have a job?” My next question was, “Is Goldberg married?” Frankly, the way he starts his day seems absolutely wonderful and it goes along with the “mission statement” for my own blog:

When you awake in the morning, learn something to inspire you and mediate upon it, then plunge forward full of light with which to illuminate the darkness.

But as pleasant and ideal as those thoughts happen to be, they aren’t always compatible with my lifestyle.

No, I’m not all that much like Goldstein. I don’t fall asleep watching TV, but by the time I’m ready for bed, my mind feels numb and it’s difficult to make it through even a truncated version of the Bedtime Shema. I hate alarm clocks, but I don’t have the luxury of waking up by circadian rhythm either, since I have a schedule to keep, usually even on the weekends. I do recite the Modeh Ani when I’m ready to get out of bed, but it’s short and easy to memorize (at least in English). I don’t think I’ve ever dreamed about the Baal Shem Tov.

I do get out of bed and take care of “bodily necessities” but usually grab my first cup of coffee and read the funnies online as my initial entry into the day. Then, I’ll either eat breakfast in front of the computer or head for the gym to sweat for 45 minutes or so.

I hardly have the time for a half-hour Tanya class, even if I had access to such a resource, nor do I have the time to “sit quietly, pondering the morning lesson” and visualizing “the continuous act of creation unfolding about us.” It goes without saying that I don’t pray with a minyan.

I’m only sort of like Goldstein though, in that I’m not usually in such a hurry to get out of the house. I have my routine pretty well down, so I’m able to leave most mornings right on time at 7 a.m. I don’t stop for overpriced Starbucks swill, but I do listen to the radio, primarily for oldies rock and the traffic report. I’m not always happy with the other drivers I encounter on the morning commute.

And it looks like even Goldstein is able to pray with a minyan, although in his typical “rushed” fashion.

I know what Rabbi Freeman is saying and a lot of it is aimmed at Jews who live a religious Jewish lifestyle. There’s no reason why some of this couldn’t be adapted to a Christian morning routine, except I’d have to wake up at 3 a.m. instead of “by circadian rhythm” in order to have to time to meditate and pray in the measured and orderly fashion the Rabbi describes, and still have time for the gym and breakfast.

He’s right, though. If it were possible, the “Goldberg” style of going to bed and waking up is better for the body, the mind, and the spirit. If a person could establish and maintain such an evening and morning rhythm, they would be more likely to experience a sense of peace with themselves and with God.

But then, it would be much easier to accomplish if you lived alone and didn’t share the world with other people and other priorites. If you lived in a world that was ordered in complete consistency with such a spiritual lifestyle, it might work out. But for most of us, and particularly me, my world is not at all consistent with such a lifestyle, more’s the pity.

In the Mishna Berua Yomi Digest “Stories to Share” section for Shulchan Aruch Siman 447 Seif 8, the commentary “A Difficult Situation” describes such a person who is “out of sync” religiously with her husband, and much more than her peace of mind is at stake.

A woman who was a recent baalas teshuvah was approaching her first Pesach. Her husband absolutely refused to consider avoiding chometz, and she was at a loss as to how to proceed. Should she insist that she cannot live without him agreeing to no chometz in their home on Pesach, he was likely to divorce her, leaving her alone. She could try to convince him to let her leave for the holiday but was afraid he would refuse. She wondered if there was a halachic way to permit her to stay at home even if her husband had chometz there.

When she asked this question to her rabbi, he was baffled. “I have to admit that this is out of my league. I will take it to someone qualified to respond and see what he says…”

When this question reached Rav Yosef Shalom Eliyashiv, shlit”a, he ruled that there was a halachic way for the woman to live at home even though her husband kept chometz—which he ate—in their house. “The best thing is if she can stay away from home on Pesach. But if this is impossible she can make a neder not to eat chometz. There is a precedent that even when we don’t believe that someone will avoid a prohibition for whatever reason, we are certain he or she will not forget if it is also prohibited for another reason like a vow. If she makes a neder, she can stay in their home if there is no choice.”

A woman who has committed to a greater religious lifestyle than her husband faced the horrible choice of keeping her commitment to Judaism and to God and losing her husband or preserving her marriage and forsaking God. In an interesting way, her story is not unlike that of another woman who is trying to make a similar commitment.

I am Jewish. It is how I identify myself. My father is Jewish. My mother is Christian.

My Judaism is a beautiful challenge; one I happily accept.

But the faith of my forefathers, of my peers, and of my family often frustrates me on a level that I cannot capture in words. Judaism cuts to the essence of who I am and challenges my identity. Judaism brings me a lot of joy; it also brings me pain…

In a letter to Ovadiah, Maimonides writes, “There is no difference whatever between you [the convert] and us… do not consider your origin as inferior.”

Maimonides’ words are a small part of a larger Jewish tradition that teaches to love the convert as oneself. Yet, the convert is also often reminded of his or her non-Jewish heritage. For example, he/she cannot make the declaration during the Bikkurim ceremony that “G-d swore to our forefathers, and to us” [Mishnah Bikkurim1:4].

I recently stopped dating someone, not because we were incompatible as people, but because he is a Kohen and I am a convert. If my origin is not supposed to be considered inferior, and if I am supposed to be loved as oneself, how am I supposed to feel when I am told that I cannot marry a Kohen because as a convert I am considered promiscuous? I grew up in a world surrounded by Jewish people. I am no more likely to have slept with a non-Jewish man than many of my fully Jewish counterparts.

-by “Ruth”
“A convert in a strange land”
Sunday, March 18, 2012/Adar 24, 5772
The Times of Israel

All I’m trying to do is “uncomplicate” my life and to find a sense of peace within myself and within my relationship with God. What complicates my plan is not only the struggles inside of myself but the world around me, starting with my immediate household and the practicalities of relationships, schedules, and priorities. I am religiously incompatible with my wife and daughter, but it’s not nearly as extreme as we see in the examples I quoted above. Both of those Jewish women find themselves at odds with either their spouse or with Judaism as a faith and as a people. They are both alike in their desire to “be more Jewish” and to have a closer relationship with the God of Israel.

In that very last part, I’m like them, too. But like them, I’m also facing the realities of the world and the people around me. The world will not become perfect this side of the Messiah, nor can I wait for that event to occur before attempting to climb the first rung of the ladder and lift myself from the bottom of the abyss.

According to Rabbi Freeman, the secret to being awake to God is how you fall asleep and even how you dream. I’m still sitting at the bottom of my dusty but not uncomfortable well. I’m still contemplating the first rung to the ladder God has set before me. But maybe this too is just a dream, and I am perpetually waiting to wake up.

It will be Monday morning when you read this and the rush of the beginning of the work week will have already begun. How did I sleep last night? What did I dream? When I woke up, where was my spirit, and where is God?

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Walking in the Shadow of God

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Our sages tell us that one who mourns the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash will see its comfort. The Maharal, zt”l, was asked why this should be so. “What difference does it make if one mourns the destruction or not? If one is present in the ultimate future isn’t it obvious that he will experience the nechamah?”

The Maharal explained the need to mourn to attain the nechamah. “Before something comes to a new level, it first must decompose. In the creation of the world, God first made tohu va’vohu; only then could the world come into being. When a seed is planted in the ground, it decomposes. Only then can a tree sprout. The same is true with the gestation of a man or an animal. The seed must decompose before the embryo begins to grow. The same is true regarding an egg, as we find in Temurah 31. First the egg must decompose; then it can become a chick. The reason for this phenomenon is that there must be a lack for more perfection to fill. If there is nothing missing, it is impossible to come to a new level. Similarly, one who does not mourn the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash feels complete. He has no space for the nechamah, since he never experienced the lack in the first place!”

The Shem MiShmuel, zt”l, learns a practical lesson from this same statement. “One who wishes to start again and that his earlier sins should not be considered should make himself like dirt. He must completely nullify all of his senses and desires to God. In this way, he will become a completely new creation. The proof to this is from the case of a ger. Although a ger comes from a distant spiritual place, he is like a newborn baby by making just such a new start. He immerses in a mikveh to symbolize this, and if he is male he does a bris. Why should a Jew who makes a new start be any less?”

Daf Yomi Digest
Stories Off the Daf
“The Destruction before the Renewal”
Termurah 31

Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands – remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. –Ephesians 2:11-13 (ESV)

Maybe the story off the Daf and Paul’s message to the Ephesians aren’t telling the exact same story, but they seem to be related, at least to me. We have two groups, Jews who have been distant from God and who need to “make themselves like dirt” in order to “become a completely new creation”, and Gentiles who were once far off from God but who have been brought near “by the blood of Christ.” The Shem MiShmuel even invokes the imagery of the convert to Judaism, a Gentile who goes down into the mikvah a goy and who rises out of the water “like a newborn baby…making a new start.”

That’s not much different than what I was describing in my previous meditation. As a new creation, we stumble and fall a lot, trying to get used to the new person we are trying to become. Sometimes we fall back and have to relearn skills and sometimes we are trying to advance spiritually and come to a point where we feel like infants again, rather than mature in the faith. Amazingly, having once felt secure in our relationship with God, we might find that we are no longer sure who we are in Him and how we are to serve Him.

I know that description fits me pretty well these days.

Despite the fact that human beings have free will and angels do not, we can still learn a great deal from their behavior. Like the angels, it’s important to acknowledge that there is more than one way to serve God. Whether you are an introvert or extrovert, teacher or rabbi, businessman or stay-at-home mom, there is a place for all of us among the Jewish people. For example, each one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel carried out different tasks. Some engaged in commerce or working the fields, others in religious study, and yet others in military or temple service – and all were essential to the survival of the nation as a whole. Quite frankly, we’re not all supposed to be doing the same kind of work or serving God the exact same way.

The Chofetz Chaim was once approached by a successful businessman who decided to scale down his business so that he could dedicate himself to Torah study. The Chofetz Chaim explained why his decision was wrong by way of a parable. During wartime, if a soldier unilaterally decides to leave his current post to fight in a different capacity, he will be court-martialed. A soldier must obey orders and man the position to which he was assigned. The Chofetz Chaim went on to say that this businessman’s responsibility was to support Jewish institutions and the poor. If he decided to go through with ending his business success, he would be jeopardizing the position God gave him within the Jewish community.

We have to give fellow Jews the space to become the individuals God intended them to be. Otherwise, we will be contributing to unnecessary tension and divisiveness.

-Asher
“Living Like the Angels”
Lev Echad

Blog writer Asher is addressing a primarily Jewish audience and is encouraging them to try not to “turn everyone into replicas” of each other. As much as Judaism is a unique kahal, like Christianity or any other faith or people group, it is made up of individuals, each with a unique purpose in life and over time, that purpose can even change. Asher continues:

Remember, those differences ultimately constitute the entirety of our people. Our strength can be found via our uniqueness as individuals.

Assuming I can apply all that to me, what does it mean for my life as a Christian? Who am I and who does God intend me to be? One thing is for certain…I don’t seem to be like any other Christian I’ve ever met. On the other hand, I have things in common with everyone else in the church.

Yet in some sense, because I claim the name “Christian,” I, like all other believers, have a lot to make up for in how we have treated the Jewish people.

For the one whom You smote they persecuted and they tell about the pain of Your mortally wounded. Add iniquity to their iniquity, and let them not have access to Your righteousness. May they be erased from the Book of Life, and let them not be inscribed with the righteous. –Psalm 69:27-29 (Stone Edition Tanakh)

While David isn’t writing about Christians as such, he is writing about those who have persecuted Israel, and the church has done this in abundance. Only through making ourselves (myself) like dirt and in sincere repentance, can we have any hope, through Christ, of being written in the Book of Life with the righteous.

I bet, as a Christian, you never thought that part of professing your faith and repenting of your sins would be repenting of Christian mistreatment of the Jewish people. If you want to learn more about this, I encourage you to read a post written by my friend Gene Shlomovich called A story of one Christian’s after-death regret about Israel and Judaism. A sobering and mystic tale of just how much we need to turn our hearts.

For God shall save Zion and build the cities of Judah, and they shall settle there and possess it. The offspring of His servants shall inherit it, and those who love His Name shall dwell in it. –Psalm 69:36-37 (Stone Edition Tanakh)

Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written,
“The Deliverer will come from Zion,
he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”;
“and this will be my covenant with them
when I take away their sins.” –Romans 11:25-27 (ESV)

The prophesies regarding Israel are clear but what if we who, even calling ourselves Christian, have disdained God’s chosen and holy ones? Can it be that without repentance of our sins against Israel, we will ultimately be rejected by her King?

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ –Matthew 7:21-23 (ESV)

I’m probably stretching the interpretation of this verse out of its context, but it does illustrate that many of those who feel secure in their salvation have already been lost, even as they call themselves “Christian.” If this is their fate, then what of mine?

O God, You know my folly, and my guilty acts are not hidden from You. Let those who wait for You not be shamed through me, O Lord Hashem/Elohim, Master of Legions; let those who seek You not be humiliated through me, O God of Israel. –Psalm 69:6-7 (Stone Edition Tanakh)

Let not my mistakes, my errors, my sins, prevent another from turning to God through Jesus Christ, or to taint the name and reputation of the Messiah. For I know that…

The peoples will acknowledge You, O God; the peoples will acknowledge You – all of them. Regimes will be glad and sing for joy, because You will judge the peoples fairly and guide with fairness the regimes of the earth, Selah. –Psalm 67:4-5 (Stone Edition Tanakh)

But in verse 8 of that Psalm, when David says, “May God bless us, and may all the ends of the earth fear Him,” will only Israel be blessed, or will “the peoples;” the nations of the earth, including we non-Jewish Christians, have a blessing too?

Do not cast me off in time of old age; when my strength fails, forsake me not. –Psalm 71:9 (Stone Edition Tanakh)

Our hope is in Jesus Christ but we must never forget that part of that hope is attached to Israel, and Jesus is her first born son and King. He would never betray his own and would never tolerate those who do. In Romans 11, Paul was very clear about how we “grafted in” branches can be easily detached from the root should be become arrogant and self-serving, and should we consider ourselves superior to the natural branches, who after all, have only been removed temporarily.

I’ve been trying to write about my own condition, but I keep coming back to the church; her flaws, her scars, and her needs. I keep wanting to write “I” but I continue to stray into writing “we”. I wonder if God is trying to tell me something. As much as I feel detached from wider Christianity, I cannot divorce it entirely, for the body of Gentile disciples in the Messiah is part of who I am. Yet, I am also this.

Yochanan answered and said to him, “Rabbi, we saw a man driving out demons in your name, but he does not follow us, so we stopped him, on account of the fact that he did not follow us.”

Yeshua said, “Do not stop him, because no one who does an act of power in my name can quickly speak evil of me. For whoever is not for our foes is for us. For all who let you drink a cup of water in my name, because you belong to the Mashiach, amen, I say to you, he will not lose his reward.” –Mark (Markos) 9:38-41 (DHE Gospels)

I’ve never read this statement of the Master before as one that would allow someone not directly attached to the larger body of Christ as still belonging to him, but maybe I can hope that it represents me. Unfortunately, I think the following is also speaking of me.

Yeshua answered and said, “Amen, I say to you that there is no one who has left behind his home or his brothers or his sisters or his father or his mother or his wife or his children or his fields for my sake and for the sake of the good news who will not receive now at this time, with all the persecutions, a hundred times as many houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and fields, and in the age to come, eternal life. However, many of the first will be last, and the last will be first.” –Mark (Markos) 10:29-31 (DHE Gospels)

As much of a reward as there is in following the Messiah as his disciple, it is still a bitter thing to be separated from those whom you love. One day, Jesus cursed a fig tree (Matthew 21:18-19, Mark 11:12-14) as a lesson in lacking faith. We see in both Matthew 21:20-22 and Mark 11:20-21 that the fig tree subsequently withered from its roots. Jesus commented on the withered tree and perhaps on many a withered soul thus:

Yeshua answered and said to them, “Let the faith of God be in you. For amen, I say to you, any one who says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and moved into the middle of the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, bu trather believes that what he says will be done, so it will be for him as he has said. Therefore I say to you, all that you aks in your prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be so for you. And when you stand to pray, pardon everyone for what is in your heart against them, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive your transgressions. But as for you, if you do not pardon, neither will your Father who is in heaven forgive your transgressions.” –Mark (Markos) 11:22-26 (DHE Gospels)

So, to return to the beginning of this meditation, I have made myself like dirt and humble myself before God and man. I turn away from my sins and ask forgiveness from all I have offended. May God wash me and clean me whiter than snow (Psalm 51:7). Then though I may walk alone among humanity and even be set apart from family and the larger community of Christ because of my faith, I ask that I be allowed to humbly walk in the shadow of God. May I never desecrate what is holy, even if the holy one happens to be me.

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My Thirsty Soul

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alone-desertA psalm by David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah. O God: You are my God, I seek You. My soul thirsts for You, my flesh longs for You; in a parched and thirsty land with no water. Thus to have beheld You in the Sanctuary, to see Your might and Your glory. For Your kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You. Thus shall I bless You all my life; in Your Name I shall lift my hands. It is as if my desire is sated with fat and abundance, when my mouth gives praise with joyous language. When I remember You upon my couch, in night watches I meditate upon You. For You have been a help for me; in the shelter of your wings I joyously sing. My soul cleaves after you; Your right arm has supported me. But they seek my soul for destruction; may they come to the depths of the earth. [The enemies] shall drag each one by the sword, the portion of foxes shall they be. The king shall rejoice in God; glorified will be everyone who swears by Him, when the mouth of the liars will be stopped.

–Psalm 63 (Stone Edition Tanakh)

For G-d, the union He is seeking happens in three forms: through Torah, through a mitzvah, and through prayer. It’s much like a love affair.

When we perform a mitzvah, the One Above and the Shechinah (played by us) are united in a kinetic activity within the material world. Think of an embrace uniting two bodies.

When we study Torah, the words of the Shechinah (spoken through our lips) are the words of the One Above. Think of a kiss, uniting two mouths.

And when we pray to Him, the Shechinah and the One Above are in intimate union in the deepest recesses of the spirit, sharing their very souls with one another. Think of mental and soulful communion with another, uniting two spirits.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Making Sense of It All”
From the “A Multimedia Guide to Jewish Prayer” series
Chabad.org

You’ll have to read the entire article by Rabbi Freeman to get all of the background associated with this message, but as I tried to explain in my previous entry in this series of “meditations,” a relationship with God through prayer has almost “romantic” implications in terms of the level of intimacy involved. When reading David’s psalm as I’ve quoted it above, I can certainly see how David describes his longing for God as a man longs for a lover who is far away.

And I realized something else:

When I remember You upon my couch, in night watches I meditate upon You.

This relationship isn’t necessarily forged by God but by David. David was consumed with God, day and night. He prayed to God, wrote and sang songs to God, told others of God’s glory, praised the might and splendor of God. As I read this Psalm this morning, I realized that, while reading it, I felt closer to God. I realized that God is accessible, as long as I remain accessible to Him. Strange as it may sound, I, a lowly mortal being, can either let God into my life, or shut Him out. Seems odd that a mere person can have such control over whether or not to have God present or absent, doesn’t it?

In the wider context of Rabbi Freeman’s commentary on prayer for today, he talks about God being both outside and above and within and below. He is both transcendent of the Universe and intimately involved in it. It is God’s desire not to be “just” the grand and overarching Sovereign of all existence, but to be completely interwoven within its very fabric, including within the fabric of each and every one of us. In some way, He already is, because we all are created in His fabulous image; we each contain his “breath” or Divine essence.

That aspect of G-d is what we call the Divine Presence — Shechinah in Hebrew. That’s a very important word when discussing prayer. The Shechinah is sometimes described as the feminine aspect of G-d, and all of tefillah is about the Shechinah bonding with the One Above, reuniting the last two letters of G-d’s name, vav and hei, with the first two letters.

There is no place where the Shechinah is not found, although there are places where the Shechinah shines with greater intensity than in others. There are places, we say, where the Shechinah must be — as a sort of self-imposed exile. And there are places where She is because that is where She wants to be. Obviously She is those places much more openly.

The pre-eminent manifestation of the Shechinah in this world is within the human consciousness. G-d made a being “in His image” —i.e. a self-conscious, ego-laden being — and breathed His own consciousness into it.

This reminds me of something I read on Derek Lemen’s blog this morning when he was trying to describe the “Mystic Messiah.”

But God is not only transcendent. He is also immanent, present, with us, in the song as well as being the singer. Even now he communes with us in the hills. All the more so he will commune with us in the world to come, when brokenness is healed…

So Messiah is the divine man, one like a man, a Son of Man, but not a mere man. He transcends humanity while also being human. Divinity took on humanity in what had to be an inevitable event. How could God, who made humanity in his image, not take up humanity himself to redeem humanity? The logic of a low view of Messiah is simply rationalism (making our intellect and sensory experience the end-all of knowledge) while the logic of a high view of Messiah is mysticism (an openness to the mystery that we intuit and experience in the world). I choose mysticism.

I suppose this is why I am attracted to Chassidism and Kabbalah to some degree, because it’s the only way I can begin to make sense of a “Divine” Messiah and Lord, both human and more than human. No, I don’t understand it all and frankly, I don’t believe anyone else really understands it all either (in spite of what others may say to the contrary).

But in reading about prayer and the Messiah and God and His “glory” (Shechinah), I see over and over again that God is trying very hard to reach out to us and to reach us as human beings.

In reading Rabbi Eli Touger’s commentary on this week’s Torah Portion, he speaks of something we tend to forget about the Jewish people:

The Hebrew language does not lack synonyms, and there are several other verbs which could have been chosen to begin the verse: (Exodus 35:1) “And Moshe gathered together the children of Israel.” The word employed, vayakhel, is significant, for it implies the fusion of the people into a kahal or communal entity, far more than a collection of individuals. (See Tzafnas Paneach, Klalei HaTorah VehaMitzvos, entry tzibbur.)

A group which gathers together can also move apart, and even while together, the union is not complete. A kahal, by contrast, represents an eternal (For “a collective can never die” [Temurah 15b].) entity that unites individuals in a new framework, highlighting the fundamental bond that joins them.

Extending the metaphor just a bit, we can say that God relates to His people Israel as if they were a single person…as if God were the bridegroom and Israel was his bride, adorned in holiness and loveliness. I’m not quite sure how to extend this into the realm of Christianity. Classic Judaism would say this is not only impossible, but on some level, offensive to Jews. However, if we consider that the “church” (which I have to believe includes we non-Jewish disciples of the Messiah) is “the bride of Christ,” then we too may be considered so incredibly loved by God that we have an intimate and precious relationship with Him.

Christians don’t have a “peoplehood” together in the same manner or fashion as the Jewish people, but we can still be adopted by God and united with Him through the blood, love, and grace of Jesus Christ. But in describing the “peoplehood” of the Jews and the unity of Christians under God, I am not denying that each of us as individuals also enjoy a love relationship with God. I’m not trying to be overly “mushy” or sentimental, and I think that the awesome majesty of God is often watered down by the church, who sees God as some sort of cuddly, cute, cosmic teddy bear. Nevertheless, I cannot deny that ever since the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden, God has been making efforts to reconnect and “rebond” with human beings; to restore to our world what was lost in antiquity.

While that level of closeness with God is yet to come, we can still…I can still enjoy a closeness and “personalness” with God, as long as we…as I make the effort to spend time with Him, pondering, searching, reading, studying, and praying.

Now pick up a Jewish prayer book — whichever version you want — and make a quick survey. What is the most common word in these prayers? No, it’s not G-d. Neither is it please. Or sorry. Look again: It’s You — with a capital Y. If your prayer book uses thou, I give you permission to change all such instances to You. Because all of Jewish prayer is about one thing alone: i commune with You.

If that is the only mental focus you have throughout your prayers, you’re doing fine. If it’s missing, the whole essence of prayer is missing. Prayer is a union of these two consciousnesses, that which you feel within you, and that which you feel transcends you.

Once that has occurred, once that union is made, everything is transformed. That is why, unlike studying Torah or performing mitzvahs, prayer has the power to actually change the material world — to heal the sick, to cause rain to fall, to alter the flow of commerce. It is because the union of prayer is so deep, so intimate, of such an essence-level, that it elicits radical, unprecedented change.

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An Invitation From God?

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We were created in G-d’s image. The image of His vision.

From a point before and beyond all things, G-d looked upon a moment in time to be, and saw there a soul, distant from Him in a turbulent world, yet yearning to return to Him and His oneness. And He saw the pleasure He would have from this union.

So He invested His infinite light into that finite image, and became one with that image, and in that image He created each one of us.

As for that moment He saw, that was the moment now.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“G-d’s Image”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

G-d looked upon a moment in time to be, and saw there a soul, distant from Him in a turbulent world, yet yearning to return to Him and His oneness.

To employ a small joke, I resemble that remark. To be fair, a lot of other people within the community of faith also “resemble that remark,” whether they’re willing to admit it or not. In fact, there are times when I wonder how anyone can feel close to God because, after all, He is the Creator of the universe and the Master of all worlds. How can one, small, insignificant human being really matter to compared to all that?

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?
Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor. –Psalm 8:3-5 (ESV)

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. –Matthew 10:29-31 (SEV)

I know, I know. It’s hard to say I’m irrelevant to God in an absolute sense when we have these verses to turn to. The Bible contains all of these little bits and pieces suggesting that human beings have God’s attention but it is nevertheless possible to feel as if you are utterly alone.

Rabbi Freeman, in one of his commentaries on prayer called The View From Within, mentions this.

So here we are, at rock bottom, suffering from all our circumstances because we can’t figure out how on earth any of this could be good. We’re helpless – this is an inherent deficiency in our design and vantage point.

I’m taking this way out of context (the full article can be found at the link I posted above), but it does paint a good picture of where I am right now. Remember from yesterday’s morning meditation that I’m picturing myself as sitting at the bottom of a well. God has just lowered a ladder and it is implied that by praying, I can begin to climb. Today, Rabbi Freeman is saying that even what we pray for is a matter of perspective, as well as how we understand our life circumstances. To illustrate this point, he tells a story:

When the Baal Shem Tov was leader of the chassidim, whenever troubles befell them, he would pray and avert the harsh decrees from heaven. When the Baal Shem Tov passed on and his disciple, the great kabbalist, Rabbi Dov Ber, the Magid of Mezritch, took over the leadership, he would similarly avert these decrees. When the Magid passed on, the most difficult persecutions of their leadership and of their cause began.

The students of the Magid, all of them great, enlightened masters, beseeched him to respond to them from his place in the world beyond. They pleaded, “As long as you were here, you interceded successfully on our behalf. Certainly, from your place in the next world you have yet greater power to intercede!”

The Magid responded to his disciples, “When I was below, I saw these things as harsh and cruel. But from my station up here, I only see the good in all of this. As Rabbi Akiva taught, all that the All-Merciful does is for the good. How could I pray to avert something I see as true goodness?”

His disciples then asked, “If so, our master, what about us? Should we also desist from praying that these decrees be averted?”

“No,” the Magid responded. “Since in your world these appear to be evil, you must do everything in your power to avert them and alter the heavenly decree!”

-Rabbi S.Y. Zevin, Sipurei Chassidim

In real life, we hardly ever hear from people who have ascended into the Heavenly realm (if we do at all) and so we do not, in actuality, have any idea of their perspective. We remain locked into our own, like an ant trying to move a pebble in the dirt. We human beings can look down on that ant with a completely different viewpoint and realize a world the ant has no ability to imagine, let alone experience. But we are unable to impart to that ant how much more there is in the universe around it, even though we see a vast panorama beyond that one small ant pushing a pebble in the dirt.

This is how we are in comparison to God.

But we didn’t create the ant’s universe, nor did we create the ant. The vast majority of us don’t care all that much for ants, and if they get into our homes, we’ll exterminate them without hardly a thought about their deaths. This, we hope and pray, is not how God sees us, and in fact, we hope and pray that God sees us with love and compassion, rather than as insects infesting His world.

But all we have is an ant’s point of view. Unlike the ant, we have the imagination to envision something much more; something we cannot directly experience, but there’s a difference between imagination and knowledge. There’s even a difference between faith and belief and knowledge.

If I were to take Rabbi Freeman’s lesson at face value, I would have to accept that however I currently imagine my experience, it is not at all the same as seen from God’s perspective. What I experience as feelings of emptiness, He may see as something else entirely. But unlike the Magid to his students, God does not speak to we, His creations, to tell us that what we see as evil, God only sees as good.

Or does He?

So here we are, at rock bottom, suffering from all our circumstances because we can’t figure out how on earth any of this could be good. We’re helpless — this is an inherent deficiency in our design and vantage point. And the Mastermind of All Worlds turns to us from His penthouse panorama with banks of video monitors on every creature in the universe, and yells down into your pit, “So how’s the weather down there? Any complaints?”

And this is mitzvah of tefillah! To “petition for all your needs with requests and supplications” three times a day!

It must be, then—because this is the only way out of our conundrum—that for whatever reason (or just out of pure desire), the Creator of this reality is interested in the experience from within, and not just from above. And He wants to bring the two into perfect union.

Tefillah, then, means a union of two worlds, two perspectives, two forms of consciousness: The view from Above unites with the view from within. And we are the matchmakers.

This again, is an interpretation and an imagination as related by Rabbi Freeman’s commentary on prayer. He is telling us that prayer does matter because, in part, it is the joining of our experience with God’s experience and that God desires we share our experience with Him. Of course, Rabbi Freeman is saying all of this from a Jewish perspective and relating it to a Jewish audience, but given the comments on prayer I made yesterday, I don’t think it’s terribly unreasonable for me to apply his lesson to an individual Christian sitting at the bottom of the abyss.

But as I imagine prayer as the means by which I may start climbing out of the pit, Rabbi Freeman has other ideas.

This is vital for us to know before we go any further into the spiritual ascent of prayer, mystic union and higher consciousness: The goal is not a jailbreak out of the dungeon of material existence. The goal is a marriage of two worlds—ours and His. Heaven on earth. Tefillah is where the two kiss.

Sounds very “romantic,” but then in Judaism, God is called “the lover of our souls.” I don’t know if the exact same relationship can be said of God and me relative to Judaism, but perhaps filtered through John 3:16, it might apply because of the Messiah. Because of Jesus, God may also love the Christian soul.

So if prayer isn’t a ladder designed for the human to ascend out of the pit of the world and into the heavens, is it instead an invitation to dance? If so, I’ll have to learn to stand first, and then to walk. Right now, I’m like the wallflower at the high school prom, staring in disbelief at a hand being offered, beckoning me to rise. I hope this isn’t just wishful thinking. We’ll see.

The road

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.

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Expecting Something Wonderful

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To help reduce this tension which seems to dominate our people everywhere, you can start by reducing your own pace. To do that you will need to slow down, quiet down. Do not fume. Do not fret. Practice being peaceful. Practice “the peace of God which passeth all understanding.” (Philippians 4:7) Then note the quiet power sense that wells up within you.

-Norman Vincent Peale
“Chapter 6: Stop Fuming and Fretting”
The Power of Positive Thinking

Up until Peale mentioned “quiet power sense,” he was actually saying just about the first thing that made any sort of sense to me in this entire book thus far.

Peace is a difficult concept to apply universally across a person’s life, mine or anyone else’s. We all want some sort of “peace” but we can’t be totally relaxed and at ease twenty-four hours a day. Frankly, there are times when we really need to be focused, or excited, or agitated, or even angry. But as I was reading this chapter over my lunch hour, I realized that I don’t allow myself a great deal of peace, even when I’m supposedly relaxing. More to the point, I don’t really allow myself the time and the luxury of being at peace in the presence of God.

However, as much as I can argue about the various circumstances in my life and the relative amount of control I do or don’t have over them, I do have some sort of control over finding the time and the place to be alone and uninterrupted with God so I can have a “peaceful” conversation with Him (I say this with the caveat that, living with other people doesn’t mean I can always guarantee I will be uninterrupted).

But I can try. I’ve said in previous blogs that I didn’t find Peale the sort of writer who matches my “style” or “metaphors,” but I’ve been trying to find ways of translating some of his more hokey stories and comments into a language I can relate to. He actually told a story (I don’t know if it’s about an actual, factual event or not) that I found brilliant.

Peale relates the tale of a baseball team who just couldn’t seem to do anything right. Although they were originally the favorites to carry the season, the team ended up losing 17 of their first 20 games. Naturally, team morale was at a low ebb and they weren’t expecting to score significantly and they absolutely didn’t expect to win any of their future games.

And they almost didn’t.

It so happened that a preacher named Schlater was popular in that neighborhood at that time. He claimed to be a faith healer and apparently was getting some astounding results. Throngs crowded to hear him and most everybody had confidence in him. Perhaps the fact that they did believe in his power enabled Schlater to achieve results.

O’Reilly (the team owner) asked each player to lend him his two best bats. Then he asked the members of the team to stay in the clubhouse until he returned. He put the bats in a wheelbarrow and went off with them. He was gone for an hour. He returned jubilantly to tell the players that Schlater, the preacher, had blessed the bats and that these bats now contained a power that could not be overcome. The players were astounded and delighted.

The next day they overwhelmed Dallas, getting 37 base hits and 20 runs. They hammered their way through the league to a championship, and Hugh Fullerton (a famous sports writer when Peale was a youth, according to the book) said that for years in the Southwest, a player would pay a large sum for a “Schlater bat.”

Actually, it’s O’Reilly who was brilliant for what he pulled off. Peale was only brilliant for relating the tale (unless he made the whole thing up, then Peale really was brilliant). The “faith healing powers” of Schlater were irrelevant. The team didn’t even have to meet him. All they knew is what O’Reilly told them…that Schlater blessed the bats with a special power. As long as the team believed the bats were powerful, then they would behave out of that belief. Nothing else had to change.

I know what you’re thinking and you’re right.

All I (or anyone) have to do is believe in my relationship with God and my own worth in God’s eyes and my own. Nothing else has to change in order for me to start rising up out of the bottom of the well. All I have to do is to believe that I don’t require a faith community in order to be free of the emotional requirement. The whole point of books like Peale’s is to convince their audience to believe in some sort of special power. That’s why Peale presents various passages from the Bible as he does. If his primary audience believes in Jesus or God, and they don’t mind taking Bible verses woefully out of context, then the book will have the desired effect.

Many years ago, I heard a teaching counselor use the phrase “the trickster healer.” It sounds a little suspicious, since you want people who are healers (doctors, psychologists, etc…) to be forthright and honest, but as we see in the story about O’Reilly and the “Schlater bats,” just telling someone what their problem is doesn’t always work. Sometimes you have to “convince” them in other ways that don’t require them to make a conscious, rational decision. Sometimes they just have to believe.

Unfortunately, knowing about the “trick” robs it of its power, so in being aware of the “trick” and writing about it, I can’t also “con” myself into believing in the personal equivalent of a “Schlater bat.”

But I can try to believe in God.

I realize that, based on most of what I’ve said so far, it is practically beside the point whether or not God even exists as long as I believe He exists. This is probably why Peale’s book works even with atheists if they choose to believe in some other internal or external source of “power” instead of God.

I am convinced of the existence of the God of the Bible, however the presence of God isn’t always enough. If God didn’t require my cooperation or involvement in solving my little dilemma, He could just invoke some supernatural power and *poof* my perspective would be different and my paradigm would be shifted. End of story.

But it doesn’t work that way.

Maybe God doesn’t answer the majority of prayers using supernatural means. Maybe, most of the time, He just allows our faith and our trust in Him do most of the work. I’ll talk more about my journey in prayer while sitting at the bottom of my well in tomorrow’s “morning meditation.” In the meantime, the first lesson I’ll need to continue to learn is to be at peace right where I am, expecting nothing, before I can learn to believe and then expect something.

Heywood Floyd: What? What’s going to happen?
Dave Bowman: Something wonderful.

-from the film 2010 (1984)