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Hope in Hopelessness

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Last week at the Western Wall, I asked an elderly man to put on tefillin. He strongly refused.

I asked him, “When was the last time you put on tefillin?”

He smiled and proudly said, “72 years ago!” He held out his arm to show me the fading tattooed numbers. “1938,” he said. “It was the day of Kristallnacht. Do you know what Kristallnacht is?”

“Of course I do,” I told him.

“Two hundred and sixty-seven synagogues were burned down in one night. They burned down our synagogue, too. My tefillin were burnt up, and I have never put them on again,” he said.

“I have a friend who was in the camps, too,” I quickly said, “and he not only puts on tefillin today, but he even put them onto others inside the camp! Do you want to hear how he got tefillin into the camp?”

“Yes,” he said strongly. “How did he get them in there?”

-Gutman Locks
“Tefillin After 72 Years”
Stories of the Holocaust series
Chabad.org

I can’t even imagine what it would have been like to experience the horrors of the Holocaust. Like many Americans, I live a relatively comfortable life. I don’t really know what it’s like to go without adequate food, shelter, or clothing. I’ve been in the hospital before, but remain fairly healthy. I was once beaten by several men during a riot when I was 16 and spent some time recovering, but I was home and eventually after over a year, I began to let myself feel safe again. In short, I’ve faced a certain number of challenges over my lifetime, but none have been overly difficult.

I can’t even imagine what it would have been like to experience the horrors of the Holocaust.

I can’t even imagine what it would be like to have a wife who is struggling with cancer and who may die.

I can’t even imagine what it would be like to be the father of terminally ill child.

Frankly, I don’t want to imagine, let alone have to actually face such hideous tragedies in life. I don’t know how people do it and, I’m ashamed to say, I don’t even know how people of faith do it.

Where do you find hope in hopelessness? It’s one thing to say “I rely on my God for my strength,” and it’s another thing to actually live it out, one day at a time, one horrible, agonizing minute at a time. What can you do when someone delivers the terrible news and your courage melts like a plastic sandwich bag in the face of an inferno? What do you do when you’re a young, teenage boy and you and your mates are being herded into the gas chambers by the Nazis and you have only minutes to live?

“He began his story. The Nazis had come to the ghetto and grabbed 137 young boys. He told me that only five of them survived. Only five.

“He was thirteen and a half years old. He was wearing the high boots that his father had bought him, and when he saw them coming, he stuffed his tefillin into one boot and his prayerbook in the other.

“They pushed the boys into a cattle car and drove them to the death camp, not far from the ghetto. When the train stopped, they slid open the side of the cattle car and immediately began pushing them toward the open door of the gas chamber. The boys were frightened and cried out. They asked Laibel, ‘What should we do?’ He told them, ‘We’re going to stand in rows five across, and we’re going to march right into that gas chamber singing a song of faith, the “Ani Maamin.”’ And they did just that. They stood in rows five across, and started singing and marching right into the chamber.

“The guards became so confused that they did not know what to do. They screamed, ‘You can’t do that! No one has ever done such a thing before. Stop it! Stop it at once! Here! Go over there to the showers instead!’

“They pushed them over to the showers, and forced them to undress and throw their clothing into a pile in the middle of the floor. They made them empty their shoes, and the tefillin and prayerbook fell out onto the pile.

“After the shower, when they were dressed in camp clothes and were being pushed out, past the pile of their clothes, Laibel saw his tefillin and prayerbook lying there. He wanted so badly to run and pick them up, but terrifying guards were watching. He said to the boys, ‘I did something for you, so now you do something for me.’

“‘Whatever you want,’ they said. ‘You saved our lives.’

“He said, ‘When I give the signal, start a fight and scream out loud. Okay . . . now!’ The boys started to fight and scream. The guards ran over and tried to pull them apart, but they wouldn’t stop fighting. In the confusion, he ran over and grabbed his tefillin and prayerbook, and hid them under his arms.

Laibel not only managed to retrieve his tefillin but he wore them (clandestinely) in the camp and helped other Jews wear them, too. In the story commemorating his courage, we discover him as an old man today helping men wear tefillin at the Kotel.

And he looked me in the eye and said, ‘And I put tefillin on other men, too.’ I started to cry, and I kissed him on his yarmulke.

“The day after Laibel told me his story, there was a soldier at the Western Wall who wouldn’t put on tefillin. No matter what I said, he simply refused. Then I told him Laibel’s story, and he quickly said, ‘Okay, I’ll do it.’

“And you can do it, too,” I said to the elderly gentleman who hadn’t donned tefillin in 72 years, as I gently slid the tefillin I was holding onto his arm. He said the blessing and started to cry. We said the Shema, and he prayed for his family. He began to smile even while the tears were streaming down his face. A crowd gathered around and congratulated him on overcoming all those years of rejection.

You do not always succeed, but you always have to try.

If there has ever been a hopeless place on earth, it was in the Nazi death camps during the Holocaust. Even those who were not immediately killed expected to die a lingering and torturous death. Even those who survived and who were liberated didn’t expect to live any sort of “normal” Jewish life again. Who could after seeing what they saw and experiencing what they lived through? Even after more than seven decades, Holocaust survivors are suffering delayed post-traumatic stress disorder. The statement is so obvious, it’s almost laughable to report it in the media. Of course they’re suffering after seventy years? Who wouldn’t?

But after over seventy years, some have turned suffering and hopelessness into hope, not just for themselves but for each other. Laibel turns hopelessness into hope every time he helps another Jewish man don tefillin and pray at the Kotel. A Jewish man who hadn’t worn tefillin in seventy-two years because of the nightmare of Kristallnacht put on tefillin again because of Laibel’s inspiration, “said the blessing and started to cry.”

While most of us have never faced such horrendous, nightmarish, ghastly experiences as those of Holocaust survivors, as those who are battling desperately invasive cancer, as those who are anxiously trying to comfort a dying child, we still know the world is filled with hopelessness and despair. All of us face some sort of problem, some sort of challenge, something that makes us want to give up our fight to move forward or maybe even the fight to live.

I have no magic to give you. I have no secret formula with which you can overcome your hardships or worries or fears or tears. I can say “rely on God” but for even those men and women who do rely on Him with an almost superhuman faith and courage, the battle is hard and surrender to the darkness is a constant companion.

But amazingly there is still hope. Laibel must be well over eighty years old and for him, hope is helping just one more man put on tefillin, maybe for the first time in decades, and speak words of blessing to God. Hope is saying, “I love you” to a dying little boy. Hope is continuing to pray for your spouse, even though multiple organs are compromised by cancer and years of radiation and chemotherapy haven’t put the demon back in the bottle.

Hope is in the tears you cry. Hope is in your screams of anguish. Hope is being able to go on when life is impossible. Hope is a man learning how to pray again while crying after seventy-two years.

Hope is the faint light of a tiny candle holding the encroaching abyss at bay.

Hope is God.

 

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The Best Within Us

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If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

–1 Corinthians 13:1-13 (ESV)

In spite of the fact that this passage from Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church has often been read as part of the vows at innumerable weddings, it has nothing to do with romantic love. It is Paul’s message about a much greater love and, in my opinion, a love that it much more difficult to express consistently in a life of faith. In fact, I think the kind of love Paul is describing has a lot more to do with what he had to say to the church in Rome.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly.Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave itto the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. –Romans 12:14-21 (ESV)

Interestingly enough, the Talmud seems to echo the same lessons that Paul teaches:

“They said of Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai that no man ever greeted him first, even idol worshippers in the market” [i.e., Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai was the first to greet every person, even idol worshippers] (Berachot 17). At the same location the sage Abaye advocated soft speech and words of peace to everyone, especially including idol worshippers.

“[it is proper to] support the idol worshippers during the sabbatical year… and to inquire after their welfare [commentators: even on the days of the holidays of their idols, even if they do not keep the seven Noahide commandments] because of the ways of peace.” (Shevi’it 4,3)

The rabbis taught: ‘We support poor Gentiles with the poor people of Israel, and we visit sick Gentiles as well as the sick of Israel and we bury the dead of the Gentiles as well as the dead of Israel, because of the ways of peace.” (Gitin 61a)

I suppose I’m belaboring the point I was trying to make last Friday afternoon, but this blog isn’t about presenting topicial commentary or clever scholastic mysteries, it’s about me writing what’s on my mind, my heart, and my spirit as I approach each new day. The sorry state of love among the human race, including those who claim faith in God is still consuming me. What makes it worse is the lack of love among people of faith seems not to bother them (us) at all. And I have to share the name “Christian” with some of these folks. No wonder the atheists accuse us of hypocracy.

I just recently saw the film The Avengers (2012) for the first time. I know that’s a strange statement for me to make given the context of today’s “meditation,” but I do have a point. As well as being a top notch action film and a lot of fun to watch, there were a few good lessons to be found about love, honor, and sacrifice. Ironically, it took a completely secular film to talk about the qualities we Christians are supposed to possess by definition.

Of all the characters in the film, Captain America (played by Chris Evans) is the epitome of those qualities I just named. He is what we think of, in old fashioned terms, as “the greatest American hero.” He’s the ideal of what we used to believe were the finest qualities about our nation and our citizens. National cynicism has since destroyed those ideals but maybe not completely. The film has more than a few reminders for us that not only does the character Captain America have a much needed place in our world today, but the ideals Captain America represents are what we most long for in our lives.

Cap is sometimes juxtaposed in the film against the character of Tony Stark/Iron Man, a person who at once has everything and nothing. A man who has wealth, position, power, and glamour, but at the expense of the finer qualities of Captain America, such as love of humanity, purpose, conviction, honor, and the ability to sacrifice even his own life if it will save others. Stark is always looking for the loophole. Steve Rogers, Captain America’s other identity, always faces his challenges head on.

Toward the climax of the film (and I’m sorry if I’m giving too much away), the only way for Stark to save New York City from nuclear destruction is to carry a nuclear missile through a dimensional rift out of our world, in order to destroy the attacking army. This is supposed to be a one-way trip, but there are no other options and no loopholes. Captain America’s example throughout the movie finally made an impression on Iron Man so that what began beating in his chest was not the electronic perfection of the machine keeping him alive, but a real human heart of compassion, even for millions of people who he’ll never know.

As in most fantasies, Stark is saved at the last minute and rewarded for his willingness to sacrifice his life by survival and the opportunity to appear in more movies, but what about the reality of this lesson? What can we learn about love and even about “heaping burning coals on the head of those who hate us?”

Remember, this lesson comes to us courtesy of a secular and atheist entertainment industry. It is however, an industry that does, within the context of the film, allow Captain American to utter one single line of dialog confirming his faith in God, which I found just amazing. This lesson in love, honor, and sacrifice (as opposed to raw vengence and self-satisfaction) comes to us from people who, in all likelihood, have never met the God of the Bible and perhaps never will this side of the Messiah.

Where is our lesson? Where is the lesson of the church?

I don’t doubt that many Christians do live up to the ideals of our Master. Many believers do not just speak, but live out the example of Jesus Christ. Many extend themselves to feeding the hungry, providing clothing to those who need it, welcoming strangers into their homes, visiting the sick in the hospital, and even extending a smile and a hand of friendship to those who revile them, even if they are other Christians.

The sad and sorry part of our faith is that there are those among us who use Christ as a blunt instrument with which to beat their perceived enemies about the head and shoulders until they’re bloody and bruised. And then these Christians congratulate themselves for aptly employing Jesus as an object of vengence and an example of “tough love” which is neither particularly “tough” in the sense of true strength and honor, or at all loving in the way Paul described love to the Corinthians.

More’s the pity.

What is the defining quality of Christianity, judgment or love? They both exist within our theology. We know a time of judgment is coming and most Christians feel immune to it, imagining that only their enemies the atheists will face such a terrifying fate. And yet the Master tells us this is absolutely not true. Just who do you think Jesus is talking to in Matthew 25:34-46? Why would athests be expected to give water to the thirsty and clothe the naked in Christ’s name? And why would the Master say this?

“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)

In Romans 12:19, Paul quoted Leviticus 19:18 to remind us that vengence belongs to God, not men. The Master gave us all a new commandment to love each other as a way of showing the world around us that we belong to him (John 13:34-35). If I have to err in the expression of my faith, I prefer to err on the side of love and to leave (to the best of my limited abilities) the vengence to God. God’s vengence, when He chooses to express it, does not contain our human faults, hositilities, and insecurities, but only His justice, which is neither ours to take or to give.

If secular films such as The Avengers can be an inspiration for us to be better people, to be “heroic” in the love we can show others, why doesn’t the church show the world that Christ brings out the best within each of us? If you want to carry the Gospel message to a desperate and unbelieving world and show other Christians “how it’s done,” I can think of no better way to do it than to show love especially toward your “enemies” because of the ways of peace.

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.”

-Bertrand Russell

 

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Putting Light in a Cage

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On today’s daf we find that Rabbi Akiva asked Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Yehoshua a halachic question while they were in the market purchasing an animal for Rabban Gamliel’s son’s wedding. This is the way of gedolei Torah. Even while on their way to a simchah, they only think about Torah.

Rav Eliezer Gordon, zt”l, the first Rosh Yeshiva of Telz, was just such a person. The tales regarding his absolute devotion to Torah even during the most unusual times are astounding.

Rav Gordon was a person who had such a deep-felt ahavas haTorah that he would think in learning at every available moment. While he walked down the street and while he was apparently in repose, he was always immersed in a sugya.

Once, when Rav Gordon was on his way to serve as sandek at a bris milah, he passed by a shul and heard two bochurim discussing a certain difficult question in learning. Rav Gordon immediately forgot everything. He stopped in front of the window and, while standing outside, began to discuss this complex question in depth. He attempted to answer it and the bochurim debated various suggestions he proposed that might resolve the problem.

Two hours later, the guests at the bris were still waiting, but the rav had not yet come. Finally they found an acceptable answer and Rav Gordon continued on his way. Then he remembered that he was supposed to be sandek at a local bris.

When he arrived he apologized and explained what had happened. “Regarding Torah I am like a drunk near a bottle of wine who cannot think of anything else!”

Daf Yomi Digest
Stories Off the Daf
“Intoxicated by Torah”
Kereisos 15

I know. It sounds kind of irresponsible to me, too. If I have an appointment and people are expecting me, especially for an important event, I really try to be on time and often, I’m a little early. So how can we explain Rav Gordon?

At the threshold of liberation, darkness filled the land of Egypt. But in the homes of those to be liberated, there was only light.

Light is our true place, and light is the destiny of every child of Noah who nurtures the G-dly beauty of this world. As dawn approaches and Darkness shakes heaven and earth in the final throes of its demise, those who belong to Light and cleave to it with all their hearts have nothing to fear.

For darkness is created to die, but light is forever.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Light Forever”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

Imagine being filled with light all of the time. You can’t really help it. God is not only on your thoughts and affecting your emotions, but His very Word is interwoven into your flesh and bone. It has invaded your blood stream and is coursing through your veins and arteries like life-giving corpuscles. The light of His Word creates the electrical impulses that leap at lightning-fast speeds across the gap between the synapses in your brain. And all that light within you is inexorably drawn to other light just like it…and you cannot help but run the other’s light, so you can join the light within and the light without.

So too, is Rav Gordon, even to the point of allowing himself to be distracted and to be hours late to a bris.

Or he could have just been one of those people who lose track of time when caught up in a compelling intellectual argument.

Where is the balance between the holy and the secular? It is said that Hillel the Elder, the great Torah sage who lived a generation before Jesus, devoted his life to Torah study while also working as a woodcutter. (Hertz J.H. 1936 The Pentateuch and Haftoras. Deuteronomy. Oxford University Press, London.) Certainly Hillel knew the meaning of balance in his life.

And then there’s this:

Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. –2 Thessalonians 3:6-8 (ESV)

I can’t find the source, but I recall reading that it is considered a sin if you study Torah to the exclusion of all other responsibilities, such as feeding your family, and meeting your other worldly obligations.

I can’t lay all of that at Rav Gordon’s feet. After all, he was only distracted for a couple of hours and perhaps justifiably so. I’m in no position to judge.

To tell you the truth, it’s far more common for people to allow the demands of their day-to-day secular life to distract them from their duty to study the Bible, to meditate upon God, to pray, to show devotion on the Shabbat. It is far more common to be lured off of the path to God by your daily grind, than to be late for work because you were praying or studying.

God understands that we have a daily life and indeed, he requires that we do have an “ordinary” job so that we, like Paul, can support ourselves and not be a burden to others. All of the great Torah scholars had some means by which they supported themselves, as did the Prophets, and as did the Apostles. Part of a whole life is not only sharing it with God and joining with that light, but allowing the light to shine into the rest of your world. God is in the act of commuting to work, in sitting at a computer keyboard, in picking your children up from school, in mowing the lawn, in paying your taxes, in taking out the garbage.

And He’s in being immersed in a sugya and in joining two bochurim discussing a certain difficult question.

There’s a passion that must be part of who we are as people if we are to overwhelm the oppressive demands of a human experience with the light of God. In Judaism, each soul is considered to be a shard or a spark of the Divine Light of God, come to earth to inhabit a person. The spark yearns to return to its Source but the flesh chains the holy shard to earth. The bird is caged and cannot fly. If you remove freedom from the bird long enough, it forgets how to fly, and pines for its lost freedom. The notes of its song sour and it loses its way back to the Source, perhaps forever.

So too is the soul within us that is cut off too long from its Source. Humanity is an anchor that drags us to the floor of an impenetrably deep sea. This is the opposite of Rav Gordon and his drive to seek out perpetual light perpetually. But if we pray, if we meditate, if we study the Bible, if we associate, even occasionally, with others who have the same drive and light, if we allow the Word to weave its way through us, the bird is not kept in total darkness and it is allowed to spread its wings. It has a song to sing, even while caged within its flesh and blood prison.

The bird has hope, not only that someday it will return to the Source, but that in the here and now, there is a light within that shines, and a light without to follow.

Someday we will be free.

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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.

Torah Portion, Uncategorized

Waiting for Hope in the Abyss

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AbyssRav Simcha Bunim of Peshischa, zt”l, taught great inspiration from a statement on today’s daf.

“A person who has sinned and fallen to the lowest place, banished from God’s presence, should also never despair. A sacrifice that was fitting but then lost its status is no longer accepted even if afterward it regained its original status. But Rav holds that if the animal is still alive, it is not rejected absolutely. This fallen soul is no different. As long as he has some chiyus, some vitality, it is always possible to start again and attain forgiveness. This is the deeper meaning of the words, ‘Forgive our sins for they are many.’ This can be also be read, ‘Forgive our sins, because the halachah follows Rav—that ba’alei chaim are not rejected.'”

The Lechivitcher, zt”l, offered a parable to help understand this better. “A Jew is like a valuable coin. Even if it rusts and has mud crusted over it, it still retains its original value. The owner must clean the coin by removing the rust and the caked mud, but once he does so it shines just the same as it did when it was new.”

Rav Moshe of Kovrin, zt”l, was once encouraging some young chassidim who were struggling in spiritual matters. “Even if one falls again and again—even one hundred times—he must strengthen himself again and again. It is incumbent upon us to always find a way to encourage ourselves again and again, until we climb out of our spiritual rut!”

Daf Yomi Digest
Stories Off the Daf
“Ba’alei Chaim”
Temurah 23

I always have to be careful when I generalize a Jewish commentary and try to apply it to Christianity. After all, the Rabbis didn’t produce these Dafs with Christians in mind and sometimes, the judgments and insights they generate are specifically not to be applied to non-Jews. However, when reading Derek Leman’s book review of Daniel Boyarin’s book The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ, I found something interesting.

So, it might surprise you to know that Boyarin thinks Judaism and Christianity are compatible. His goal, stated on pages 6-7 is to help Christians and Jews to stop vilifying each other. He doesn’t follow Jesus and isn’t asking fellow Jews to do so. But he demolishes all ideas that Christian devotion to Jesus is contrary to Judaism or that Christianity is anything other than a Judaism to which mostly non-Jews have been drawn. Jews in the time of Jesus were looking, he says, for a divine messiah. And Jesus’ earliest followers were kosher Jews. The sad separation and enmity of Judaism and Christianity is something to get beyond, not something to perpetuate.

According to how I’m reading Leman (I haven’t read Boyarin’s book yet), Boyarin doesn’t see a severe “disconnect” between first century Jewish and Gentile worship of God through the “path” of “the Way”. But, as Boyarin declares, if Christianity is not directly contrary to Judaism, can I say the reverse, that Judaism is not directly contrary to Christianity? Further, can I stretch my metaphor to say that Jewish teachings are not directly contrary to Christianity?

You probably think I’m grasping at straws. On the other hand, let’s look at our “story off the Daf” again. What is the theme? That even the person who is most distanced from God because of their sin should not dispair and give up all hope of reconciliation. Doesn’t that sound like it could be a Christian theme as well?

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. –Romans 5:3-5 (ESV)

For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. –2 Timothy 4:6-8 (ESV)

I believe we who are Christians can take the same hope that, no matter how far we have fallen away from God, we can rise back up to Him, even as Rav Simcha Bunim teaches.

Yesterday, the Jewish world celebrated Purim, the commemoration of the victory of the Jewish people in ancient Persia over Haman’s plan of genocide. If you read the Book of Esther on Purim, you realized how desperate it was for the Jews and how hopeless everything seemed. Even after Esther revealed the evil Haman’s plot to King Achashverosh, it was not in his power to reverse his decree. The destruction of the Jews seemed inevitable. And yet, through the courage of Esther and Mordechai and the love of God for His people, the King granted the Jews the ability to fight back and to defend themselves.

Hopelessness was turned into hope and defeat was transformed into victory; a victory that is still commemorated many thousands of years later, for with God, all things are possible (Matthew 19:26). Although God is not explicitly mentioned in Esther, we know that He was there with Israel, defending them and encouraging them. It was a miracle that the Jews survived the enormous threat against them. It is always a miracle when the Jews survive, since often it is only God who is for them, and an entire world who desires that they perish. Remember this too, as you study the sin of the Golden Calf for this Shabbat’s Torah Reading. There is no failing or sin so great that you become irredeemable.

Yet most of God’s miracles are not in the realm of the supernatural. It was (seemingly) through very natural processes that the Jews were saved from the plan of Haman. Seas did not part. The earth did not stop rotating on its axis, Fire and destruction did not rain down from heaven upon the enemies of the Jews. So it is in our lives today, even in the most dire and hopeless of circumstances. You may not feel the hand of God touching you or see His finger writing in the dust, but He is there and while you live, there is hope, but only if you hope in Him.

The philosopher, when he sees a miracle, looks for a natural explanation. The Jew, when he sees nature, looks for the miracle.

-Rabbi Tsvi Freeman
“Unnatural Response”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

Blessings and hope.

Uncategorized

The Man Without a Face

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The source of all illness is the lovesickness of the soul. She yearns to return to her Beloved Above, and so is repulsed by the human form, her prison of pain.

Two things, then, must be repaired, and body and soul will be healed:

The human body must open itself to become a holy temple for the Infinite G-d who desires it for His dwelling. The soul must learn to discover the Infinite G-d from within this human form, the place where He most desires to dwell.

-Maamar Ani Hashem Rof’echa
as referenced by Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Love Sickness”
Chabad.org

That’s an interesting statement coming from an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi, since the idea of the human body being a Temple for the Spirit of God is such a Christian concept, going all the way back to Acts 2. And yet, as I mentioned recently, the concept of each Jew being a container for the Divine Presence (which probably isn’t the same as the Holy Spirit, but what do I know) is also very Jewish.

This brings to mind what I’ve heard in some Christian “advertisements” recently: (the tale of “the church meets Madison Avenue” isn’t exactly new, more’s the pity) Christianity: it’s not a religion, it’s a relationship. This implies that only through Christianity can a person have a “personal relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ,” and thereby, God. Do I catch a hint of supersessionism in this assumption? Where in the New Testament does it say that through Jesus, we enter into a personal relationship of any kind, or that such a relationship is unique to the modern disciples of Christ?

But I get it. Christianity is continuing to correct what I have recognized as something of a flaw. It’s trying to build an identity.

I suppose I’m overstating my point. Christianity has a very recognizable identity in the world. If I were to walk up to just about anyone and say, “I’m a Christian,” no matter who they were, they’d immediately come up with some sort of idea as to what being a Christian means. Some of those ideas are pretty dismal, but it’s not like anyone would respond, “What does that mean?”

However, my problem with Christianity is my identity as a Christian. To me, the Christian identity seems incomplete and poorly defined. Maybe one of the reasons I’m somewhat attracted to Judaism is that, by comparison, the life of a religious Jew is very well-defined, depending on the branch of Judaism to which he subscribes. The Torah and Talmudic rulings contain a great deal of identifying information that defines the day-to-day role of a Jew among his people, within society, and in relation to God. For the Christian, who has grace in place of the Torah, the definition is rather anemic by comparison. The “freedom” a Christian has in Christ allows for a great deal of latitude, perhaps too much in some cases. Also, in order for that freedom to exist, Christianity must remove the definition the Torah provides for the Jewish people. For most Christians, in order for Christ to live, Judaism must die, and historically this has meant the Jewish people must die with it, either physically or through conversion and assimilation.

But I don’t believe in that definition of Christianity. It would make absolutely no sense for Jesus, Peter, James, and later, Paul, Titus, and Timothy to promote and support a sect of Judaism that was self-annihilating. By “creating” a religious expression that was expressly anti-Jewish and then exporting it to the non-Jewish nations, the Jewish Apostles would be virtually guaranteeing the complete destruction of their way of life, the Jewish religious devotion to God, and every single lesson that was taught by the Jewish Messiah, their Master.

Why would they do that?

The answer is, they didn’t. They couldn’t have.

So where did he go? Where did the original Jesus disappear to? Why can’t we find him in the churches and in the Christian Bible studies?

I said before that Christianity has a very recognizable and robust identity. I didn’t say it was the same identity that the very first non-Jewish disciples had as they embraced the teachings of the Jewish Sage from Natzaret. If I could sit down with Cornelius (see Acts 10), even for one hour, and talk to him (assuming we had a language in common), what could he tell me about being a Gentile disciple of the Master? What world could he show me that has since been lost to antiquity? What portrait of discipleship could he paint? What tapestry of holiness could he weave?

Jesus once asked in lament, “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8 ESV) I ask, when he returns, will he find a faith in God among the church that he even recognizes? Is what we teach in the church even remotely associated with what he taught in either content or intent? And will the Gentile Christian church even recognize a fully Jewish Rabbi and Messiah when he returns looking for some remnant of his people among Israel and even in the nations? I wonder if we’ll just miss each other in the crowd? Jesus will be too Jewish for the church and Christians will be too anti-Judaism to be recognized as disciples of the Jewish Messiah. “And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” (Matthew 7:23 ESV)

I suppose my big problem is that I need to open myself up to the infinite God and become a living Temple for His Presence. Then I must learn to recognize that Presence within this marred and imperfect man of flesh and blood. It sounds simple, but it is enormously complex. I have to disagree with the Christian “marketing department” and say that Christianity is a religion, but it is one whose face is unrecognizable to me. The face of the church looks imperfect, or even sometimes absent altogether, as I search for the face of my Master on its walls and in its sanctuaries. Thus, as a self-professed Christian, I too am a man without a face, searching in the mirror for something I recognize as human and more than human.

Religion is the interface by which we encounter God. Put in terms that might be a little more “Christian-friendly,” it’s the interface by which we build our relationship with God. It’s the lessons and the conditions and rituals and theologies that create the structure in which we can live out a life of faith. Most people don’t climb a mountain through uncharted territory. Instead, we follow the trails that have been created by those who went before us. In some cases, we create our own trails, but we must be careful that they lead up into the light rather than down into the thousand, thousand pits of darkness that are waiting to accept the unwary and the foolish.

I am following what I believe is the right trail for me, but I am alone. Few, if any, have used this particular path. I suppose I could allow myself the small conceit of believing that I am progressing through the narrow gate. The wide gate is easy and many travel through it, but that’s not the course the Master has recommended. (Matthew 7:13-14)

But then, that could just be a conceit and an excuse as to why I find no companions with me on my journey. It is said that, in all of our roles as disciples, one happens to be as “living sacrifices.” (Romans 12:1) But aren’t sacrifices supposed to be without blemish? I feel anything but unblemished.

The Rav of Tchechnov taught a very practical lesson from a halachic principle brought on today’s daf. “Our sages explain from the verse that only a sacrifice which is unblemished may be offered on the altar.” The rebbe began to weep as he said, “It would appear that we do not fulfill the mitzvah of selfsacrifice while saying shema yisrael each day. Clearly if a person sins he is likened to a blemished sacrifice which is not accepted on high.”

But a moment later the rebbe strengthened himself and joyously exclaimed, “But a temporary blemish does not disqualify a sacrifice. Clearly, when it comes to a Jew, a sin is no more than a temporary blemish since he can do teshuvah. In Kiddushin we find that if a wicked person marries a woman on condition that he is righteous, there is a doubt whether the marriage takes effect. Perhaps he repented for a moment, in which case he was a tzaddik and they are married. We see that one who repents is immediately considered to be a tzaddik.”

The Meor Einayim, zt”l, writes similarly, that one who does not believe that he can become a baal teshuvah by doing teshuvah in an instant hasn’t yet done a true teshuvah!

Daf Yomi Digest
Stories Off the Daf
“A Temporary Blemish”
Temurah 7

I’ve had it pointed out to me before, that it is uncertain at best, just how far a Christian can apply the teachings of the Jewish sages to a life of faith in Christ, but I have to try, even if I fail completely. There’s just too much “overlap” between Jewish and Christian concepts, in spite of what I said earlier, to ignore the possibility that we who are Gentile disciples can learn from a Jewish template. After all, it is from an ancient version of that template that men such as the Roman Cornelius first learned to love the God of Israel. If he could find a place for himself in that world, then why can’t I? Because the church forbids it? Because the synagogue won’t accept it? If the original Messianic faith of those like Cornelius is lost, then so am I. But I can’t give up trying to become, even momentarily, unblemished. For only in that state, may I be allowed to seek to touch, however briefly, the hem of the garment of the lover of my soul. Without that hope, I have nothing and I am nothing. And when I look in the mirror, the man I see has no face and he, and I, am no one.

For my world is hollow, but I must touch the sky.