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divinity

The Journey of God’s Image

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If you were not you, if you saw yourself from the eyes of another, how would you see your journeys through life?

You would see how each journey leads away from home. Away from your birthplace, from those who nurtured you and that which made you what you are. Outwards, away from yourself in so many directions.

But you see your journey from within. From within, every journey leads in one direction: Towards within. Towards yourself. Closer and closer.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Traveling to Yourself”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

What a horrible thought. Imagine if you could see yourself the way others see you. I suppose if you look in the mirror, you may think you don’t look so bad, but when you see a photograph someone took of you, you think you look terrible. That’s the difference I experience between shaving while looking at my reflection in the morning and seeing a photo someone took of me.

Yuk. Put the camera away.

But what about who you are spiritually? This is something we see in ourselves one way and can be seen in an entirely different way from an outsider’s point of view. People may see what we do and judge us, for good or for ill, accordingly. You may see someone and by their deeds, believe they are a righteous person, but inside, who knows but God?

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. –Matthew 23:25-28 (ESV)

What about, “Woe to you?” What about, “Woe to me?”

In the 2000 movie What Women Want, ad executive Nick Marshall (played by Mel Gibson), accidentally gains the ability to hear what women are thinking (but only women, not men). Since he’s the quintessential “male chauvinist pig,” after a period of disorientation, he turns this ability to his advantage in order to manipulate women.

You men out there who complain that you don’t understand women may think that the ability to hear a woman’s thoughts would be an extremely useful and helpful gift. Boy, are you wrong. How do you know what women think of you is at all complementary? Do you really want to be shaken out of your bliss of ignorance by finding out what your wife, your girlfriend, or your female co-workers really think of you?

What does God think of you?

Yes, I know…God is love, but He’s also a judge. You Christians may say that being covered by the “blood of Jesus,” God sees him instead of you, but let’s get real. If God is all-seeing and all-knowing, then He knows all about you with no illusions and no mystical blinders. You can’t control or limit the vision of God by “claiming the blood of Christ.”

I know I see my spiritual journey from only my own point of view. I have no capacity to see myself as God sees me or to judge my path as God judges it. I am trapped within my own perceptions, and no man can truly perceive God. So in traveling forward and seeking Him, how can I really know where I’m going or if I’m even headed in the right direction? I can’t depend on myself and I can’t imagine what God sees when He sees me.

Or can I?

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

This doesn’t tell me what God sees when He looks at me, but it does provide something of a clue. “…a soul, distant from Him in a turbulent world, yet yearning to return to Him…” That’s me. But here’s the really interesting part, though:

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.

Remind you of anything?

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. –John 1:1-5,9,14 (ESV)

I know that when Rabbi Freeman says, “He invested His infinite light into that finite image,” he is talking about God in relation to we human beings as created in His image, but the suggestion of God’s infinite light being expressed a “finite image” inevitably brings the first chapter of John’s Gospel to my mind. Also, when the Rabbi said “He saw the pleasure He would have from this union,” what I see is the joy God has when, through the covenant provided to the nations by the Master, we can also have union with God, even as the Master has such a union.

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. –Galatians 3:27-29 (ESV)

We cannot see God or experience Him in any direct manner, but the Master did say that “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9) That probably doesn’t mean that you are literally looking at God when you look at Jesus, but it does (probably) mean that something of God’s infinite and Divine “light” was imbued with the Master to give him a unique identity among men. Through our devotion to the Master, we can “see God,” but we can also see the best in ourselves. We can see a goal to shoot for, though not necessarily attain. We can see the endpoint of our process and the destination of our path.

We can’t see ourselves as God sees us (mercifully), but in keeping our eyes on the Master, we can see ourselves as we should be. We can see ourselves as the person we strive to be; as the person God made us to be.

For my part, I can either look at the photograph of myself and despair, or “look” at the “image” of the Messiah and try to overcome my darkness with his light. The spark within me that is fully realized within the existence of Messiah, longs to return to the Source, but is chained by flesh and blood down in the abyss. A purely human life is always chained in the darkness while longing for the light. A life of trust and faith may live in a world of darkness, but the soul can still fly free and know the day will come when true union with our Creator will be completed, as it is between the Master and God.

I and the Father are one. –John 10:30 (ESV)

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The Alleyways to Eden

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The objective of all man’s toil in this world is to reach higher than his own mind, higher than mind at all. Not to a place where the mind is ignored, but rather, to its essence, to the inner sense of beauty and wonder that guides it.

“A river went out from Eden to water the garden.” The garden is Mind, where all worlds begin. Eden is a place of delight beyond the garden, far beyond. Yet its river nurtures all that grows there. Adam is placed in the garden to discover the Eden flowing within.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“The River From Eden”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

And the Lord God said, “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and bad, what if he should stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever!” So the Lord God banished him from the garden of Eden, to till the soil from which he was taken. He drove the man out, and stationed east of the garden of Eden the cherubim and the fiery ever-turning sword, to guard the way to the tree of life. –Genesis 3:22-24 (JPS Tanakh)

Ever since the expulsion from Eden, man has been trying to get back to paradise and to God. We haven’t been doing a very good job along the journey and we’ve taken many detours. The idea of “paradise” means many different things to many different people. I think there’s something inside of us that “remembers” the freedom we had to explore and to master our world, and we mistakenly try to recapture that freedom along a lot of poorly chosen routes. Some of those back alleys and rough streets lead to drugs, sex, booze, money, and other activities we somehow think will give us what we once had and then lost. The irony is that we try to recover paradise by the very acts that caused us to lose Eden and to lose our intimacy with God in the first place. We try to find God by making service to self as paradise and sin as our “god.” Notice the shape the world is in. We haven’t been doing a very good job along the journey.

But with a lot of wrong decisions, we’ve also made a few right choices, or at least choices that point us in the right direction. Sometimes we do so only by stumbling along, half perceiving the light along the path that God has provided to show us the way. Most of the time, even when we see the light, we don’t really know what to do with it and how to follow where it leads. And yet, God said the answer is there.

I do not turn aside from your teachings,
for you have taught me.
How sweet are your words to my taste,
sweeter than honey to my mouth!
Through your precepts I get understanding;
therefore I hate every false way.
Your word is a lamp to my feet
and a light to my path. –Psalm 119:102-105

The way back to Eden is along the path that God has illuminated for us with the power of His Word. His Word is what we have in the Bible but He also caused His Word to “become flesh and live among us” (John 1:14) in a manner we cannot fully understand. God has provided many different ways we can become aware of Him and to come to know Him. As we become aware of God, we join with Him and put our “thumbprint” on His plan for us, in our own humanly imperfect way, declaring that we are involved with Him and with the ways of Heaven. Those of us who love God and who seek Eden have many and varied methods of revealing ourselves to the world. In walking along our different paths, we somethings encounter each other. When we do, we don’t always recognize that we are connected or if we do, we don’t always agree with how someone else is walking their own path.

Ever hear of Women of the Wall? I hadn’t either until just a few days ago. In their own words, they are…

a group of Jewish women from around the world who strive to achieve the right, as women, to wear prayer shawls, pray and read from the Torah collectively and out loud at the Western Wall (Kotel) in Jerusalem, Israel. The Western Wall is Judaism’s most sacred holy site and the principal symbol of Jewish people-hood and sovereignty and Women of the Wall works to make it a holy site where women can pray freely.

They started as seventy Jewish women who gathered at the Kotel on December 1, 1988 to pray aloud with each other, which is the first time in history this has ever happened. Later, they gathered again to read from a sefer Torah at the Kotel.

However, it’s illegal for women to pray together at the Kotel in such a manner, and Anat Hoffman, the leader of Women of the Wall, was even arrested in July 2010, according to a Haaretz.com news story.

Anat Hoffman, the women’s prayer group leader, was arrested and taken in for questioning after she was caught holding a Torah scroll in violation of a High Court ruling prohibiting women from reading the Torah at the Western Wall.

While the desire of Jewish women to pray at the Kotel wearing talitot and tefillin runs counter to the Orthodox authorities, is it really wrong for them to do so? From the point of view of the Orthodox, it may be, but in this case, I must question whether or not the intent of these women really runs counter to the desires of God. They are walking their own path, created by their awareness of God, and the path is defined by their devotion to God as Jewish women. This isn’t the first time I’ve been critical of something regarding Jewish practice, such as in the treatment of converts wishing to make aliyah to Israel or some of the barriers synagogues place in front of Jews who wish to worship on the High Holy Days.

I want to honor the right of Judaism to define itself in terms of God as well as in terms of culture, custom, and lifestyle, but I am also aware that halacha doesn’t necessarily reflect the will of God with perfect clarity (and sometimes that can be an understatement). Paul said that we see “in a mirror dimly” but someday, it will be face to face (1 Corinthians 13). Whether you think it’s right or wrong for women to pray at the Kotel, they are seeking what we are all seeking; a way to walk along the path that leads back to a “paradise lost” and to return to the “lover of our souls.” According to the vision of John, one day we will arrive at our goal.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. –Revelation 22:1-5 (ESV)

Until that day, we search the free mountain trails and rough back alleys of our lives and our world for that one slender thread of light amid the darkness that guides us to an illumination beyond human expression. Day by day, we follow the thread, that lamp for our feet, and we walk the steps, which are different for each and every one of us, enduring hardships and being misunderstood. We will continue to travel until that one day when we will look up into his face, and he will wipe away our tears, and “death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4 ESV).

Amen and amen.

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Why I Don’t Go To Church

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This dialogue can happen over the Internet. God forbid that I should disparage the Internet as a means of communication; the irony would be a bit sickening. But realistically, all the activity out here is nothing – nothing! – compared to what is going on in real churches, with real people talking face to face. Real, honest dialogue with other people who bear God’s image and are trying just as hard as we are to understand and interpret the Bible.

I have seen so much good come out of the church I am in. Depending on how far you want to stretch the idiom, I have seen “the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor.”

Have people left? Yes. Have people gotten hurt? Yes. Welcome to communal life…

-Jacob Fronczak
“Why I Go to Church”
Hope Abbey blog

For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. –1 Thessalonians 5:9-11 (ESV)

I read Jacob’s latest blog post this morning before I went to work and responded to him that I’d probably have to write a “counter-point” blog from my perspective. I don’t write this to disagree with or to oppose Jacob. In fact, I have the greatest admiration for his writing and the message he has created for today. He’s one of the few people who blog, especially about religion, who consistently presents an attitude that is sane and calm. I always hope that I present myself as sane when I blog, but anyone who has followed my “morning meditations” for any length of time knows that I am not always calm.

Jacob makes some very good points about why a person who is aligned with the “Hebrew Roots” movement can still attend and even thrive in a traditional church setting. I’ve said this in the past and I have also said that a great deal of good is done by the church in pursuing the commandments of Jesus to feed the hungry, visit the sick, and to provide comfort to the widow. In fact, I experience that sort of lovingkindness more from the church and the traditional Jewish synagogue than I do from many of those groups who call themselves “Hebrew Roots” or “Messianic,” usually because those groups are more focused on establishing and maintaining their “rightness” than in actually doing “rightness” to others in the Messiah’s name.

On the other hand, I have reasons for not attending church. None of this is new and I’ve spread “my story” over many different blog posts and various comments in the blagonet, but after reading Jacob’s message this morning, I felt I should collect all of that here today. This also, by coincidence (if I can even believe in coincidence in a created universe), dovetails nicely into today’s morning meditation where I spend several paragraphs summarizing my “witness” or my history in the world of faith.

Up until last May, I was regularly attending and teaching at what you would call a “One Law/Messianic” congregation. I left after much prayer, study, and investigation of the assumptions that had originally attracted me to that movement because of two basic reasons: I no longer felt the One Law proposition, which states that both Jews and non-Jewish Christians are obligated to the full 613 commandment in the Torah (minus Jewish halacha and Talmudic judgments and rulings) was Biblically valid. Also, I didn’t want to worship in a religious venue in which my wife, by her very nature as a (non-Messianic) Jew, would be unable to attend, and which would prevent me, due to my “reputation” as “Messianic,” from fellowship with her communities in Reform and Chabad Judaism.

So for the past nine months, I have been unaffiliated with any specific house of worship or formal denomination or sect, and for nine months, I have not engaged in any form of communal prayer or worship.

I kind of miss it.

The idea was to join with my wife at some point, in her communal religious life, but she doesn’t really have one at this point. She very occasionally attends shul, usually for a bar or bat mitzvah, or to help in some event held at one synagogue or the other, but not for Shabbat services and not to go to any of the classes being offered. I’ve suggested that perhaps we could do something together at one of the synagogues, and after a number of conversations on the matter, she said, “we’ll see.”

So why don’t I attend a church in the meantime? One of the reasons I left “One Law” is that the Rabbis at both synagogues in town are generally “OK” with Christians visiting for worship and classes, but they have an extremely difficult time even tolerating the presence of “Messianics”. Certainly, if I attended a church, even regularly, I would be no more or less offensive to them than any other Christian who walked through their doors, and certainly there are other intermarried couples who attend both synagogues, so how out of place could I be? Church attendance shouldn’t be a barrier to synagogue worship as such.

Traffic ConesThe other reason I left “One Law” was because I didn’t want to worship alone. I don’t mean without fellowship, which I had in abundance, but without my wife. She would no more step one foot inside a church than she would inside a “Messianic” congregation and for pretty much the same reasons. I would be just as “isolated” from my wife in a church service as I ever was in a “Messianic” service. I might eventually gain fellowship with other Christians, but it would still be completely hollow without my wife.

I know what some Christians out there are probably thinking right now.

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. –Matthew 10:34-39 (ESV)

You could reduce that down to, “the heck with your family, Jesus is more important” or words to that effect. You could even attach my desire to attend synagogue services with my wife to what the Master said in Matthew 10:33 (ESV): but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven. So much for loving my wife, eh guys? But what about this?

…and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” –Matthew 19:5-6 (ESV)

It’s not so easy now to simply dispense with my “other half,” even for the sake of my faith in Jesus, unless you can come up with some handy way to reconcile the dissonance created by juxtaposing those two teachings of the Master (and I’m aware that theology has come up with some rather creative ways of making discordant verses “fit” for the sake of “smoothing over” theology when rationally, they otherwise shouldn’t reconcile).

And then there’s supersessionism in the church.

I recently wrote an article for Messiah Journal called Origins of Supersessionism in the Church, which is the first of a four-part series on this topic. While I generally oppose this theology, my writing and research has made me particularly sensitive to the extraordinary harm this teaching of the church (not teaching of Jesus and Paul) has done to the Jewish people and to the worship of the Messiah within the framework of Judaism over the past 2,000 years or so. I admit to living with a certain amount of apprehension that if I ever started attending a church again, someone, a Pastor or Bible Teacher or just one of the parishioners, would spout off something about the church replacing Jews. Then I’d feel my blood pressure rise along with my temper, and I’d either just walk out, or I tell that person what I thought of their ill-considered “theology” (and then walk out or be thrown out).

Not that it would really be their fault. After all, the church has been teaching supersessionism as Biblical “fact” ever since the days of the early Gentile “church fathers.” That still doesn’t make it right nor does it mean I have to tolerate a way of understanding the New Testament that requires Judaism and every living, breathing Jew (including my wife and three children) to be deleted from religious, spiritual, and historical significance, not to mention permanently removing them from God’s love and, in at least a historical sense, removing the Jews from their very lives.

I told you I was sensitive to this stuff just now.

So that’s why I don’t go to church.

I understand what Jacob is saying and he’s right. Internet relationships are something of an illusion. I have managed to turn one or two into “real” friendships, but it always involves meeting in real life and doing stuff together. Pretty difficult for most web connections, particularly when those contacts span the globe.

Jacob ended his blog post with an invitation to those of us who are disaffected in relation to the Christian church:

If you believe in Jesus, you’re a Christian. We’re all brothers. We can be distinctive without being destructive. We can worship together. We can live together. We have to.

And maybe, just maybe, you could drop in at church sometime. We’d love to have you.

Thanks, Jacob (where ever you live…which according to his About page, is thousands of miles away from me). I’m not sure how that would ever work out, but I guess we’ll see what God has in mind.

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Difficult Ascent

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AscentAs impossible as it sounds, as absurd as it may seem: The mandate of darkness is to become light; the mandate of a busy, messy world is to find oneness. We have proof: for the greater the darkness becomes, the greater the confusion of life, the deeper our souls reach inward to discover their own light.

How could it be that darkness leads us to find a deeper light? That confusion leads us to find a deeper truth?

Only because the very act of existence is set to know its own author. That is the cosmic drama, its theme and its plot: That otherness should come to know oneness.

And we are the players in that drama.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe, Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
“The Mandate of Darkness”
Chabad.org

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.

-William Shakespeare
“As You Like It”
Act 2, scene 7

I’m still trying to drag my thoughts and feelings out of Tisha b’Av and the time of mourning. I don’t know why I can’t shake this off. After all, life moves on. Tisha b’Av comes every year and it goes every year. Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is going to arrive in less than two months and there will be ample opportunity to fast, pray, reflect on my short comings, make amends to those I have hurt, and attempt to pull myself up out of the mud and up to the heavens.

What am I waiting for?

Why do things sometimes seem like this?

If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, however many they be, but his soul is not satisfied with good things and he does not even have a proper burial, then I say, “Better the miscarriage than he, for it comes in futility and goes into obscurity; and its name is covered in obscurity. It never sees the sun and it never knows anything; it is better off than he. Even if the other man lives a thousand years twice and does not enjoy good things – do not all go to one place?” –Ecclesiastes 6:3-6 (NASB)

Rabbi Freeman says that the purpose of living in a deep darkness is to find a deeper light and the verses from Ecclesiastes say that a soul should be satisfied with the good things. If not, life itself is futile. Yet I continue to feel somewhat like this fellow:

How long, O LORD?
Will You hide Yourself forever?
Will Your wrath burn like fire?
Remember what my span of life is;
For what vanity You have created all the sons of men!
What man can live and not see death?
Can he deliver his soul from the power of Sheol? –Psalm 89:46-48 (NASB)

Christians cry out to Jesus to return and Jews bare their souls in anguish to God and ask how long until the Moshiach comes? As people of faith, we know that life is not lived in vain, but how long until the King reigns in full, O’ God, how long? How many people have been born, lived, and died waiting for you?

I quoted the following parable about two weeks ago in another of my blog posts:

A father answers the questions of his child and they are happy together, in joyful dialogue.

Then the child asks a question, and the father must think deeply—not just for the answer, but to reach to the essence of this answer so he may bring it to the world of his child. For a long while, the father is quiet.

And so, the child becomes anxious and begins to cry. “Father, where are you? Why do you no longer talk to me? Why have you deserted me for your own thoughts?”

And then the father begins to speak, but this time it is the deepest core of his mind that flows into the mind and heart of the child. Such a flow that with this the child, too, may become a father.

The child is us. The time of silence is now.

When the spirit of Man is dark, when the flow gates of Above seem all but sealed, prepare for liberation.

Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
From the wisdom of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, of righteous memory
“A Time of Silence”
Chabad.org

As difficult as it can be sometimes, a good portion of the nature of faith is to wait. I believe that while we are waiting, we aren’t supposed to be passive and inactive. We still have a life. The very first prayer an observant Jew says upon awakening is:

“I gratefully thank You, living and existing King
for restoring my soul to me with compassion.
Abundant is your faithfulness.”
–Modeh Ani

Even if life doesn’t make any sense, and even if life seems cruel, unjust, and merciless, we are here by the will of God. If we believe He guides our steps, then even our existence isn’t a random event. Our purpose then, is not to surrender to futility, but to discover the reason we were created and then to live that reason out every day that we draw breath.

However, some days are better than others. We ask for mercy, God, when we seem only shallow characters reciting our lines in a badly written play. We know our lives must mean more than that. Struggling to ascend from the dark abyss, when will we find the deeper light?

The road

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

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Masei: In the Desert

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The Sinai DesertThe Torah portion Masei begins by stating: “These are the journeys of the Children of Israel who left Egypt..” (Numbers 33:1) The Torah then goes on to recount all the places where the Jews resided during their 40-year trek from Egypt to the Promised Land.

Our Sages (in Alshich ibid. See also Klei Yakar and Orach Chayim ibid.) ask: By recounting the places where the Jewish people camped rather than the journeys themselves, the Torah is indicating that the resting places are more important than the journeys. This being so, the verse should have stated: “These are the encampments .,” rather than “These are the journeys .” Especially so, since the Jews spent the majority of these 40 years in their encampments, and not in travel.

The ultimate purpose of both the Jews’ travels and encampments was, of course, to enter Eretz Yisrael. The encampments were therefore also termed “journeys,” for they served no purpose in and of themselves.

-Based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe,
Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson for Torah Portion Masei

These concepts are reflected in this week’s Torah reading, Parshas Masei. Masei means “journeys,” and the reading enumerates the 42 different stages in the journey of the newborn Jewish nation from the land of Egypt until its entry into Eretz Yisrael. The Baal Shem Tov explains (As quoted in Degel Machaneh Ephraim, Parshas Masei) that these 42 stages in our people’s journey are mirrored in the life of every individual as he proceeds from birth his personal “exodus from Egypt” until his entry into “the Land of Life” the spiritual counterpart of Eretz Yisrael.

This entire journey through the wilderness (and through life) is intended to reflect continual spiritual growth. Even those stages which are associated with negative events have a positive impetus at their source.

-from a Commentary by Rabbi Eli Touger
Adapted from
Likkutei Sichos, Vol. II, p. 348;
Vol. VI, p. 111ff, 235ff; Vol. XXIII, p. 224

About twelve years ago, I found myself “between careers” and the only job I could find was a temporary position with the Postal Service. I worked from 11 p.m. until sometimes 11 a.m. at a big, mail processing plant, doing just about any kind of manual labor that anyone required of me. I barely saw my family. I only saw the sun as I was driving home after work to go to sleep. I didn’t make very much of an income…but thank Hashem that He provided me with the means to continue to support my family during a difficult period.

Back then, it was easy to complain to myself and to God about my work situation and conditions, but one of the supervisors at “the plant”, who was a Christian, told me this was my “wilderness period”. He turned out to be right.

I learned a great deal doing different kinds of jobs as a “casual” for the Postal Service during the several years I was with them. I don’t mean just the technical aspects of the different assignments I was given, but I learned a lot about patience, humility, respect, tolerance, and graciousness. I performed tasks that I didn’t think I was physically capable of and learned organizational skills I’d never needed before.

All the while, I prayed and prayed and prayed for God to deliver me from the wilderness…and eventually He did. But before that, He took away my ability to rest on the Shabbat (because of the necessity for me to work Saturdays) so I would appreciate the Shabbat. He taught me to cherish every day I had a day off because I could enjoy the light of day and the companionship of my wife and children. And He actually got me into really good physical shape.

The Baal Shem Tov characterizes our life, our experiences between birth and death as “the wilderness”, but within that great desert expanse, I believe we have more definite “wanderings”, challenges, and “dry parts” of our life that God provides so that we will learn something we desperately need in order to draw closer to Him and to be a better servant and child of the Father.

Now look again that the two quotes I inserted at the top of this blog post. It’s the 40 years of traveling and the 42 individual encampments that God used to hone and shape the vessel that was the Children of Israel so when the time came, they would be ready to enter into and possess the Land of Canaan. We saw that the generation which came out of Egypt was not ready (with a few exceptions) and they were not able to make the transition from a people enslaved to a free nation. It took 40 years and the next generation to take that crucial step.

Night RoadAs the Baal Shem Tov states, the journey of Bnei Yisrael can also be thought of as the journey we take as individuals along our path of faith. We wander. Our path isn’t linear. Sometimes we backtrack and revisit old haunts and habits. Every step, every “encampment” along the way, we learn something we need to know; we have an experience that gives us a vital skill, even if we don’t realize it at the time. The Children of Israel knew they would be wandering for 40 years, but we don’t usually know how long it will be for us. As I said, within the “desert” of our lifetimes, we encounter paths that are more rocky and desolate. Often the length of time we wander depends on whether we learn quickly and dilgently the lessons God has provided, or whether we resist and cling stubbornly to our past, our sins, our frustrations, our sorrows, and our “slavery”.

If we are obedient, we finally arrive, but that’s only the beginning. Once they crossed the Jordan, the Children of Israel went on to conquer a nation. Once we are finished wandering, we must conquer the greater desert of ourselves and more.

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. –Romans 8:37-39

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete. –2 Corinthians 10:3-6

“On the move” means there is no comparison between a person’s former state and his present one – the individual has totally departed from his previous level.

The verse therefore emphasizes “the journeys ,” indicating that a Jew should never be satisfied with moving from one level to a comparable one. Rather, he must constantly “journey” in a manner whereby his next stage is infinitely higher than his current one.

This latter manner of “travel” contains two elements: departing from the previous level and attaining the infinitely higher one. As long as there has not been a complete departure from the former level, the higher level cannot be attained.

This, then, is the meaning of “These are the journeys of the Children of Israel who left Egypt ..” Why was it necessary for there to be many “journeys” in order to leave Egypt; it would seem that with the first journey the Jewish people already departed Egypt?

Egypt is symbolic of spiritual limitations. Thus, the “encampments” – the spiritual achievements en route – did not constitute complete redemption from “Egypt.” In order to arrive at the Promised Land, there had to be a total departure from previous “encampments,” for each stopping – no matter how lofty the waystation – itself represented a lingering within the state of “Egypt.”

-Based on Likkutei Sichos Vol. XXIII, pp. 224-227.

Let us finally leave “Egypt” and may the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob grant us a swift and safe journey to our own “Promised Land”, a place within us where we find His glory and peace.

Amen.

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Broken

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Broken FaithA certain man was profoundly depressed. He perceived his many flaws and failings and they pained him, but he did not feel confident that he could atone for them. How could he possibly rectify such serious wrongs?

When Rav Yissachar Dov of Belz, zt”l, was asked what someone in this state of mind should do, he offered powerful words of encouragement. “You must understand that God never rejects the Jewish community, as we find in Chullin 29. The halachah is that if an individual is defiled within the community, he can bring his korban Pesach along with them. His personal sacrifice is not rejected because he is part of the community.

“By the same token, someone who takes stock of himself and finds himself riddled with faults should not give up. Although his feelings of inadequacy push him to abandon his efforts to serve God altogether, God forbid, he must take heart and do what he can. It is true that he is defiled, but if he becomes one with the Jewish community, God will enable him to rectify his many transgressions.”

The Ohr HaChaim HaKadosh, zt”l, offered different advice to help fight feelings of spiritual inadequacy, however. “A person may contemplate the many mitzvos in the Torah and say, ‘How can I possibly fulfill them as required?’ Similarly, someone who has transgressed many sins should beware of what his yetzer haram (evil inclination) will surely claim: ‘How can you rectify so many evil deeds?’

“It is for this person that Moshe warns us, ‘And you should know today.’ He was alluding to Shabbos, regarding which the verse states, ‘Today is Shabbos.’ Moshe was telling us to how to answer such discouraging claims. We must say in our hearts: ‘Our sages explain that keeping Shabbos is likened to fulfilling the entire Torah. Through learning the laws of Shabbos and keeping them carefully, week after week, God will help me rectify my spiritual failings.’”

Daf Yomi Digest
Stories Off the Daf
“Joining the Community”
Chullin 29

If you’re a Christian, you may find several things about this commentary that trouble you. For one, it’s addressed to the Jewish people, so how can it apply to you? It also talks about a Jewish person’s difficulty in fulfilling all of the Torah commandments, which doubtlessly, you believe don’t apply to you. Also, the vast majority of Christians either don’t see the relevance of keeping the Shabbat as Jews do, or they believe that going to church on Sunday and then doing “whatever” afterward, fulfills this requirement.

Take a closer look.

While I agree that the commentary was written specifically to apply to Jews and that the 613 commandments Jews believe they are obligated to fulfill do not apply to non-Jewish Christians (or the vast majority of them, anyway), there is a lesson to be learned here. Despite being “saved” by Jesus Christ, a Christian still can feel as if he or she is spiritually deficient. It’s not like it’s impossible for a Christian to sin or even impossible for a Christian to suffer under multiple, habitual sins. It’s hardly impossible or a Christian to feel terrible guilt over having committed many sins and to experience a profound distance from God.

Some Christians in this situation simply give up their faith and surrender to their sins and the values of a fallen world.

The message of the esteemed Ravs we see quoted above is a message of hope that we Christians can look to as well. We are grafted in to the “cultivated olive tree” and “if the root is holy, so are the branches” (Romans 11:16). But while Rav Yissachar Dov suggests that a Jew can draw strength from the larger Jewish community, and the Ohr HaChaim HaKadosh states that when a Jew observes the mitzvot applying to the Shabbat, it’s as if he fulfilled all of the Torah commandments, where does that leave us? How can a Christian overcome a profound sense of guilt over committing not just a few, but many sins across a long time period while professing faith in Christ?

The answer really isn’t that different. One of the reasons we gather in groups and worship communally is to gather strength and encouragement from each other:

Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. –1 Thessalonians 5:11

But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. –Hebrews 3:13

SorrowYou may not want to open up and expose the full truth of your being to your entire congregation or Sunday school class, but you can find someone on the Pastoral staff whom you feel you can trust, a compassionate Bible teacher, or a close Christian friend, and ask them for help. Yes, turn to God in prayer, repent in the name of Jesus, ask for forgiveness and the strength to stand tall under temptation, but don’t forget the kindness, grace, and support you can receive from a believing neighbor or friend. God provides us human comforters for a reason.

The other point also applies, though it may be more difficult to see.

In yesterday’s morning meditation, I suggested that it is appropriate and even beneficial for Christians to observe and keep the Shabbat in a manner similar to the Jewish people. That is, to keep an entire 24-hour period of time devoted to drawing nearer to God and to separating from the routine and stress of day-to-day life. Christians tend to see keeping a Sabbath in this manner as a list of what they can’t do (can’t go shopping, can’t go out to lunch, can’t mow the lawn), but it’s more about freedom than about restriction. It’s the freedom to put down the load you carry the other six-days of the week and to spend time focusing who you are; putting all of your attention on God, on prayer, on Bible study, on discussing the teachings of Jesus with others.

Christianity doesn’t have a tradition that says fulfilling one set of holy acts somehow fulfills all of them, but we don’t generally look at things that way. We know that Jesus atoned for our sins, so we don’t concern ourselves with all of the separate actions we would have to take to atone for all of the different sins we committed. We aren’t responsible for making the atonement ourselves, only for accepting the fact that Jesus is our atonement.

Still, as Christians, we can be overwhelmed by the amount and the depth of our sins and how we can ever manage to break the cycle of our disobedience. How can we remove all of the darkness from our souls and know that we are clean after leading sinful lives for months or even years? Wouldn’t a lifetime of sin and hypocrisy as a Christian take a lifetime to undo? How can we be forgiven if we still sin? Rather than trying to see the end result, we can take the “a journey of a thousand miles” point of view on the matter. We can start by focusing on just the first step.

Here’s the deal. Your life is a mess. You’ve really screwed up and you’ve been screwing up for a long time. Maybe your married life is worse than Arnold Schwarzenegger’s or you’ve severely “abused” Google’s image search feature on your computer to view women “inappropriately”. Perhaps your business dealings have been less than “open and above board” or you’ve been putting your hand in the boss’s till rather than helping your employer earn a profit.

Maybe you’ve been calling yourself a “Christian” and going to church on Sunday, but behaving no differently than the atheists and agnostics that populate your community, your workplace, and your neighborhood.

There’s hope. There’s always hope. You can turn it around. It won’t be easy and it won’t be quick. I know you’d like it to be. I know it might seem easier to just give up, but that only puts more distance between you and God and trust me, you’ll regret it in the long run. God said, “”Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other” (Isaiah 45:22) and please notice that He is addressing “all you ends of the earth” and not the Children of Israel exclusively.

Faith and belief in Jesus isn’t enough to help you. Knowing God exists and leaving it at that isn’t the answer. James, the brother of the Master, said that we must have faith and deeds (James 2:14-24). We must trust that when we turn from sin to God and desire return, that God will be there with open arms waiting for us, like the Father of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). We must not only believe God will accept our repentance, we must actually take the “risk” of returning and abandoning the sins that keep us from Him.

The only mistake you can make that is absolutely fatal is to walk away from God and never look back. Short of that, while you’re alive, you have hope. The world may be broken, but God can heal your brokenness.

There’s no such thing as defeat. There’s always another chance. To believe in defeat is to believe that there is something, a certain point in time that did not come from Above.

Know that G-d doesn’t have failures. If things appear to worsen, it is only as part of them getting better. We only fall down in order to bounce back even higher.

From the wisdom of the Rebbe
Menachem M. Schneerson
as compiled by Rabbi Tzvi Freeman in his book
Bringing Heaven Down to Earth