Pierre Teilhard_de_Chardin

This week’s Torah portion, bamidbar (Numbers 1:1-4:20), is the first Torah reading in a book of the same name (referred to in English as Numbers). The word bamidbar (במדבר) means “In the wilderness”.

Wilderness is the backdrop of most of the Torah. It is where all the drama of the people of Israel as a people, as opposed to a family, takes place. And it unfolds in the space of 40 years, after which, supposedly, our forefathers crossed the Jordan river and entered the Promised Land.

But have we really left the wilderness? Have we really entered the Promised Land?

Think about it. For thousands of years, every Simchat Torah we start reading the Torah from the beginning, from the Torah portion of Bereshit. And after fifty weeks or so, towards the end of the cycle, we read the last chapter of the Torah, Deuteronomy 34, in which we find a powerful image: Moses goes up to mount Nevo, from which he has a view of the land of Canaan, and, Y-H-V-H tells him:

זֹאת הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּעְתִּי לְאַבְרָהָם לְיִצְחָק וּלְיַעֲקֹב לֵאמֹר לְזַרְעֲךָ אֶתְּנֶנָּה הֶרְאִיתִיךָ בְעֵינֶיךָ וְשָׁמָּה לֹא תַעֲבֹר:

“This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘I will assign it to your offspring.’ I have let you see it with your own eyes, but you shall not cross there.” (Deuteronomy 34:4).

Moses passes away, the Torah ends, and we start from the beginning. The entry into the land of Canaan, which is described in the book of Joshua, is not part of Jewish life cycle.

Notice also that God is not referred to in the Torah as “the God who took you into the land of Canaan.” He is only referred to as the one who took the people of Israel out of Egypt. As, for example, in the first of the Ten Commandments:

אָנֹכִי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ אֲשֶׁר הוֹצֵאתִיךָ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם מִבֵּית עֲבָדִים.

I, Y-H-V-H, am your god who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage. (Exodus 20:2)

The Promised Land is spoken of as something to prepare for, something that will happen in the future. In the book of Deuteronomy Moses repeatedly uses the expression-

…עַל הָאֲדָמָה אֲשֶׁר אַתֶּם עֹבְרִים אֶת הַיַּרְדֵּן שָׁמָּה לְרִשְׁתָּהּ.

…the land that you are to possess upon crossing the Jordan. (Deuteronomy 32:47).

We are out of Egypt; getting into Canaan is something that is going to happen in the future; so where are we now? In the wilderness.

What is this condition, that we call it “the wilderness?” We are no longer in mitzrayim (מצרים), a word which means Egypt but literally means duality of boundaries. And you are not yet in Canaan, the Promised Land, a land flowing with milk and honey, a land of heaven on earth, although you long for it, you yearn for it, you are oriented towards it, you are informed by it, you move towards it.

You can never really get there. We are told that the people of Israel had to stay in the desert for 40 years until the last person who was a grown up when they had left Egypt—the last person who still had slavery to programmed in them—dies out. Only those who were one-pointedly and wholly to freedom and to the One, who had no trace of duality in them, were fit to cross into the Holy Land. May I suggest, that we are still waiting for those people to arise.

The human condition is not perfect. Perfect saints exist in Renaissance paintings. We all have the devil in us as well. That is what makes it interesting: because even though are bodies are firmly rooted on earth, our consciousness is grounded in Heaven and we can abide in that heaven right now. But we cannot deny duality, we cannot deny our body, we cannot deny those aspects of our lives that constantly pull us towards mitzrayim, towards the duality of boundaries.

So we are here in this in-between land, the land of bamidbar. This is where our unique drama unfolds. We were given an awesome task: the partake in the task of the creator, of moving creation towards more and more consciousness, towards higher and higher order. And how do we do that? As God tells Cain:

לַפֶּתַח חַטָּאת רֹבֵץ וְאֵלֶיךָ תְּשׁוּקָתוֹ וְאַתָּה תִּמְשָׁל בּוֹ:

Sin couches at the door; his urge is toward you, yet you can be the master. (Genesis 4:7)

You still have Egypt in you, it still exerts its pull, but you can make a choice. And that choice has cosmic implication, it is the most direct way towards tikkun ‘olam, towards the repair of the world. This is our task here on earth.

* * *

But does it make sense to aspire towards an elusive Holy Land which one can never reach? I’d like to bring one modern answer to this conundrum, that of the great French scientist, philosopher, theologian and educator, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955). He conceived of the idea of the Omega Point. Omega, of course, is that last letter in the Greek alphabet, which is why Jesus says in the Book of Revelation: “I am the alpha and the omega, the First and the Last.” (Revelation 22:13)

In Teilhard de Chardin’s theory of evolution, the universe perpetually evolves towards higher levels of material complexity and consciousness, starting from simple inanimate matter and culminating, thus far, in us, humans (emphasis on “thus far”). The Omega Point was for him the ultimate point of complexity and consciousness which acts as an attractor, as a point that the universe constantly evolves towards. It is both transcendent and real, and acts as an imperative—everything must evolve towards it, it cannot be undone, and its very existence exerts an irresistible pull on the whole physical matter.

I propose that the same is true of the idea of the Holy Land, the Promised Land. That land does not exist in time and space. The world we live in, the physical world, is the world of the wilderness. The Promised Land, a very real but transcendent concept, is something we can see, we can aspire for, but cannot cross towards. Yet its existence has had a transformative cohesive influence on the Jewish people for thousands of years.

So yes, we are still bamidbar, in the wilderness, in the desert. And that is the good news. Because in choosing to align ourselves with the move towards the Promised Land and away from mitzrayim, away from bondage, we are co-creators of a better world. This is Tikkun Olam at its best. And from a certain perspective, that is what we came here to do.

David Bohm

The opening verses of the Torah portion of bechukotai, (Leviticus 26:3 – 27:34) reminded me of the ideas of American physicist David Bohm (1917-1992). An innovative thinker, Bohm did not limit himself to physics and went further than many in trying to grapple with the implications of quantum physics on our understanding of mind and brain. He also engaged in famous conversations with J.D. Krishnamurti, one of the most significant spiritual teachers of the 20^th century, and developed a system of “dialogue,” a way for people to conduct a conversation which takes the insights he has gained into the nature of mind and consciousness into account.

One of Bohm’s ideas was that of Implicate and Explicate order. For Bohm, explicate order (which he also refers to as “unfolded” order) is the order that we normally perceive around us, the perceived order of space, time, and particles. Underlying this order, for Bohm, is a deeper one, which he calls “implicate” (or “enfolded”) order. It is that order which he was interested learning and accessing, and his process of dialogue was aimed at that.

Bohm felt that accessing this implicate order through the process of dialogue was an end in itself, and therefore the application of this form of dialogue for practical, “worldly” purpose was left to his students and successors (bear with me, this will tie in with the weekly portion very soon…). One of these is William Isaacs, author of Dialogue: The Art Of Thinking Together. In his book, Isaacs brings many case studies in which companies fared poorly due to lack of real communication between the various branches of labor, management, and R&D. But as soon as the system of dialogue was introduced and applied—that is, to use both Bohm’s and Isaacs’ assertions, as soon as the implicate order was accessed together by the various stake-holders—the company or organization turned around.

* * *

It was upon reading these testimonies that the verses of bechukotai came to life. In those beginning verses, Y-H-V-H makes a promise to the Israelites, which on the face of it looks very simplistic: if they conduct their lives according to His laws and obey His commandments, they will flourish. And if they don’t, they will be severely punished.

אִם בְּחֻקֹּתַי תֵּלֵכוּ וְאֶת מִצְוֹתַי תִּשְׁמְרוּ וַעֲשִׂיתֶם אֹתָם: וְנָתַתִּי גִשְׁמֵיכֶם בְּעִתָּם וְנָתְנָה הָאָרֶץ יְבוּלָהּ וְעֵץ הַשָּׂדֶה יִתֵּן פִּרְיוֹ: וְהִשִּׂיג לָכֶם דַּיִשׁ אֶת בָּצִיר וּבָצִיר יַשִּׂיג אֶת זָרַע וַאֲכַלְתֶּם לַחְמְכֶם לָשֹׂבַע וִישַׁבְתֶּם לָבֶטַח בְּאַרְצְכֶם:… וְאִם לֹא תִשְׁמְעוּ לִי וְלֹא תַעֲשׂוּ אֵת כָּל הַמִּצְוֹת הָאֵלֶּה: וְאִם בְּחֻקֹּתַי תִּמְאָסוּ וְאִם אֶת מִשְׁפָּטַי תִּגְעַל נַפְשְׁכֶם לְבִלְתִּי עֲשׂוֹת אֶת כָּל מִצְוֹתַי לְהַפְרְכֶם אֶת בְּרִיתִי: אַף אֲנִי אֶעֱשֶׂה זֹּאת לָכֶם וְהִפְקַדְתִּי עֲלֵיכֶם בֶּהָלָה אֶת הַשַּׁחֶפֶת וְאֶת הַקַּדַּחַת מְכַלּוֹת עֵינַיִם וּמְדִיבֹת נָפֶשׁ וּזְרַעְתֶּם לָרִיק זַרְעֲכֶם וַאֲכָלֻהוּ אֹיְבֵיכֶם:

If you conduct yourself according to My laws and observe My commandments, I will grant your rains in their season, so that the earth shall yield its produce and the trees of the field their fruit. Your threshing shall overtake the vintage, and your vintage shall overtake the sowing; you shall eat your fill of bread and dwell securely in your land…. But if you do not obey me and do not observe all these commandments, if you reject My laws and spurn My rules, so that you do not observe all My commandments and you break My covenant, in turn I will do this to you: I will wreak misery upon you—consumption and fever, which cause the eyes to pine and the body to languish, you shall sow your seed to no purpose, for your enemies shall eat it. (Leviticus 26:3-5, 14-17).

So yes, I know that most present day rabbis and orthodox Jews will claim that the text simply talks about following God’s commandments, the mitzvoth, as interpreted by the 2,000 rabbinical tradition. And I am not going to argue with that, because surely there is nothing wrong with following the commandments. But I think there is a deeper way in which we can understand the words lalechet bechukuotay, i.e., walk in my commandments. And that deeper way comes from within the Jewish tradition, not from outside.

* * *

In the biblical book of Proverbs, chokhma (חכמה), “Wisdom”, is personified. She has a monologue, which she opens with the words:

יְהוָה–קָנָנִי, רֵאשִׁית דַּרְכּוֹ:    קֶדֶם מִפְעָלָיו מֵאָז.
מֵעוֹלָם, נִסַּכְתִּי מֵרֹאשׁ–    מִקַּדְמֵי-אָרֶץ.
בְּאֵין-תְּהֹמוֹת חוֹלָלְתִּי;    בְּאֵין מַעְיָנוֹת, נִכְבַּדֵּי-מָיִם.
בְּטֶרֶם הָרִים הָטְבָּעוּ;    לִפְנֵי גְבָעוֹת חוֹלָלְתִּי.

Y-H-V-H created me in the beginning of his course
As the first of His works of old.
In the distant past I was fashioned,
At the beginning, at the origin of earth.
There was still no deep when I was brought forth,
No springs rich in water;
Before [the foundation of] the mountains were sunk,
Before the hills I was born.
(Proverbs 8:22-25)

Who is this wisdom personified? Without exception, throughout time and in all the streams of Judaism (mystics or scholars, traditional or modern), the fact that this personified Wisdom, chokhmah, is none other than the Torah has been taken for granted. Torah is revealed here not as a text, but as a primordial level of wisdom that existed before creation came into being, before space and time.

The midrash and the Talmud went even further. Not only did Torah exist as a primordial wisdom before creation came about, it is in fact the blueprint of creation. God, it is said, uses the letters of the Torah as the “workers” which he uses to bring creation about. It is the sequence of the letter in the Torah, according to those ancient traditions, that is the code through which creation comes into being.

* * *

This way of relating to the Torah, which mirrors the way the Vedic tradition relates to Veda and echos Bohm’s concept of implicit order, makes profound sense to me. It makes sense to me, that living in accordance with that level of intelligence of nature one life would have better chances of prospering than otherwise.

While I am, like many others, weary of any attempts to “prove” anything that appears in the Bible through the use of science, I can safely say that David Bohm’s concept of implicit order helped me to live in piece with the statements in the bechukotay portion of the week, which I otherwise have many factual and historical problems with. Thank you, David Bohm.

וְכִי יָמוּךְ אָחִיךָ עִמָּךְ וְנִמְכַּר לָךְ לֹא תַעֲבֹד בּוֹ עֲבֹדַת עָבֶד: כְּתוֹשָׁב יִהְיֶה עִמָּךְ עַד שְׁנַת הַיֹּבֵל יַעֲבֹד עִמָּךְ: וְיָצָא מֵעִמָּךְ הוּא וּבָנָיו עִמּוֹ וְשָׁב אֶל מִשְׁפַּחְתּוֹ וְאֶל אֲחֻזַּת אֲבֹתָיו יָשׁוּב: כִּי עֲבָדַי הֵם אֲשֶׁר הוֹצֵאתִי אֹתָם מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם לֹא יִמָּכְרוּ מִמְכֶּרֶת עָבֶד:… כִּי לִי בְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל עֲבָדִים עֲבָדַי הֵם אֲשֶׁר הוֹצֵאתִי אוֹתָם מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם אֲנִי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם:

If your kinsman under you continues in straits and must give himself over to you, to not subject him to the treatment of a slave. He shall remain with you as a hired or bound laborer; he shall serve with you only until the Jubilee year. Then he and his children with him shall be free of your authority; he shall go back to his family and return to his ancestral holding. For they are my slaves, whom I freed from the land of Egypt, and may not give themselves over into slavery…. For it is to me that the Israelites are slaves: they are my slaves, whom I freed from the land of Egypt, I Y-H-V-H your God. (Leviticus 25:39-42, 55)

As discussed earlier, in the context of the Torah portion of Vayera, the Hebrew word for slave is eved. Being an eved is considered to be a despicable way of life; referring to someone in this manner is a great insult. Why? Because as a slave, one has nothing of one’s own. One’s body, one’s cloths, one’s spouse and one’s children belong to one’s master-owner.

But when it comes to God, this relationship is hailed as the ideal relationship. Abraham is hailed by good as “my slave, Abraham”; Moses is referred to as God’s slave; and the prophets’ highest ideal of life was to be a slave of Y-H-V-H:

הֵן עַבְדִּי אֶתְמָךְ בּוֹ בְּחִירִי רָצְתָה נַפְשִׁי נָתַתִּי רוּחִי עָלָיו מִשְׁפָּט לַגּוֹיִם יוֹצִיא.

This is My slave, whom I uphold,
My chosen one, in whom I delight.
I have put My spirit upon him,
He shall teach the true way to the nations. (Isaiah 42:1)

English translations of the Bible, by both Jewish and Christian sources, translate the words eved adonay, which literally mean God’s slave, as God’s servant, because it’s a “less humiliating” way of describing someone who is so surrendered to God. But in doing so, they are performing both a linguistic and a philosophical error. Linguistically, because eved actually means slave; a servant would be mesharet. Philosophically, because the use of this word is deliberate—it describes a situation in which one recognizes that nothing that one has is one’s own, it all belongs to God.

Far from being an insult, calling someone “God’s slave” is the highest compliment. It is, in fact, the name of one of the prophets, Ovadiah (עֹבַדְיָה). And it’s the same in Arabic: calling someone ‘abd (عبد), Arabic for slave (which comes from the same root as the Hebrew eved), is an insult; but when used in conjunction with Allah, it is the greatest honor. Hence the name ‘Abdallah (عبد الله), which means “Allah’s slave.” In fact, many traditional Arabic names start with the word ‘abd followed by one of the epithets of Allah from the Qur’an: ‘Abdulrahman (the Slave of the Merciful), ‘Abdulquadir (the Slave of the Powerful), etc.

Interestingly, the Hebrew word eved also shares its root with the Hebrew word avodah, which means both “work” and “worship.” Worshipping God in Judaism is not a question of choice; it is work, a duty. One is to performs it as a slave, in the sense that one who is cognizant that one’s body and mind exist for the sole purpose of performing God’s work. It is the same concept in Islam, in which these three words—work, worship and slavery—all come from the same Arabic root, which is identical with the Hebrew one.

And yet it is important to realize that this slavery is understood, and experienced, in both religions as the key to real freedom. In the words of the great 11^th Century Rabbi and poet Yehudah Halevi:

עַבְדֵי זְמָן עַבְדֵי עֲבָדִים הֵם –
עֶבֶד אֲדֹנָי הוּא לְבַד חָפְשִׁי:
עַל כֵּן בְבַקֵּשׁ כָּל-אֱנוֹשׁ חֶלְקוֹ
“חֶלְקִי אֲדֹנָי!” אָמְרָה נַפְשִׁי.

Slaves of time are slaves of slaves—
Only God’s slave is free:
Therefore, when each human asked for their share,
My soul said, “God is the share for me!”

Copyright © 2014 Igal Harmelin-Moria
(Copyright does not pertain to illustrations)

Rabbi Klonimus Kalman’s grave

This week’s Torah portion, kedoshim (Leviticus Ch. 19-20), opens up with a bang. The text says:

וַיְדַבֵּר יְהוָה אֶל מֹשֶׁה לֵּאמֹר: דַּבֵּר אֶל כָּל עֲדַת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאָמַרְתָּ אֲלֵהֶם קְדֹשִׁים תִּהְיוּ כִּי קָדוֹשׁ אֲנִי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם:

Y-H-V-H spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the whole Israelite community, and say to them: You shall be holy, for I, Y-H-V-H your God, am Holy. (Leviticus 19:1-2)

The Hebrew word kadosh (קדוש), meaning holy, means different, other, set apart. As such, it is an attribute of God, as the one who is completely set apart from creation, the transcendental reality.

And yet here, the Torah demands of the Israelites—and I prefer not to understand this term as those who share a particular DNA, but rather as the word denotes, “those who grapple with God”—to be holy too. God seems to be saying: I am holy, and if you engage with me and grapple with me, if you do it right, you should be holy too.

But if holy means set apart and different, should “becoming holy” mean withdrawing from the world? The Hassidic text Maor Vashemesh, discusses just that. Rabbi Klonimus Kalman Halevi, the author, starts by referring to Maimonides, who seems to be advocating withdrawal in some circumstances (apologies to women readers: this text was written in the 18^th Century):

“If an Israelite lives in a place where evil views and bad leaders prevail, he should leave that place and move from place to place, and from country to country, until one reaches a place of straight Torah and opinions, where he would find rest. And if he cannot find any suitable place, he should seek solitude in deserts and forests in order to run away from evil views and bad people.”

Rabbi Klominus concurs, but only to a point.

“The truth is, that one should indeed escape to the forests and retire from the public in order to save oneself from evil views and evil deeds, but the only thing this can be helpful for is ensuring that one can perform one’s worship of Him, blessed by He. However, one does not gain supreme holiness until one attaches oneself to people of God who worship God in truth, and participate with them with much worship, through prayers as well as through the study of the Torah. The essence of all the mitzvoth (the commandments) is to be in community with other God seekers; then and only then the supreme holiness can be achieved.”

In this, Rabbi Klonimus echoes the ideas of Gautama the Buddha. Buddhism is known for its solitary practices of inward meditation, and there is no more solitary practice than that. However, when asked about the value of sangha, the spiritual community, the Buddha said: “Sangha is the beginning, the middle, and the end of the spiritual life.”

*   *   *

Another key phrase that appears in this Torah portion is

וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹךָ

Love your fellow as yourself. (Leviticus 19:18)

This phrase is known as the Golden Rule. It is the fundamental rule of every culture and tradition that is based on the sacred. Here are a few examples:

Christianity: “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Matthew 7:12)

Islam: “Not one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.” (Forty Hadith of an-Nawawi 13)

Hinduism: “One should not behave towards others in a way which is disagreeable to oneself. This is the essence of morality. All other activities are due to selfish desire.” (Mahabharata, Anusasana Parva 113.8)

Jainism: “A man should wander about treating all creatures as he himself would be treated.” (Sutrakritanga 1.11.33)

Buddhism: “Comparing oneself to others in such terms as “Just as I am so are they, just as they are so am I,” he should neither kill nor cause others to kill.” (Sutta Nipata 705)

How can one love one’s fellow as oneself, when he or she is “so obviously” other? The message of this important, universal principle is that there is no other: ultimately, there is only One, and that One is who we all are. Leyt atar panuy mineh, there is no place where He is not, says the Zohar. This realization, of the Oneness of all, is the highest realization of truth, the supreme holiness.

Sages of all spiritual and religious traditions have been recommending solitary meditation as a means of realizing that oneness. The solitary practice of meditation becomes a key to loving the other, the key to community.

An interesting symmetry emerges: holiness, the supreme “otherness”, is said to be realized ultimately through community; and community, the ultimate of togetherness, is ultimately possible through the deep non-dual, ultimately solitary realization of Self. Community and solitude are two aspects of the same thing.

—————–

For the quotes, I relied on the anthology “The World Scripture” http://www.unification.net/ws/

Copyright © 2014 Igal Harmelin-Moria
(Copyright does not pertain to illustrations)

The Ark of the Covenant

As practically all of the book of Leviticus, this week’s Torah portion, acharey mot (Leviticus Ch. 16-18), lists numerous rules regarding how Aharon, the chief priest, is to conduct himself while he is in the Tent of the Meeting (another name for the Tabernacle).

For the Hassidic rabbis, these are just codes for how one should conduct oneself during prayer. The “Tent of the Meeting” is not a physical place for them; it is the deeper realms of one’s consciousness. Entering the Tent of the Meeting (ohel mo’ed) is entering that place within oneself, where one meets one’s Maker.

Here is how Rabbi Benjamin Ben Aharon from Zlositch, author of Torey Zahav (תורי זהב), interpreted one of these instructions. The text says:

וְכָל אָדָם לֹא יִהְיֶה בְּאֹהֶל מוֹעֵד בְּבֹאוֹ לְכַפֵּר בַּקֹּדֶשׁ עַד צֵאתוֹ וְכִפֶּר בַּעֲדוֹ וּבְעַד בֵּיתוֹ וּבְעַד כָּל קְהַל יִשְׂרָאֵל:

No person shall be in the Tent of Meeting [the Tabernacle] when he comes in to atone for the holy, until he goes out. He shall make atonement for himself and his household…. (Leviticus 16:17)

Rabbi Benjamin Ben Aharon from Zlositch writes:*

In the book Duties of the Hearts** [hovot halevavot, by the 11^th century Rabbi Bahya ibn Paqquda] we are told that a person should regularly practice lone meditation [hitbodedut [התבודדות, separated from other people. You should reach the state that even when surrounded by a thousand people, you are able to maintain your attachment to God. Nothing should divide you or separate you from that attachment (Sha‘ar Heshbon ha-Nefesh 3).

Thus I interpret our verse…. We know that before praying you should be stripped of your corporeal self. Your thought should cleave to the exaltedness of God, as though you were standing in the upper worlds among angels, rather than surrounded by people. When you forget that you are among people, you are able to pray with great intensity, without any false motives. This is [what is meant by] No person shall be in the Tent of Meeting. That refers to the synagogue or house of study, the place where people gather to pray. No person shall be there in your thought; you should be so stripped of physical selfhood that you forget you are standing among people. As you come in to atone for the holy: the time of prayer, which takes the place of atoning sacrifices. Until he goes out: from the beginning to the end of prayer. He shall make atonement for himself and his household: prayer of this sort is surely pure.

Thus I also interpreted the sages’ saying “In a place where there is no man, try to be a man” (Mishnah, Pirkey Avot 2: 5). When you stand in that place of teshuvah, strive to be more than an ordinary man; enter the upper realms, where there is no other person. Before you perform a mitsvah, set your mind to be attached above, as though there were no person present….

* * *

The Hassids were not the only mystics that took ancient stories of entering the tabernacle or the temple to mean entering one’s own Holy of Holies. A story that I told earlier in this blog is fit to be told here, since this we are approaching the holiday of Passover, even though it is coming from the New Testament. The story comes from the Gospel of Luke:

Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover.  And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival.  When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day’s journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. (Luke 2:41-47)

Commenting on this story, Meister Eckhart, the great 14^th century mystic who deserves, in my eyes, to be called “a Christian Hassid”, had an interpretation of this story that reminds one of the Hassids.

For Eckhart, this story is a metaphor for one’s search for God. When one lives unconsciously, one is so self-absorbed that one does not know whether or not one is connected to God. This is symbolized by the fact that “the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it” (the parents, in this story, symbolize the seekers).

As life progresses, one notices that something is missing, but thinks that the solution is near, and one is bound to stumble upon it sooner or later in the natural course of one’s life. “Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day’s journey.”

It does not take long for an introspective soul to realize that one has to look deeper. One may not be ready for a radical change yet—one still looks for God in the familiar—but the intensity of one’s search increases. “Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends.”

When that fails, one decides to be much more focused and serious. One starts devoting all of one’s energy to the search, engaging in prayer, meditation, and holy practices. This, Meister Eckhart says, is what is meant by the fact that the parents returned to the holy city, to Jerusalem, and looked for boy Jesus within its walls. But even after three days of constant searching in the holy city, they could not find him. In other words, holy, religious pursuits in themselves are no guarantee for finding God.

Where do they find God eventually? In the temple, which for Eckhart is a metaphor for the deepest level of Self, the deepest level of one’s consciousness. When one finally steps into that inner realm, one realizes that God has been there all along, teaching.

* * *

Happy Passover!

—————————–

*Green, Arthur; Leader, Ebn; Mayse, Ariel Evan; Rose, Or N. (2013-07-09). Speaking Torah, Vol. 1: Spiritual Teachings from around the Maggid’s Table (Kindle Locations 5327-5336). Jewish Lights Publishing. Kindle Edition.

**חובות הלבבות

Copyright © 2014 Igal Harmelin-Moria
(Copyright does not pertain to illustrations)

The grave of the Maharal of Prag

At the beginning of this week’s Torah portion, tazria, we are told this regarding a new baby boy:

וּבַיּוֹם הַשְּׁמִינִי יִמּוֹל בְּשַׂר עָרְלָתוֹ:

On the eighth day, the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. (Leviticus 12:3)

Is there a significance to this number eight, to doing this on the eighth day? It turns out there is. According to the great 16^th century rabbi Yehudah Livai of Prag (the Maharal of Prag), everything that pertains to the supernatural intervention of the divine in the world is associated with the number eight.

Just look at last week’s Torah portion, shemini. The word shemini means “eighth”, and the portion is called thus because it opens with the words:

וַיְהִי בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁמִינִי

It was on the eighth day (Leviticus 9:1).

The eight day of what? It was the eighth day of the consecration of the mishkan, the tabernacle. it was only on that day that God’s presence, the shekhinah, finally entered the mishkan and the purpose for which it was created could be served.

The miraculous nature of eight is also highlighted in the story of Hanukah. Eight days was the time needed before the new oil could arrive to enable the inauguration of the temple, and a very small amount of oil that was found in the temple itself miraculously lasted until the new oil arrived.

Incidentally, the Hebrew word for oil, shemen (שמן), comes from the same root as the Hebrew word for eight, shmone (שמנה). Indeed, oil is used throughout the Bible to signify the miraculous world of the eighth day. In fact, the word Massiah (משיח), the one who brings about the new world of perfection, means “the one anointed with oil.”

This connection between oil and eight is also alluded to with regards to Jacob’s eighth son, Asher. When Jacob blesses his sons before his death, here is what he says to Asher:

מֵאָשֵׁר שְׁמֵנָה לַחְמוֹ וְהוּא יִתֵּן מַעֲדַנֵּי מֶלֶךְ:

Asher’s bread shall be rich with oil and he shall yield royal dainties. (Genesis 49:20).

Similarly, before Moses parts from the people of Israel, here is how he blesses the tribe of Asher:

וּלְאָשֵׁר אָמַר בָּרוּךְ מִבָּנִים אָשֵׁר יְהִי רְצוּי אֶחָיו וְטֹבֵל בַּשֶּׁמֶן רַגְלוֹ:

And of Asher he said: Most blessed of sons be Asher, may he be the favorite of his brothers, may he dip his foot in oil. (Deuteronomy 33:24)

But the Messiah is connected to the eighth day more directly. The Babylonian Talmud tells us that the Messiah will come after the seventh day—i.e., on the eighth day.* It is not surprising that this symbolism did not escape the Christians, as the gospel tells us that Jesus’ resurrection occurred on Sunday, a day after the seventh day.

The symbolism of “beyond seven” as the emergence of the new world also has to do with the number fifty. For example, later in the book of Leviticus, we will read of the command to celebrate the 50^th year, the yovel (the source of the English word Jubilee), which is a year in which everything is started anew. Here is how it is described:

וְסָפַרְתָּ לְךָ, שֶׁבַע שַׁבְּתֹת שָׁנִים–שֶׁבַע שָׁנִים, שֶׁבַע פְּעָמִים; וְהָיוּ לְךָ, יְמֵי שֶׁבַע שַׁבְּתֹת הַשָּׁנִים, תֵּשַׁע וְאַרְבָּעִים, שָׁנָה…. וְקִדַּשְׁתֶּם, אֵת שְׁנַת הַחֲמִשִּׁים שָׁנָה, וּקְרָאתֶם דְּרוֹר בָּאָרֶץ, לְכָל-יֹשְׁבֶיהָ; יוֹבֵל הִוא, תִּהְיֶה לָכֶם, וְשַׁבְתֶּם אִישׁ אֶל-אֲחֻזָּתוֹ, וְאִישׁ אֶל-מִשְׁפַּחְתּוֹ תָּשֻׁבוּ.

You shall count off seven weeks of years—so that the period of seven weeks of years gives you a total of forty-nine years… and you shall hollow the fiftieth year. You shall proclaim liberty throughout the land for all its inhabitants. (Leviticus 25:8,100)

Notice also the symbolism of Pentecost, the holiday in which the Torah was given out. The people of Israel spent seven weeks, or 49 days, in the desert, and on the 50^th day, the first day of the 8^th week, they received the Torah, an event which is celebrated by the Jewish holiday of Shavu’ot, or pentacost.

Interestingly, Moses’ successor, Joshua, who is the one who actually took the people of Israel from the desert into the world of the Holy Land, is called “Ben Nun”, the son of Nun (pronounced “noon”). Nun is also the name of the 14^th letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which has the numerical value of 50. Thus, it is the son of 50 who ushers in the new world.

Readers of this blog will remember that when writing about the weekly portion of mishpatim, I focused on the symbolism of forty. The number forty (forty years or forty days) is used in the Torah to designate a period of time that precedes an event of monumental importance (e.g., the forty days of the flood, or Moses’ ascent to Mt. Sinai to receive the Torah).

It took forty years to sojourn through the desert; now it is up to the son of fifty, Joshua Ben Nun, to accomplish the purpose for which the forty years were a prelude to.

And here we see another relationship between 50 and 8. The book of Joshua tells us, that only those who left Egypt were circumcised, but during the sojourn in the desert, nobody was circumcised. After crossing the Jordan, Joshua, the son of fifty, is commanded to administer the circumcision of all the people under his command, that which normally takes place on the eighth day of a boy’s life.

Thus we are brought full circle to the beginning of this Torah portion, with its commandments on circumcision.

* * *

But what about the number seven, the Shabbat? The seventh day symbolism seems to be different. It stands for completion, for fulfillment, for rest, for unity. It stands as the culmination of diversity and activity. However, it is still part of the cyclical nature of time. Six days, followed by the seventh; and another cycle of six days, followed by the seventh.

The world of the seventh day is the world of rest, of not doing any work, not moving and not fixing anything, in contrast to the world of the six days which is the world of action. But the world of the eighth day is the world that is more than the sum of all the parts, a new emergence that transcends and includes the world of the seven. In this world, the separation between that which is holy and that which is not holy no longer applies. As Isaiah put it:

כִּי מָלְאָה הָאָרֶץ דֵּעָה אֶת יְהוָה כַּמַּיִם לַיָּם מְכַסִּים.

For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of Y-H-V-H as the waters cover the sea. (Isaiah 11:9)

* * *

And there is a practical takeaway. Note that the name for the eighth son, Asher, shares the same root with, and is spelled identical to, the Hebrew word osher (אשר), which means “bliss” or “happiness”. Notice also that the Hebrew word to anoint (למשח) is very close etymologically to the Hebrew root to be happy (לשמח).

We are being told something important here. Yearning for the Messiah is not fulfilled by passive waiting, but by embracing happiness. Not the frivolous, intoxicated, wild happiness that depends on things outside ourselves, but on the joy that is our very nature, the bliss of being grounded within ourselves. It is the joy that deeply knows that however challenging and imperfect the world is, all is well as wisely put. That we always have the choice to embrace the higher, most enlightened perspective.

As we are commanded—

וְהָיִיתָ אַךְ שָׂמֵחַ:

And you shall be always only happy. (Deuteronomy 16:15)

Here is a very active, practical, and direct way of ushering in the world of the eighth day.

————–

*Tractate Sanhedrin 97a; tractate Megilah 17b

Copyright © 2014 Igal Harmelin-Moria
(Copyright does not pertain to illustrations)

In a nutshell, the story of Purim, narrated in the Scroll of Esther in the Bible, is a story of a miraculous deliverance from a great calamity. Esther, its namesake, was an exceptionally beautiful young Jewish woman in ancient Persia, who was selected by the reigning king, Ahasuerus, to be his consort and queen. Ahasuerus’ chief vizier, Haman, plotted to kill all the Jews living in the Persian kingdom on a particular day, which was selected by casting a lottery (pur in Persian, hence the name purim). Haman’s plan was foiled by Mordecai, Esther’s adopting father, with the help of Esther herself. The day selected for the annihilation of the Jews became, instead, a day of great rejoicing.

The Kabbalistic message of the holiday is conveyed by the name of the book that narrates the story: Esther (אסתר). The peculiarity of the Hebrew alphabet makes the spelling of this word identical with that of the word esater, meaning “I shall hide”, in an allusion to God’s words from the book of Deuteronomy:

וְאָנֹכִי הַסְתֵּר אַסְתִּיר פָּנַי

And I shall hide [asther asthir] my face (Deuteronomy 31:18)

The meaning, according to this Kabbalistic interpretation, is that God is hiding himself in the world. This is a similar idea to the one expressed in the Indian Upanishads:

“Having created, the Creator entered his creation”.

How is this “hiding in creation” take place? Through through the unfoldment of events in time, through destiny (purim). God hides in the world, but this hiding is also a means through which he is revealed, in the course of the unfoldment of events. God’s hiding is for the sake of his revelation.

Which is why the book of Esther is actually called “the scroll of Esther,” megillat esther (מגילת אסתר). The Hebrew word megillah (מגילה), which literally means scroll or “that which is rolled out”, or “that which unfolds”, comes from the root meaning of “to be revealed” (להגלות). The words megilat esther can be understood as “the revelation of the hidden.”

Interestingly, the idea that the events of time are an expression of God, or of Spirit, were articulated thousands of years later by the German philosopher Georg Friedrich Hegel, who wrote as follows: “Becoming, History, is a conscious, self-meditating process — Spirit emptied out into Time.”

* * *

Purim contains another profound idea. It is the holiday of joy, and the Talmud instructs us to get so intoxicated that “one would know the difference between ‘cursed Haman’ to ‘blessed is Mordecai.’”

מיחייב איניש לבסומי בפוריא עד דלא ידע בין ארור המן לברוך מרדכי

This intoxication is normally taken to mean consumption of large amounts of alcohol. However, from the point of vew of consciousness, this could be understood as complete absorption in the non-dual state of consciousness, the state of the One without a second, which transcends all opposite values, while being at once their source and goal. This is he state of consciousness alluded to as the Garden of Eden, the primordial garden of delight before Adam and Eve age from “the tree of knowledge of good and evil,” and tree of duality.

Rather than a call to get drunk, this may be seen as an invitation to enjoy the Absolute bliss of enlightened consciousness.

Happy Purim!

Copyright © 2014 Igal Harmelin-Moria
(Copyright does not pertain to illustrations)

A few verses into the portion, the Torah specifies the effect of building the mishkan:

וְעָשׂוּ לִי מִקְדָּשׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּי בְּתוֹכָם:

And they shall make me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them. (Exodus 25:8)

The verse seems to suggest, that the tabernacle, the mishkan, will enable God to dwell (lishkon) among the people of Israel. But that is absurd: God confined to a tent? And does that mean that before the construction, God is not able to dwell among them?

As King Solomon said in his prayer after completing the construction of the first temple:

הִנֵּה הַשָּׁמַיִם וּשְׁמֵי הַשָּׁמַיִם לֹא יְכַלְכְּלוּךָ אַף כִּי הַבַּיִת הַזֶּה אֲשֶׁר בָּנִיתִי:

Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built! (1 Kings 8:27)

And as the prophet Isaiah declared:

כֹּה אָמַר יְהוָה הַשָּׁמַיִם כִּסְאִי וְהָאָרֶץ הֲדֹם רַגְלָי אֵי זֶה בַיִת אֲשֶׁר תִּבְנוּ לִי וְאֵי זֶה מָקוֹם מְנוּחָתִי:

Thus says YHVH: Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is my resting place? (Isaiah 66:1)

But the verse may be saying something else. Firstly, the Hebrew word for “among them” is betocham,( בְּתוֹכָם), which means “within them.*” And it does not say betocho (בתוכו), which would mean “within it”, referring to the mishkan; it says within them, referring to the people of Israel.

The mishkan spoken of here is primarily a structure within the psyche. Each one of the people of Israel was enjoined on building a space within themselves, open themselves up in such a way so as to allow the divinity within them to shine through, to occupy the psyche. And then, God will dwell within them, within each and every one of them.

Some midrash commentaries support this understanding. We are told by the midrash hagadol that the structure of the mishkan parallels the structure of the cosmos as well as the structure of the human. It is not talking about the physical structure of the human, but the interior one: the one that is made of 248 limbs and 365 tissues, which parallel the 248 positive mitsvoth (commandments), the “do’s”, and the 365 negative mitzvoth, the “don’ts”.

Thus, the mishkan is truly an interior structure that comes into being when one lives according to YHVH’s will. And then YHVH is found to be dwelling in that structure. Even if an exterior, physical mishkan exists, it was only a sensory representation of the internal structure.

This is very reminiscent of the ideas of sacred architecture of both the Hindu and the Buddhist traditions: both model their temple according to their understanding of the human psyche, with the idea that the structure of the temple mirrors both the structure of the psyche and the structure of the universe.

According to these traditions, the actual physical experience of walking into the temple, from its outer boundaries into its sanctum, is said to be a mirror of the process of meditation, through which one realizes the divine Self within. Said differently, the structure of the temple points one to the fact that through meditation one creates this structure within one’s consciousness.

This Torah portion further describes the function of the mishkan:

וְנוֹעַדְתִּי לְךָ שָׁם וְדִבַּרְתִּי אִתְּךָ מֵעַל הַכַּפֹּרֶת מִבֵּין שְׁנֵי הַכְּרֻבִים אֲשֶׁר עַל אֲרֹן הָעֵדֻת אֵת כָּל אֲשֶׁר אֲצַוֶּה אוֹתְךָ אֶל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל:

There I will meet with you, and I will impart to you—from above the cover, from between the two Cherubim that are on top of the Ark of the Pact—all that I will command you concerning the people of Israel. (Exodus 25:22)

These words are addressed to Moses, but Moses is a metaphor for each and every one of us. For each of us to “hear the voice of God” within us, we need to construct this structure within ourselves, to created that sacred space within us through meditation so that we can be in tune with our deepest interiority—which is not different from the interiority of the universe.

* * *

This Torah portion is the first of five that deal entirely with the details of the construction of the mishkan. In fact, from now until the end of the book of Exodus, the Torah deals with nothing else.

Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz, in his book “Seven Years of Talks on the Weekly Torah Portions,” points out that the number of verses that the Torah devotes to the construction of the mishkan is 450; in contrast, the number of verses that the Torah devotes to the “construction” of the world in the book of Genesis is 31.

And that reveals the status and purpose of the Torah. It is not a book about cosmology, neither is it a book about history. It is a book that aims primarily at providing a map through which human awareness can align itself with the divinity within. And it is in this light that everything in this text should be interpreted and understood.

—————————–

*See a similar comment in the commentary on vayigash

Copyright © 2014 Igal Harmelin-Moria
(Copyright does not pertain to illustrations)

וַיָּבֹא מֹשֶׁה בְּתוֹךְ הֶעָנָן, וַיַּעַל אֶל-הָהָר; וַיְהִי מֹשֶׁה, בָּהָר, אַרְבָּעִים יוֹם, וְאַרְבָּעִים לָיְלָה.

Moses entered the cloud, and went up on the mountain. Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights. (Exodus 24:18)

The Torah specifies that Moses stayed at the top of the mountain for 40 days and nights. Since the number 40 appears as a measure of time in various places in the Torah and the rest of the Bible (either as 40 days and nights or as 40 years), it will be good to consider its symbolism.

Whenever time is measured as 40, what follows is an event of great significance. For example, in the story of Noah, we are told that the rain poured down upon the Earth for forty days and nights; the people of Israel spent 40 years in the desert; in the book of Judges, we are told repeatedly that exactly 40 peaceful years separated the rule of one judge from the next; and 40 is the number of days that Goliath kept challenging the people of Israel to find him a worthy opponent before young David rose up to the challenge.

We are also told that Elijah walked from Beer Sheba to Mt. Sinai for 40 days and nights, without stop. And even in the Christian Gospel we are told that Jesus went to the desert without food or drink for 40 days and nights.

What unites all these periods measured by 40 is that they always precede transformative events. 40 is a symbolic unit of potent time that precedes major change, a change that gives voice to the timeless. The flood precedes a new covenant between God and humanity; Moses comes down with the Torah; Elijah receives a revelation of YHVH; Jesus overcomes the devil’s temptations.

It is highly unlikely that in some miraculous way, all these important events always had a period of 40 days or 40 years leading to them. The time is not physical time, and the events are not physical events in time and space. They are symbolic. But what is the symbolism of 40?

We may find a clue in the Hebrew alphabet, in which letters are also numerals. The letter mem (מ), the 14^th letter of the Hebrew alphabet, has the numerical value of 40. In the Kabbalah, that letter represents the element of mayim (מים), Hebrew for water.

Just like the number 40, the element of water often appears in the Torah around potent transformative events: The Flood; baby Moses is saved by Pharaoh’s daughter when she pulls him out of the water (hence his Hebrew name, Moshe, word derived from the verb limshot, i.e. to pull out of the water); the people of Israel pass through the Red Sea on the way to the desert, and once again through the Jordan river on the way from the desert to the Promised Land.

But just as the number 40 in the Torah does not represent actual units of time, water (mayim) in the Torah does not actually mean what we now refer to as water. Rather, it is the principle of transformation. It is related to fecundity, to the creative feminine. It is that which brings about transformation and change. This is very similar to the Vedic literature, in which water symbolizes the feminine aspect of the divine, the principle of fecundity, as well as pure consciousness.

How are we to read these stories in which time is measured by 40? As invitations to action. When “Moses” goes up the mountain for 40 days, it is an invitation for us to go deep into our own height of consciousness and attempt to discover that the Torah is already there, alive within us.

When Elijah walks 40 days and nights, reaches Mount Horeb (Mt. Sinai) and receives the revelation that God is in the “sound of subtle silence” ((1 Kings 19: 11-12), it is an invitation for us to go within and find that sound of subtle silence within ourselves and attempt to be guided by it.

When the people of Israel walk through the Red Sea, having liberated themselves from bondage to Egypt or mitzrayim (lit. “duality of boundaries”), we are also invited to shed our investment in duality and in bound modes of behavior and thinking and embrace the unity and expansiveness, symbolized by Canaan, the Promised Land.

In this manner, understanding the symbolism can enable us to make the Torah a practical guide to life, here and now.

Copyright © 2014 Igal Harmelin-Moria
(Copyright does not pertain to illustrations)

Famously, Moses goes up the mountain and returns with the Torah inscribed in stone. Ancient lore has it that he received not only the written Torah (torah shebikhtav), but also the oral Torah (torah she’be’alpe), a tradition of interpretation of the written text which was initially passed on orally.

Few Biblical scholars take seriously the claim that the entire Torah was given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Even some orthodox and ultra-orthodox scholars acknowledge the fact that the books of the Torah—let alone the rest of the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud and the Kabbalistic texts—are a collection of writings contributed by different authors at different periods (see this article).

Does that mean that the concept of divine revelation is a sham? Only if you relate to Torah as the text that appears in the books. But in the Jewish tradition, this is only one of a few ways of understanding the concept of Torah, and if you consider the others, the story gets interesting.  (This may appear a bit abstract to some).

Torah as Alive Primordial Intelligence

Rabbinic literature relates to the Torah as much more than a concrete text and a tradition of its interpretation. The Torah is also described as:

· The speech of God or the name of God;
· Embodied as chokhmah, Wisdom, the architect of creation;
· A sequence of expressions that serves as the blueprint for Creation (the DNA of the universe, if you will).

These three concepts of Torah emphasize its nature as an alive level of primordial intelligence, rather than as merely text.

Interestingly enough, this mirrors the attitude towards the Veda in the Hindu tradition*. While the Veda is commonly understood as a text, a collection of mantras that are recited during the sacred performances, the Veda is also described in the Vedic literature as:

· The Word, the essence of the ultimate reality, Brahman (this is parallel to the Jewish concept of the Torah as the speech of God or the name of God);
· The totality of knowledge, embodied as the Creator (parallels the Jewish concept of Wisdom or Chokhmah);
· A sequence of sounds which forms a blueprint for Creation (again, the “DNA of the Universe”).

What is the connection between the concrete words of the text of both Torah and Veda with these more esoteric understandings of them? Abiding by the concrete texts and by the performances derived from them is meant to align one with the alive, transcendental level of wisdom as a living reality within oneself.

Be Awake and See the Sounds

The close similarity between the notion of Torah and Veda in both traditions may be informative. By understanding what the Vedic tradition says about the process of cognition of the Vedic hymns we may glean something about prophecy and revelation in the Jewish tradition.

About the Vedic hymns, the Rik Veda proclaims:

यो जागार तमृचः कामयन्ते
yo jagara tamrichah kamayante
He who is awake, the richas [Vedic hymns] seek him out. (Rik Veda, 5.44.14)

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, one of the foremost teachers of Vedic teaching in our time, often commented on this verse. He explained that the Veda—much like the Torah—eternally murmurs to itself in the transcendental field of creation. The hymns zoom forth in the awareness (“the richas seek him out”) of whoever can bring his or her awareness to that level of reality [“he who is awake]”.

An interesting feature of this process of cognition is that it involves not only sound but also sight, not as two separate elements but as a unified cognition of sound and sight. For this reason, the person who is able to thus cognize the Veda is referred to as a rishi, a seer.

This may shed light on a peculiar expression in this week’s Torah portion. After listing the ten commandments, the Torah describes the experience of the People of Israel as they heard them, starting with a peculiar phrase:

וְכָל הָעָם רֹאִים אֶת הַקּוֹלֹת

And the people see the sounds (Exodus 20:15)

Sounds, of course, are heard, not seen. Could it be that the reason the text here says that the sounds were seen is that it describes a process of cognition similar to that describes in the Vedic texts?

Torah Revelation Now

The Torah phrase describing the process of revelation has another peculiarity: although it is referring to an event that occurred in the past, it uses the present tense. Instead of saying “the people saw the sounds” it says “the people see the sounds.” Just as the Veda spells out a principle—“He who is awake, the richas [Vedic hymns] seek him out”—so does the Torah suggest to us that we can realize the Torah as a living reality within our awareness right now.

In other words, instead of speculating whether or not the entire Torah was given to Moses on Mt. Sinai, let us be like Moses and allow the Torah to be a live presence in our awareness. That would be the fulfillment of what Moses declared that he wanted:

וּמִי יִתֵּן כָּל עַם יְהוָה נְבִיאִים כִּי יִתֵּן יְהוָה אֶת רוּחוֹ עֲלֵיהֶם:

Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them! (Numbers 11:29)

And this will also be the fulfillment of the words of Prophet Jeremiah:

הִנֵּה יָמִים בָּאִים נְאֻם יְהוָה וְכָרַתִּי אֶת בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאֶת בֵּית יְהוּדָה בְּרִית חֲדָשָׁה:… כִּי זֹאת הַבְּרִית אֲשֶׁר אֶכְרֹת אֶת בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל אַחֲרֵי הַיָּמִים הָהֵם נְאֻם יְהוָה נָתַתִּי אֶת תּוֹרָתִי בְּקִרְבָּם וְעַל לִבָּם אֶכְתֲּבֶנָּה וְהָיִיתִי לָהֶם לֵאלֹהִים וְהֵמָּה יִהְיוּ לִי לְעָם: וְלֹא יְלַמְּדוּ עוֹד אִישׁ אֶת רֵעֵהוּ וְאִישׁ אֶת אָחִיו לֵאמֹר דְּעוּ אֶת יְהוָה כִּי כוּלָּם יֵדְעוּ אוֹתִי לְמִקְטַנָּם וְעַד גְּדוֹלָם נְאֻם יְהוָה כִּי אֶסְלַח לַעֲוֹנָם וּלְחַטָּאתָם לֹא אֶזְכָּר עוֹד:

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband,* says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

——————————————–

* The analysis of the various non-scriptural understandings of Torah, as well as their parallel to the non-scriptural understanding of Veda in the Hindu-Vedic tradition, is based on Veda and Torah: Transcending the Textuality of Scripture, by Barbara Holdrege, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara. The book is based on her PhD thesis at Harvard.

Copyright © 2014 Igal Harmelin-Moria
(Copyright does not pertain to illustrations)