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.

Interior of Tomb of Baba Kuhi in Shiraz, Iran

I am leaving for a one-week silent meditation retreat, so instead of a specific d’var on this week’s Torah portion, I’d like to offer a short reflection on the known Hassidic saying in Yiddish, alz is gat (אַלץ איז גאָט), “everything is God.” The commentary is in the form of a Sufi poem by Baba Kuhi of Shiraz, “Only God I Saw”:

In the market, in the cloister–only God I saw.
In the valley and on the mountain–only God I saw.
Him I have seen beside me oft in tribulation;
In favour and in fortune–only God I saw.
In prayer and fasting, in praise and contemplation,
In the religion of the Prophet–only God I saw.
Neither soul nor body, accident nor substance,
Qualities nor causes–only God I saw.
I oped mine eyes and by the light of His face around me
In all the eye discovered–only God I saw.
Like a candle I was melting in His fire:
Amidst the flames outflashing–only God I saw.
Myself with mine own eyes I saw most clearly,
But when I looked with God’s eyes–only God I saw.
I passed away into nothingness, I vanished,
And lo, I was the All-living–only God I saw.

(Translated by Reynold A. Nicholson)