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.

Up to now, in the book of Genesis, the first book of the Pentateuch, the history of the Jewish people is told through the story of one family. And indeed, the first few verses in Exodus remind us that Jacob came to Egypt with his extended family of seventy strong. But the Torah almost immediately fast forwards a few hundred years, by which time the people of Israel have become so many that the new Pharaoh is afraid of them and proceeds to enslave them as a precaution.

This is the starting point of a narrative that will unfold in the coming four books: the drama of the People of Israel’s miraculous liberation and exodus from Egypt, and their equally miraculous sojourn in the desert on their way to the promised land, the land of Canaan.

This story is the backbone of Judaism. The history, theology and modes of worship of the Jewish people can all be traced to this story. A Jew’s relationship to this story determines his/her relationship to Judaism; it is, indeed, the source of the collective memory of the Jewish people.

Which is why it is worth repeating what was already mentioned earlier in this blog: that in the Passover hagadah, the formalized recitation of the story of Passover around which the Passover Seder is conducted, we are commanded:

בכל דור ודור חייב אדם לראות את עצמו כאלו הוא יצא ממצרים.

In each and every generation one is obligated to regard oneself as if one had come out of mitzrayim.

And that has been understood by rabbis of all ages as an internal journey of the soul from bondage in duality (mitzrayim), the land of sorrow and boundaries, to liberation in unity (kna’an), which this parashah describes as–

אֶרֶץ טוֹבָה וּרְחָבָה… אֶרֶץ זָבַת חָלָב וּדְבָשׁ

a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey (Exodus 3:8)

 

It is a journey into the depth of one’s own consciousness, into one’s own Self, for the sake of self discovery and self purification and, ultimately, the liberation of the soul.

* * *

In the story of this parashah, we are told that God attracted Moses’ attention through the burning bush. The Torah tells us:

וּמֹשֶׁה הָיָה רֹעֶה אֶת צֹאן יִתְרוֹ חֹתְנוֹ כֹּהֵן מִדְיָן וַיִּנְהַג אֶת הַצֹּאן אַחַר הַמִּדְבָּר וַיָּבֹא אֶל הַר הָאֱלֹהִים חֹרֵבָה: וַיֵּרָא מַלְאַךְ יְהוָֹה אֵלָיו בְּלַבַּת אֵשׁ מִתּוֹךְ הַסְּנֶה וַיַּרְא וְהִנֵּה הַסְּנֶה בֹּעֵר בָּאֵשׁ וְהַסְּנֶה אֵינֶנּוּ אֻכָּל: וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה אָסֻרָה נָּא וְאֶרְאֶה אֶת הַמַּרְאֶה הַגָּדֹל הַזֶּה מַדּוּעַ לֹא יִבְעַר הַסְּנֶה:

Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of Y-H-V-H appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a thornbush; he looked, and the thornbush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, ‘I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.’ (Exodus 3:1-3)

 

Moses had the presence of mind and the ability to appreciate the miraculous. Perhaps a modern person in the same scene would have exclaimed “wow, that is far out!”, then the iPhone would be pulled out, a few shots would be taken, and soon the Facebook universe would be privy to this fantastic experience. And life would go on.

What kind of awareness do we need today in order to look at the ordinary and see the miraculous? The same awareness that Jacob had when he woke up from his dream and exclaimed—

אָכֵן יֵשׁ יְהוָה בַּמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה וְאָנֹכִי לֹא יָדָעְתִּי

Surely Y-H-V-H is in this place—and I did not know it! (Genesis 28:16)

This is a change of awareness that we are all called to: from being caught up in the boundaries of our own mind to experiencing the liberation of our Self, here and now. We are called to leave mitzrayim behind, and start walking towards the Holy Land.

* * *

So how does the Exodus story become a living reality in one’s life right now? How does one bridge the gap between the historical narrative, which is about something “out there”, and one’s life? In the true Hassidic manner, I’d like to illustrate this with a story of one Passover Seder celebration in our family four decades ago.

My non-observant family owned a pastry business—a bakery, a pastry shop, and a café—in the center of Tel Aviv. Passover was a very important and busy time of year for us. As you may know, Jewish dietary rules require that no leavening is used in the preparation of Passover breads and pastry, so kosher Bakeries either shut down for the holiday, or go through a grueling process of cleaning and purifying their establishment in order to get the all-important rabbinical stamp of approval, “kosher lepesach”, fit for Passover. My father chose to take the latter route, because of the brisk business in Passover. But that meant that he had to stay up all night for a few nights in a row in order to prepare his business for the holiday without shutting it down during the day.

To top it off, on the day of the Seder my parents were on their feet from dawn catering to what seemed like an unending stream of customers who came to shop until the very last minute before sunset. My parents then rushed home, exhausted, and my mother somehow still managed to put the Passover Seder together. We would recite the portion of the Haggadah leading to the meal, and the celebration would pretty much be over after that.

It so happened that in 1973 both my father and I learnt to meditate, and by Passover of 1974, we had almost a year or regular practice under our belt. Meditation had given my father an extra boost of energy and calm, and by the time we sat down to the Seder table, one could already sense that things were going to be different.

Once we started reciting the Haggadah things really got interesting. My dad and I looked at each other with glowing eyes. It was clear to us that the text was not just speaking of some fantastic events in the past that we had a hard time rationalizing. Rather, we had a visceral sense that the text was describing our experience and our own path of self purification and self-discovery in a way that made the story of the Haggadah feel relevant to our lives there and then. The excitement was palpable and infectious. This was the first time that our family we celebrated the Seder wholeheartedly, and told the story of the Exodus as if we were hearing it for the first time.

My father, Zvi Harmelin, passed away 22 years ago this week. This d’var torah—a discourse on the Torah—is in his memory.

———————-

Note: I may not be able to publish a commentary on next week’s Torah portion, since I will be away from a computer until the end of December.

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

This week’s Torah portion, lekh lakha (Genesis 12:1 – 17:27), is the first portion that addresses the Jewish story. Previous portions, bereshit and noach, dealt with humanity as a whole; from this point on, however, the Torah deals exclusively with the Jewish people. Just as the sprouting of an acorn contains within it the entire oak tree in condensed form, and just like the first verse of the Torah is said to include the entire Torah in it, so one may expect that the opening words of this parashah express Judaism in condensed form.

Here is the first pasuk, the first verse:

לֶךְ לְךָ מֵאַרְצְךָ וּמִמּוֹלַדְתְּךָ וּמִבֵּית אָבִיךָ אֶל הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר אַרְאֶךָּ.

Go from your country and your birthplace
and your father’s house
to the land that I will show you.
(Genesis 12:1)

On the face of it, this is a straightforward travel instruction: Abraham, go from where you are now, which has been your family home for decades, and move to the land that I will show you. But if this is really the first sprouting of what we now call Judaism, there would have to be a lot more in it than that.

The first two words, lekh lekha, contain the clue. The words are a command and are often translated as “go thee”, “get thee,” or simply “go”. The Zohar, however, asks us to understand these words literally. The first word, lekh, means “go”; the second world, lekha, means “to you.” The words lekh lekha literally mean “go to you.” Go to yourself, says the Zohar, to the inside of your innermost part, to your interiority. What for? In order to find out who you really are.

The Kabbalistic interpretation of the rest of the pasuk makes it clear that this search for identity is not an attempt to locate oneself through any relative, changing notions or ideas. In fact, in order to find out who you really are, you have to do away with any such notions. This becomes clear in the next few words.

The first is me-artzekha (מֵאַרְצְךָ), from your country. Your true identity is not “an American”, “an Israeli”, “a New Yorker.” Your true self is beyond any notion of belonging to a location.

The second is mimoladetekha (מִמּוֹלַדְתְּךָ), which means “your birth.” And the Zohar understands it to mean “your astrology”—i.e., all the planetary influences that you experience in your life as a result of your time and place of birth, and all the particular ways in which these influences expressed themselves in your life. Because those notions are changing, they, too, don’t define who you really are.

The third is mibeit avikha (מִבֵּית אָבִיךָ), from your father’s house. None of the notions of self that result from you being born to a particular family or race, with all the consequences of being part of a certain family or race, define who you really are. And, yes, that includes being Jewish. Your Self transcends causality and/or genetics.

Thus, when you obey lekh lekha, when you go to yourself—beyond space, beyond time, beyond culture and causality—then you get to “the land that I will show you.” But it should be emphasized that this is not a mental, intellectual exercise. As Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz writes:

Even though the question of the self is one that has since the beginning of time been contemplated by many profound minds, it is not really a philosophical problem.

Any notion that can be created by the mind is, by its nature, relative and, therefore, changeable. It may be true, it may be useful, it may even be holy, but when it comes to the question of who we really are, all such notions are excess ballast that needs to be shed. Even the notion of being Jewish is not who we ultimately are. And when we shed the whole thing, then we reach the Promised Land: not a land that can be defined by longitude and latitude, not one that can be grasped by the mind, but a completely transcendental one, residing in a “region” of our consciousness that transcends space and time as well as our mental capacities.

In the Passover Hagaddah, the sages of old instructed us that in each and every generation we must see ourselves as if we personally have come out of Egypt and made the journey to the Holy Land. This is not about creatively visualizing ourselves as wading in the sands of the Sinai desert. The Hebrew word for Egypt is mitzrayim (מצרים), which literally means “duality of boundaries”. Leaving mitzrayim, leaving the duality of boundaries, we shed any notions of self that are relative and changeable, that limit us to particular boundaries. Beyond those notions is who we are. We discover our divine root, the divine spark within us

The Prophet Jeremiah echoed this radical notion of self-transformation:

נָתַתִּי אֶת-תּוֹרָתִי בְּקִרְבָּם, וְעַל-לִבָּם אֶכְתְּבֶנָּה; וְהָיִיתִי לָהֶם לֵאלֹהִים, וְהֵמָּה יִהְיוּ-לִי לְעָם. וְלֹא יְלַמְּדוּ עוֹד, אִישׁ אֶת-רֵעֵהוּ וְאִישׁ אֶת-אָחִיו לֵאמֹר, דְּעוּ, אֶת-יְהוָה: כִּי-כוּלָּם יֵדְעוּ אוֹתִי לְמִקְּטַנָּם וְעַד-גְּדוֹלָם, נְאֻם-יְהוָה–כִּי אֶסְלַח לַעֲו‍ֹנָם, וּלְחַטָּאתָם לֹא אֶזְכָּר-עוֹד.

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 Y-H-V-H’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Y-H-V-H; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
(Jeremiah 31:33-34)

Once one discovers who one really is, once one discovers the divine spark as the essence of one’s consciousness, the Torah, the divine law, ceases to be a book or a scroll that is outside oneself, but is rather realized as a spontaneous living presence that one embodies. And then one’s relationship with God is redefined.

This is the life of lekh lekha, of recognizing who one really is. The transformation that is brought about through such a journey is not only individual but collective. As the text of the parashah tells us, one of the results of Abraham’s journey to the Promised Land will be—

וְנִבְרְכוּ בְךָ, כֹּל מִשְׁפְּחֹת הָאֲדָמָה.

and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

Indeed, lekh lekha, “going” to oneself, is a way to affect tikkun olam, the repair of the world. And as such, lekh lekha is the essence of Jewish life.

* * *

Judaism is not unique in asserting that ultimate knowledge of self is the way to know and reach union with the Divine. Muhammad proclaimed in the Hadith Qudsi, “He who knows himself knows his Lord.” In the Qur’an, God declares, “We are closer to [man] than his jugular vein.” Jesus stated, “I and the Father are one” and “The kingdom of God is within you.” A Shinto scripture, the Shao Yung, commands—“Do not search in distant skies for God. In man’s own heart is He found.” Confucius said: “What the undeveloped man seeks is outside; what the advanced man seeks is himself.” And in the Parinirvana Sutra, Buddha said: “It is only when all outward appearances are gone that there is left that one principle of life which exists independently of all external phenomena.”

* * *

One does not need to be a kabbalist in order to realize that the Jewish relationship to the “Promised Land” is not about a physical territory. Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903-1994), an intellectual giant who was one of Israel’s foremost scientist, humanitarian, philosopher, religious thinker and political/social enfant terrible, had (for all appearances) no mystical bone in his body, yet he wrote the following:

Just as the realization of God by Abraham, which forms the beginning of the history of the People of Israel, occurred outside the physical boundaries of Eretz Yisrael, so also the Torah was given outside Eretz Yisrael. There is no doubt that this is a very rich point, and is aimed at telling us that the acceptance of the yoke of the Heavenly Kingdom as well as the yoke of Torah and mitsvot is not a territorial issue.

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