Jewish Spiritual Renewal:Shabbat 11/28/09:A Path of Transformation
The JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL class is hosted by Shamash: The Jewish Network a service of Hebrew College.
Shalom dear Talmidim, Chaverim v' Rabbanim:
I hope you had a good week and a wonderful Rosh Kodesh Kislev on November 17th and 18th. On the night of 24 Kislev Chanukah starts. This year that is December 11, 2009 at sundown.
And for those of you in the USA, may Ellen and I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving Day on Thursday November 26, 2009. Where ever we are on this spinning blue-green globe, let us say: Baruch Atah, Adonai, ha Tov Shimcha ul'cha na-eh l'Hodot. Blessed are You, God, Your Name is Goodness, and You are worthy of Thanksgiving. Amen.
We are always gaining new members to this class, so for those that are new, this is our 6th week of study. The 5th week can be found Click here: Rabbi Arthur Segal: RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:TOLEDOT:JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL:JACOB + ESAU
http://rabbiarthursegal.blogspot.com/2009/11/rabbi-arthur-segaltoledotjewish.html
There are links taking you back in each class to the first and also where to find study materials online.
Ok, let us begin today. The Midrash records the following incident: R' Chiya bar Abba and R' Yochanan were walking down a road when they passed a certain field. R' Yochanan said: "This field used to be mine, but I sold it so that I could devote myself to toiling in Torah, and so too, with another field."R' Chiya began to weep, exclaiming, "What have you left yourself for your old age?'R' Yochanan responded, "Why does this bother you? I sold something that was created in six days, as it is written, "...for in six days Ha Shem made the heaven and the earth..." (Ex: 31:17) and I have acquired something that was taught in forty days, as it is written, "And he [Moshe] was there with Ha Shem forty days..." (Ex: 34:28).
Of course, I am not suggesting that we all go out and sell off our worldly possessions, and study Torah all day. But in this Midrash, exaggerated as it may seem, it pits the spiritual life against the secular. Judaism needs balance. We need both. Indeed the Mishna in Pirkei Avot 3:21 teaches us that ''without bread , there is no Torah and without Torah there is no bread.'' We need to bring the spiritual into all of our aspects of daily living.
The mitzvoth that we do bring us closer to God, if they are done with kavenah, sincere spiritual intention. "Mitzvah" is related to the word "tzavta," which means "joining" and "attachment." By performing a mitzvah we become joined to the essence of God. We use our free will to do mitzvoth. And hence, just as God himself has free will, we bring ourselves closer to the Divine Image. Thus "The reward of a mitzvah is the mitzvah." [Pirkei Avot 4:2]. We are joined with the essence of the Infinite. We never accept awards or kudos for doing mitzvoth. That strokes our pride, allows us to foolishly wear the 'crown of Torah,' (Pirkei Avot 4:7) and strengthens our egos, which Edges God Out of our lives.
One aspect of Organized Judaism, [ an oxymoron], is what I also call Toridolatry . The Torah is marched around the synagogue on Shabbat mornings, and we rush and push and shove to kiss it with the corner of our Tallit or Siddurim. But do we rush, push and shove to do the mitzvoth that are listed in the Torah? Do we honor those in our Synagogues who are rabbis and who are Torah scholars?
We can understand the Talmudic statement: ''How foolish are those people who stand up in respect for a Torah scroll but they do not stand up in respect for a Torah scholar, for in the Torah scroll it is written that for certain sins the transgressor receives forty lashes, yet the Sages came and subtracted one, because through their Torah wisdom they showed that the verse was not to be understood literally. [Talmud Bavli Tractate Makkot 22b]. Without Rabbinic Talmudic Judaism, we would be sitting in our homes, in the dark, in the cold in the winter, or in the heat in the summer, for the 25 hours of Shabbat, as the Hebrews did.
Allow me to end with this spiritual and ethical tidbit.
The Midrash Devarim Rabbah 6:5 teaches: ''Let not your mouth bring guilt on your flesh (Eccl: 5:5). How is this? When the mouth speaks lashon ha ra, it sins against the body by bringing punishment upon it. ... and do not tell the emissary that it was an error. Do not say: "I will go and speak lashon ha ra and no one but the listener will know of it!'' Says the Holy One, Blessed is He: "Know that I will send an angel who will stand next to you and record every word that you speak against your fellow.''
Whether this is true or not, I leave up to you. But how many of us would want all of the words we spoke about others being reviewed by even a human judge?
The Chofetz Chaim, Rabbi Kagan of the 20th Century, says that ''a Jew should have no interest in hearing his fellow man being degraded. Rather, he should live by the words of Rabbi Yonah: "The correct path is to conceal the sins of others and to praise a person for the good which can be found in him. It is the way of fools to seek out the blemishes and mistakes of others and to criticize them; they never speak others' praises or find the good in them.''
Just as doing mitzvoth brings us into spiritual connection with God and to our fellows that we help, doing negative mitzvoth, like gossip, separates us from God, and from our fellows.
Let us continue and finish today, ''Chapter Two , A Life Without God'' from:
(001) The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal - Rabbi Arthur Segal
The Godless rarely keep friends for long. They are judgmental because their own selfish wills put roadblocks in their paths. They hold grudges. They hate. They see others as resources to satisfy their own selfish wants. They do not see people for whom they can do acts of love and service and expect nothing in return. Friends, to the Godless, are like bank accounts. For any deposits made into the friendship account, they expect some kind of interest payment in return. And they believe that they can withdraw their deposits at any time.
A life without God is a life with low self-esteem. The Godless constantly seek approval and search for love. Their egos are easily bruised and they need to bandage the bruises with accolades, awards, kudos, and one's name in the paper or praise from others. To feel fulfilled, they make donations to charities that publicize donors' names, or vie to be the head of a benevolent organization so they can be recognized as a name on the letterhead. They volunteer for this and volunteer for that, and pose for pictures with all of the other volunteers. In the end, their "volunteer" work is not volunteer work at all. Rather, it is done for pay, not monetary pay, but for good public relations. They tell folks they are doing mitzvoth, but are really self-seeking "employees" with low self esteem whose wages are "ataboys."
Our ego tries to mend our low self-esteem. It can be so influenced by our yetzer ha ra that it drives us to puff up our curriculum vitae or résumé with lies and exaggerations. Even some rabbis, who are human just like the rest of us, have self-esteem issues. They will teach that God doesn't exist or will minimize the worth of our sages in an effort to improve their own images.
A new graduate rabbi, at the bottom of his class, was forced to take a job at a Duracell factory. His job was to stand on the production line and as the batteries go by say, "I wish you a long life."
A Godless life will find us gossiping and putting other people down, thinking that it makes us appear better. It will find us coveting what we do not have rather than appreciating what we do have.
A life with Ego, without God, will have us continually trying to please everyone, while always being fearful that somebody will look at us and say, "the king is naked."
In a life without God we will eventually develop grudges and resentments of which we cannot rid ourselves. We wake up in the middle of the night with that pithy comeback or insult that we wish we had unloaded on somebody when we had the chance. Some hold grudges for decades or harbor resentments for people who have long since passed away. Many of us learn via Jewish Spiritual Renewal that there are 300 or more names on our list of resentments. What we fail to recognize is that resentment does no harm to the person to whom it is directed. It only harms us, inflicting its destruction from the inside out. Resentment is like an acid eating away at its container.
Three Jewish mothers are sitting on a bench in a
Sadie says, "You know the Chagall painting hanging in my living room? My son, Arnold, bought that for me for my 75th birthday. What a good boy he is and how he loves his mother!"
Minnie says, "You call that love? You know that Mercedes I just got for Mother's Day? That's from my son Bernie. What a doll."
Shirley says, "That's nothing. You know my son Stanley? He's in therapy with a psychoanalyst on
When we live without God we are at odds with the flow of the universe. Life is ever-changing and we cling to the delusion that we are in control. We foolishly think that we can control our lives, the lives of those around us and our environment. This is folly. In reality, all we are ever able to control are our actions and reactions to events in our lives. When we are at odds with God's universe, we live a life full of fear. We worry. We become anxious. We get angry. We see the world in terms of that which we believe is taken from us and that which we believe is kept from us. As a result, we become anxious or depressed.
Thinking that there is nowhere else to turn, some fall into substance abuse or other addictions to get through the day. It might be prescription drugs, but most often it is tobacco, alcohol, narcotics, food, gambling or having sex without emotional commitment. Some turn to other self-destructive behaviors like compulsive shopping, gossiping, keeping up with the Jonesawitzs, or other mind- numbing activities.
It is Saturday night and Sean is in an Irish pub. He strikes up a conversation with the fellow next to him at the bar. Sean says, "I must stop drinking all this Irish whiskey."
"Why do you want to do that?" asked his companion.
"Because every Saturday night I go out and drink half a bottle of the stuff, go home drunk, make mad passionate love to my wife, wake up Sunday morning and go to church."
"What's wrong with that?" the friend asks. "A lot of good Irishmen go out on Saturday night, drink a half bottle of good Irish whiskey, go home drunk, make love to the wife and go to Mass on Sunday."
"I know," said Sean, "but I'm Jewish."
If you are living a life without God, much of what you have read in this chapter may ring true to you. The fact that you have picked up this book tells me that you wish to let God into your life. If you read on, you will learn how to do just that, using answers and methods have been tried and proven for millennia. They have been forgotten or ignored for generations. With this book, you will discover, or rediscover, age-old Judaic teachings in modern language and an easy-to-follow path and method.
Next week, we will begin Chapter Three from:
(001) The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal - Rabbi Arthur Segal
Chapter Three is about Living a Life with God.
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Parasha Vayeitzei: Genesis 28:10-32:03
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"Earth Angel"
This Torah portion gets its name, Veyeitzei (departed), from the first words of verse 28:10 in Genesis. Jacob departs and travels to his uncle Laban's home. Rashi says that the Torah could simply have stated that Jacob went to Laban's home without using the word depart. Rashi says, "A righteous person's departure from a place leaves a void. As long as this person lives in a city, he constitutes its glory, its splendor, and its beauty. When he departs, its glory, splendor, and beauty depart with him."
Night arrives, and Jacob arranges stones "around his head." He dreams of a "ladder set earthward and its top reached heavenward...and angels of God were ascending it and descending on it." (Gen. 28:12). When Jacob awakes he says, "surely God is present in this place and I did not know...and he named that place Beth-El (house of God)" (Gen. 28:16-19). He "took the stone (NB: singular) that he placed around his head and set it up as a pillar."
The Midrash notes that first the Torah says that Jacob took stones (plural) for his pillow. But in the morning he took the stone (singular) that was his pillow to make an altar. The Midrash says that the stones were quarreling because each one wanted to be the top stone on which Jacob's head would rest. God got tired of their quarreling, and I suppose so did Jacob, as who could fall asleep on a noisy pillow? God fused all the stones into one big stone.
The sages teach some interesting lessons from this. People should not vie and quarrel politically for leadership in the Jewish community. All members of the community need to be combined as one unit. All members of the community who wish to participate should be allowed to. The rabbis also teach that there were twelve stones that were combined as one. They say that each of the twelve tribes had its own customs. Each was unique and each had its own mission.
The rabbis of the Midrash also have different interpretations of the dream of the ladder. One says the ladder is
A third Midrashic interpretation says that the angels who protected Jacob while he was in the Promised Land went up to heaven, and lesser angels came back down. These angels would escort Jacob while he lived with Laban. This also taught Jacob that the
Our sages miss some interesting points that are important to us as liberal Jews. Jacob awakens to realize that God was in this place. The Hebrew word for place is "maqom." One of God's names is Maqom. Jacob, after having the dream, realizes that God is there with him. The verse says, "I did not know." Prior to the dream, Jacob did not know that God was with him. But Jacob does not take a philosophical leap, as his grandfather Abraham did. He calls this place God's house and makes an altar. The Talmud says this place was
The Talmudic sages follow suit two millennia later and devote Tractates of Talmud to the ritual sacrifices that will partially resume when the
God is always with us. God and heaven are not at the top of the ladder. The Torah says that God was down on earth with Jacob. "God was standing over him"(Gen. 28:13). God was not on the top rung. God was not floating like a figure in a Chagall painting. God was standing on terra firma. Each of us as Jews must ascend our own spiritual ladders. Angels do not come down to us. We must go up first. And what happens when we go up the ladder? We plateau and reach a comfort zone. The ladder is reset on this level. And then we repeat the process. Spiritual progress in Jewish Spiritual Renewal is never ending. www.JewishRenewal.info .
Our province is on Earth. God is with us everywhere and in every place. It is our responsibly as Jews to seek him by climbing. Climbing a ladder is not easy. It takes balance, skill, coordination, dexterity, and strength. Reaching God takes work. And when we have reached one spiritual plane, we are to incorporate that learning into our daily existence. And then the process of growth begins anew.
As Jews, we can never rest on our laurels. When we finish a religious text, and make a blessing, we immediately start a new book. When we finish the Torah on Simchat Torah, we immediately start reading Genesis.
Judaism is an active religion. It is not a religion of faithful acceptance of a creed. It is a religion that stresses not the mezuzah on the door, but the learning and love of God and each other that goes on behind that door. It is not a religion of being spoon fed once per Sabbath from the bimah. We are commanded to continually study. Angels do not come from heaven to us. We have to climb that ladder first. But when we reach out to find God, we will find that He has been here with us all along with His hand outstretched, ready to grab onto ours.
This idea is reiterated at the end of the Torah portion. "When Jacob went on his way, angels of God encountered him" (Gen. 23:2). Jacob decided to leave Laban's camp after twenty years to continue his service to God. Jacob made the first move. When he did, the Torah says that God came out to greet and accompany him.
Many times, we as liberal Jews are afraid to experience God or to increase our spirituality. Maybe we think folks will think we are becoming ultra-orthodox and call us "too Jewish." Maybe it is because we do not know what paths to take to do this. The prophet Hosea (11:7-14:10) sees this same fear during his time in the 8th-century B.C.E. "My people is unsure about returning to Me...but it does not rise."
Start with sincere quiet prayer and reflection. Continue by reading a Jewish book. Take another step with weekly Torah study. Set aside time each week for doing good deeds to those less fortunate. Make an appointment and speak with your rabbi, if he is spiritually based and of God and not of ego. Study and discuss theology with a friend, your spouse, or an online class. Read a step-by-step text on Jewish Spiritual Renewal. www.JewishSpiritualRenewal.org. Study the TaNaK and/or Chumash and get a good compendium with commentaries, not just of one rabbi's views. (002) A Spiritual and Ethical Compendium to the Torah and Talmud - Rabbi Arthur Segal
Closeness to God will come. "Whoever is wise will consider these words. He who is prudent will take note of them. The paths of God are smooth. The righteous walk in them." (Hos. 14:10). Enjoy the process!
Shabbat Shalom:
Rabbi Arthur Segal
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