Thursday, June 15, 2006
The soul of the soul
This weeks Zohar on the Torah parsha speaks about the levels of the the Torah and what is essential. we are also told by the sages that the Zohar is the very Torah of the redemptive period which we have entered. The Zohar tells us that the Torah is likened to a human being. It has a body which is the very commandments that teach us how to live in this world. The garment of the body is made of stories which clothe and protect the body. The soul within the body is the part that the wise ones who stood at Har Sinai are to look at and understand. Every holy people around the earth have been told to be custodians of the special land, the eretz, that they live upon. This land is a gift of HaShem. The ethnocentric view is always a part of the garment of different peoples. The mitzvot given to the people is a means to bring their holiness to the entire world. To do this the people must always look past the garment of stories that often make the people think that they are the only ones chosen to make this Earth sacred. A great Rabbi, Gershon Winkler, tells us in his teachings how HaShem is like a protective loving parent who tells each of his children privately, each people, how he loves them the most of all the children. The time must come when the child grows up and understands the difference in the garment, the body and the soul of the scripture that has been given. Everyone has heard of the story of King Solomon and the two women who are fighting for possession of a baby. Each claims to be the true mother. The king proclaims that the baby must be divided by the sword. The one true mother yells NO, and offers to let the baby be given to the other woman. Do we not see the prophetic implication of this story in relation to the present situation of the ancient land of Israel? The soul of the Torah is the very soul of the entire Earth. we call her the Shechinah, the neshamah of the planetary being. A city called Jerusalem is not only a city of peace but a community of people who teach the entire world about being peaceful. It is in this spirit that we speak here in these articles, that the "place" of this city has moved to another place on the surface of the earth. It is not land itself that makes a place the holy land. It is how people understand their Torah. The entire earth is trembling now as Sinai. We are all being tested as to who is the true mother of this sacred child. When we come to understand that the geulah, the redemption, is already here then we will be able to live on this sacred Earth and honor her and ourselves with peace. The Qumran scrolls contain a writing called the "words of Michael" that give us a view of what a new global "Jerusalem" would look like. It describes it and tells us that it is in a place, a land, far from the place that the scrolls were kept. The indigenous American natives have ancient teachings that explain that their land will be the center of a new city of peace that will guide the entire world. The ancient Tibetans also have descriptions with details that correspond to the description from Qumran. They tell us that a "banner" will fly over that land that they call the banner of Shambhala, the Tibetan name for their "future Jerusalem". The ancient Pueblo Indians have a sacred banner design that means, a place where the sun, the light of peace shines. It has become the flag of the state that includes these ancient peoples. It is a circle with 16 rays of light streaming in the four quadrants of the circle. It is called the Zia. 16 X 360(degrees of the circle)= 5760, the precise date on the Jewish calendar that the sage, Rabbi Abraham Azulai, wrote as the date when only Israel would be left as dry land on the entire Earth(see earlier article). We are all standing at the holy mountain, whereever we are. The wise ones know how to see and understand the Torah. The soul of the Torah is Peace.
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2 comments:
B"H
20 Sivan 5766
Appreciate your effort to elucidate, but as I try to follow your reasoning, I am encountering difficulties. Yes, we are all clothed in the stories and legends of our peoples – like clothing, stories that both reveal and conceal. And yes, I think I understand when you say that "place" is also how people understand their Torah. But the metaphor of the child about whom there was a dispute creates a block, as does your rejection of "place" in one part of your response and your acceptance of "place" in another. I am predisposed for many, many reasons to understand you and I confess I am losing my way.
Things that I think I know: We are, all of us – all animate and "inanimate" beings – trees and rocks, animals and air, humans of all stripes – we are all part of Adam Kadmon. We may be part of a fallen Adam, one struggling to make a cosmic aliyah, one struggling to elevate and unify its masculine and feminine aspects, but, nevertheless, in ways both shattered and exalted we are part of this whole. Each part of the Adam and each people, each prayer tradition (as you call them) performs a unique function – without which the Adam could not be the Adam.
As a Jew who has been on a long journey, I see myself as part of that Adam – the part defined by the history of my people's contact with the Ineffable at Sinai, by our journey over millennia to carry and share and LIVE this memory, by our efforts to embrace and then to elevate the material world, and even by our suffering to do this. Are we the heart? the lungs? the appendix (about to become unnecessary)? The inner core that must move on to make space for a never-ending ascension? I do not know and it probably doesn't even matter.
But I do know that, until now the Adam could not thrive without my people doing their job. And I also know that the Adam could not thrive without each people doing their jobs. We ARE each other. This is no more a test "as to who is the true mother of this sacred child" than it is a test to see if the lung trumps the heart. We ARE the sacred child. It is not ethnocentrism to embrace the stories of one's people as long as we never forget that the stories are about the ascension of the whole Adam and not just our small part of it.
I asked you about Jerusalem. I am struggling to be sure that my reaction to your seemingly effortless replacement of the "eye of the world" with a new Jerusalem is not clouded by my love for this "place" and its peoples and by my need to make my own small story meaningful. And I am trying to not react as if this is a replay of other attempts in history to make a new Jerusalem, while crushing the "old" jerusalem. (Not that it make a wit of difference how I react….)
And yet, as I consider the possibilities that you raise, I understand that there is no doubt that the entire record of my people suggests that our marriage with this "place" was/is essential to our task in this world. Yes, lech-lecha can be understood as an internal journey, but the people's journey has never only been about individual discovery and growth. Lech lecha – in the first Words spoken to the first Jew were about coming to this "place". Somehow for Avraham to be Avraham, he needed to be in this "place". As R David Aaron "happened" to write in his dvar torah for this week: "This land is the body of our national soul." This I understand viscerally – I have lived here only a few years, but know that coming here was a kind of imperative – above or below personal choice. I had no choice. All of which leads me to conclude that for Adam Kadmon to ascend, Jews need to do their work and that work must at least in part, be in this very special place. Is the place holy or do we make it so? I have no idea. It simply is.
I can feel something of what you are saying about the geula having already arrived. But as I look around, I also see such suffering and disconnections and just know that our job is not yet complete. I love reading what you write – I love all of the possibilities inherent in the ideas. Perhaps the Pueblo or Tibetans or some new blend of wisdom traditions are to lead us – the ancient Adam - in our next aliyah. Perhaps America will become the new Jerusalem. But I figure that, if so, it will be clear in time even to those, like me, without wisdom and understanding.
But until then – until all of us feel this geula, I will stick to the stiff-necked Jewish path, doing what my people have always done – hoping in the face of hopelessness, trying to live as holy human beings when that is not the accepted norm, and loving in the face of lovelessness – until Hashem binds my hands and heart and proves that the job is done.
Hmm… I think I needed to write that more than you or any of your readers need to read it. A personal prayer flung into cyberspace!
Shabbat shalom dear brother/sister –
js
you are wonderfully correct jerusalem seeker, we are the child in the legend of Solomon. it is because of this that i am passionately explaining that in the same way that the zohar tells us that the third temple is not a physical building made by humans so is
the mystery of what jerusalem is; at a deeper level of understanding, than a place that is contested to the point of endangering the precious child who is all of us. yes we all have our part to play. the part that I am taking here is to shift the spotlight so to speak to a "place" that can help us preserve this sacred creation so that the true peace of jerusalem may manifest everywhere. a joyous Shabbos for all!
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