Tag: There’s a God in My Soup

Religious experience, or at least the experience of religion.

Looking Out, Looking In

(A recent sermon.)

SOMETIMES, A LITTLE PERSPECTIVE CAN be a good thing. A lot of perspective? Even better.

That point is illustrated in this week’s Torah reading, when Joseph admonishes his brothers after they fib that their father told them to tell him not to be angry with them for selling Joseph into slavery. Not for the first time, Joseph replies that their action was part of G?d’s plan all along. Otherwise, he couldn’t have rescued them from the worldwide famine. Joseph tells his brothers they can finally let go of their guilt. He gives them an object lesson in perspective.

In David Michie’s charming novel, The Dalai Lama’s Cat, there’s a conversation between two Buddhists about performative, ego-driven spirituality. One of them said that some people wear their spirituality like a badge, rather than living it sincerely and without a word about it to anyone else.

My copilot read me that passage, as she often does when she comes across something shareworthy. We had a brief but intense discussion, as we often do, which prompted her to ask me, “How do you keep your ego out of your religious practice?” (Followed by: “Wouldn’t this be a great topic for a sermon?”)

For me, spiritual practice is worthless without proper perspective. To hold on to that perspective, there are three things I try to keep in mind at all times – I’m not always good at it, but they do support me when I need them. The three are backyard astronomy, a quote from Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, and one from Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai.

First, astronomy. Here’s how big and empty the Universe is: Imagine the distance from the Sun to the Earth as being one inch. On that scale, a lightyear, the distance light travels in a year, is about a mile long. On that same scale, our closest star would be just over four miles away, or about from our synagogue to distant Stage Gulch Road. Our best telescopes can peer across about 14 BILLION lightyears and observe hundreds of billions of galaxies, each galaxy containing hundreds of billions of stars. And in all of that all-encompassing emptiness, there is only one of each of us: ephemeral, irreplaceable, unique.

Which leads to this quote from Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, who tells us: “You may be unique – but you ain’t special.”

The second quote comes from Pirkei Avot, a book of wise rabbinic sayings collected about two thousand years ago. In it, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai says this: “If you have studied much Torah, do not take credit for yourself – for that is what you were created to do.”

These three things – astronomy and the pocket wisdom of two rabbis – keep me from overflowing with egotism. And as a fervent blogger and writer of short stories trying hard to be noticed in today’s “attention economy,” I need all the ego-checking I can get. My question to you today is: “How do you keep your perspective?”

Pass the microphone around the sanctuary. Afterward, thank everyone for their participation with a hearty, “I think Joseph would be proud!”

Pocket Theology

BEFORE WE BEGIN, LET’S HAVE an agreed-upon definition or two (c. OED, mostly):

mystic 1. one who believes that union with or absorption into the Deity or the Absolute, or the spiritual apprehension of knowledge inaccessible to the intellect, may be attained through contemplation and self-surrender. 2. one possessed by self-delusion or dreamy confusion of thought, especially when based on the assumption of occult qualities or mysterious agencies.

Strange words? Confusing? Off-putting, even? Granted. However:

skeptic an ancient or modern philosopher who denies the possibility of knowledge, or even rational belief, in some sphere.

Ethnically and religiously, I consider myself a Jew through and through (for some values of the word “Jew”). And as one who self-describes as mystic #1, it seems to me that “religion” is to “mysticism” as “cheering a team” is to “playing the sport.” Not content with worshipping the Divine, what I really want is to thoroughly and joyfully wallow around in It.

At the same time, experience has taught me to be leery of those self-proclaimed “mystics” who fit definition #2. That’s where skepticism can be handy; as noted elsewhere, I am wordlessly convinced of an indefinable, infinite, yet universal sentience laced through and underlying all existence. But human knowledge is only finite, and human certitude – even or especially the gut-level, immediate, intuitive variety – can be illusory and deceptive. So I also embrace the possibility that I could be completely wrong.

And I’m okay with that.

Given the universe’s detailed complexity, comfort with ambiguity is an important, even essential quality of any spiritual discipline. (As my friend Sputnik liked to interject during enthusiastic theological explanations, “Sounds about as good as any other damn thing.”) We cannot become so convinced of our own Inner Truth that we become dogmatic about it, especially at the expense of others. That way lies fanaticism, cultishness, and the darkest sort of militant, lock-brained fundamentalism.

To paraphrase Ivan Stang, another favorite philosopher: “‘God’ is not a fan club.” So join me on that field – and let’s play our hearts out.

Here’s What I Know …

… AND WHEN I SAY “KNOW,” I’m not talking about “faith,” “opinion,” or “reasoned analysis,” but an intimate, visceral, experiential knowing. (Torah has a word for it — דַעַת — “da’at,” which can also refer to intimacy of the sexual variety.) So here’s what I know, in the same wordless way I know that I’m sitting at a desk typing these words to you:

1. The Universe is sentient.

2. This sentience cannot be fully described in words, including these.

3. This sentience can be directly apprehended.

4. Given this sentience’s unitary nature — as well as that every atom everywhere emerged from the Big Bang — all divisions are illusory, solely arising from the all-encompassing immediacy of our own ego-experience.

And that’s all I know. (And of course, I could be wrong.)

Any questions?

Torah, Nutshelled

(A recent Yom Kippur sermon.)

הִגִּ֥יד לְךָ֛ אָדָ֖ם מַה־טּ֑וֹב וּמָֽה־יְהֹוָ֞ה דּוֹרֵ֣שׁ מִמְּךָ֗ כִּ֣י אִם־עֲשׂ֤וֹת מִשְׁפָּט֙ וְאַ֣הֲבַת חֶ֔סֶד וְהַצְנֵ֥עַ לֶ֖כֶת עִם־אֱלֹהֶֽיךָ׃ – Micah 6:8

MANY SMART PEOPLE HAVE TRIED to distill the Torah and its 613 mitzvot – “commandments,” or “connections” – into something smaller and more digestible. When someone told the early first-century sage Hillel, “Teach me the entire Torah while I stand on one foot,” Hillel famously replied, “What is hateful to you, do not do to others. […] The rest is commentary. Now go study.” Put another way: “‘Don’t be a jerk.’ Everything else is explanation; now, go figure it out.”

The prophet Micah lived six hundred years before Hillel. He explained Torah thus: “You have been told what is good […] and what Adonai seeks from you: To do justice, love chesed, and walk humbly with your G?d.” All three instances of the word “you” or “your” are in the second-person singular. These instructions are aimed at the Jewish nation’s individual members – at you, and you, and you, and me.

So. Let’s take a closer look at what we’re getting into. Continue reading “Torah, Nutshelled”

Give It Away Now

THE TALMUD SAYS THAT ONE who teaches Torah to a child is as if one gave birth to that child.

What it also says is, “That’s what you’re supposed to do.”

As noted elsewhere, Torah is a great interest and passion of mine, even more so than my other passions and interests. But if I only study Torah for my own edification and increasing my personal knowledge base, it’s as if I never studied it at all. What earthly good or use is knowing anything if you don’t share it with others?

There’s an important Hebrew concept called “l’dor vador.” This phrase is mentioned twice in the daily prayer service and is sprinkled throughout our Bible and its related teachings. It’s usually translated as “generation to generation,” and means each generation teaches the next what it has learned, all the way from Abraham to the end of recorded history (please G?d we should live so long, especially these days). Torah even states this explicitly in Genesis 18:19, where G?d says, sotto voce, “For I have singled [Abraham] out, that he may instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of יהוה by doing what is just and right.” If Abraham had kept his monotheistic ethics to himself, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

A friend who served as a combat medic summed up his training thusly: “Learn one, do one, teach one.” It’s a nice organizing principle, whether in medicine, in Torah — or in life. Pass it on.

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