Parshah Summary – P’sha
Aaron is instructed to kindle the lamps of the menorah, and the tribe of Levi is initiated into their duties in the Mishkan (Sanctuary). Those who were unable to bring the Pesakh (Passover) offering on the festival, due to being tamei (ritually impure), approach Moses and petition him to be permitted to bring their offerings later. In response, a Pesakh Sheini, a “Second Passover,” is instituted. Israel’s journeys and encampments are then described – they would be guided by the ascending and descending movements of a cloud by day and fire by night over the mishkan.
Moses is instructed to make two silver trumpets through which the community would be signaled for journeying, for battle and for festivals. The people then begin moving in formation from Mt. Sinai, where they had been camped for nearly a year. Next, the people complain to Moses about their dissatisfaction with the man (“manna,” the “bread from heaven,”) with which they were miraculously fed in the wilderness, and they demand that Moses provide them with meat. In response, Moses appoints seventy elders to assist him in the burden of governing, and the people are all fed by numerous quail which descend upon the camp. Miriam speaks judgmentally to Aaron about Moses’ wife and questions his leadership. As a consequence, she contracts tzara’at, the skin affliction associated lashon hara (gossip, slander). Moses prays for her healing with the words, El na refa na la, and the entire community waits seven days for her recovery.
Torah of Awakening | Jewish Meditation Teaching
דַּבֵּר֙ אֶֽל־אַהֲרֹ֔ן וְאָמַרְתָּ֖ אֵלָ֑יו בְּהַעֲלֹֽתְךָ֙ אֶת־הַנֵּרֹ֔ת אֶל־מוּל֙ פְּנֵ֣י הַמְּנוֹרָ֔ה יָאִ֖ירוּ שִׁבְעַ֥ת הַנֵּרֽוֹת׃ Speak to Aaron, and say to him: when you kindle the lamps, toward the face of the menorah shall the lamps cast light… - Bamidbar (Numbers) 8:2, Parshat Beha’alotkha
Rabbi Bunam said to his hasidim: “Any of you who is concerned with nothing but love is a philanderer; any of you who is nothing but devout is a thief; any of you who is nothing but clever has no faith. Only one who has all three of these gifts together can serve God as they should.”
This short teaching of Rabbi Simha Bunam speaks to the tendency toward reductionism. When we get excited about something – whether it’s an art, a philosophy, a spiritual practice, a political movement, anything – there is the danger of reducing everything to that, and ignoring other things of vital importance. In the realm of spirituality, this is sometimes called spiritual bypass, but there is also political bypass, economic bypass, and many other bypasses. How can we avoid the reductionism of spiritual bypass, and be truly integral in our view? First, it is helpful is to understand why we might bypass. Why would we believe in something so strongly that we ignore other things that are also important? If you work in a kitchen, you have to wash both of your hands. No matter how clean your left hand becomes, you still have to wash your right hand; there is no point at which your left hand becomes SO clean that it is okay for your right hand to be dirty. Why would we think otherwise when it comes to other facets of life? There are two reasons this might happen. The first reason is that we may recognize some genuine core truth, but that truth gets exaggerated. In the case of spirituality, this isn’t hard to see: the more conscious we become, the more we are able to be in harmony with those around us. While our meditation practice may not seem to have any discernible effect on our political or economic realities, it can have a profound effect on the real people we interact with every day. This is no small thing – as we know, our daily interactions with others affect not only the tone of our own lives, but have an incalculable effect beyond our immediate experience on countless beings whom we may never meet. And, while some of us may sometimes have a discernible and occasionally profound effect at the political level, nearly all of us are constantly affecting and are being affected by others that we encounter daily. The quality of our interactions, especially with family and others we are close with, can sometimes make the difference between life and death, or between a healthy life and a life of alienation and misery. It is understandable, then, that in knowing the profoundly transformative and life-changing power of increasing consciousness, that one might “overstep” and assume that as long as we are being conscious, everything else will simply take care of itself. So, it is good to remember: meditation can have a profoundly positive effect, but that doesn’t mean that it will necessarily and automatically “trickle down” to solve all the world’s problems, or even other personal problems such as health or money issues. For those, we may certainly have to do something else. But still, whatever we may have to do, greater Presence can help us to clearly see the choices before us, rather than be mired in conditioning and reactivity. The second reason is the plain fact that we are not in control of what happens. Our larger political and social realities can be overwhelmingly distressing. Combine that with the fact that no matter what we do, we are not guaranteed any positive outcome, and we may be tempted to give up altogether. We can be tempted to focus instead solely on the immediate personal realm, where we may be more likely to have some positive effect. We know that we can’t control the world – so why should we drive ourselves crazy trying? Resignation is seductive, and to avoid the pain of despair, we may believe that we are really doing our best simply by meditating. לֹא עָלֶיךָ הַמְּלָאכָה לִגְמֹר, וְלֹא אַתָּה בֶן חוֹרִין לִבָּטֵל מִמֶּנָּה:. It is not upon you to finish the work, but neither are you free to withdraw from it. - Pirkei Avot 2:16 Rabbi Tarfon’s aphorism is an antidote for resignation – simple, clean, and radiating with truth: yes, we have no certainty, we have no control. It is not upon us to figure it all out; we can’t figure it all out. But we can act, we should act, from where we are and from what we see and with what is available to us, to participate in improving the situation. And that means, don’t reduce – the Divine needs to be realized מִתָּֽחַת בַּשָּׁמַֽיִם מִמַּֽעַל וְעַל הָאָֽרֶץ – in the heavens above and on the earth below, both. אֶל־מוּל֙ פְּנֵ֣י הַמְּנוֹרָ֔ה יָאִ֖ירוּ שִׁבְעַ֥ת הַנֵּרֽוֹת: – Toward the face of the menorah should shine the seven lamps… It is a strange construction – how can the light of the “seven lamps” be made to shine back toward the menorah? These were not lasers, they were oil lamps; the light would simply shine out in all directions. But on a metaphorical level, the “seven lamps” are the many facets of human endeavor, such as politics, sciences, arts, relationships, and so on, and the menorah as a whole is a glyph that represents an integral vision. Each branch expresses a unique facet of life, and by bringing consciousness to them all, each of their “lights” can illuminate their “root” – that is, the unified human being, the one consciousness that we are beneath all our complexity, beneath all our multifaceted experience. How do we do that? By practicing being present in all our activities, not merely as a technique to bring about a certain effect such as less stress or more happiness, but to do our best to make all our endeavors conscious, so that we may shine from all “seven branches” – in all dimensions of our lives and at all levels of responsibility, without bypassing even one. This middah of bringing awareness to all facets of life and bringing them into balance and harmony is the Path of Tiferet on the Tree of Life.
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