Parshah Summary – P’sha
The parshah begins with the promise that through the mitzvot, the Children of Israel will enjoy not only spiritual wellbeing, but also material prosperity as well, and they will dwell securely in the land. There is also a warning of the future exile, persecution and other suffering that will befall them if they abandon the Covenant. “Nevertheless,” God says, “Even when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away…for I am Hashem, their God.” The parshah concludes with instructions concerning voluntary contributions to the Temple, and the mitzvah of tithing produce and livestock.
Torah of Awakening | Jewish Meditation Teaching
אִם־בְּחֻקֹּתַ֖י תֵּלֵ֑כוּ וְאֶת־מִצְוֺתַ֣י תִּשְׁמְר֔וּ וַעֲשִׂיתֶ֖ם אֹתָֽם׃ וְנָתַתִּ֥י גִשְׁמֵיכֶ֖ם בְּעִתָּ֑ם וְנָתְנָ֤ה הָאָ֙רֶץ֙ יְבוּלָ֔הּ וְעֵ֥ץ הַשָּׂדֶ֖ה יִתֵּ֥ן פִּרְיֽוֹ׃ If with My decrees you walk, and My commandments you guard to do them, I will provide your rains in their time; the earth shall give its produce; the trees of the field their fruit… - Vayikra (Leviticus) 26:3,4
In Martin Buber’s 1909 essay called “Judaism and the Jews,” Buber asks a powerful question:
Where is there among Jews a Divine fervor that would drive them from their busyness in society into an authentic life? Where is there fulfillment? Where is there a community dominated not by Jewish inertia (called, “tradition”), nor by Jewish adaptability (that “purified,” that is, soulless “Judaism” of a “humanitarianism” embellished with “monotheism”), but by Jewish religiosity in its immediacy, by an elemental God-consciousness? Buber is criticizing both Orthodox Judaism and the German Reform Judaism of his day, saying that neither one is expressing the real thing. Then comes the punchline – what he considers to be the real thing: An elemental God consciousness. What does that mean? גֵּ֣ר אָנֹכִ֣י בָאָ֑רֶץ אַל־תַּסְתֵּ֥ר מִ֝מֶּ֗נִּי מִצְותֶֽיךָ – I am a stranger in the land; do not hide your commandments from me! (Psalm 119:19) The grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, Rabbi Baruch of Mezhibuz taught on this verse that this is like when you travel to a foreign land – you don’t speak the language, the customs are strange, and you feel alienated. Then, you meet another traveler from your homeland, also a stranger, and you become great friends with that person, since you are both strangers. If you had met the traveler in your own land, you may never have become friends, but because you both share the experience of being foreigners, you become close. And so it is with us and God: When we feel alienated, disconnected from our lives and others around us, that emotional pain can be the very motivation we need to find “the stranger” – meaning, to find the sacred dimension of Being. If it weren’t for that pain, we may never have been motivated to try meditation; we may have continued to look for fulfillment solely in the material realm. But it doesn’t stop there: אַל־תַּסְתֵּ֥ר מִ֝מֶּ֗נִּי מִצְותֶֽיךָ – do not hide your commandments from me… Why this demand? Isn’t the experience of connection with the Divine through meditation enough? No– if connection with the sacred remains only an experience, even a really wonderful, restorative, liberating experience, it will only be temporary. In order for that connection to be radically transformative, it has to be lived – it has to be expressed in our words and deeds: אִם־בְּחֻקֹּתַ֖י תֵּלֵ֑כוּ – If with My decrees you walk… Traditionally, the word חוֹק hok, “decree,” implies not the common sense mitzvot (commandments) like respecting your parents or not stealing, but rather the particularistic practices that don’t make obvious rational sense, such as not eating certain animals. For the person who observes these types of חֻקִּים hukim (religious rules), they may speculate about their reasoning, but ultimately they must be accepted simply because they are the way they are. That is their reasoning; it how traditional Judaism functions as a spiritual path. Through the acceptance of non-rational religious restrictions upon oneself, ego is (or at least can be) transcended; meaning, the separate self that emerges from identification with the mind and thought can be dethroned, opening the possibility for discovering who we are beyond that ego-self. But there is a far greater חוֹק hok, a vastly more incomprehensible reality right before us, regardless of whether we observe the traditional restrictions or not – and that is very the fact of Existence Itself! We can understand many things, but when we confront the question of why there is anything at all, we are brought to the threshold that leads beyond the domain of mind and thinking. To “walk” with this חוֹק hok, then, means to live with awareness of this greatest Mystery – the Mystery of Being, which is not different from the Mystery of our own being. This is the “stranger” who becomes our intimate companion – it is the realization that the mystery of our own existence is the same as the Mystery of Existence – the ever-present miracle, the greatest gift and the greatest fulfillment, hidden in plain sight. וְאֶת־מִצְוֺתַ֣י תִּשְׁמְר֔וּ וַעֲשִׂיתֶ֖ם אֹתָֽם׃ – and My commandments you guard to do them… But our next step is to allow our awareness of this Mystery to become a calling; this inexplicable miracle of Being is upon us, as us – how do we respond? Our answer to this question is how we, in the words of Buber, “transmute the Divine from an abstract Truth into a Living Reality” – that is Elemental God Consciousness. But to do that requires a radical attentiveness, moment by moment, so that we may embrace the whole of life – especially the ordinary, the tedious, even the annoying and stressful – and dedicate it to the Divine, making life into a service of the sacred. In Jewish meditation, this is the Path of ק Koof – “sanctification of the ordinary.”
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