Parshah Summary – P’sha
The parshah continues with the giving of mitzvot at Sinai, this time focusing on civil laws, including the laws of the Hebrew slave (or indentured servant), the penalties for murder, kidnapping, assault and theft, redress of damages, the granting of loans, the responsibilities of the “Four Guardians” (unpaid guardian, paid guardian, renter and borrower), the rules governing the conduct of justice by courts, and laws warning against mistreatment of the ger, the stranger – “for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
Also included are other ritual laws: the observance of the seasonal festivals, the agricultural gifts that are to be brought to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem; the prohibition against cooking meat with milk, and the mitzvah of prayer. The parshah also contains the special words that the Children of Israel proclaim at Sinai: נַעֲשֶׂה וְנִשְׁמָֽע na’aseh v’nishmah – “We will do and we will hear.” It concludes with Moses ascending the mountain and remaining there for forty days and forty nights to receive the rest of the Torah...
Torah of Awakening | Jewish Meditation Teaching
וְאֵ֙לֶּה֙ הַמִּשְׁפָּטִ֔ים אֲשֶׁ֥ר תָּשִׂ֖ים לִפְנֵיהֶֽם׃ כִּ֤י תִקְנֶה֙ עֶ֣בֶד עִבְרִ֔י שֵׁ֥שׁ שָׁנִ֖ים יַעֲבֹ֑ד וּבַ֨שְּׁבִעִ֔ת יֵצֵ֥א לַֽחׇפְשִׁ֖י חִנָּֽם׃ These are the judgements that you shall set before them: When you acquire a Hebrew slave, six years they shall serve-- and in the seventh year they shall go free, without payment… - Shemot (Exodus) 21:1-2, Parshat Mishpatim
Rabbi Yaakov Yitzhak of Peshischa didn’t have the happiest of marriages; his wife would frequently grow extremely angry at him and scold him at length. Normally, he would say nothing, and simply endure her words in silence, unaffected. But one time, he snapped at her. Taken aback, she stopped her abuse and left the room. A disciple witnessed the whole thing asked the rebbe: “Master, you always endure her anger in silence. Why did you snap back this time? Did you lose your equanimity – your kabbalat isurim – and become angry?”
“Not at all,” the Rebbe replied, “I could see that she was growing more and more angry that I wasn’t reacting, so I pretended to get angry to help her feel better.”
גְּדוֹלָה תוֹרָה יוֹתֵר מִן הַכְּהֻנָּה וּמִן הַמַּלְכוּת...
וְהַתּוֹרָה נִקְנֵית בְּאַרְבָּעִים וּשְׁמֹנָה דְבָרִים... קַבָּלַת הַיִּסּוּרִין... Greater is learning Torah than both the priesthood and royalty… Torah is acquired by forty-eight things…(and one of them is) acceptance of suffering… - Pirkei Avot 6:6
There are two common images that are often used to describe the state of equanimity brought forth through meditation; that is, the ability to be present with one’s own negative emotions without being caught by them. The first is the image of dwelling within the center of your own being. When you are at the center, reactivity may arise – anger, fear, jealousy, anxiety, and so on, but you are not “caught” by any of that because the emotions are simply bubbling up around you, while you remain in the “eye of the hurricane” so to speak. In this image, the chaos is external, and you are the calm center that sees the chaos, unmoved by it. The second is the image of being a vast space within which the reactivity arises. In this image, the chaos is within you, but you are so much more vast and spacious than whatever feelings are bubbling up, that they powerless to compel you in any way.
Both of these images actually point to two different meditation practices for transcending reactivity and realizing freedom it: being present with your body, on one hand, and knowing yourself as the vast space of awareness both within and infinitely beyond your body, on the other. In our Jewish meditation practice, these two images are different stages of the same practice, based on a verse from our parshah which describes the Children of Israel standing together at Sinai, while the mountain smokes and quakes, engulfed in cloud and fire: וַיֹּ֣אמְר֔וּ כֹּ֛ל אֲשֶׁר־דִּבֶּ֥ר יְהוָ֖ה נַעֲשֶׂ֥ה וְנִשְׁמָֽע – And the people said, “Everything that the Divine speaks, na’aseh v’nishmah, we will do and we will hear.” - Exodus, 24:7 The ordering of the words in this verse, נַעֲשֶׂה וְנִשְׁמָֽע na’aseh v’nishma, is strange. You would think that the words should be the opposite – first you would hear, and then you would do. But the fact that the words are reversed – “we will do” and then “we will hear,” teaches a key insight: If you want to experience the vastness of your own being as the borderless space of awareness within which all experience arises (v’nishma) – you must first bring your awareness deep into your own body (na’aseh). In connecting with your body, with your heart and with your breathing, your consciousness is drawn out from its ordinary activity of incessant thinking, and into its own nature as open space. There is another hint of this unity between the center of your being and the vastness of your being earlier in the parshah, where it discusses how a Hebrew slave must be set free: וּבַ֨שְּׁבִעִ֔ת יֵצֵ֥א לַֽחָפְשִׁ֖י חִנָּֽם – And in the seventh (year), he shall go out free, without charge. וּבַשְּׁבִעִת – And in the seventh… In the image of the Star of David, the six rays represent the six directions in space and the six days of the week, while seven is represented by the center of the star. This is Shabbat – the “eye of the hurricane” in time, essentially a day of meditation. Seven, then, is the inner sanctum, the holy center – the drawing of awareness into the temple of the body. יֵצֵא לַֽחָפְשִׁי – he shall go out free… And yet, through connecting with the center, yeitzei – there is a “going out” to freedom. This is the felt sense that the awareness dwelling within your body is not confined to your body. Rather, it is a vast field within which everything you perceive arises; the air around you as well as the stars in the sky are all equally arising within the one vast field that you are. חִנָּֽם – gratis, free of charge, an act of grace – This freedom is not something you have to work for or somehow create; it is what you already are. How do you access it? Pay close attention to your actual experience in this moment and see – you are the freedom of awareness, right now. Whatever experience is arising within you, be it positive or negative, is arising within the spaciousness of consciousness; this is meditation. Experiences are unstable; they change moment to moment, revealing a basic lack which leads to one to movement. But on the level of consciousness, this space within which experience arises is inherently whole and complete, abundant in its openness and stillness; this fundamental sufficiency at the root of our being is represented by the Path of ג Gimel.
Read past teachings on Mishpatim HERE.
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