Parshah Summary – P’shat
The parshah opens with Jacob returning home to the land of Canaan after a 20-year stay in Haran. He sends angels ahead of him to meet his brother Esau in hope of a reconciliation, but they return to report that Esau is on the warpath with 400 armed men. Jacob prepares for battle, but also sends Esau a large gift (consisting of hundreds of heads of livestock) to appease him, and then intensely prays for salvation. That night, Jacob sends his family and possessions across the Jabbok River, while he remains behind and encounters a mysterious being with whom he wrestles until daybreak. Jacob suffers a dislocated hip but vanquishes the supernal creature, who bestows upon him the name Yisrael, Israel. When Jacob and Esau finally meet, they break down crying and make peace, hugging and kissing, and then part ways. Jacob purchases a plot of land near Sh’khem, whose crown prince—also called Sh’khem—abducts and violates Jacob’s daughter Dinah. Dinah’s brothers Shimon and Levi avenge the crime by killing all male inhabitants of the city, after rendering them vulnerable by convincing them to circumcise themselves in order to intermarry with them. Jacob admonishes his sons for their violence, and again fearing for his life after what they have done, Jacob and his family flee. Rachel dies while giving birth to her second son, Benjamin, and is buried in a roadside grave near Bethlehem. Jacob arrives in Hebron, to his father Isaac, who later dies at age 180.
Torah of Awakening | Jewish Meditation Teaching
וַיֹּ֗אמֶר לֹ֤א יַֽעֲקֹב֙ יֵֽאָמֵ֥ר עוֹד֙ שִׁמְךָ֔ כִּ֖י אִם־יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל כִּֽי־שָׂרִ֧יתָ עִם־אֱלֹהִ֛ים וְעִם־אֲנָשִׁ֖ים וַתּוּכָֽל: He said, “No longer shall your name be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have wrestled with God and with humans and you have prevailed!” - Bereisheet (Genesis) 32:4, Parshat Vayikhlakh
What is the nature of pleasure? Is pleasure something to be enjoyed and celebrated, or is pleasure a spiritual obstacle? There is a teaching recorded in the Talmud that contains a puzzling dialogue between Moses and Hashem
בִּקֵּשׁ לְהוֹדִיעוֹ דְּרָכָיו שֶׁל הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא, וְנָתַן לוֹ, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״הוֹדִיעֵנִי נָא אֶת דְּרָכֶיךָ״, אָמַר לְפָנָיו: רִבּוֹנוֹ שֶׁל עוֹלָם! מִפְּנֵי מָה יֵשׁ צַדִּיק וְטוֹב לוֹ, וְיֵשׁ צַדִּיק וְרַע לוֹ, יֵשׁ רָשָׁע וְטוֹב לוֹ, וְיֵשׁ רָשָׁע וְרַע לוֹ? אָמַר לוֹ: מֹשֶׁה, צַדִּיק וְטוֹב לוֹ — צַדִּיק בֶּן צַדִּיק. צַדִּיק וְרַע לוֹ — צַדִּיק בֶּן רָשָׁע. רָשָׁע וְטוֹב לוֹ — רָשָׁע בֶּן צַדִּיק. רָשָׁע וְרַע לוֹ — רָשָׁע בֶּן רָשָׁע.. (Moses) requested that the ways of the Holy Blessed One be revealed to him, and it was granted it to him, as it is stated: “Show me Your ways and I will know You” (Exodus 33:13). He said, “Master of the Universe! Why is it that there are righteous who prosper, righteous who suffer, wicked who prosper, and wicked who suffer?” (The Divine) replied to him: “Moses, the righteous person who prospers is a child of a righteous person. The righteous person who suffers is a child of a wicked person. The wicked person who prospers is a child of a righteous person. The wicked person who suffers is a child of a wicked person. (Berachot 7a) This teaching (attributed to Rabbi Yohanan in the name of Rabbi Yosei) attempts to answer that old perennial question: if there is Divine justice in the world, why do bad things happen to good people? Why are there bad people who seem to have all the good things? The answer given here is a little baffling – it’s just because of their parents? Not the most satisfying answer. However, a novel interpretation of this passage comes from the renown 19th century rabbi known as the Chasam Sofer. He says that the good person who suffers, called the tzaddik v’ra lo- literally, “righteous and bad for him,” is not one to whom bad things happen. Rather, it is someone who doesn’t know how to receive painful experiences. After all, painful experiences will absolutely happen to all people, regardless of how good or bad they are ethically. The issue is not whether pain will come, it is how we deal with the pain when it does come. That’s why the passage says that the tzaddik v’ra lo is a righteous person with wicked parents. Thet have good intentions, but because they have wicked parents, they don’t learn how to receive pain and not get caught by it; they are still ruled by their impulses, in the same way a wicked person would be. Conversely, the rasha v’tov lo – the wicked person who prospers – doesn’t mean a wicked person to whom good things happen; good experiences are constantly happening to all people, regardless of how good or bad they are ethically (like, for example, our next breath.) Rather, this is someone who may be ethically wicked, but because they have good parents, they have learned the skill of receiving pain without resistance, as well as the skill of cultivating gratitude and appreciation for the all the blessings. The Chasam Sofer is interpreting the Gemara in light of this most fundamental quality of meditation: the simple receiving of this moment as it is – also known as “equanimity.” The main obstacle to equanimity is the impulse to resist and reject our present moment experience. This resistance, in turn, takes two main forms: rejecting or running away from what we don’t want, and longing for or running after what we do want. One common approach to cultivating equanimity is to purposely restrict your enjoyment of pleasure and voluntarily take on a certain amount of pain; this is the path of asceticism. From the ascetic point of view, pleasure is seen as suspect, even immoral, because it leads to weakness of character and dependence on external experience. This is the context within which the pleasure-negative point of view arises in Judaism and in many other traditions. The counterpoint to the ascetic point of view is the Hasidic approach, which came along to counteract the pleasure-negative ideology that became so prevalent in eighteenth century Eastern European Jewry. After all, it is not pleasure itself that is dangerous, but the clinging to and dependence on pleasure that is dangerous. Feeling good is a blessing of life – why should we go against our nature? Put another way, why should we reject the gifts that Hashem gives us? That’s why Hassidism celebrated eating, drinking, dancing, sexuality, and so on, as a means to realize the sacred; the key was the kavanah – the intention – that one brings to pleasure. One time, Rabbi Yisrael of Rizhyn walked into a room where some of his hasidim were drinking together and making merry, and he seemed to look at them with disapproval. “Are you displeased that we are drinking?” one of them asked. “But it is said that when hasidim sit together over their cups, it is just as if they were studying Torah!” “There are many words in the Torah that are holy in one passage, and unholy in another,” replied that rabbi of Rizhyn. “For example, it is written: וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יְהוָה֙ אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֔ה פְּסָל־לְךָ֛ שְׁנֵֽי־לֻחֹ֥ת אֲבָנִ֖ים – And the Divine said to Moses, ‘carve for yourself two tablets of stone…’ - Exodus 34:1 “And in another place, it says: לֹֽ֣א תַֽעֲשֶׂ֨ה־לְךָ֥֣ פֶ֣֙סֶל֙ – Do not make for yourself a carved image… Exodus 20:1 “Why is the same word, fesel (“carved”), holy in the first passage and not holy in the second? It is because in the first passage, “yourself” comes after “carved,” and in the second it comes first. And so it is in all that we do: when the self comes after, all is holy; when it comes first, all is not.” In other words, the sacred function of pleasure is to help us transcend ourselves; it is to use the pleasure as a means toward praise and gratitude, to connection with the Source of Blessing, rather than cling to the blessing for the sake of gratification alone. And even deeper, it is to awaken that Presence which is the deepest level of our being, beyond the “self” that craves this and that. After all, there is something essential that we can learn from enjoying pleasure: just as we enjoy pleasure for its own sake, savoring the moment without any future goal, so too we can learn to fully savor the moment as it is, even without any external gratification. We can do this because there is a deeper goodness, a deeper pleasure, that arises from Presence Itself; when we awaken this deeper pleasure, we can see through the ups and downs of transient experience and pierce through to the Oneness of Being, the Divine Ground that knows Itself through our own awareness, through the Living Presence that we are, beneath and beyond the “self” of thoughts, feelings, and changing experiences. וַיֹּ֗אמֶר לֹ֤א יַֽעֲקֹב֙ יֵֽאָמֵ֥ר עוֹד֙ שִׁמְךָ֔ כִּ֖י אִם־יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל כִּֽי־שָׂרִ֧יתָ עִם־אֱלֹהִ֛ים וְעִם־אֲנָשִׁ֖ים וַתּוּכָֽל: He said, “No longer shall your name be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have wrestled with (your) Divine (nature) and (your) human (nature), and you have prevailed!” In the parshah, Jacob is pushed into this realization of Oneness through crisis. He is terrified that his brother is coming to kill him and his family. He sends gifts to appease his brother, he prays for salvation, he divides his camp in the hope that some might survive if they are attacked. But then he spends the whole night wrestling with a mysterious being who attacks and injures him. By the time dawn breaks, Jacob is victorious, and the being gives him the name Yisrael, which means “wrestles with Gd.” Then, it says something interesting: וַיִּקְרָ֧א יַעֲקֹ֛ב שֵׁ֥ם הַמָּק֖וֹם פְּנִיאֵ֑ל כִּֽי־רָאִ֤יתִי אֱלֹהִים֙ פָּנִ֣ים אֶל־פָּנִ֔ים וַתִּנָּצֵ֖ל נַפְשִֽׁי׃ Jacob named the place Peniel, because “I have seen the Divine face to face, yet my life has been preserved.”- Gen. 32:31 It is true that it all turns out well for Jacob in the end; his brother forgives him and they hug and weep upon each other’s necks. But this verse comes before he sees his brother; he doesn’t know yet whether his prayers will be answered; he doesn’t know yet whether his brother will forgive him or kill him. And yet he says, וַתִּנָּצֵ֖ל נַפְשִֽׁי – which is usually translated as it is above: “my life has been preserved.” But the word for “my life” – nafshi – literally means “my soul,” not “my life.” In other words, his becoming Yisrael means that he has pierced beyond the “good” and “bad” of his personal experience, to his underlying “soul” – also called Consciousness – his essential being beyond the “self,” beyond ego. He becomes Yisrael because regardless of whether he lives or dies, regardless of whether his prayers are answered or not, he knows now that everything is the Face of the Divine – ra’iti Elohim panim el panim – “I have seen the Divine face to face.” And so this is our task: not to avoid pleasure, and also not to pursue pleasure as the goal, but rather to receive both pleasure and pain with full Presence. Because beneath our transient experience is a deeper pleasure, a pleasure with no opposite, a pleasure that is the nourishment we need now for our essential being. This deeper pleasure is represented by the letter mem, the symbol for water. Just as water takes the shape of any vessel into which it is poured, so too our consciousness can effortlessly take the shape of this moment in which we find ourselves. וְֽהָיָ֗ה כְּעֵץ֮ שָׁת֪וּל עַֽל־פַּלְגֵ֫י מָ֥יִם – And one shall be like a tree planted by streams water… - Psalm 1:3
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Parshah Summary – P’shat
Jacob leaves his hometown of Be’er Sheva and journeys to Haran. On the way, he stops to sleep and dreams of a ladder spanning earth to heaven, with angels ascending and descending upon it. In the morning, Jacob raises the stone upon which he laid his head as an altar and monument, pledging that it will one day become a house of God.
In Haran, Jacob lives and works for his uncle Laban, tending Laban’s sheep. Jacob loves Laban’s younger daughter, Rachel, and Laban allows them to get married, in return for seven years of work from Jacob. But on the wedding night, Laban switches Rachel with his elder daughter Leah—a deception Jacob only discovers in the morning. A week later, Jacob marries Rachel as well, after agreeing to work for another seven years. Leah gives birth to six sons: Reuven, Shimon, Levi, Judah, Yisakhar and Zebulun, as well as a daughter, Dinah, while Rachel remains barren. Rachel gives Jacob her handmaid Bilhah as a wife to bear children in her stead, and two more sons, Dan and Naphtali, are born. Leah does the same with her handmaid, Zilpah, who gives birth to Gad and Asher. Finally, Rachel’s prayers are answered and she gives birth to Joseph. Jacob has now been in Haran for 14 years, and wishes to return home. But Laban persuades him to remain, offering him sheep in return for his labor, and Jacob becomes wealthy by breeding the sheep in a seemingly magical way. After six years, Jacob flees Haran in stealth, fearing that Laban would prevent him from leaving with his family and property. Laban pursues Jacob, but is warned by God in a dream not to harm him. Laban and Jacob make a pact on Mount Gal-Ed with a pile of stones as a witness, and Jacob proceeds back to Canaan, where he is met by angels.
Torah of Awakening | Jewish Meditation Teaching
אָכֵן֙ יֵ֣שׁ יי בַּמָּק֖וֹם הַזֶּ֑ה וְאָנֹכִ֖י לֹ֥א יָדָֽעְתִּי “Surely the Divine is present in this place and I didn’t even know it!” - Bereisheet (Genesis) 28:16
Imagine you lived in a place where the sky was constantly overcast, so that the sun was hardly ever visible. From your point of view, it would look like the dim light of the overcast sky was coming from the clouds themselves. If you were a small child and had never heard of the sun, that’s what you would probably assume. Now, imagine you are that child – you have no knowledge of the sun, and your parents take you for a trip on an airplane. As the plane gets higher and higher, you look out the window, and you see nothing but cloud all around. Soon after, the plane bursts through the cloud cover and you see the blazing sun and the blue sky for the first time. Imagine what a revelation that would be! That’s what spiritual awakening is like.
For most of us, the sky has been covered with clouds our whole lives. Meaning, our minds are constantly moving with the “clouds” of thoughts and feelings. Without ever questioning, we assume that our consciousness and our thoughts and feelings are identical. Because of this, we also don’t tend to distinguish between our thoughts and feelings we have about reality, and actual Reality. All we know are the clouds; we experience the present moment through the lens of our stories, through our sense of past and future. How to awaken from the seductive dream of our minds and hearts and come to the truth of this moment? וַיִּפְגַּ֨ע בַּמָּקֹ֜ום וַיָּ֤לֶן שָׁם֙ כִּי־בָ֣א הַשֶּׁ֔מֶשׁ He encountered The Place and spent the night there, for the sun had set… The setting of the sun is a metaphor – Jacob is running away from his murderous brother - he is in a state of inner darkness. At first he was running and running, until he “encounters The Place” – he sets stones for his head and lays down on the earth. In other words, he connects with the support beneath him – the physicality of his present experience. Then, Jacob has a dream in which God appears and he sees a ladder reaching from the earth to heaven with angels going up and down. Then it says: :וַיִּיקַ֣ץ יַעֲקֹב֮ מִשְּׁנָתֹו֒ וַיֹּ֕אמֶר אָכֵן֙ יֵ֣שׁ יְהוָ֔ה בַּמָּקֹ֖ום הַזֶּ֑ה וְאָנֹכִ֖י לֹ֥א יָדָֽעְתִּי Jacob awakened and said, “Surely the Divine is in this Place and I didn’t even know it!” The Divine is not something separate from the truth of this moment – it is the radiant sun of consciousness, ever-present as the perceiving Presence that you are. But, there are clouds! The way to “rise of above the clouds,” so to speak, is paradoxically to connect with the earth. That’s because when we become conscious of our physical sensations, the “clouds” of thoughts and feelings can clear up naturally, revealing the radiant awareness beneath them; this is meditation. :וַיִּירָא֙ וַיֹּאמַ֔ר מַה־נֹּורָ֖א הַמָּקֹ֣ום הַזֶּ֑ה אֵ֣ין זֶ֗ה כִּ֚י אִם־בֵּ֣ית אֱלֹהִ֔ים וְזֶ֖ה שַׁ֥עַר הַשָּׁמָֽיִם He was in awe and said, “How incredible is this Place – it is none other than the House of the God, and this is the gateway to Heaven!” Now what you don’t get in the English is that the word for “The Place” is HaMakom, which is Itself a Name of God. So, if you want to rise above the dark clouds of this world, the way up is actually the way down. Come down from your mind, into your body and into connection with the earth, with the support of the physical world, the world of the senses – because this, here-now, is the gateway of heaven…
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Parshah Summary – P’shat
The parshah opens with Yitzhak/Isaac praying for a child after Rivkah/ Rebecca had been unable to conceive, and immediately his prayer is answered. But, she experiences difficult pregnancy as the “children struggle inside her.” She prays that the cause of her suffering be revealed, and Hashem responds that “two nations in your womb.” Esav/Esau emerges first, and Yaakov/Jacob is born clutching Esau’s heel. (Yaakov, Jacob, means “heal.”) As they grow up, Isaac favors Esau, but Rebecca loves Jacob more. One day, when Esau returns home exhausted and hungry from the hunt, he sells his birthright to Jacob for a pot of red lentil stew.
In Gerar, in the land of the Philistines, Isaac presents Rebecca as his sister, out of fear that he will be killed by someone coveting her beauty. He farms the land, reopens the wells dug by his father Abraham, and digs a series of his own wells, and Esau marries two Hittite women. Isaac grows old and blind, and wants to bless his first born Esau before he dies. While Esau goes off to hunt for his father’s favorite food, Rebecca dresses Jacob in Esau’s clothing, covers his arms and neck with goatskins to simulate the feel of his hairier brother, prepares a similar dish, and sends Jacob to his father. Jacob receives his father’s blessings for “the dew of the heaven and the fat of the land,” as well as mastery over his brother. When Esau returns and the deception is revealed, Isaac blesses him as well with the “fat of the earth and dew of the heaven,” but also that he shall live by the sword and serve his brother, though there will come a time when he will “break the yoke” from his neck. Jacob leaves home for Haran to flee Esau’s wrath and to find a wife in the family of his mother’s brother, Lavan/ Lab
Torah of Awakening | Jewish Meditation Teaching
וַיִּתְרֹֽצְצ֤וּ הַבָּנִים֙ בְּקִרְבָּ֔הּ וַתֹּ֣אמֶר אִם־כֵּ֔ן לָ֥מָּה זֶּ֖ה אָנֹ֑כִי וַתֵּ֖לֶךְ לִדְרֹ֥שׁ אֶת־יְהֹוָֽה׃ וַיֹּ֨אמֶר יְה–ֹוָ֜ה לָ֗הּ שְׁנֵ֤י גוֹיִם֙ בְּבִטְנֵ֔ךְ... The children struggled within her, and she said, “If so, why am I like this?” So she went to inquire of the Divine. Hashem said to her, “Two nations are in your womb…” - Bereisheet (Genesis) 25:22-23
Our political climate nowadays is passionate polarized. But there’s another contest for power going on right now as well – can you engage in it with the same enthusiasm? It is the contest between two different versions of yourself. On one side is the Ego. For most of us, this ego usually wins in landslide victories, over and over again. And, rightly so. The Ego has the most experience, with the advantage of being constructed over a lifetime, not to mention having the constant support of the Thinking Mind. On the other side is Awareness. Awareness has a more difficult time because people don’t even notice her. They can’t see her because she is the seeing itself. Furthermore, even though Awareness is far more ancient than the Thinking Mind, she never really ages. She is always seeing this moment anew, so she seems young and naïve. She must, we tend to think, need the Ego and his Thinking Mind to run the show. How does it do that? The basic approach of the Ego is struggle:
וַיִּתְרֹֽצֲצ֤וּ הַבָּנִים֙ בְּקִרְבָּ֔הּ וַתֹּ֣אמֶר אִם־כֵּ֔ן לָ֥מָּה זֶּ֖ה אָנֹ֑כִי... The children struggled within her, and she said, “If it be so, why am I like this?” There comes a time when a person is ready to give up the struggle. The question to each of us is, have you reached this point? Are you ready to go beyond Ego? Do you want to inquire of Reality and find another way? וַתֵּ֖לֶךְ לִדְר֥שׁ אֶת־יְהֹ–וָֽה– She went to inquire of the Divine… Let this be your prayer: “How do I give up the struggle?” But then, sh’ma –listen: a message vibrates from the Silence: שְׁנֵ֤י גוֹיִם֙ בְּבִטְנֵ֔ךְ וּשְׁנֵ֣י לְאֻמִּ֔ים מִמֵּעַ֖יִךְ יִפָּרֵ֑דוּ וּלְאֹם֙ מִלְאֹ֣ם יֶֽאֱמָ֔ץ וְרַ֖ב יַֽעֲבֹ֥ד צָעִֽיר: Two nations are in your womb –– in other words, there are two of you! Two peoples will separate from within you –– in other words, be aware of the distinction between the ordinary me, the Ego, and the awareness behind and beyond the Ego. And one kingdom will become mightier than the other kingdom, and the older will serve the younger… The Ego, the conditioned me, is old, not in the sense of actual age, but in the sense that it is based on experience from the past. But, there is a deeper I that never grows old; it is always fresh, alive and new. The Ego likes to be in charge, but it is destined to serve Awareness. Then, there will be a great Silence far more profound than any thought. That Silence is your nakhalah, your birthright, if you would but awaken to it. How to awaken to It? וַיְהִ֣י עֵשָׂ֗ו אִ֛ישׁ יֹדֵ֥עַ צַ֖יִד אִ֣ישׁ שָׂדֶ֑ה וְיַֽעֲקֹב֙ אִ֣ישׁ תָּ֔ם ישֵׁ֖ב אֹֽהָלִֽים: Esau was a man who knew hunting… but Jacob was a simple man, dwelling in tents. In other words, Give up your “hunting,” give up your seeking for control. Or more precisely, be the awareness of your impulse to seek control. Come into the “tent” of your heart, into this moment as it is, and dwell here in simplicity. This portal of simplicity is represented by the letter yud. The letter yud is the smallest of the letters, almost dimensionless, like a point. It is also the shape that begins the inscribing of all the other letters. In this sense it hints that all of our experience on all levels begins with this formless, dimensionless, unassuming yet most profound miracle – the Divine gift of consciousness. It is simple because it is prior to preference, prior to analysis, prior to opinion; it is simply aware.
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Parshah Summary – P’shat
The parshah opens with Sarah’s death at the age of 127, after which Abraham buries her in the Cave of Makhpelah in Hebron, which he purchases from Ephron the Hittite for four hundred silver shekels.
Next, Abraham sends his servant Eliezer to find a wife for Isaac in Haran. At the village well, Eliezer asks God for a specific sign: that when the maidens come to the well, he will request water from them. If one of the women gives him water and offers to water his camels as well, then she should be the one destined for his master’s son. Rebecca, the daughter of Abraham’s nephew Bethuel, appears at the well and passes the test. Eliezer is invited to their home, where he tells her family everything that has happened. Rebecca returns with Eliezer to the land of Canaan, where they encounter Isaac meditating in the field. Isaac marries Rebecca and is comforted over the loss of his mother. Abraham marries another woman named Keturah, and they have six more sons. When the sons grow up, Abraham “sends them off to the east with gifts.” Abraham dies at age of 175 and is buried beside Sarah by his two eldest sons, Isaac and Ishmael.
Torah of Awakening
There’s a story that in the late 1700s, when Reb Shneur Zalman was incarcerated in a Russian prison, a guard noticed the great presence of the rabbi and went to ask him a question: “You are a holy man. There is a question that has been bothering me about the scriptures. When Adam was in the Garden of Eden and he ate from the forbidden fruit, it says that God asked him where he was. How is it possible that God didn’t already know where he was?”
Reb Shneur Zalman answered- “It’s like this. At every moment and at every time, God is asking you- where are you? Right now you are twenty-seven years old. Are you fulfilling the purpose of your life?” When he heard this, the guard almost fell over, because the rabbi had said his actual age, and there was no way he could have known. At that moment, a deep knowing awakened within the guard and the course of his life began to change. Once I saw a video of some children being shown an old rotary telephone from the 1970s. “What is it?” they wondered. When they were told it was a phone and how it worked, how you physically dial the numbers by putting your finger in the hole and cranking the wheel around, they said, “Wait, you mean all this phone does is call people?” For many of us, it’s hard to imagine a time when our calendar, internet, email and a million other functions weren’t instantly available on our phones. Convenient, yes. But whenever I take out my phone, I notice a slight pain in my stomach, because I don’t want all those functions to distract me from the reason I took out the phone in the first place. And this is the shadow side of the smart phone – with all its reminders and notifications, it actually tends to make us forget what we were doing. In the Haftarah for Parshat Hayei Sara, King David is old and lying on his deathbed. Meanwhile, his son Adoniyahu has taken power against King David’s will, throwing a big party and inviting all his supporters, while excluding those close to David. So, the prophet Nathan and King David’s wife Bat-sheva go to King David’s bed chamber to inform him about what’s going on. The king rouses himself and swears that Adoniyahu will not be successful, and that his son Solomon will succeed him instead. Every intention that arises within the mind and heart arises within a particular kind of situation. As time goes on, situations change; in fact, “time” and “change” are not two separate things. Like King David’s desire for Solomon to succeed his kingship, the moments of our original intentions can become old and dim, while new moments and new desires arise. Like the thousands of apps, reminders, alerts, and emails, we sometimes find ourselves thinking: “Wait, what was I doing?” But stand back for a moment, stand back from all the different intentions and priorities of life. Before you had relationships, before you had values, before you had goals- can you go back before any of that and ask, “What was I doing? Why did I come into this life in the first place?” Before you wanted anything, before you had an opinion, there was consciousness- this miracle of perception somehow awakened within your body-mind and began meeting the world as it appeared. The world- sometimes nurturing, sometimes beautiful, sometimes loving, sometimes painful, sometimes horrific. But whatever the form the world happens to takes in any given moment, behind it all is this simple awareness: the awakening of Reality to Itself. Or, we might say, the awakening of God in the world. And this awakening is happening, right now, as the Presence that you are. And on this deepest level, awareness comes into existence simply to be aware. And behind all the complexity of life is this simple truth - you are aware - which is to say, you are awareness. Know yourself as this Presence- behind your thinking, behind your words, behind your actions- and you become like the air we breathe: ever-present, completely surrounding us from without and also nourishing us from within, yet essentially beyond all the drama of our existence- intimate and transcendent in one. That’s why when we become aware of our breathing, when we become aware of the ever-present nourishment which is our breathing in and out, we can also begin to notice this deepest dimension of who we are - the noticing Itself- our ever-present consciousness within which all experience arises. And, paradoxically, it is through the awakening of this transcendence beyond the world that we can awaken our potential for blessing within the world, because the openness of this transcendence allows benevolence can flow. How would the world be different if everyone practiced this transcendent benevolence? If everyone practiced meditation? In our tradition, King David is the symbol of Moshiakh- the awakening of all humanity out of the dream of separation. This dream is so powerful- it creates all the suffering we inflict on ourselves and others. His rightful heir is Solomon- the symbol of wisdom. We come into this world to awaken as that wisdom- to embody consciousness in form and thereby heal the world. We humans have become so lost in form, so caught within its web. The rogue son has taken over and usurped the throne. But any moment, and that means this moment, is the potential to remember – to rouse King David from his slumber and remember why we are here. This middah of remembering and focusing, of piercing through the noise to the Essence, is represented by the letter ז zayin. The letterז zayin begins the word zekher, memory, and zikaron, remembrance. The meaning of zayin is weapon, and particularly the sword, cutting through distractions and falsehoods. This is the practice of meditation – remembering moment to moment to cut through the seductiveness of thought, the virtual reality of the mind, and focus on being the awareness of whatever is present.
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Parshah Summary – P’shat
The parshah opens with Abraham sitting by his tent on a hot day, when suddenly Hashem appears to him. He looks up and sees three mysterious guests (later described as angels), so he rushes off to prepare a meal for them. One of the guests announces that the old and barren Sarah will give birth to a son! Sarah laughs, hinting at the name of their future son, Yitzhak, Isaac, which means “will laugh.” It is revealed to Abraham that the wicked city of Sodom is to be destroyed, but he pleads with Hashem to relent and not punish the innocent along with the guilty. Hashem agrees not to destroy the city if ten innocent people are found, but they are not.
Two of the three angels arrive in the doomed city, and Abraham’s nephew Lot invites them in and attempts to protect them from a violent mob. The angels reveal their destructive mission, instructing Lot and his family to flee and not look back. But, as they flee, Lot’s wife does look back and turns into a pillar of salt. While taking shelter in a cave, Lot’s two daughters (believing that they and their father are the only ones left alive in the world) get their father drunk and become impregnated by him. The two sons born from this incestuous incident become the progenitors of the nations of Moab and Ammon. Avraham moves to Gerar, where the Philistine king Abimelech takes Sarah—who is once again presented as Abraham’s sister—to his palace. In a dream, God warns Abimelech that he will die unless he returns the woman to her husband. Abimelech confronts Avraham, who once again explains that he feared he would be killed over the beautiful Sarah. Sarah miraculously becomes pregnant and gives birth to Yitzhak, Isaac. Avraham is one hundred years old and Sarah is ninety when Yitzhak is born and circumcised at the age of eight days. Yishmael torments Sarah, so Sarah banishes Hagar and Yishmael from their home to wander in the desert, and Yishmael nearly dies of dehydration. Hashem hears the cry of the dying lad, shows his mother a well and they are saved. Meanwhile, Abimelech makes a treaty with Avraham at B’er Shava, and Avraham gives him seven sheep as a sign of their truce. Hashem tests Avraham’s devotion by commanding him to sacrifice Yitzhak, Isaac, on Mount Moriah (traditionally believed to be the site of the Temple Mount). Yitzhak is bound and placed on the altar, and Avraham raises the knife to slaughter his son. A voice from heaven calls to stop him; a ram, caught in the undergrowth by its horns, is offered in Yitzhak’s place.
Torah of Awakening | Jewish Meditation Teaching
וַיֵּרָ֤א אֵלָיו֙ יְהֹ–וָ֔ה בְּאֵלֹנֵ֖י מַמְרֵ֑א וְה֛וּא יֹשֵׁ֥ב פֶּֽתַח־הָאֹ֖הֶל כְּחֹ֥ם הַיּֽוֹם׃ The Divine appeared to him in the plains of Mamre; he was sitting at the entrance of the tent in the heat of the day… - Bereisheet (Genesis) 18:1
What is a tent? It’s a barrier that defines your personal space. There’s a vast world just outside, but you put this flimsy material around you, call it a tent, and you have some sense of separateness from the rest of the world. Just like the ego: there’s a vast Reality, and we are in no way separate from that Reality, but we tend to identify with our bodies, our personalities, our personal stories and so on, and call all of that “me.” That’s the ego; that’s the tent.
יֹשֵׁ֥ב פֶּֽתַח־הָאֹ֖הֶל – he sits in the opening of his tent… But Avraham, rather than shutting himself up inside the tent, sits in the opening. In other words, there’s still a tent, there’s still a sense of “me,” but he sits in the petakh, in the opening, so there’s also a sense that the space within the tent and the space outside the tent are one thing, one space. We can practice this by being aware that everything arising in our experience in this moment, both our perception of things outside the “tent,” meaning outside our bodies, and things inside the “tent,” such as our emotions and our thoughts, are all arising in the one space that is our awareness. You can still think of this tiny corner of your awareness that encompasses your body and heart and mind as “me,” but the entirety of your experience, even your perception of the stars millions of light years away, are all arising in the one space that is your field of awareness, and that’s actually the deepest you – that formless, borderless, field of awareness; this realization is the fruit of meditation. וַיַּ֗רְא וַיָּ֤רׇץ לִקְרָאתָם֙ מִפֶּ֣תַח הָאֹ֔הֶל – When he saw them, he ran from the opening in the tent to greet them… Meaning, if you want to know this deepest you, then you have to consciously invite everything within your experience to exist, even if it’s unpleasant. That’s the key. Because when you resist certain aspects of your experience, that’s the equivalent of shutting the flap on your tent and hiding inside, so there’s no more petakh, no more opening. That’s why Avraham is seen as the embodiment of hospitality – he runs from the opening to greet his guests and offers them food. He sits in the opening of his tent, and whatever happens to come by, he invites in; this is the moment to moment practice of meditation. וַיֵּרָ֤א אֵלָיו֙ יְהֹ–וָ֔ה – The Divine appeared to him… These opening words of the parshah are really a description of how to relate to Whatever appears in the moment – because when you consciously invite everything to be as it is, you “sit” in the open space between separateness and Oneness, and you receive EveryThing as a manifestation of the One Thing; whether It appears as three men, or as two angels, it doesn’t matter, because everything are forms of the One Thing. וַיִּגַּ֥שׁ אַבְרָהָ֖ם וַיֹּאמַ֑ר הַאַ֣ף תִּסְפֶּ֔ה צַדִּ֖יק עִם־רָשָֽׁע׃ Abraham came forward and said, “Will You sweep away the innocent along with the guilty? This brings us to a kind of paradox, because when it is revealed to Avraham that God is going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, he argues with God; he tries to change the course of what’s happening. So, on one hand, he invites everything to be as it is, but on the other, he’s arguing and trying to change it for the sake of compassion. And this is really the supreme spiritual teaching. When we talk about acceptance, about inviting everything to be as it is, our minds tend to go in the direction of passivity. But this creates a false duality. If we really invite everything to be as it is, that includes our own desire for things to be different. So, on one hand, we accept Reality as it is, but on the other, Reality includes our own desire to change things; Reality is dynamic, alive, and always in motion. The distinction is that when we are hospitable to Reality as it arises, inviting things to be as they are rather than resisting how things are, we can work for change from a spirit of love and openness, rather than from judgment and anger. There is a hint in the opening words: וְה֛וּא יֹשֵׁ֥ב פֶּֽתַח־הָאֹ֖הֶל כְּחֹ֥ם הַיּֽוֹם׃ – …and he was sitting in the opening of his tent in the heat of the day. The word for “the day” is hayom, which can also mean, “today” – in other words, the right now. The word for heat, khom, can also mean “warmth.” So, in this sense, khom hayom could mean “the warmth of Presence.” If you want to pierce through the separateness of things to the underlying Divine unity, open your heart to this moment. Warmly invite Reality to be as it is, and then when you act to change things, do it from a place of inviting change, rather than forcing. Even in those rare times when you do have to force something, you can still do it from a place of love rather than resistance and anger. Just like when you abruptly grab a child away from the danger of a precipice or an oncoming car – externally there might be a violent forcing quality, but of course you’re not angry at the child, you just have to act swiftly and effectively. If you have the right kavanah, the right attitude that arises from Presence rather than resistance, then your action toward change will flow from the Oneness, and will be an expression of the Oneness, even when there’s conflict. That’s why Avraham can argue with God, and yet the argument itself is an expression of God, because Avraham is arguing that God’s compassion become manifest; in a sense, it is God’s prayer to Himself, just as our practice is a kind of prayer to ourselves: May we welcome this moment as it is. This is the meditation Path of ב Bet, the middah of hospitality, of welcome.
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Parshah Summary – P’shat
The parshah opens with God telling Avram to leave his birthplace and travel to a land where his descendants will become a great nation. So, Avram and his wife, Sarai, accompanied by their nephew Lot, journey to the land of Canaan. Avram builds an altar there, but a famine forces them to flee to Egypt, where Avram and Sarai present themselves as brother and sister, out of fear that Avram would be killed on account of Sarai’s great beauty. Sarai is taken to Pharaoh’s palace, but a plague prevents the Egyptian king from approaching her. Pharaoh then somehow understands that Sarai is Avram’s wife, and he reunites her with Avram, giving them gold, silver and cattle.
When they return to the land of Canaan, Lot separates from Avram and settles in the evil city of Sodom, where he falls captive when the mighty armies of King Kedarla-omer and his three allies conquer the five cities of the Sodom Valley. Avram sets out with a small band to rescue his nephew, defeats the four kings, and is blessed by Malkitzedek, the king of Salem (Jerusalem). Avram seals a strange covenant with God involving a vision of fire descending and moving between severed animal pieces, in which the exile and persecution (galut) of Avram’s descendants is foretold, and their eventual return to the Holy Land is affirmed. Still childless ten years after their arrival in the Land, Sarai tells Avram to marry her maidservant Hagar. Hagar conceives, but becomes insolent toward her mistress, and then flees when Sarai treats her harshly. An angel convinces her to return, and tells her that her son will also become a great nation. Ishmael is born in Avram’s eighty-sixth year. Thirteen years later, God changes Avram’s name to Avraham (Abraham, meaning “father of multitudes”), and Sarai’s name to Sarah (“princess”). A child is promised to them whom they should call Yitzhak (Isaac, “will laugh”). Abraham is instructed to circumcise himself and his descendants as a sign of the covenant. Abraham does so for himself and all the males of his household.
Torah of Awakening | Jewish Meditation Teaching
One time, when Rabbi Yisrael of Rizhyn was traveling through the city of Sanok, several opponents of the Hassidic movement, the mitnagdim, came to him and complained: “In our congregation we pray at dawn, and after that we sit wrapped in tallis and tefilin (prayer shawl and phylacteries) and learn a chapter of the Mishnah. Not so with you hasidim! You pray way after the set time has passed, and when you're finished praying, you sit drink schnapps. And you are called ‘devout’ and we are called the ‘adversaries!’”
Rabbi Yisrael’s assistant laughed when he heard their complaint and retorted: “The prayers of you mitnagdim are cold and lifeless, like a corpse. And when you sit and guard a corpse, you must study some Mishnah as is the custim. But when we Hasidim have done our prayers, our hearts glow and are warm like one who is alive, and whoever is alive must drink some schnapps!” The rabbi was silent for a moment and then added, “Jesting aside, the truth of the matter is this: ever since the Temple was destroyed, we offer prayers instead of sacrifices. And just as the sacrifices in ancient times were disqualified if one’s heart was not pure, so it is with prayer. That is why the yetzer hara (evil urge) tries to confuse one who prays with all kinds of distracting thoughts. But, the hasidim outsmart the yetzer hara with a counter-strategy: after praying, they sit and drink and wish one another l'hayim! To life! Each tells the other what is burdening their hearts, and then they say to one another, ‘May Hashem grant your desire!” And since our sages teach that prayers can be said in any language whatsoever, this toasting and speaking to one another while drinking is itself a kind of prayer. But all the yetzer hara sees is friends drinking together, so it stops bothering them!” There is something magical about friends holding up a glass of some fermented beverage, looking at one another, saying some formula of affirmation, then drinking. L’hayim! Nearly every culture has its version of this practice. In Judaism, it has become deeply ritualized as the act of sanctification – Kiddush – for Shabbat and Festivals. But even without any overtly spiritual intention, the act of raising a glass has an elevating effect that even the most materialistic person is unlikely to escape. Something about the receptivity and openness of the vessel, filled with intoxicating, joy producing substance, raised up in well-wishing affirmation with friends… it is indeed a kind of kiddush regardless of the context. Another nearly universal practice with a similar effect is the giving of flowers. Like the glass filled with wine, the flower too conveys a sense of openness, grace, and beauty that expresses the same well-wishing affirmation when offered to another. The Zohar links together the images of the flower and the cup of wine: רִבִּי חִזְקִיָּה פָּתַח, כְּתִיב, כְּשׁוֹשַׁנָּה בֵּין הַחוֹחִים מָאן שׁוֹשַׁנָּה, דָּא כְּנֶסֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל Rabbi Hizkiyah opened, “It is written, (in Shir Hashirim) Like a rose among thorns’. What is a rose? It is the Assembly of Israel. - Zohar, Haqdamat Sefer HaZohar [Introduction] It goes on to say that the rose is the cup of blessing which should rest on five fingers, just as the rose rests on five sturdy leaves that represent what are called the five gates… meaning, the five senses. So according to the Zohar, the flower and the cup are the community of Israel, but on a more immediate level, they are actually representations of our own bodies. Just as the rose is filled with nectar and the cup is filled with wine, there is a sweet blessedness when we fill our bodies with the light of consciousness. How do we do that? By bringing our consciousness more intensely into the “five gates” – that is, present moment awareness through the five senses – this is meditation. כְּשׁוֹשַׁנָּה בֵּין הַחוֹחִים – Like a rose among thorns… In other words, there are challenges – “thorns” – which can block the “wine” of consciousness from flowing into the “cup” of the body. The three main “thorns” are: fear, desire and excessive thinking. There is a hint of this in Avram’s plea with Hashem that he should have some assurance that his offspring will come to possess the land: וַיֹּאמַ֑ר אֲדֹנָ֣י יֱהוִ֔ה בַּמָּ֥ה אֵדַ֖ע כִּ֥י אִֽירָשֶֽׁנָּה׃ וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֵלָ֗יו קְחָ֥ה לִי֙ עֶגְלָ֣ה מְשֻׁלֶּ֔שֶׁת וְעֵ֥ז מְשֻׁלֶּ֖שֶׁת וְאַ֣יִל מְשֻׁלָּ֑שׁ וְתֹ֖ר וְגוֹזָֽל׃ And he said, “O Divine Lord, how shall I know that I am to possess it?” The Divine answered him, “Bring Me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old she-goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young bird.” - Bereisheet (Genesis) 15:8, 9 So each of these animals represent a “thorn” so to speak. The “heifer” is fear, as hinted in this verse describing Avram’s vision: וְהִנֵּ֥ה אֵימָ֛ה חֲשֵׁכָ֥ה גְדֹלָ֖ה נֹפֶ֥לֶת עָלָֽיו׃ And behold, a great dark dread descended upon him… -15:12 The “goat” is excess thinking, expressed as Avram’s demand for assurance: בַּמָּ֥ה אֵדַ֖ע... By what can I know… The “ram” is desire, his preoccupation with a future goal: כִּ֥י אִֽירָשֶֽׁנָּה – that I am to possess it? The animals are then each cut in half, hinting that we need to free ourselves from these thorns, these inner tyrannies of the mind and heart. But… וְאֶת־הַצִפֹּ֖ר לֹ֥א בָתָֽר…– He didn’t cut the bird… The two wings of the bird represent the positive counterparts to desire and fear, which are love and discipline. Both are necessary – discipline provides the regular structure to engage our practice, while love is the actual content of the practice. The fluttering of both wings together represents the harnessing of the movement of the mind, directing intention – kavanah – toward the Divine goal. In other words, while the animals represent the tyranny of the heart and mind, the birds represent the redirection of the heart and mind into prayer. The idea is of course not to destroy the heart and mind, but only to destroy their tyranny by realizing our mastery over them. Then, you can use their energy to discover and reveal your Divine essence, so that the “wine” of consciousness fills the “cup” of your body. When that happens, the awareness becomes like a fire, illuminating the five senses and burning up attachments to the “thorns” of fear and desire, revealing their Divine root: וַיְהִ֤י הַשֶּׁ֙מֶשׁ֙ בָּ֔אָה וַעֲלָטָ֖ה הָיָ֑ה וְהִנֵּ֨ה וְלַפִּ֣יד אֵ֔שׁ אֲשֶׁ֣ר עָבַ֔ר בֵּ֖ין הַגְּזָרִ֥ים הָאֵֽלֶּה The sun had set; it was dark and, behold! A flaming torch passed between the parts… - 15:17 This is the illumination that descends and frees us from the tyranny of the inner thorns. How do we invite that illumination? They key is bringing the fire of our attentive presence to the truth of our experience in this moment, and in this attentiveness, the flower of blessing blossoms on its own – this is the miracle of Presence, accessed through meditation.
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Parshah Summary – P’shat
The parshah opens with the description of Noah as an ish tzaddik tamim, a righteous and pure person in his generation, and God expresses displeasure to Noah with the world which has become consumed by violence and corruption. God tells Noah that a flood is coming, and that he should build an ark to float upon the water, saving Noah and his family, along with members of each animal species. Rain falls for 40 days and nights, and the waters churn for 150 days more before calming and beginning to recede. When the ark settles on Mount Ararat, Noah dispatches a raven, and then a series of doves, “to see if the waters have subsided from the face of the earth.” When the ground dries completely—exactly one year after the onset of the Flood—God tells Noah to exit the ark and begin repopulating the earth.
Noah builds an altar and offers sacrifices. God swears never again to destroy humanity because of their deeds, and sets the rainbow in the sky as a testimony of the new covenant with human beings. God also instructs Noah regarding the sacredness of life: murder is explicitly forbidden, and while humans are permitted to eat the meat of animals, they are forbidden to eat flesh or blood taken from a living animal. Noah plants a vineyard, makes wine, and becomes drunk. Two of Noah’s sons, Shem and Yaphet, are blessed for covering up their father, while his third son, Ham, is punished for behaving inappropriately in the presence of his drunk and naked father, though his precise offense is not explicitly described. The descendants of Noah remain a single people, with a single language and culture, for ten generations. Then they try to build a great tower to symbolize their own invincibility; God confuses their language so that “one does not comprehend the tongue of the other,” causing them to abandon their project and disperse across the face of the earth, splitting into seventy nations. The parshah concludes with a chronology of the ten generations from Noah to Abram (who becomes Abraham), and the latter’s journey from his birthplace of Ur Casdim to Haran, on the way to the land of Canaan.
Torah of Awakening | Jewish Meditation Teaching
אֵ֚לֶּה תּוֹלְדֹ֣ת נֹ֔חַ נֹ֗חַ אִ֥ישׁ צַדִּ֛יק תָּמִ֥ים הָיָ֖ה בְּדֹֽרֹתָ֑יו אֶת־הָֽאֱלֹ–הִ֖ים הִֽתְהַלֶּךְ־נֹֽחַ: These are the offspring of Noah; Noah was a righteous person, perfect in his generation; Noah walked with God.- Bereisheet (Genesis) 6:9
What does it mean that “Noah walked with God?” There are two kinds of Action – what we might call “Creative/Responsive/Relational” and what we might call “Functional/Mechanical.” Functional/Mechanical is not for its own sake; it is a means to an end. Creative/Responsive/Relational is for its own sake; it is living life in the moment. Life in the moment is a kaleidoscope of qualities, of fleeting experiences. Naturally, when a particularly delicious or interesting moment arises, we may want to hold on to its qualities, to capture them in some way. But how? Is it possible to preserve the experiences that come to us in the fleeting moment?
To this question comes an ingenious answer: art. It is through art that the ineffable qualities of experience can be put into some kind of form, to be saved from the flood-waters of time and visited again and again. In this sense, “Noah’s ark,” which saves all life from the flood, can actually be seen as a metaphor for art. In reference to Noah’s building of the ark, it says: וַיַּ֖עַשׂ נֹ֑חַ כְּכֹ֥ל אֲשֶׁר־צִוָּ֖הוּ יְהֹ–וָֽה׃– Noah did just as Hashem instructed him… (Bereisheet 7:5) So in the metaphorical sense, Noah is an artist, but not one of mere personal expression. Rather, his salvific artistry emerges from a Divine instruction; it is a mitzvah. But the mitzvah of art is not that of music or painting or sculpture; it is the art of living. Our canvas is this moment—our words, our actions, even our thoughts. The Baal Shem Tov taught that the word for ark--tevah—also means “word,” giving a deeper meaning to God’s instruction to Noah: בֹּֽא־אַתָּ֥ה... אֶל־הַתֵּבָ֑ה – “Enter the ark…” This hints at this practice of fully entering the words we speak, entering the deeds we do, so that our words and deeds become temples of Presence—expressions of No-am—that is, Divine beauty, sweetness, pleasantness, grace. This is why, as Shabbat ends, we pray: וִיהִי נֹֽעַם אֲדֹנָי אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ עָלֵֽינוּ וּמַעֲשֵׂה יָדֵֽינוּ כּוֹנְנָה עָלֵֽינוּ – May the Divine sweetness be (V’hi No-am) upon us; may the work of our hands be established… As we move from rest into work, we ask that our actions themselves become art; we ask that the No-am, the “Divine sweetness,” infuses the work of our hands. How can this happen? Part of the key is the practice of Shabbat. On Shabbat we cease creating; we rest. And in that sacred rest, our artfulness of doing is renewed. But there is a deeper level—not only resting from action, but resting within action. And this is the meaning of the verse: אֶת־הָֽאֱלֹהִ֖ים הִֽתְהַלֶּךְ־נֹֽחַ׃ – Noah walked with God… The “work of our hands,” maaseh yadeinu, is Creative/ Responsive/ Relational, but the “work of our feet” is repetitive—walking, cleaning, moving, lying down, standing up: ordinary, Functional/Mechanical activity. Usually, we wander through these motions unconsciously, lost in thought, dull and habitual. But the secret of “walking with God” is to bring our awareness into the simple and repetitive, to sense the Divine Presence in each step, in each breath, in this body that acts. This is the deeper Shabbat—available at any time, in our simple movements. And here lies the key in Noah’s name--Noakh—which means “rest.” To embody Noakh is to let the thinking mind rest in the living awareness of the senses—in the sounds, the scents, the textures of this moment; this is meditation. And from Noakh—rest—emerges Noam—Divine Sweetness. When we rest our awareness in our simple, Functional/Mechanical movements, rather than wandering in the alleyways of thought, then we can make our Creative/ Responsive/Relational actions into more beautiful manifestations of No-am, b’ezrat Hashem. In this time of Parshat Noakh, may that Divine Sweetness be upon us— V’hi No-am aleinu—the work of our hands, the walking of our feet, the Art of Living Awake…
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Torah of Awakening:
Parshat Ki Tavo
Parshah Summary – P’shat
The parshah begins by instructing a ritual of gratitude to be performed by Israelite farmers who when they enter the Land, settle it and cultivate it: the celebrant should put the first-ripened fruits (bikkurim) of their orchard into a basket and bring it to the place where the Divine “chooses” to “make the Holy Name rest.” The celebrant then offers these first fruits, making a declaration of having come out of slavery in Egypt and into the “land flowing with milk and honey.” The celebrant then “rejoices” with one’s family as well as the “stranger.” The parshah continues with the laws of tithes given to the Levites and to the poor, and detailed instructions on how to proclaim the blessings and the curses on Mount Gerizim and Mount Eival—as discussed in the beginning of Parshat Re’eh. The latter part of Ki Tavo consists of a long, harsh account of the curses—illness, famine, poverty and exile—that shall befall them if they abandon the Torah. It concludes with Moses’ words that “only today,” forty years after their birth as a people, have they attained “a heart to know, eyes to see and ears to hear.
Torah of Awakening | Jewish Meditation Teaching
Two disciples came to Rabbi Dov Ber, the Maggid of Mezritch, with a question: “We are troubled by the teaching of our sages, that one must bless for the evil one experiences as well as the good (Mishna, Berachot, 9:5). How are we to understand this?”
The Maggid replied, “Go to the beit midrash (house of study). There you will find Reb Zusha smoking his pipe. He will give you the answer.” So they went and found Reb Zusha and put the question to him. Zusha just laughed and said, “I think you’ve come to the wrong man. I have never experienced suffering in my life.” But the two knew that Zusha’s life had been a web of need and anguish! Then they understood – Reb Zusha received all that happened to him with a spirit of gratitude. When we hear a teaching like this, we might think it’s telling us to play act. Suffering happens, but we should pretend that it’s “all good” – we should just put on a happy face. But the teaching is much deeper than that, as hinted in the opening words of the parshah: וְהָיָה֙ כִּֽי־תָב֣וֹא אֶל־הָאָ֔רֶץ אֲשֶׁר֙ יְהֹ–וָ֣ה אֱלֹ–הֶ֔יךָ נֹתֵ֥ן לְךָ֖ נַחֲלָ֑ה וִֽירִשְׁתָּ֖הּ וְיָשַׁ֥בְתָּ בָּֽהּ׃ וְלָקַחְתָּ֞ מֵרֵאשִׁ֣ית כׇּל־פְּרִ֣י הָאֲדָמָ֗ה... When you come into the land that Hashem your God is giving you as a heritage, and you possess it and settle in it, you shall take some of every first fruit of the soil... - Devarim (Deuteronomy) 26:1-2 Parshat Ki Tavo It goes on to describe the farmer’s ritual of gratitude for the goodness of the land, in which the fruit is brought in a basket to the place which will eventually become the Beit HaMikdash, the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. But on a deeper level, “coming into the land” is a hint – it means coming into the place you already are, coming into the full Presence of whatever is present. We can see this in the first three words: וְהָיָה כִּֽי־תָבוֹא... – It will BE when you come in... Meaning, coming in to the mode of Being. And notice וְהָיָה֙ v’hayah is the Divine Name with the letters in a slightly different order, hinting that we connect with the Divine Presence, יה/וה Hashem, through וְהָיָה v’hayah – through coming into the mode of Being – this is meditation. 4 Our lives consist of both Doing and Being, but we tend to identify with the Doing mode. Doing means “going out” – like last week’s parshah, Ki Tetzei, which means “when you go out.” It’s about reaching toward a goal we imagine in the future. This is how we create and accomplish things, which is wonderful and necessary. But if it is not balanced by the mode of Being, if there is total identification with thought and with Doing, then there is no arrival, no appreciation, no “coming in” – like this week’s parshah, Ki Tavo, which means “when you come in.” וְלָקַחְתָּ֞ מֵרֵאשִׁ֣ית כׇּל־פְּרִ֣י הָאֲדָמָ֗ה... You shall take from the first fruits of the earth… There is a “fruit” that we are reaping right now. That “fruit” is the fullness of this moment; it is the “fruit” of all that has come before. But what is our first fruit? It is, first of all, our relationship with this moment. The moment is complex; it often contains both goodness and suffering. We may have many stories and judgments about it. But before stories and judgments of the mind, there is simply this consciousness, meeting this moment as it is. When we “come into” ourselves, when we return from the journeys of thought into the reality of the present, there is the possibility of realizing: we have the choice to hold this moment in the “basket” of gratitude. This is not a denial of suffering. In fact, it is often thanks to our suffering that we are awakened to those things that truly matter, to the blessings we are constantly receiving but usually taking for granted. How do we do it? וְהָיָה֙ כִּֽי־תָב֣וֹא אֶל־הָאָ֔רֶץ... – When you come into the land… In other words, come into this place that you already are, by connecting your awareness with the אָ֔רֶץ aretz – this earth upon which we live, this body through which we live, and with whatever else happens to be present – this is meditation. In this way we can connect with the Divine Presence that infuses all things: וְשַׂמְתָּ֣ בַטֶּ֑נֶא וְהָֽלַכְתָּ֙ אֶל־הַמָּק֔וֹם אֲשֶׁ֤ר יִבְחַר֙ יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֔יךָ לְשַׁכֵּ֥ן שְׁמ֖וֹ שָֽׁם׃… …put it in a basket and go to The Place (HaMakom) where Hashem, your own Divinity, chooses to rest the Divine Name of “Being”... We connect with the Divine Presence by coming to הַמָּקוֹם HaMakom, “The Place,” which is itself one of the Divine Names. Let go of imagined “fruits” in the future; bring your focus to the “fruits” that are present, conscious of HaMakom, the Divine Presence we access through this Place. Then, the choice appears: we too can receive this moment into the “basket” of gratitude; this is the sefirah of Hod. Then, you will be able to say as the ancient farmer said: וַיּוֹצִאֵ֤נוּ יְהֹ–וָה֙ מִמִּצְרַ֔יִם וְשָׂמַחְתָּ֣ בְכׇל־הַטּ֗וֹב... Hashem brought us out of Egypt – rejoice with all the goodness... Hashem brought us out of Egypt – meaning, we are brought out of the contracted bundle of mind-identified ego through Presence and Gratitude. And then you will rejoice with all the goodness – in other words, the fundamental condition for happiness is not “getting” in the future, but appreciating what is already here; when we allow ourselves the space to arrive into this moment and appreciate this gift of Being, we truly can know that this moment is good, and rejoice in That. In this month of return, may we re-turn evermore into the space of Gratitude; may we trust enough to let go and connect with HaMakom the eternal Presence of Being that infuses every moment. This is the sefirah of Hod – the eighth sefirah on the Tree of Life. Hod, which means “splendor” or “magnificence,” shares its root with Hodayah, meaning “gratitude,” and also humility. This is also the root of Yehud, Jew, hinting that the essence of Judaism is relating to this moment as a Divine gift. In the midst of our lives which tend to be focused on pushing toward the future in a momentum of relentless Becoming, Hod comes to remind us of Being, of patience, of recognizing this miracle, and saying “thank you.”
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Torah of Awakening:
Parshat Ki Tetzei
Parshah Summary – P’shat
Parshat Ki Tetzei contains seventy-four of the Torah’s 613 mitzvot. Included among them are the inheritance rights of the firstborn, the law of the rebellious son, burial and dignity of the dead, returning a lost object, sending away the mother bird before taking her eggs, the duty to erect a safety fence around the roof of one’s home, and the various forms of kilayim (forbidden plant and animal hybrids). Also recounted are the laws of having a special place outside the camp for going to the bathroom and covering up one’s waste with earth, the prohibition against turning in an escaped slave, the duty to pay a worker on time and to allow anyone working for you—human or animal— time to eat, the prohibition against charging interest on a loan, the laws of adultery and divorce, and the procedures for yibum (levirate marriage), which is the practice of a man marrying the wife of his deceased childless brother in order to give her children on his brother’s behalf, and halitzah – the ritual of “removing of the shoe” – in the case that the brother-in-law does not wish to marry her. The parshah concludes with the obligation to remember “what Amalek did to you on the road, on your way out of Egypt.”
Torah of Awakening | Jewish Meditation Teaching
כִּ֤י תִבְנֶה֙ בַּ֣יִת חָדָ֔שׁ וְעָשִׂ֥יתָ מַעֲקֶ֖ה לְגַגֶּ֑ךָ וְלֹֽא־תָשִׂ֤ים דָּמִים֙ בְּבֵיתֶ֔ךָ כִּֽי־יִפֹּ֥ל הַנֹּפֵ֖ל מִמֶּֽנּוּ... When you build a new house, make a parapet (ma-akeh) for your roof, and you won’t bring blood upon your house when one falls from it… - Devarim (Deuteronomy) 22:8, Parshat Ki Tetzei
Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev once came upon a wealthy man in the street who was known to be abusive with his money and power. “Oh, I envy you sir!” said Levi Yitzhak. The rasha (evil person) looked proudly at Levi Yitzhak, thinking that the rabbi wished he too could have all that money and power. But then Levi Yitzhak continued, “I envy you, because when you finally return, when you finally do t’shuvah, all your sins will be transformed into magnificent lights, and what a brilliant spectacle that will be! Oh sir, I envy you that brilliance!” This story brings with it a remarkable insight: that there are times when bad can actually become good, when failure becomes success. There is a hint is the parshah:
The fact that the Torah talks about preventing a person from falling off the roof by building a protective barrier implies that, indeed, people must have fallen off rooves; it was probably the failure to anticipate this danger that led to the law of making a מַעֲקֶ֖ה ma-akeh, or parapet. Similarly, when we become aware of our own misdeeds in the past, we too can build some kind of מַעֲקֶ֖ה ma-akeh, some kind of protective fence to prevent the same thing from happening again. There are two main types of misdeeds: mistakes and temporary insanity. A mistake would be: you’re up on the roof and you’re goofing around, not paying attention, or maybe you just miscalculated your footsteps and you fall of the roof, God forbid. Temporary insanity would be: you’re up on the roof with someone, you get into a fight and push them off the roof, God forbid. You didn’t intend to hurt them; you just got angry and lost control. The מַעֲקֶ֖ה ma-akeh prevents both types of scenarios. Whether accidental or by temporary insanity, the parapet prevents a person from falling. There’s a hint in the wording of the פָּסוּק pasuk: “one who falls” is יִפֹּ֥ל הַנֹּפֵ֖ל yipol hanofel –literally, “will fall, the falling.” The repeating of the verb “fall” is an idiom of emphasis, but also hints that the מַעֲקֶ֖ה ma-akeh can prevent both the accidental and the impulsive falling crisis. Similarly, we too can take measures to prevent ourselves from repeating our misdeeds, whether they be accidental or impulsive. To do that, we need to see our lives clearly, to contemplate, and then to create our own “parapets.” This is the transformative part of t’shuvah, the main practice in this month of Elul, leading to the Days of Awe. There is yet a third kind of misdeed, one that is far more difficult to prevent. This is the misdeed of habit, the misdeed that has become part of one’s personality and lifestyle – such as addiction, relationship dysfunction, abuse, and so on. The more emmeshed we become in the negative behavior, the less likely we are to change it. And yet, we absolutely can change it. This is the deepest and most transformative kind of t’shuvah. These three types of misdeeds – accidental, impulsive and intentional, are three main types of “sins” mentioned in the liturgy: חֵטְא het means “missing the mark,” as in shooting an arrow and missing the target. This is the accident. An עֲבֵרָה aveira is crossing over a boundary impulsively; you accept that there is a boundary, but you become possessed by strong feelings and you violate it. Lastly, an עָווֹן avon is a misdeed that is not a mistake and is not impulsive; it has become part of how you operate. The עָווֹן avon cannot be prevented by any kind of מַעֲקֶ֖ה ma-akeh; you can’t “trick yourself” out of this kind of misdeed. For the עָווֹן avon, you actually have to choose differently; you have to fully transform. These three kinds of “sin” are different from each other, but for a person who wants to become free from them, a single ingredient is needed. Whether we are merely setting a boundary to prevent mistakes and impulsivity, or we are seeking to overcome a deeply ingrained behavior, the root of all transformation on any level is the application of intentional awareness, so that we may return ourselves, that is, do תְשׁוּבָה t’shuvah, back into alignment with our highest intentions; this is meditation. Our highest intentions have their root in the one, single intention of simply being aware, right now. This root intention is represented by the sefirah of Keter. Keter means “crown,” hinting that the intention of Presence is above the rest of our experience. Just as a crown rests above the head, the intention to be aware is all-encompassing, beyond different points of view and opinion, because it is simply the awareness of what is and therefore includes everything in our experience, moment to moment. For this reason, Keter also represents Oneness, because from the perspective of pure awareness, there is always only one experience happening now, within the One Reality that we call God. In this sense, returning to Presence is really a return to God, and constitutes the inner dimension of t’shuvah. So, there are really two levels of תְשׁוּבָה t’shuvah: inner and outer. Outer תְשׁוּבָה t’shuvah, which is returning to intentional action is rooted in the inner תְשׁוּבָה t’shuvah of bringing our awareness out from its compulsive preoccupation with thought (which ordinarily reinforces our habitual patterns), and into our actual present moment experience, into our senses, into our bodies. In doing so, acceptance and forgiveness of the past is natural and spontaneous, as the pain we cause ourselves by holding on to the past becomes obvious to ourselves. And not only that, but the more we bring our attention to this moment, the more we can see that we are the awareness of this moment. We are openness, we are free, and we are in no way trapped by the past or by habit. In Presence, the power to choose reveals itself. Whenever I prepare to travel, I am always amazed that I can draw together the clothing, toiletries, books, computer equipment and so on, and pack them all into a single suitcase. It actually seems miraculous to me, that all these disparate items can come together into a single whole. But miraculous as that is, it is nothing compared to the miracle of Presence: that through the simple shift of opening to the immediacy of actual experience, all the disparate chaos comes together in the “suitcase” of the present moment; in Presence, there is no longer “me” and “that” – there is only the fullness of the what is, in all its richness, arising and falling away in the one field of awareness that we are. As it says in the haftara: בְּרֶ֥גַע קָטֹ֖ן עֲזַבְתִּ֑יךְ וּבְרַחֲמִ֥ים גְּדֹלִ֖ים אֲקַבְּצֵֽךְ... For a tiny moment I forsook you, but with a vast compassion I will gather you together… - Isaiah 54:7 When we “gather together” our awareness into the fullness of the present, there is a vastness and a benevolence – a רַחֲמִ֥ים גְּדֹלִ֖ים rakhamim g’dolim – that is our own nature, revealing all past misdeeds for what they really are: tiny moments of forgetfulness arising and disappearing into the vastness of Being…
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Parshah Summary – P’shat
The parshah opens with the instruction to appoint judges and law enforcement officers in every city. “Justice, justice shall you pursue,” Moses tells them. Crimes must be thoroughly investigated and a minimum of two credible witnesses is required for conviction. Furthermore, the Torah must be alive: in every generation, the law must be interpreted and applied in new ways. Moses then reviews laws governing the appointment and behavior of a king, along with the laws of the “cities of refuge” for the inadvertent murderer. Also set forth are the rules of war: the exemption from battle for one who has just built a home, planted a vineyard, married, or is “afraid and soft-hearted;” the requirement to offer terms of peace before attacking a city; and the prohibition against needlessly destroying something of value, such as the law that forbids cutting down fruit trees when laying siege – “For a human being is a tree of the field.” The parshah concludes with the law of the eglah arufah—the special procedure to be followed when a person is killed by an unknown murderer and the body is found in a field—which underscores the responsibility of the community and its leaders not only for what they do, but also for what they might have prevented from being done.
Torah of Awakening | Jewish Meditation Teaching
שְׁמַ֣ע יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל אַתֶּ֨ם קְרֵבִ֥ים הַיּ֛וֹם לַמִּלְחָמָ֖ה עַל־אֹיְבֵיכֶ֑ם אַל־יֵרַ֣ךְ לְבַבְכֶ֗ם אַל־תִּֽירְא֧וּ וְאַֽל־תַּחְפְּז֛וּ וְאַל־תַּֽעַרְצ֖וּ מִפְּנֵיהֶֽם׃ Hear, O Israel! You are near, today, to the battle against your enemies. Don’t let your heart be distant; don’t be afraid, don’t panic, and don’t be broken before them. - Devarim (Deuteronomy) 20:3, Parshat Shoftim
Rabbi Yitzhak of Vorki once happened to visit Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk on Shabbat, who at that time had just begun to live in great seclusion and received only close friends, like the rabbi of Vorki. “Why,” asked Rabbi Yitzhak, “have you gone to such extremes in withdrawing from people?”
Rabbi Mendel replied: “The answer is in Parshat T’rumah: וְיִקְחוּ־לִ֖י תְּרוּמָ֑ה – ‘They shall take for Me an offering.’ Meaning: when one wishes to “take” the Godly Path, one must make an ‘offering.’ That is, they must offer up all companionship, not only that of evil people, but also that of good people; for a little further on we read: ‘Of every person whose heart is willing to give.’” “But there is a deeper meaning to verse,” replied the rabbi of Vorki, “When one wishes to “take” the Godly Path, they must take what every person offers them. They should accept the companionship of everyone, and by associating with everyone, receive from them whatever is given as the Godly Path. But there is one qualification: you cannot receive the Path if your heart is locked. Only the person ‘whose heart is willing’ can find the Path.” What does it mean for the “heart to be willing”? אַל־יֵרַךְ לְבַבְכֶ֗ם – Don’t let your heart be distant… The “Godly Path” appears when we bring our “hearts” close to what is actually being “given” in the moment – meaning, when we bring our awareness into connection with the truth of our actual experience, now. This is because That which we call “God” is, in fact, not something separate from our awareness; not something separate from whatever it is we encounter. How do we know this? שְׁמַ֣ע יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל – Listen/become aware, Israel! This verse begins just like the other, better known verse which proclaims the Divine Oneness. But in case we’re in denial about what Oneness actually means, the next words tell us: אַתֶּ֨ם קְרֵבִ֥ים הַיּ֛וֹם לַמִּלְחָמָ֖ה עַל־אֹיְבֵיכֶ֑ם... – You are close, today, to the battle against your enemies… This word for “close,” קְרֵבִים k’reivim, can mean not just close in space, but close in intimate connection. הַיּ֛וֹם Hayom – “today” – of course means Now. So it is saying: Open yourself; come close to this moment. We need this instruction because when we experience emotional pain, the tendency is to recoil, to contract, to project blame upon something we imagine to be the source of our pain. The imagined source – a person, a situation, whatever – seems to be our “enemy.” But here it reminds us: Come close to that urge toward “battle.” Notice this unconscious impulse; be the awareness of the impulse. אַל־יֵרַךְ לְבַבְכֶם – Don’t let your heart falter… The word for “falter” – יֵרַךְ yeirakh – is a different form of the word for “hip” – יָרֵך yareikh – the place where Jacob was struck when he wrestled the “angel,” after which he limped – hence the connection with falter. But the hip is also a euphemism for the reproductive organs, the part of the body that is usually hidden. So, we might retranslate אַל־יֵרַ֣ךְ לְבַבְכֶם al yeirakh l’vavkhem to mean, “don’t hide your heart.” Together, we can understand the two meanings of “falter” and “hiddenness” to mean: Don’t cripple your heart by hiding it away! Don’t split yourself in two – whatever pain arises is literally made out of your own awareness – be present with it and don’t be ruled by it. As it says: אַל־תִּֽירְא֧וּ וְאַֽל־תַּחְפְּז֛וּ – Don’t be afraid, and don’t panic! Don’t fear your own fear – bring your awareness into the fear. Relax; don’t panic – don’t buy into the drama, simply feel whatever is there to be felt. וְאַל־תַּֽעַרְצ֖וּ מִפְּנֵיהֶֽם – And don’t be broken before them! This sums up the entire teaching: don’t divide yourself by imagining there is something in your experience that is separate from you; everything you perceive right now is arising as a form within your own awareness. Furthermore, this awareness that you are is actually far beyond you – it is the Awareness of Reality Itself, incarnating as you; it is the Divine, seeing through your eyes. This is hinted at by the construction of each of these phrases: אַל־יֵרַךְ לְבַבְכֶם אַל־תִּֽירְאוּ וְאַֽל־תַּחְפְּזוּ וְאַל־תַּֽעַרְצוּ מִפְּנֵיהֶֽם Al yeirakh… al tir-u, v’al takh-p’zu, v’al ta-artzu – don’t don’t don’t don’t! The word for “don’t” – אַל al – with a slight vowel change, can also means both “to” (אֶל el) and “God” (אֵל El). The hint is that when we dissolve our fear by bringing our awareness to (אֶל el) the fear, that awareness is actually God’s awareness (אֵל El); the duality of bringing “my awareness” אֶל el (to) the feeling, dissolves into the Oneness of אֵל El, the Oneness of God. The Divine Oneness is ever-present as the own “light” of our own awareness. When strong emotions threaten to pull us into contractedness, into “hiding” from ourselves, our deliberate Presence With the the truth of our experience is the ever-available remedy. This practice of Presence With is represented by the letter ח het, which is also the letter for this month of Elul. As it says in the psalm for this month, Psalm 27: אוֹרִ֣י וְ֭יִשְׁעִי מִמִּ֣י אִירָ֑א יְהֹוָ֥ה מָעוֹז־חַ֝יַּ֗י מִמִּ֥י אֶפְחָֽד׃ יְהֹוָ֤ה The Divine is my Light and my Salvation, whom shall I fear? The Divine is my living essence; whom shall I dread? מְרֵעִים֮ לֶאֱכֹ֢ל אֶת־בְּשָׂ֫רִ֥י צָרַ֣י וְאֹיְבַ֣י לִ֑י הֵ֖מָּה כָשְׁל֣וּ וְנָפָֽלוּ׃ בִּקְרֹ֤ב עָלַ֨י When aggressiveness approaches to devour my flesh, tormentors and foes against me, it is they who stumble and fall… - Psalm 27:1, 2 That is, through our recognition of the Divine power of awareness, they “fall” back into the Oneness from which they arise. The shape of the letter Het חis כְּנֶ֙שֶׁר֙ יָעִ֣יר קִנֹּ֔ו עַל־גֹּוזָלָ֖יו – “…like an eagle rousing its nest, hovering over its eaglets” (Devarim [Deuteronomy] 32:11), suggesting the practice of Presence With, of “hovering” over whatever we are feeling, neither trying to escape nor trying to change it; this is meditation. Meditation is the practice of radical acceptance, of Being With What Is. It leads to the recognition of ourselves as awareness, which is our essential life, hinted by the word for Life that begins with ח Het: חַיִים Hayim.
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