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Surprised by God |
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 by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, August 19, 2008 |
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One Tuesday night [a few years back], I sat at a local cafe with a cappuccino and my just-purchased copy of Abraham Joshua Heschel's The Sabbath; all of my reading for pleasure seemed to be about Judaism at this point. I had already begun to understand why, on the seventh day, Jews traditionally refrain from lighting fires or using telephones or cooking food or spending money or doing many other things understood to be either technically "work" or outside the spirit of rest that governs the day
It seemed clear that abstaining from this stuff would create long stretches of silence and a freedom from distraction that could help a person access the most silent, hidden parts of the self. Heschel, however, explained that there was even more to it than that. He wrote,
To set apart one day a week for freedom, a day on which we would not use the instruments which have been so easily turned into weapons of destruction, a day for being with ourselves, a day of detachment from the vulgar, of independence from external obligations, a day on which we stop worshipping the idols of technical civilization, a day on which we use no money, a day of armistice in the economic struggle with our fellow men and the forces of nature-is there any institution that holds out a greater hope for man's progress than the Sabbath?[i]
The irony is that human progress
depends on saying no to technology and economic engagement, at least for a
while. Heschel framed Shabbat as a way of returning to too-oft-neglected ways
of being human-a way to help us remember what we have in common with the woman
who got up at 4 a.m. to clean the office.
I sipped my drink and I chewed on Heschel. The idea of being free from commercial transactions on Shabbat was attractive. I thought through the implications: If I didn't spend money, I couldn't get the eggplant sandwich I loved from the deli up the street. I wouldn't be able to ride the bus, since I never had a monthly pass. I needed Friday-night money to tip bartenders, pay cover charges, pick up the tab on a date, get into a movie. The list seemed to be endless. No eggplant sandwich?
This, I realized later, connected to all that stuff about desire I found in countless books on spirituality. Carol Lee Flinders wrote, "as long as I believe in sex as a source of lasting happiness-or power or food or even long weekends in the mountain or anything finite-then no matter how much I want the mysterious something else that mystics speak of, I can't walk toward it because my consciousness is divided."[ii]
In Buddhism, desire--uncritical servitude to our finite cravings--is considered the root of all suffering. The Ten Commandments tell us not to covet, not to desire greedily. Attempting to rein in my impulses, however, sounded terrible. The mere prospect of not being able to do what I wanted, exactly how and when I wanted to do so, was causing me no small amount of my own suffering. There seemed to be no winning.
Up until now, dabbling in Judaism hadn't demanded very much of me. I had time in my schedule for both Friday night services and clubbing, I could spare an hour's sleep every week or two for morning prayer and Torah class. Avoiding nonkosher food wasn't so hard-I hadn't eaten meat in years, and I wasn't really a fan of seafood anyway. But as I contemplated Shabbat, and what it might entail to deepen my practice, I began to realize that this spiritual discipline stuff was . . .well, more work than shooting energy out of the palms of my hands. If I wanted to move past the "random cool experiences" phase and into something more like Divine DSL, I had to actually do things to make that happen. I just wasn't sure that I was ready.
I wasn't alone in my hesitation to take this next step. A lot of people hit their limit of spiritual experimentation, I think, when it comes to facing down desires. The happy glow, the rushing ecstasies, and the feelings of being understood are all amazing. A class here or a retreat there is sweet, inspiring. Doing more than that is harder for a lot of us.
It's not like we have a lot of help
and encouragement from the culture in which we live, either. As Caroline Knapp
notes, "some twelve billion display ads, three million radio commercials, and 200,000
TV commercials flood the nation on a daily basis-most of us see and hear about
3,000 of them a day, all of them lapping at appetite, promising satisfaction,
pulling and tugging and yipping at desire like a terrier at a woman's hemline."[iii]
American culture today is the most consumer oriented in Western history, and the system depends upon our cravings. Buddhist environmentalist Stephanie Kaza suggests that "consumerism rests on the assumption that human desires are infinitely expandable; if there are an infinite number of ways to be dissatisfied, there are boundless opportunities to create products to meet those desires . . . How can [consumers] know what product will satisfy them when there are so many to try?"[iv]
With a little practice not running after our cravings, we begin to realize that they, and the feeling of urgency to satiate them, might not be as endless as we had thought. If, one day a week, all of our needs can be met with prayer, slow walks in the park, reading, Torah study, sitting in silence, and long communal meals that allow conversation to unfold, what might that tell us about the things that seemed so urgent on the other six? What might that tell us about our culture's stories regarding what we can and can't live without?
It's not that there isn't a place for work, music, travel, and, yes, spending money-the world needs us to be creators and doers just as it needs us to take breaks from all that relentless creating and doing. As Heschel framed it, "in regard to external gifts, to outward possessions, there is only one proper attitude-to have them and to be able to do without them."[v]
This was what Frederica Mathewes-Green meant when she said that we should enter one religious system fully and allow it to change us. Judaism was beginning to ask things of me, to intimate that it might be in my own best interests to take on practices that were neither convenient nor comfortable. Me? I wasn't so certain. It wasn't that I didn't want a deeper relationship to God and my religious practice, but that-like many of us who grapple with desire-I was terrified of the implications.
I had created a tenuous balance, one hand grasped tight around my Judaism, another around my social life. It felt like any sudden movements in one direction or the other would cause everything to fall. I was terrified to think I might become so religious that I'd lose much of what I had in common with the artists, activists, and slackers cum Unix administrators who made up my world. If I said no to what I wanted, would I get things that I needed, instead? That piece of me that was always itching for more-more God, more connection, deeper encounters that lasted longer-would it be satisfied? How much of my life, my friendships, would I lose by seeking this out? Would oh-so-holy Friday nights without spending money be boring? Lonely? Feel like some sort of a punishment? If everyone went out without me . . . then where would I be?
Saint Teresa of Avila writes of her own experience,
It is one of the most painful lives, I think, that one can imagine; for neither did I enjoy God nor did I find happiness in the world. When I was experiencing the enjoyments of the world, I felt sorrow when I recalled what I owed to God. When I was with God, my attachments to the world disturbed me. This is a war so troublesome that I don't know how I was able to suffer it even a month, much less for so many years.[vi]
I needed my friends. They had nourished and sustained me, helped bring me back to life after my mother's death, given me a sense of community the likes of which I had never experienced. I loved them-Jack and Lida and Michael and Ariel and Rebecca and
Cass and everybody else. If saying yes to God meant
endangering these ties . . . well, I wasn't able to do that. And yet, it was
clear that my relationship to God had become fundamental to the point of non-negotiability.
Any attempts to run from it would just be denial doomed to failure. God was
calling me, but I wasn't sure to where. God beckoned, but I couldn't face the
price that I might have to pay to follow.
The Catholic priest Henri Nouwen wrote,
You have an idea of what the new country looks like. Still, you are very much at home, although not truly at peace, in the old country. You know the ways of the old country, its joys and pains, its happy and sad moments. You have spent most of your days there. Even though you know that you have not found there what your heart most desires, you remain quite attached to it . . . you know that what helped you and guided you in the old country no longer works, but what else do you have to go by? . . . Trust is so hard, because you have nothing to fall back on.[vii]
The feeling that I was living a double life began to wear. I still wasn't ready to throw away the full, flourishing existence that I had painstakingly built from scratch in a brand-new city, but inside the so-called flourishing life, I was increasingly lonely. That I felt like I couldn't talk about my desire for the sacred to become the organizing principle of my life meant that I had less and less to say.
My social life, like my freelance career, seemed to be far too much about the quest for the fresh, the exciting, the new, the next big thing. I, on the other hand, was yearning for the well tested, the eternal, the timeless. I was getting too much candy and not enough protein. Even costuming-which had become one of my favorite activities-began to lose its sparkle.
Though it had been delightful to reinvent myself over and over again, now I wanted to figure out who I was underneath all the artifice, underneath the makeup and the glitter and the thousand shifting guises. I still cherished the creativity demanded by the enterprise of getting dressed, but it began to be harder and harder to feel like I was "on" all the time. I started going out a little bit less, refusing invitations here and there. More often, though, I'd go out and simply not enjoy it.
All too frequently, it felt like there was something important missing from the conversation, something beyond romantic escapades, making rent, and the vicissitudes of pop culture. There just seemed to be a dearth of people with whom I could talk about this "something else," about not only my burgeoning religious life but all of the things that it might mean. My close friends' own spiritual lives allowed for some translation, but not enough. I needed people who were going through the same thing that I was, people who had also thought about keeping Shabbat or who were also afraid of their desire to become religious, and who might have some new ways for me to think about my private dilemmas. I needed those people, but I didn't see them anywhere in the life that I was already living.
Alex and I would later refer to this sense of longing as the search for the "party next door," for community and a life that felt cohesive, in which all of the social and religious aspects integrated seamlessly. At this point, however, I didn't know that there was a party happening elsewhere, or what kind of fun that could possibly be.
I wouldn't give up one life or the other. I'd refuse to tip the balance. And, in fact, I didn't stop spending money on Shabbat at this point; I just couldn't bring myself to take that step and face its possible implications. I'd just live with the discord, I told myself, keep letting the feeling in my solar plexus get trampled by the loud music at the bar. I'd notice keenly every time the check came at a restaurant, feel guilty and far from God as I reached into my purse for my share of the bill. This wouldn't be a long-term solution, and I knew it. The problem was, I didn't know what else there might be.
Reprinted from Surprised By God: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion by Danya Ruttenberg.Copyright © 2008 by Danya Ruttenberg. By permission of Beacon Press, www.beacon.org.
[i]Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1979), 28.
[ii] Carol Lee Flinders, At the Root of This Longing: Reconciling a Spiritual Hunger and a Feminist Thirst (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998), 71.
[iii] Knapp, Appetites, 15.
[iv] Stephanie Kaza, "Overcoming the Grip of Consumerism," Buddhist-Christian Studies 20 (2000): 23-42.
[v] Heschel, Sabbath, 28.
[vi] Flinders, Enduring Grace, 167.
[vii] Henri Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love (New York: Bantam, 1999), 21.
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Soccer
That was about the longest blog post I ever read. My reaction at the end is: "huh?"
(oh, and yes: Soccer is BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!)
Danyas mom
Very boring, I can see why people would fall asleep reading it..........................
Anonymous
You lost me after you chewed on Heshel
hkatz
Yes, disciplining/reigining in our desires and wants is crucial to spiritual development and finding our true Self. Yes, keeping Shabbos is, in Heschel's words, a "cathedral in time" that, weekly, allows us - theoretically - to live outside of American consumerism and take spiritual discipline one step deeper.
However, there are a few problems with the above:
1) Take a good, long, unromantic look at the community of shomer Shabbos American Jews; they are among the most materialistic, consumer-oriented people imaginable. Indeed, it might be argued (and has been) that refraining from consumerism on Shabbos merely validates it - with a vengeance - the rest of the week! Again, take a good, long look at how shomer Shabbos Jews can't wait for Havdallah so that they can stampede to A) the kosher pizza store B) the mall (if it's still open) or C) some other symbol of (usually very expensive) American consumerism. If you were to present your anti-consumerist interpretation of Shabbos to them, they would stare at you uncomprehendingly - and, probably, with some suspicion.
2) My point above does not, obviously, rule out the possibility of Shabbos serving as a spiritual aid to developing both a meaningful spiritual life and a counterpoint to American materialism/consumerism. However, for it to work this way, the anti-consumerist "discipline" must extend to THE WHOLE WEEK and become a way of life - then Shabbos may become what Heschel (and you) intend. The "kavanah" here is crucial - a once a week "escape" won't do it - and indeed, may create its' opposite. However, I'm afraid that if you want it to work this way, it must be done OUTSIDE - and in opposition to - the existing community of shomer Shabbos people.
Howie
Anonymous
She was explaining a complicated principle, backing it with reasoned logic and making it global by making it sync with other systems of thought. Complicated ideas take time.
Awais
I was slightly interested, but now I am most def. going to read the book, IYH. Great post/excerpt.
bezerka
yes I think that keeping shabbos can actually lead you to rush back into the mundane after shabbos with even more vigour. However I've also noticed myslelf finding that experiencing the Shabbos cumulatively for several years does
act to dull down the materialistic urges ... but perhaps not for
everyone.
Don't generalise too much about the materialism of shomer shabbos jews in America. I don't feel that Hareidi Jews or Israeli's generally have that post-Shabbos rush back into the mundane.
moshekerr@gmail.com
The Talmud teaches about the 39 principal labours required to build the Mishkan/Tabernacle. 101. Children learn to read, pat them on their heads and praise them for being a good puppy. Adults have to develop the judgment to interpret the intent of the words they read. The Talmud defines "understanding" as learning a matter from the midst of another matter". The Talmud being a legal document, and the Mishneh employing a common law style of case/ruling, then it comes as no surprise when the Talmud learns: "a proof stands upon precidents". The 1st paragraph of the Sh'ma, the Torah misspells "heart". The Talmud in the Mishneh of Blessings, brings Rabbi Yehuda the Prince's interpretation of why the 5th Book of Moses misspelled "heart". Rabbi, short for Rabbi Yehuda HaNassi/Prince -meaning the leader of the Sanhedrin, said the heart functions as the seat of both the Yazir HaTov and the Yazir HaRa/the good and bad inclinations. What's a Yazir? There's a fundamental contradiction in the 1st, 2nd, and 5th books of the Written Torah of Moses. The 1st books in the Beginning says that man is in the "image" of Elohim. The 2nd and 5th books at the Sinai revelation trauma/event, remember the nation thought it just might die!, declares definitively out of the mouth of the Elohim not to compare the Elohim not to the stars or anything in the heavens or earth. Man the 1st book says the Elohim formed from the "Adamah/dust" of the earth. 101. How can man be in the image of the Elohim when Adam comes from the Adamah? The Oral Torah - the Talmud, which obviously includes both the Mishneh and the Midrashic texts not included in the Talmud, exist as an authoritive compellation of Oral Law. Yoffe! But a compellation of Oral Law does not mean that the Talmud is Oral Law! Its a fine distinction that requires an adult mind as opposed to a child's mind to understand. Oral Law in a nutshell, 101. The logical rules by which the generations can interpret the Framer of the Written Torah and derive the original intent of the Framer based upon the circumstances of the present times. This the Talmudic literature calls: halacha L'mysa/practical "religious rulings". "Religious rulings" in parenthesis because for most of Jewish history Jews lived under foreign masters/authorities/governments/kings/princes/church etc. Jews had to limit what they spoke publically about. Self censureship makes practical sense. For example: the Talmud limits channuka to a debate of how to like the lights of channuka! That event opened the door where the 2nd Common Wealth ceased being a subject nation to the Babylonians/Persians/Greeks to being a free independent nation! The Jewish leadership that declared themselves kings, provoked a 100 year civil war among Jews that resulted in Jews asking the Romans to resolve their domestic concerns because they obviously could not do it themselves! The Romans eventually kicked the Jews out of their country and renamed it "Palestine". Yuk. The Talmud edited itself to only discussing the order of lighting the lights of Channuka!
The Torah of Moses: does it serve primarily as a religious document of faith? Or did Israel recieve the Torah at Sinai, because they left Egypt armed with the purpose of conquoring the lands and nations of Canaan. And if they were to fulfill the Command of the Torah to uproot the pre existing civilizations of Canaan, they would require another culture to replace those uprooted and destroyed cultures. Viewed from this perspective, the Written Torah of Moses served as the Constitution of the 1st CommonWealth. And the struggle of the Tanach/Bible history of leaders prophets and kings during this period centers around their keeping and respecting their oath of office. Something like American Presidents keeping and respecting the Constitution of the United States - NOT.
Returning to Rabbi Ha Nassi and his understanding of the Yazir and how it interprets the problem of Adam being in the image of the Elohim, and how all this relates to keeping and observing Shabbot! Free association of thought its really cool stuff, that's what learning the Talmud is all about! Its something like that Irishman's book Ulysesis, that's cool reading too, but the Talmud takes the idea over 300 years of continuous scholarship! Put in perspective, that's longer than the history of the United States as a nation! People who know how to learn Talmud love it for this very reason. Pity the illiterates, shrug the shoulders and pat the poor puppies on the head and tell them there are fine. The Torah begins with the Creation because Torah spirituality centers upon the avodah/work of Creating the human soul from nothing; this the Torah calls "brit". Obviously worlds separate a brit person from a non brit person. A non brit person their "soul" lives only as long as their body lives. A brit person who by way of cutting a brit, creates a soul that lives outside of the 3 D (X,Y,Z) box. Avodah Zarah, mistranslated as idolatry, means limiting the reality of Elohim unto 3 dimensions plus time. Now a days I think they call it "the scientific method". The Talmud teaches that keeping shabbot is like keeping the entire Torah, and the 1st commandment of the Torah revelation at Sinai centers around not doing Avodah zarah. There's that free association of thought again. Oral Torah, the differing logical schools that the generations can employ to interpret the original intent of the Framer of the Constitution based upon the current times of this very moment/halacha L'mysa, it "understands" the Mishneh of Rabbi, by the way I learn like this:
At Sinai after the calf, the Elohim revealed 13 middot unto Moshe. Moshe stood to recieve the Torah, or at least that's what he said in the 5th book in the 3rd Parsha/weekly reading. The "Standing" prayer includes 13 middle blessings and the Gemarah/Talmud of the order Blessings teaches: a person should make a fixed place in one's prayers. Prayer being a matter of the heart, a fixed place ... mmm perhaps this means affixing the 13 middot revealed unto Moshe unto the 13 middle blessings of the standing prayer. Opps there's that free association of thought and learning a matter from the midsts of another matter. Now the Elohim revealed only the "Tohor" aspect of His (ladies pardon my sexism) middot. Now we can return back to Rabbi's teaching concerning the Yazir and the "image of Elohim" business. We have 2 Yazirs, the building blocks by which we build and develop our Yazirs' 13 middot tohorot and 13 middot tumaot. Middot, by the way I learn they're spirits and the brit souls can transport these spirits; Yaacov sent a spirit/ange unto Esau his brother. To attempt a Freud: the brain stem orchistrates the internal organs of the body by way of an electical reflex arc language. The neo cortex speaks the language we'er speaking now, but the brain stem speaks in an electrical code language. Middot are fixed points on both sides of the body that channel through the 10 gates of fear/honor; anger/trust; grief/duty; shame/integrity; worry/authority. The internal organs not only produce enzymes and hormones but they also produce emotions. The brain stem orchestrates the emotions produced by the internal organs of the body. The internal organs of the body they hold human strenth. Damage an internal organ and a strong man becomes weak real fast.
holiness = f(da + m)
holiness depends upon derech eretz and mitvot/commandments.
13 +13 = 26. 26 is the numerical value of the Divine Name.
The 39 principal labours of keeping shabbot are shev i lo t'seh/negative commandments. To sanctify a thing unto holiness requires an cum va oseh/positive commandment. How can a person keep shabbot by not doing the 39 actions required to build the Mishkan/tabernacle? Spirituality exists beyond the 3 D (XYZ) box. The spiritual substance determines the 3 D forms. On shabbot a person dedicates (cum va oseh) the order of his/her tohor and tumah middot and invites the 13 middot revealed unto Moshe at Sinai; this is called remembering Egypt. (The Elohim hardened the heart of Par'o, if the Elohim can rule the heart of Par'o then the Elohim can rule over the hearts of His Chosen People). 13 + 13 + 13 = 39! A person ceases to do the 39 middot of avodah, because the Torah commands "don't work", and dedicates the 39 middot of avodah, middah k'nged middah/truth. Truth being defined or contrasted by accurate. An accurate matter is correct, a matter of truth things hang upon. The Torah does does not limit the rulership of the Elohim unto 3 dimensions plus time. The Torah teaches that the human soul that a bnai brit can create from nothing with Divine Names and that these souls live independent of the life of the body. The truth of this depends upon the Torah of Moshe being true. Hence truth and accuracy exist on completely different planes of reality.
Anonymous
Puff, puff pass, my friend!
wdk
Anonymous
Shallow spirituality requires drugs to change perceptions of reality. Unlike the great belief systems popularized over the centuries by the crescent and the cross, Talmudic interpretations of Torah or midrash employs unique schools of logic. Mastering these techniques requires a very clear head, a person has to "hold cup".
Anonymous
howdy howdy,
Work, what does that mean? Can a person who lives in a 4 storey house take a couch and move it from the 1st to the 4th floor of that house? Emphatically yes! So the Talmud's understanding of not doing "work" as defined as the work required to build the Mishkan/Tabernacle of the Congregation, that requires consideration as what exactly these 39 criteria entails.
Erev Shabbat, Torah observant Jews, meaning Jews who do not consider the goy nation that they happen to live in as substitute for the responsibility of ruling their own homelands, make kiddush over a cup of wine. In the blessing, the word melacha/work is said 3 times. At the conclusion of shabbot Torah observant Jews make havdala. Both cases make a distinction, the 1st that a person commits to distinguish the shabbot from the work week by not doing the 39 principal labors; and the 2nd that a person want to distinguish shabbot by doing these 39 labors during the work week.
This religious ritual means nothing if it lacks intent. The same applies to washing before eating bread and again after eating bread. The Talmud learns, that washing both prior and after eating bread does not compare to washing ones hands when awaking from sleep in the morning. The morning washing removes "tumah". So if washing before and after eating bread does not compare to washing upon awaking from sleep, what's the point? A senseless rabbinic ritual?! Hardly. Learning requires patience and humility, the latter means that a person needs to honestly consider where they hold in Torah schlorship before they blurt out something and prove to everyone where they are holding! The Talmud teaches that when a person sleeps that the hands, they go where ever they want. The "tumah" of washing upon waking from sleep, this means that perhaps a person touched a portion of the body that imparts "tumah" upon the hands. Tohor and Tumah are very difficult subjects. In a nut shell they are emotional attributes; human beings, our humanity and culture spins around human emotions. Derech Eretz and tohor and tumah entail the Torah spirituality that "understands" human emotions. The Sayings of the Fathers teaches that mitzvot depend upon derech eretz - this concept bigots confuse with manners. Hence the fundamental distinction between doing a mitzvah and practicing a custom, doing a mitzvah requires derech eretz whereas practicing a traditional religious custom does not require derech eretz. Now if a person does not know what derech eretz entails, this person obviously can't practice mitzvot! Derech eretz involves a dedication of a person commiting to work upon one's emotional attributes. Hence or at least hopefully the mitzvot practiced by a child in no way compare unto the mitzvot practiced by an adult. Consequently the "custom" of bar and bat mitzvah! The knowledge required of the child, not being rational knowledge but rather emotional "middot" knowledge. Now if a person does not know what "middot' involve then such a person has not a clue how to observe mitzvot. Therer are 13 essential tohor middot and 13 essential tumah middot; they function as the essential building blocks, something like elements in chemestry, of the Yazir Tov and the Yazir H'ra. Observant Jews say kr'ea shma daily, there it say b'cal modecha/ with all your might. What qualifies as the might or strength of a person? The internal organs of the body! Damage them an a person however strong has no might. Western medicine views the internal organs something like a factory. Torah preceeds the industrial revolution and consequently views them from a completely different perspective. Specifically internal organs produce emotions, the language of the brain stem speaks in a bi-polar eletrical code. Tohor and tumah middot function as a positive/negative charge. The commandments of the Torah reflect this because they to assume positive and negative commandments! The brain stem orchestrates the function of the internal organs of the body. The reflex arc of the central nervous system usually involves only the brain stem. The rational brain, the neo cortex and also influence the function of internal organs, but its primary language involves speaking to other people. Consequently this severly limits its authority over the function and management of internal organs or human strength. Derech eretz as a spirituality is a wisdom that connects the internal organs and the emotions they produce with the oath/brit soul. Obviously if a person does not know what entails a Torah created soul, then mitzvot have little meaning other than ancient customs of days long past. Yaacov sent an "Angel" to Esau his brother. Rashi quotes the Talmud that learns that Yaacov sent a "real" Angel! Torah created, the Torah does after all begin with Creation, oath/brit souls - they function as messengers. What do these "messengers/Angels" transport? Middot! Esau met his brother with an army and kissed him. Rashi brings the midrash that learns Esau sought to bite him on the neck! kissing and biting big difference. The Talmudic interpretation: Yaacov sent an Angel who transported tohor middot from Yaacov's "strength", this Angel entered Esau's soul and conquored his "strength"! The Torah says that Yaacov said: I conquored the land with my sword and bow. but the Talmud learned that this meant he conquored the oath/sworn brit lands with his Torah and prayers. Praying that's a mitzvah for those people who learn derech eretz. The noise makers who confuse this deep spiritual Torah fundamental as being "manners", Torah obervant Jews pat such people on their heads and tell them they're nice.
Anonymous
The washing required a minimum quantity of water, less than the minimum measurement, a person has not washed. The 3 letter root for bread is the same for war. The conflict of eating ... as food satisfies so too may ones' emotional development satisfy a person. The tohor and tumah of washing for bread does not compare to sleeping where one hand might touch areas of the body that m'tama one's hands. For those interested the Talmud teaches that touching a Safer Torah also makes one's hand tumah! Mistranslating deep ideas into clean and unclean really misses the boat! Blessings after a meal, the kavvanah entails dedicating one's middot development! For the Jews who call Berlin, London, Paris Washington etc their Jerusalem ask them what middot are? Ask them to explain the functional relationship between middot and mitzvot. Y = f(X). K = f(da + m); k'dushah = f(darech eretz + mitzvot).
Anonymous
The reshonim learned that the 2 opinions describe a war to conquor the oath/sworn lands and a war to conquor non oath/sworn lands. It has a certain logic unto it, however its not the way I learn the gemarah, with all due respect unto the reshonim.
By the way I learn, a brit means cutting an alliance; vertically thats between Heaven and the descendants of Avraham, horizontally its between bnai brit and bnai brit. Torah spirituality centers around building a "chosen" people. Who are my people? The folks who share an oath/brit relationship. Circumcision, shabbot, tefillen, rainbows these 4 "av" mitzvot give meaning to all mitzvot as being "signs" of the brit. Obviously a person travelling from Jerusalem to Be'er Sheva and sees a sign on the road, "Be'er Sheva 50km" the person has not reached Be'er Sheva! The same holds true with signs of the brit and the brit itself. Both should be equally obvious, P'sheta! Its only arrogance of the gentlemen who assume that b/c they have certain plumbing that that's a brit. Some Arabs feel bad about the injustice of it all and mutilate women in the name of heaven - yuk!
The entire 1st book of Moses, whom the Arabs say the Jews corrupted but take such offense if someone cracks a joke about their "profet", learns the process of "cutting a brit". A brit requires making an Oath. The Torah takes oaths seriously, and that's putting it mildly. I suppose an example the folks of this blog both merit and deserve. בראשית, contains 2 words אש and ברית. The fire of the Covenant, that's the oath! When Avraham cut a brit with AviMelech they made an altar and put fire upon that altar. A sacrifice aint the same thing as a how down Bar BQ. The language "pleasing flavor" requires Talmud. The goyim loved to use the Talmud for kindling, and never learned its wisdom. It never ceases to amaze me that the Jews who preached dogmatic beliefs in "Ethical Monotheism", they in their turn also despised the Talmud like did the goyim. Measure for measure the assimilation of Jews in galut is over 65%! The vast majority of galut Jewry today have no affiliation, somethings very wrong here. What can be done to address the problem?
Observant Jews eat kosher meat, this means that they went to a load of trouble and expense to ritually slaughter the animal, following the precident of animals brought up to the altar, the table the Talmud compares unto an altar, and salting the meat. The salt pulls out the blood. The Talmud have learned from the sacrifices how to slaughter animals even for common consumption, the comparison does not stop there, this taking the logic of the comparison to its necessary conclusions, that's what's called "learning". "Puff Puff" Torah spirituality its deep, when a child learns to read you pat him on the head and give him a present. But no one would do this to a college graduate! The wisdom of the Talmud centers not so much on the great codification of the Oral Torah called Talmud, nor upon the codification of the halachic codes that the reshonim produced, but rather the Talmud teaches a logical discipline of how to interpret the intent of the framers of a legal opinion. This serves a critical function because Israel recieved the Torah at Sinai on "condition" that it would function as the Constitution of the Oath/sworn lands! Since no one generation makes a nation, then all the generations require a systematic logical means to interpret the original intent of the Framer of the Constitution based upon the conditions of the times, this is called halacha l'myseh! Developing this discipline of logic, and their exists differing schools of logic, but all of them in no way compare unto the Greek logic which Alexander the Great exported when he conquored the Persian empire, constitutes as the primary purpose of Talmudic scholarship.
Digression completed returning back to the distinction between offering a sacrifice to cut a brit making a bar BQ and how this distinction clarifies kosher meats. The "atonement" of a sacrifice occured when the Cohen poured the blood upon the altar. Does the blood atone? No the blood only serves as the vehicle that transports the N'fesh. The sacrificial blood the Talmud call "living blood". Meaning the blood pumped out of the animal by its beating heart. This blood contains the N'fesh. The logical jump being, the avodah of the sacrifice revolves around the N'fesh. Its a measure for measure relationship, a Cohen offers the n'fesh of the animal in measure that the parties to the brit dedicate their N'fesh by means of an oath! בראשית נח. The floods that destroyed the generations of Adam occured as a result, according to the 7th chapter of Talmudic tractate Sanhedrin, of the generations of Adam profaning their oath/brit with Heaven and Earth! From this traumatic disaster of humanity coins the phrase: "fear of heaven". Now comes the Talmudic logic, its called a logical inference! If violating a Torah oath can result in the destruction of the world, then making a Torah oath has power to create a world/soul from nothing! Another inference, if a person defiles a Torah oath, in equal measure this act defiles a Torah created soul. A dead person defiles, its called an Av Tumah! The Talmud further teaches that the goyim compare unto animals! Boy that's a racist statement! No nothing of the sort if a person learns in a more than a 1st grader who has just learned to read. Rabbah taught concerning dreams, that a dream that lacked an interpretation compares unto a letter that remained unopened. The logical deduction of the above Talmud, that the soul of a non bnai brit lives - like an amimals soul - only as long as the body lives. Bnai Brit distinguishes from non bnai brit b/c we Torah observant Yidden accepted the Torah at Sinai, and the goyim/nations did not accept the Torah at Sinai. The Talmud teaches that a Safer Torah can function in the place of an Altar. Meaning that a person can cut a Torah oath/brit with a Safer Torah. To do this a person has to "stand" before a Safer Torah. Surprise and wander that the classic Jewish Prayer is called "the standing prayer"! Moses stood when he recieved the Torah at Sinai, and the Torah he recieved essentially concerned a "revelation". That "revelation" to put it frankly, how to create a soul from nothing and thereby stand face to face with the Creator of the Universe in the image of the Elokim! Consequently during sacrifices the portion of Israel of the watch, read the portion of the Creation in the bet k'nesset! Prayer, according to Yeshua ben Levi - a dude whose generation respected him, like as and on par as the generation of Rabbi Yehuda the Prince respected him - functions in the place of sacrifices!
So kosher meat, requires a ritual slaughter and a salting process to remove the blood, because the N'fesh the blood holds, and the Torah forbids a person to eat the N'fesh!
Learning the Talmud in a lot of ways resembles reading one of Shakespeares plays, it has plots and sub plots. Returning to the Title of the discussion. By the way I learn, once bnei brit return and have authority over the oath/sworn lands, we must labor to accomplish the condition by which Israel accepted the Torah. Opps another digression, smile that's funny.
The din of the spies, well it's just not fair! 40 days after "accepting " the Torah with "we shall do and hear" the Yidden up and made the calf! And 40 days after that the Creator revealed how man could effectively be in His image, considering that Adam came from the adamah and there's nothing in the heavens or earth comparable unto the Creator of the Universe/Soul. The Creator as middot and man has a yazir tov and a yazir h'ra - go back to the earlier blog, only by way of derech eretz can a person reflect the image of G-d. Calling derech eretz manners ... that's funny.
A brit means an alliance. A bnei brit people has an alliance with it's own people. Torah spirituality centers around the building of this people. Consequently Talmud Torah does not respect theology and dogmas of the monotheisms - ethical or otherwise. That clear, the bnai brit of Israel have a relationship with the bnai brit of galut. The war of mitzvah entails, that since we have an army, should the goyim make a pogrom, the Jews of the lands of Torah have a primary obligation to come to the aid and support of our galut peoples, this the Torah calls a mitzvah war! However galut Jewry can not say unto bnai brit Israel, you have an obligation to save us! Galut Jewry made their choice to live in galut, they can not demand upon Israel to save them as an obligation when they face the disaster of a pogrom. Bnai brit Israel has the choice to decide if they should come to the defence of our bnai brit peoples in galut. If we make the decision to war upon the arrogant barbarians then this war constitutes as a mitzvah war.
Anonymous
As written above Avodah zarah (mistranslated as idolatry: the error of the translation making a specific a general statement, something like calling a star the sky) "believe" that the Elokim operates limited to a 3 D world plus time. I erred above and quoted the 5th axiom of classic geometry and called it the 4th, my bad.
Another example: the law of the parallelagram. AB squared + BC squared + CD squared + DC squared = AC squared + BD squared. The parallelagram represents parallel universes, earlier the 5 axiom a line and a dot on a line only one line can pass through the dot and remain paallel to the line. This has no prove b/c its not true. It's only valid under 3D circumstances, beyond 3D it's false. But the Greeks, classic worshippers of Avodah zarah limited the reality of life unto 3D. Scientists today do the same with the scientific method that limits evidence only unto empirical evidence. The modern world makes the exact same errors and assuptions as the ancient word interesting, what does that mean practically? For me that means that the Torah revelation of Sinai is not a dried up raison that "rabbis" can pick and choose what's important and what's no longer relavent - this arrogance together with Jews are Germans first who worship god by way of our cultural traditions, Hitler destroyed this betrayal of the Jewish people. The modern day equivalent to the spies who destroyed the heart of the wilderness generation to conquor the oath/sworn lands. The Promised land, those same "rabbis" declared now were Berlin Rome Paris Moscow! Zionist and Zionism are radical/in the european sense/ secularists who confuse the Jewish sheeple!
If parallel Universes exist? Then the diagonals in the physical universe could be light/radiation and expanding force and gravity/mass a contracting force. Mass plays a key function in Einstien's theory of gravity! The parallel spiritual universe the diagonals could be holiness as an eternal expanding power and kingship/choice as an eternal restricting power. Rabbi Yohanon limits a blessing to having kingship, even though the standing prayer and the blessing of the cohonim lacks kingship?! This requires Talmud. Alas for the sheeple because the "rabbis" ruled that it too was old and contributed little but worthless superstitions to the sheeple living in the modern world. For those interested the book of Ester has no Sham HaShem but it does employ the word "KING" throughout the letter. The mitzvah of listening to the reading of this letter every Purim ... it requires kavvanah according to Talmudic "superstition" ... Jews make a noise when Haman's name the public reader says. Haman has the same numetrical value as King! The kavvanna, according to worthless superstition being, Haman ... to wipe out the rememberance of Haman/Amelek/Reform and equally King/to choose the Torah brit. Talmudic superstician teaches that on Purim the Yidden accepted the Torah with love. Halacha l'mysa, another worthless superstition of ancient Jewish custom and history, does not learn the Book of Ester as a historical tradition but rather as a mitzvah that lives to the present. Just as an earlier generation accepted the Torah with love and this brought the redemption where Israel returned unto the oath/sworn lands and took up the yoke of ruling those lands with Justice. Something that religion in goyim lands can never accomplish simply because the goyim/reform never accepted the Torah and justice no goyish state has ever accomplished. Ah you cry ... and the Jewish state did achieve justice?! Sharp! The consequence of the Jewish State failing to make Yerushalem a city of Justice/as specific intended to define the general/all the oath/sworn lands as a nation and people of justice ... Israel the Elokim sent into galut. Galut which the reform "rabbis" say is the new Yerushalem! That bone doesn't get stuck in the throat, but a parallel universe a teaching that the rulership of the Elokim is not limited by a 3D world, that sticks in the throat! Interesting. Reform which has no Torah oath/brit, limits the sould unto the body; the superstitious Talmud teaches that the soul, and its multiple facets nefesh ruach neshama chyyah yachidda eash haElokim, matching to the 6 directions that on shakes the lulav, the 6 faces of the tefillin, the 6 days of the week, the 3 +3 blessings that surround the 13 middle middot blessings of the Standing prayer/(another item not worthy to stand throughout the generations, irregardless that Talmudic superstition learned that over 243 prophet occupied themselves with its composition - meaningless literature!) The parallel universe/soul transports middot unto other oath/brit created souls. Communicating by means of a physical satellyte that does not stick in the throat but communicating by way of middot that most definitely sticks in the throat! Talmudic superstition says that the Elokim created the Universe/soul with Divine Names. If further teaches that writing a Safer Torah requires that the sofer write every Divine Name L'Sha ... the implication what happens when a person breaths a Divine Name upon a supporting mitzvah talit, tefillen for example when he/she stands in prayer. Does these mitzvot have any power to transport the Divine Names unto the Soul parallel universe? Torah spirituality says most emphatically YES. Reform modernity does not even know about the question!