King Me

While wishing all cherished family and friends a powerfully sweet successful joyous New Year 5772 and the full manifestation of all our hearts' deepest desires, beyond our wildest blue-sky imaginations yet within our well-grounded grasp... I'm thinking about something I learned the other day that sort of wasn't new, yet in the context of my recent mindset, was - and which blew me away. 

The Mittler Rebbe writes in his Shaar Hateshuvah (Gate of Return) that the root of our undoing is prikat ol – throwing off the yoke.

The idea of bearing a yoke is not all that appealing to freethinking American babyboomers like me and my ilk.  That it’s 'the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven' helps – assuming we have some sense of what a King is.  Most of us lost that sense somewhere along the way between the Declaration of Independence, the liquidation of the Romanoffs, and the ascendance of poll-driven demagoguery in place of statesmanship.  An interesting evolution, or devolution – but I don't want to go there now.  Let's assume for the moment that we can appreciate the value of the harness that unites us with the King of the Universe and places our talents at His service. 

If so, what gets in our way?

I've been paying a lot of attention lately to the famous kabbalistic principle that it takes one to know one.  Or as the kids say, when you point a finger at me you've got three fingers pointing back at you.  Or as the Baal Shem Tov puts it, when you see something intolerable in another, it's actually a projection of, a deflection from, something you can't bear to look at in yourself. 

Yet another way of seeing it is as a reactive cycle of shame and blame.  Who doesn't have some dark place inside where he can't stand himself?  We're ashamed, not just of our behavior but even of our thoughts.  As Peter Himmelman sings: "I'm a dirty man – I went and took a drink of dirty water."  And the Yom Kippur liturgy: "Before You I am like a vessel filled with shame and disgrace."  On Yom Kippur we are at our best.  In the presence of unconditional Divine forgiveness we're prepared to own up and face the dark side.  But we may not be so straightforward on some turgid Thursday in February. 

It happens in the blink of an eye: a sudden impulse of awareness of shame bubbles up from the dark recesses of our shadowy side.  It's too painful, too hard to take.  So we turn it inside out and find the nearest target to deflect the shame: we blame.  That awareness was an opportunity to accept the harness of personal responsibility with dignity, to summon the inner strength to change.  Instead, we squander the chance, throw off the yoke, and wreak damage rather than repair.

Sometimes it occurs only internally, in the privacy of our own minds.  And we may not be so aware – it could be beneath our conscious radar.  Next time you look askance at a fellow human being whose very presence irks you no end, step back and trace that feeling to its real source: what is it about him that reminds you of something you don't like about yourself?

It's something all people seem to have in common, from the basically nice guy who can occasionally be a grumpy judgmental curmudgeon, to the sophisticated terrorist who dehumanizes his victims, turning unbearable shame for his own depravity outward to absolve himself.  It lies within the black heart of anti-Semitism, the green eye of the envious, and the red clenched fist of the enraged.

The major, dangerous examples may or may not be within range of our efforts to change.  But the internal teshuvah is ours to accomplish.  Let's seek those moments where we're tempted to turn away, and turn them around.  Those small victories of responsibility over prikat ol, of acknowledgement and self-correction over shame and blame, will generate the energy that will change the world.  Let the King rule and let the good times roll.

wading into the stream

A friend who saw the video posted below said something like, "cool, but, um, like, huh?"

Kinda thought that might happen. Context is everything! To ever-so-briefly explain...

THE STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS is an introduction to the practice of "Hisbonenus" meditation - the contemplative path that lies at the heart of the philosophy and psychology of Chabad. There are numerous other forms of meditative practice. Some are very simple, others more advanced; some are therapeutic in nature, while others benefit healthy people who wish to advance spiritually and creatively. And just as certain practices are universal or culturally neutral, some forms of meditation and meditative prayer are derived specifically from Torah tradition, as taught by the Chassidic masters and the Sages of antiquity.

The video is based on a metaphor found in the commentary of Rabbi Hillel of Paritsch on "Shaar HaYichud" by Rabbi Dov Ber of Lubavitch (the 'Mittler Rebbe').  This simple yet profound teaching blazes a trail toward a deeper awareness of G-d's presence in our world. As such it's also a key to emotional intelligence and ethical self-development.

We shot the footage at Diamond Notch Falls, Esopus Creek, and Kaaterskill Falls in upstate New York, and at Luray Caverns in western Virginia.

There is so much more to be said (and done) about all this.  G-d willing, we'll get there.  In the meantime, for further insight into where we're coming from and headed to, see the recent articles my wife and I have posted elsewhere on the subject. 

More to come; comments/questions/kvetches always welcome.

The Stream of Consciousness

think well. be well. do well.

Nachamu Nachamu

There could hardly have been a more deliciously apropos moment for the advent of a brand-new granddaughter than Erev Shabbat Nachamu - the eve of the Sabbath of double-dip consolation.  Relief, and rectification: corporeal comfort, here among us in flesh and blood, yet resonating with the transcendent source of solace in the realm of ascendant souls.  One is tempted to say "v'dai l'mayvin" – let that suffice for those who know the back-story.  But the inner story of this double nechamah is just too rich to let slip without an attempt to bring its esoteric underpinnings down to earth.

Briefly (there's soup on the stove that needs stirring,) the double expression "nachamu nachamu" signifies a final, complete redemption that, unlike all prior reprieves, will never fade or fail or revert to chaos.  How could that be possible, in an imperfect world where the only certainty is uncertainty, where pleasure inevitably gives way to pain, where the only apparent constant is change?

It's been said that had Moses led us into the Promised Land instead of Joshua, his right-hand man, there'd have been no subsequent exile. Moses was in touch with the immutability of G-d's grace.  He was unshakeable, invincible; he could weather the vicissitudes like a flame in a windless place.  But people tend to get the leaders they deserve. We did not merit to be led by a Moses to the civilized side of the river.  Joshua brought us home, but eventually we blew it - and the winds of change blew us away.

Thirty some-odd centuries down the pike, we may have learned a thing or two.  The Chassidic masters, our latter-day Moseses, have shown us how the miraculous and the mundane are one – how we can live within the confines of time, where we need to be on time, yet taste changeless eternity. We can be consoled in this world, and partake of a headspace where there's no consolation required.

That's the way it felt at 3:15 this morning when we stood in the hallway of Mount Sinai (the hospital, not the holy mountain - though they're not all that dissimilar) and heard that first cry of our new-born daughter and granddaughter. My son-in-law and I, after being allowed back in the delivery room and taking the requisite photos and video clips, stepped outside into the night to bless the moon.  It's a monthly ritual, performed while the moon is waxing full, that imbues the cyclical fickleness of the lesser luminary with something of the non-stop steadiness of the sun.

The moon and the sun are sharing their double dose of consolation and redoubling it in us.  I'm inclined to say that it doesn't get any better than this, except that I'm quite confident it will.

Mazal tov, mazal tov, and Shabbat Shalom.

Mothers' Day

I woke up this past Sunday morning from one of the stranger, more vivid dreams in my recent memory to an equally uncharacteristic thought: this was the fortieth Mother's Day I had experienced since my mother left this mortal coil and moved on to those greener pastures (the ones the G-d she wasn't sure she believed in had always told her He'd maketh her lie down in.) I've always considered Mother's Day and Father's Day to be commercial contrivances without much meaning - perhaps a step up from Valentine's Day, but still. Hallmark holidays have always aroused in me more cynicism than genuine sentiment.  And I know I'm not alone; I've observed that mothers on Mothers' Day, like fathers on Fathers' Day, frequently accept the cards and gifts and obligatory accolades with both a broad smile and a sharp eye out for some sign as to whether or not the honor will last past the day.

And yet…

Maybe it's Facebook, and all the friends who  posted photos of their Moms. Or maybe I've actually matured, evolved beyond the wry, sly negativity and the faux-rugged-individualism with which I've long masked my abandonment issues. They do say it takes forty years to really learn a lesson. Whatever the dynamic that brought me to this unprecedented point in time, I posted a Mothers' Day note on Facebook yesterday that I meant, from the heart, and that I hope I'll go on meaning - whether or not it suffices to make amends for my slightly scrooge-ish performance in prior years. One of my friends thanked me for it, and in the same breath she inquired as to what's up with my blog, which I've been neglecting in recent months.  I took the hint (thanks, CE) and am therefore reiterating those thoughts here, where they're perhaps more likely to hold me to them in days to come.

On this particular Mothers' Day, I wrote, it's appreciation that I feel compelled to express - simple, uncluttered, uncomplicated appreciation. Thank you, Ma. And thank you, all you other mothers, grandmothers, mothers-in-law, stepmothers, mothers-to-be, wanna-be mothers, and mothers of invention. I'm grateful to the long-gone ancestry of mothers of mothers of mothers. Though my own mother-memory extends just a couple of generations back, and scantly at that, this is one of those precious moments when the heart feels warmly what the mind finds unknowable. I'm grateful to the mother of my children, and to my children, some of whom are already mothers, and some of whom will be mothers before long, and all of whom have been blessed with the ability to see and feel and bring to fruition what it means to make room within oneself for another's gestation, birth, and growth. And that includes the boys - because fatherhood would not be fatherhood if it did not embrace within itself some smattering of motherhood. And vice versa.

Green Pastures and the Color of Abundance

My mother was neither a Bible reader nor a particularly devout woman.   Questions of ethics, aesthetics, and social justice often came up in our home; Judaism, or for that matter the notion of the existence of God, did not.  The music-box menorah that played “Rock of Ages” on Chanukah was more a sentimental cultural artifact than a religious symbol – not all that different, or so it seemed, from the kitschily decorated evergreen that occasionally showed up in our living room around the same time of year.  However she loved the twenty-third Psalm.  Whether she experienced it as literature or prophecy or consolation or nostalgia, I have no way of knowing, but my acutely selective memory still echoes with her incantation: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want...” By the time Psalms became meaningful to me she was long gone. 

In a private audience in 1973, the Lubavitcher Rebbe suggested that I say a chapter of Psalms early each morning as an aid to concentration in daily practice.  I naturally gravitated to Psalm 23, musical versions of which already figured prominently in the repertoire of my fellow seekers of Chassidic wisdom.  It’s also one of the shorter ones, and therefore easily memorized in the original Hebrew.  The connection to my mother was icing on the cake.  I couldn’t even begin to count how many thousands of times I must have said or sung or muttered those six verses over the years since then.  Some of that has been, inevitably, rote recitation – one of the pitfalls of regular ritual.  Nonetheless the Psalm has continued to be a deepening, resonant source of inspiration and an effective medium for the cultivation of mindfulness.

Imagine my delight, therefore, upon discovering a ma’amar the Rebbe delivered some 44 years ago based on the opening verses of Psalm 23 – a discourse whose core teaching addresses one of my lifelong concerns: financial security.  Overcoming an inbred sense of scarcity and an expectation of poverty (not to mention the ennobling of poverty) has been a major challenge for me, as it has for so many other lower-middle-class red-diaper baby boomers.  Developing trust and optimism and a sense of abundance has loomed large on my personal self-improvement agenda.  Every opportunity to offer a charitable donation (such opportunities arise about every eighteen minutes in the Jewish community) triggers a confrontation between the generosity to which I aspire and the anxieties embedded in my nervous system from formative years.  As the Rebbe explains it, this Psalm turns out to be David’s self-help bestseller, a quick course in miracles for the chronically impecunious.  It applies directly to that most down-to-earth of preoccupations, the earning of a livelihood.

“The Lord is my shepherd…” A shepherd, of course, protects and feeds his flock faithfully and unfailingly.  Therefore I shall not want – I’m safe, assured of sustenance no matter what.  A midrashic gloss on this verse envisions God’s non-stop, unmitigated benevolence, flowing forth from the most sublime dimension of the universe, bestowing parnassah – material abundance – upon all “creatures.”  The choice of that term indicates even those with no merit other than the fact that they’ve been created.  He is an infinite source of blessing, a magnanimous force that no bear market or economic downturn can deny.

OF WAR AND PEACE

The cynic in me resists.  The Rebbe gets that; he acknowledges that this easy abundance might seem counterintuitive to some, and goes on to say that there are actually two modes of pursuing one’s purpose in this world.  One is the way of war, of struggle.  We hack our way with machetes through thorny underbrush; we grapple with competitors, cross deserts, slay dragons, dodge bullets, sail seas, do battle against all odds to bring home those scattered scraps we need to survive, perchance to thrive.

The other is the way of peace, tranquility. 

David insists that we have a choice, and that the latter is the preferred m.o. He lays me down in green pastures; he guides me beside the still waters.  Take it easy.  Trust Me.  Chill.  Still waters: mei menuchot, in Hebrew.  What exactly is menuchah?  Rest?  Peace?  Serenity?  Satisfaction?  Deep relaxation?  All of the above, and more.  The Rebbe extrapolates from various Scriptural occurrences of the word and concludes that menuchah is a quality associated with the indwelling of the Shechinah, the Divine presence in the world.  Specifically, in a once golden age, this was manifest in the Beis HaMikdash, the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, where the Divine presence rested between the staves of the Ark in the Holy of Holies.  The Ark was the vortex, the serene energy center of a turbulent universe, and it was therefore the galvanic attractor of all the wealth in the world.  Spiritual wealth, to be sure; but also, by extension, material wealth.  They are, after all is said and done, one.  (No wonder the fictional Indiana Jones went to such lengths to retrieve the Ark from the clutches of the other side.) 

Before the Ark was lost, before Jerusalem fell, while King Solomon reigned and the Temple he built was the major theme-park attraction of the then-civilized world, wealth flowed easily to Israel.  The Queen of Sheba herself came to pay lavish tribute, as did emissaries of all the nations, attracted to the vortex like swirling sparks around a blazing bonfire.  The esoteric truth behind this historical phenomenon explains how the manifest presence of omnipotent Divinity trumps both the limiting laws of nature and the necessity of struggle.  More simply put, we learn from this that back in that glorious moment in the arc of our story, we did not want for anything.  Menuchah ruled.  The all-powerful shepherd had us covered – and not just collectively, but each individual according to his needs and abilities.  Or disabilities, as the case may be.  A truly faithful shepherd (as epitomized by Moshe, the Midrash says) knows which of his sheep need to graze in the tender grass, and which can handle the rougher terrain.

The Rebbe continues:  what’s the deal with the green pastures?  (This ma’amar, by the way, was said during one of his rare trips out of New York City, on a visit upstate to a children’s summer camp nestled in mountain meadows.) Turns out there are two kinds of pastures, too.  There are wilderness pastures that require a lot of work before they’re fit for grazing, and the green pastures which are ready-made for providing the good life.  Kabbalistic sources associate the green pastures with the quality of tiferet – beauty and balance; a harmonious blend of all the qualities and all the colors of the spectrum of life; perfectly centered, and therefore channeling abundance from the uppermost, innermost source of Divine benevolence that is so powerful it can reach everyone, everywhere, yet so pure it cannot be usurped or stolen or misdirected toward selfish ends.

That ought to cover the bills.

Can this be made real?  Are those green pastures and still waters accessible to the likes of us?  What now, since the Temple is in ruins and the Divine presence is in exile here with us?  Are we then doomed to struggle for our livelihood on hardscrabble landscapes amidst these turgid, polluted waters so far downstream?  A glance at the news and the leading economic indicators (not to mention the value of our homes or portfolios or 401K’s – or unemployment benefits) would seem to indicate that’s the case.

   

Shlomo HaMelech, King Solomon, who knew a thing or two and who presided over that aforementioned golden age, tells us in Ecclesiastes (3:8) that there’s “a time for war, and a time for peace.”  (Some of us heard it first from the Byrds.)  In this ma’amar, the Rebbe does not dismiss the reality of struggle.  In fact, less than two weeks later he said another ma’amar about the path of spiritual battle against internalized patterns of negativity – a.k.a. prayer.  But here he emphasizes the way of peace.  Clearly there is a degree to which we can make the Lord our shepherd, luxuriate in green pastures, and gratefully allow abundance to be delivered our doors.  And we needn’t wait until all the world’s swords have been beaten into plowshares.  We’ve got plowshares of our own.

The Rebbe gives both explicit instruction and clues, embedded in the discourse. In general, while the Zohar tells us prayer is war (in one sense, doing battle against our bad habits and erroneous perspectives) the study of Torah is the path of peace. In the trenches, good and evil vie for market share and we grope myopically through minefields of moral relativity.  In the greener pastures of Torah there are fewer booby traps. In particular it is the inner dimension of Torah that offers a foretaste of the serpent-free, incorruptible Tree of Life.  Those gardens are watered by a peaceful, pure, unstoppable stream that flows from Eden.  Chassidus nourishes inner wisdom, and puts that wisdom to work.

NEURAL TRAILBLAZING

The nature of that inner work is hinted at in an incisive section of the ma’amar where the Rebbe is discussing how it could be possible for infinite, utterly unbounded Divinity to dwell within the confines of space and time.  There are two opinions (aren’t there always?) – two metaphors that attempt to describe how the Shechinah rests between the staves of the Ark in the Temple’s Holy of Holies.  One says it’s like fingers writing down an idea.  The fingers don’t really understand the idea; but they are uniquely suited (more than the toes, for example) for conveying the idea in written words.  Applying the metaphor, this means that the Divine presence is sort of passing through the space in which it rests.  The finite space doesn’t embody the infinite any more than the fingers understand the idea.  According to another point of view, however, it’s more like an idea contained in a brain, and by extension in the heart.  The brain and heart are more sophisticated than fingers; they are organs that can understand and feel.  The ideas they embrace become one with the containers.  In fact according to both the Kabbalistic literature and newly emerging evidence in the science of neuroplasticity, the physical organs are actually changed, materially transformed, by the activity and the effort of thinking deeply into an idea.  The technical term Chassidus gives this deep internalization is hitlabshut – like wearing a perfectly fitted garment.  (Other sources liken it to the relationship between the transcendent soul and the conscious mind.)  Shifting again from the metaphor back to its analogue, from this perspective the non-physical Divine presence can, paradoxically, be unified with the physical place in which it is revealed.

There’s abundant food for thought in all this, but for the moment I’ll attempt to bumper-sticker it.  When an insight or inspiration comes along, when we encounter a potentially life-transforming idea, are we “just passing through” – or do we make the effort to truly wear it well, to unify with it in mind and heart, in a meaningful and sustainable way?

If we’re told, for instance, that Psalm 23 is intended as a meditation to lift us up beyond the struggle for a livelihood and connect our consciousness with an all-powerful, faithful shepherd, what do we do with that information?  Does it genuinely alter our attitudes and expectations?  The mind tends to travel in well-worn ruts; the Zohar calls them r’hitei mocha – brain troughs.   We think, feel, speak, and dance to the tune of obsolete memes, mind-habits we acquired unwittingly, which have probably outlived their usefulness if indeed they ever served us well.  I’m not worthy.  It’s too hard.  Get real, get practical, don’t be a dreamer.  Life’s a struggle and then it’s over.

Having internalized messages like that, it takes some rather rigorous work to learn how to lie down in green pastures and meander by the babbling brook of certainty, serenity, and security.  We might as well get to it, though.  Every disempowering thought can be replaced with a nourishing truth.  We can take the time to remind ourselves on a daily basis that the Shepherd is alive and well, and He’s not just passing through.