TORAH TALK
Ancient Wisdom for Contemporary Times
Shavuot ~ The Big Reveal
Ancient Wisdom for Contemporary Times
Shavuot ~ The Big Reveal
We have entered the wilderness. Last week we began Bamidbar, the Book of Numbers, which is the longest book of the Torah, not surprisingly as the narrative imagines a forty-year journey to the Promised Land. The narrative picked up almost as if Leviticus never happened and follows directly on the heels of the Book of Exodus by concentrating on the aftermath of Sinai and revelation, and preparations to enter the Promised Land. The book as a whole encompasses two generations: the generation of the Exodus, which will die out except for Joshua and Caleb, and the new generation born in the wilderness and will enter the land.
The wilderness is a powerful backdrop not only for the journey of the Israelites from oppressive slavery to real freedom, it is also the backdrop for the giving and receiving of the Torah which we will celebrate this week on Shavuot. The midrash teaches that the Torah was given in the open wilderness so that no one could claim it as a possession. The Torah must be that which opens us to transformation, just like open spaces offer no set boundaries to contain our imagination. Moving from one’s reality towards one’s aspiration is something that each of us does in the course of our lives many times over.
Parker Palmer, a noted writer, speaker, and activist who focuses on issues in education, community, leadership, spirituality and social change, writes and speaks about what he calls “the tragic gap.” It is the gap between the hard realities around us, and what we know to be possible among us because we have seen it with our own eyes. It is called “tragic” not simply because it might be sad, but in the classic sense of the word, it is tragic because we are not going to achieve perfection. This seems a meaningful image for the kind of experience that is “the wilderness of Sinai” in the collective unconscious of the Jewish people.
This “tragic gap” is an eternal part of the human condition and could be used to describe any aspect of our lives. Greed/generosity, war/peace, quarantine/re-entry and oppression/liberation are just a few of the dichotomies of human existence where the gap between where we are and where we might aspire to be can be felt. The challenge as Palmer presents, is that most of us stand in these gaps all the time, and sometimes we veer off towards one extreme—“corrosive cynicism”—or another—“irrelevant idealism.” Both extremes take us out of a life of action, as if to say nothing will ever change or it is fine to be disconnected from the daily struggles of life.
Revelation can be understood as what happens when we are in the gap and then propels us forward. Without the Torah, the Israelites would have no sense of how their lives could be. Without receiving Torah for ourselves, in our day, we would have no sense of how the vision of a just society could be something that thousands of years later, we would continue to strive for and hope to achieve. Just as this gap is understood to be part and parcel of our existence as human beings, we can appreciate how revelation in the open space of the wilderness is an ongoing opportunity to imagine our collective future.
In other words, the gap might be understood as the distance between who we are and who we long to be. How do we bridge this divide? The shifts usually come from heartbreak. We tend to think of heartbreak as something to be avoided, because it sounds so final. But it is precisely heartbreak which enables us to stand in the gap between realities and aspirations and look to change who we are.
The heart can break in different ways. Sometimes it breaks from fear where we become closed down to such a degree that we build walls around the heart to protect it, but we become prisoners inside. Heartbreak can also happen from self-pity, and hopelessness, when we can’t seem to find answers for what happens around us that we cannot control. The heart can also shatter with rage, which can then be directed unfairly at others. We blame others for our own pain.
But there is a way for the heart to break that comes not from fear, self-pity or rage. It is when the heart breaks open. The heart must be supple enough for such a thing to happen. A supple heart breaks open to experience compassion, to potentially hold not only the world’s suffering, but also the world’s joy.
A teaching of the Kotzker Rebbe in AJ Heschel’s Passion for Truth explains it this way. The middle paragraph of the sh'ma contains the phrase al l’vavecha--upon your heart. The Kotzker asks why the prayer doesn’t say: in your heart? He teaches that it is preposterous to demand truth in the heart. Truth lies like a stone upon one’s heart, so that in a moment when the heart cracks open, the words might sink in. This is a powerful image because it offers the possibility that for each of us, the kind of heartbreak that can propel us forward is available to us all.
As we continue to navigate the unchartered terrain in this time of COVID-19, and the challenges and opportunities presented by this tragic gap of experience, may we experience the kind revelation that each of us needs and according to our strength and vision for the future.
Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach!
Rabbi Yael Ridberg
The wilderness is a powerful backdrop not only for the journey of the Israelites from oppressive slavery to real freedom, it is also the backdrop for the giving and receiving of the Torah which we will celebrate this week on Shavuot. The midrash teaches that the Torah was given in the open wilderness so that no one could claim it as a possession. The Torah must be that which opens us to transformation, just like open spaces offer no set boundaries to contain our imagination. Moving from one’s reality towards one’s aspiration is something that each of us does in the course of our lives many times over.
Parker Palmer, a noted writer, speaker, and activist who focuses on issues in education, community, leadership, spirituality and social change, writes and speaks about what he calls “the tragic gap.” It is the gap between the hard realities around us, and what we know to be possible among us because we have seen it with our own eyes. It is called “tragic” not simply because it might be sad, but in the classic sense of the word, it is tragic because we are not going to achieve perfection. This seems a meaningful image for the kind of experience that is “the wilderness of Sinai” in the collective unconscious of the Jewish people.
This “tragic gap” is an eternal part of the human condition and could be used to describe any aspect of our lives. Greed/generosity, war/peace, quarantine/re-entry and oppression/liberation are just a few of the dichotomies of human existence where the gap between where we are and where we might aspire to be can be felt. The challenge as Palmer presents, is that most of us stand in these gaps all the time, and sometimes we veer off towards one extreme—“corrosive cynicism”—or another—“irrelevant idealism.” Both extremes take us out of a life of action, as if to say nothing will ever change or it is fine to be disconnected from the daily struggles of life.
Revelation can be understood as what happens when we are in the gap and then propels us forward. Without the Torah, the Israelites would have no sense of how their lives could be. Without receiving Torah for ourselves, in our day, we would have no sense of how the vision of a just society could be something that thousands of years later, we would continue to strive for and hope to achieve. Just as this gap is understood to be part and parcel of our existence as human beings, we can appreciate how revelation in the open space of the wilderness is an ongoing opportunity to imagine our collective future.
In other words, the gap might be understood as the distance between who we are and who we long to be. How do we bridge this divide? The shifts usually come from heartbreak. We tend to think of heartbreak as something to be avoided, because it sounds so final. But it is precisely heartbreak which enables us to stand in the gap between realities and aspirations and look to change who we are.
The heart can break in different ways. Sometimes it breaks from fear where we become closed down to such a degree that we build walls around the heart to protect it, but we become prisoners inside. Heartbreak can also happen from self-pity, and hopelessness, when we can’t seem to find answers for what happens around us that we cannot control. The heart can also shatter with rage, which can then be directed unfairly at others. We blame others for our own pain.
But there is a way for the heart to break that comes not from fear, self-pity or rage. It is when the heart breaks open. The heart must be supple enough for such a thing to happen. A supple heart breaks open to experience compassion, to potentially hold not only the world’s suffering, but also the world’s joy.
A teaching of the Kotzker Rebbe in AJ Heschel’s Passion for Truth explains it this way. The middle paragraph of the sh'ma contains the phrase al l’vavecha--upon your heart. The Kotzker asks why the prayer doesn’t say: in your heart? He teaches that it is preposterous to demand truth in the heart. Truth lies like a stone upon one’s heart, so that in a moment when the heart cracks open, the words might sink in. This is a powerful image because it offers the possibility that for each of us, the kind of heartbreak that can propel us forward is available to us all.
As we continue to navigate the unchartered terrain in this time of COVID-19, and the challenges and opportunities presented by this tragic gap of experience, may we experience the kind revelation that each of us needs and according to our strength and vision for the future.
Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach!
Rabbi Yael Ridberg