This is what we learn in Chayei Sarah: In the big picture, life is our day job. In the big picture time is not linear and we are not the only souls standing before Moses today (Deut. 29:14)…In the big picture when we really get it…we realize the presence of souls of future bodies and past. In the big picture we see that death connects us. And since mortality is a way to define this holy continuation beyond-mortality… Life is our very important day job.
The thing about a day job though is that it doesn’t always stay the same. Few of us go through a full sixty years on the same corperate clock. And, even if we do, we learn more, take on more responsibilities, perhaps switch departments, hopefully get a raise. And as we continue on we can’t know what’s going to happen next. It’s impossible. This is why we read in Talmud (Berakhot 18a) if you have read once you have not repeated; if you have repeated you have not gone over a third time, if you have not gone over a third time you have not had it explained to you. For the living know they shall die. These are the righteous who are called living in their death.
The Talmudic rabbis give us a few hints as to how we can arrive at this place where we are living in our death…where we can begin to cross sacred boundaries… but that’s a tough one to clinch. First, we need to look carefully at what it is to be human.
As humans, we can’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, how that will feel, taste. We can’t know how the characters in our world will jockey themselves, or how the emotional dramas will unfold. We only know the breath this moment, the human-game, and it’s on a screen in which the soul plays hide and seek continually. We want to grab that soul…that eternal piece of us…and take that magic carpet ride to Adonay…because a day job is a scary thing. Here we are... fully dependent on the higher-ups, the forces that be, natural happenings, our flesh, the ticking of our hearts, our organs, our blood. We are taking time away from the real gig to get our work done here on earth and soon it’s as if we are working more than 50 or 60 hours a week at the law firm on Madison Avenue. We are working six days a week…a full six days…with only one when we can as-fully-as-possible check back in to that God-radiance. And it’s really only a checking in because to be at the real gig (in full) we would have to stop all dependency on life-matters…on heart and blood and veins…raise ourselves to a level of light that goes beyond the holding-capacity of our cellular make-up….see God face to face as any good beyond-human might try….and it’s not something we want to do as we sit with our children and friends at the dinner table, sip a glass of Cabernet, smell a rose, have amazing sex. God has put us here…as angels…to bring a message to earth…so says the Sfat Emet…But also, no doubt, life…this day job that can be like traveling through the desert to a foreign land to find a wife for the son of our employer…or like walking through a pane of glass…or like finding trust in the wrong person…or like having your heart torn out of your body…or like waiting to have that heart torn out of your body again… …has some real perks.
There’s water in the well. Sun. Gifts. There’s the chill we get up the spine as we actually…and miraculously…get to clinch and re-clinch and re-clinch to almost-perfection even a small connection spark to spark, human to human…through communication and words. There’s the epiphany of a simple glance once we raise our personal veil. There’s the amazing responsibility we are given to take part in that alchemy and bring God here through His very attributes…chesed and chen. There’s the ability to hone in on that connection and alchemy with a partner, a mate, for life through a sacred agreement before God. But…as great rabbis have emphasized….the strongest connection and chesed we can show is (ironically) towards those who by their very lack of life have the greatest need. These souls are even more vulnerable and dependent on our life forms than we are. These souls… those that are transitioning from bodies to the realm of the divine…are manifested here on earth by the unburied dead. In burying the dead therefore we are doing something that receives nothing in return. We are showing respect and consciousness of the real gig…that one resonant glorious eternal cyclical exquisite eye-opening symphony of vibrations that folds into that one gilded silent note beyond the final-chime. We are taking part in an action that completely recognizes this connection and therefore the beauty of our interdependence despite our fear and often disgust at what looks like our life-end.
Rav Ashi in Berakhot 18b says…in response to Genesis 23:4 (Abraham’s comment that I may bury the dead out of my sight) that as long as a person has an obligation to bury a body it’s as if the corpse lay before the person. In other words, it’s as if the dead is just hanging out on the couch in your home or in the passenger seat of your car.
In Berakhot 18a we read that one who watches the dead is exempt from reciting the Sh’ma… the all important recognition of our very revelation at Mt Sinai…and as the Rambam says…the only mitzvah in Torah that we do twice a day. Here’s more. If a man is walking within four cubits from a dead body he is exempt from reciting the Sh’ma. Why? In my opinion because he will probably have to attend to the burial soon. So merely the anticipation and work involved in doing this mitzvah of burying the dead….seems to trump the active all important recital of the Sh’ma.
Here’s more. Looking at Mishnah Berakhot 3:2 …two rows are to be formed to greet the mourners after the dead is buried. Imagine two crowds of people and the mourners walking through the center. Those in the inner circle…those who see inside…are exempt from saying the Sh’ma. This is because they are to help heal the mourners…those who have closest contact with the dead.
In Talmud we read this: The worm is as painful to the dead as a needle in the flesh of the living. [He replied]: It is explained that they know their own pain, they do not know the pain of others. Is that so? Has it not been taught: It is related that a certain pious man gave a denar to a poor man on the eve of New Year in a year of drought, and his wife scolded him, and he went and passed the night in the cemetery, and he heard two spirits conversing with one another. Said one to her companion: My dear, come and let us wander about the world and let us hear from behind the curtain what suffering is coming on the world. Said her companion to her: I am not able, because I am buried in a matting of reeds.But you go, and whatever you hear tell me. So the other went and wandered about and returned. Said her companion to her: My dear, what have you heard from behind the curtain? She replied: I heard that whoever sows after the first rainfall will have his crop smitten by hail. So the man went and did not sow till after the second rainfall, with the result that everyone else's crop was smitten and his was not smitten.
The next year he again went and passed the night in the cemetery, and heard the two spirits conversing with one another. Said one to her companion: Come and let us wander about the world and hear from behind the curtain what punishment is coming upon the world. Said the other to her: My dear, did I not tell you that I am not able because I am buried in a matting of reeds? But you go, and whatever you hear, come and tell me. So the other one went and wandered about the world and returned. She said to her: My dear, what have you heard from behind the curtain? She replied: I heard that whoever sows after the later rain will have his crop smitten with blight. So the man went and sowed after the first rain with the result that everyone else's crop was blighted and his was not blighted. Said his wife to him: How is it that last year everyone else's crop was smitten and yours was not smitten, and this year everyone else's crop is blighted and yours is not blighted? So he related to her all his experiences.
The story goes that shortly afterwards a quarrel broke out between the wife of that pious man and the mother of the child, and the former said to the latter, Come and I will show you your daughter buried in a matting of reeds. The next year the man again went and spent the night in the cemetery and heard those conversing together. One said: My dear, come and let us wander about the world and hear from behind the curtain what suffering is coming upon the world. Said the other: My dear, leave me alone; our conversation has already been heard among the living. This would prove that they know (the pain of others)? — Perhaps some other man after his decease went and told them.
What I see here is that the souls of those we love….those who are alive… are heard by us even after they are buried. And these same souls communicate and feel others beyond logical time. Conversation and therefore inter-connection soul to soul living as well as dead defies both our mortality and the framework of our mortality …We connect as souls beyond the seeming dominant reality of our bodies. To get back to my metaphor, what this all means is that the real gig extends way beyond the day job.
What we are also seeing therefore is that the most painful piece of death…the part that tears our heart out of our bodies…our seeming separation from those we love…can be healed even in solid form if we recognize the all encompassing reality of the real gig…and if we act on this recognition. Of course this is all esoteric and death is going to hurt like crazy no matter. But it’s nice knowing there’s a way beyond. And it’s nice knowing we don’t have to rediscover the wheel. The how to of righteous action has already been discussed at length and published.
There’s more. There’s much more I don’t see when it comes to the real gig and the how–to. But this is a beginning as we attempt to peak beyond the curtain…to find healing forms of behavior here on earth, those that can miraculously transform our day job to our full-time gig…that can merge our souls with our bodies as completely as possible.
How to bring this to today? Understand that many people who are in living bodies are really dead in that they are completely ensconced in the day-job-of-life…in that they do not even listen for the distant notes of the full time gig. Know that many people fear true life…run from it…shut down…and shut themselves off..The very action we need to show therefore is one that is similar to the burial of the dead…in that we do it without any expectation of return. We walk forward gently with life and chesed only for the pure essence of giving…for that sweet and beautiful offering to God…for the complete acceptance of that symphonic radiance that is like life itself…wherever we go…on roads…in airports…to work…and home. As we read in our liturgy, God can resuscitate the dead…and in our burial of the dead…and our gifts of chesed without expectation…we are helping God to bring the whole world closer to that peak beyond the curtain.
We can also do this: We can live in the moment of an epiphany between two lovers the dead and the living… as they glance at each other and know who they are. We can be the connecting force. We can know we are the souls at Mt Sinai, the souls of bodies already buried in our graves and the souls in our bodies this moment. We can be one force of continuing love in both day-job and real-gig. We can know who we are.
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