Genesis Cycle Four Miketz

Miketz

What we learn this week in Miketz (meaning at the end or edge) in many ways is that the only way to merge worlds… the upper lights with the lower, the Shabbat lights with those of Chanukah, olam habah and olam atid (the world to come and the world now), man with woman, man with man, woman with woman, the new with the known, the quotidian with the sacred, famine with abundance, the secular with the religious, the prisoner with the prince, war with peace, the past with the present, the present with the future, our hearts with our minds, our hearts with our hearts… is to stand strong and balanced right on the edge.

This is why.

Because when we stand on the metaphoric edge we have an acute bodily awareness of the final boundary….the never-to-cross boundary….and we can move beyond the fear and despair and doubt that often blinds us. We therefore can become the edge…know it instinctively…allow it to merge with another edge within ourselves. Here’s an example. You love a man and your community. Do you separate them, pull back from one to give to the other? Do you decide that you need to split time between them? I don’t think so. It would be like chopping wood on Shabbat. On the contrary...if you stand strong at the very edge of loving-behavior for one…you will find that you can do the same with the other. Only then do the edges merge and the love itself becomes one. A rabbi for example who goes to the edge to show love for her son…will also be able to go to the edge for the community…and within her very being she will be joining the two worlds. This is a sacred act.This is alchemy.

Here’s another example. You stand on the edge of the cliff. Doesn’t it feel different than if you stare at it from a distance? And don’t you understand the little details better, where it is rounded and where sharp, where solid and where the earth feels like it will tumble into the ravine any moment? If you were God and wanted to merge two cliffs together…wouldn’t you want to know the edges of both really well? God, according to our sages, stands on the edges of both this world and the one without human form, the world of pure essence.

Here’s another example. The other day I had the opportunity to visit the art museum in Santa Barbara. Picasso and Braque were on display. Cubism. At the entry there were paintings by Cezanne to introduce us to the exhibit. As I read (on the wall) Picasso and Braque respected Cezanne because he would merge a central- form with the background. So as I looked at the cubist paintings I saw that the form could only be merged (with the background) if there was attention given to the form-edge. In other words, in the paintings, the edge created the definition of form and enabled the merge. Of course, I’m not an art expert but this was my take on it.

To continue, this is why I am always telling my writing students to take things to the edge. The great thing about fiction writing is that if you fall off the literal cliff, you can always edit. In short though, it is well known among fiction writers that if we want to merge ourselves with our reader, merge the here and now with that of our main character, we would be wise to go to the edge and take all chances possible short of obscuring the plot. The edge enables accessibility. It enables the merge and therefore shines a sharp light on the human condition.

This leads us to dangers on the edge. We, as human beings, are experts at either obscuring our own plots, at throwing ourselves off the metaphoric cliff…or at being so full of fear we keep a very far distance from the cliff and therefore know nothing and are capable of merging almost nothing. We all have heard of people living life on the edge…or have done it ourselves. People die in car crashes, drug overdoses, suicides (the mental/emotional edge), mountain climbing, kayaking, skiing, overwork. They get jarred by reckless relationships, financial ruin, so much abundance they drown in bathtubs drunk. We have all heard of people who are scared to leave a job, fall in love, be in full in a relationship. These are the people who bring drought upon themselves….who peer at the cliff from miles away and either refuse to accept it or pretend they know it very well despite their lack of personal intimacy with it.

The art…the sacred art…is the ability to stand on the edge without going over. This is what Joseph does. This takes strength, great balance, self restraint (gevurah), vision. There, he can know in his bones the reality defined by the edge. This is why he can interpret dreams. He knows both the quotidian and the sacred, the God-movement. It is why he can remain a Hebrew and still be catapulted within the ranks of the Egyptians second only to the Pharoah. This is why he can masterfully organize a system to merge drought with abundance. It’s why he can mastermind a way to bring his brothers towards the Pharoah-edge on which he stands.

This is what he does. He carefully places a piece of Egyptian wealth within the sack of Benjamin, his brother. This way, the object itself (through action or words/energy) will return to its form and bring the brothers with it. Joseph knows the edge well enough to know how to perform this kind of alchemical action. There’s a flow that happens.

Let’s look at the Zohar. Here we read that a single word is used in Genesis 43:10 to infer two times. The word is fa’amayim. This line is when Jacob says to his sons for if we had not lingered, by now we could have returned (to Egypt) these two times…This further proves my point. It seems that the one word…according to the Zohar…proves that one should carefully align his paths towards the blessed holy one in order to fulfill the commandments of Torah. For they have established that a person really has two angelic messengers from above to couple with him, one on the right and one on the left coupling with him, appearing wherever he does anything…..The two times therefore infer the two angels and the two worlds that merge…or that can merge..in our heart…at tiferet…as they do within Joseph.

Chanukah takes place on the edge and therefore brings us closer to the heart. This year we can bask within the light and be conscious of the winter equinox. We can work to stand strong and safe on our personal edges to enable merge and flow with those we love. We can realize that chesed, all flow, is only possible if we can safely and with self restraint understand the alchemy possible when so many souls are lit and the outer world is itself grounded on the edge of darkness and light.

As Kabir writes:

The darkness of night is coming along fast

and the shadows of love close in the body and the mind.

Open the window to the west and disappear into the air inside you.

Near your breastbone is an open flower.

Drink the honey that is all around that flower.

Waves are coming in:

There is so much magnificence near the Ocean.

Listen: Sound of big seashells! Sound of bells!

Kabir says: Listen friend, this is what I have to say: the Guest I love is inside of me.