Numbers Cycle Five Nasso

Nasso

 I don’t know many people who hold Torah from the top, or who hold a baby by the upper back. We carry from beneath. We place our hand under for a firm grasp.

Just today I had to carry a huge long box. The only way to really do this was to bend down and place my hand at the lower end and hoist it up high. Again, you take it from the bottom.

I  remember the Go-cups when I was living in New Orleans or the plastic glasses of who-knows-what at frat parties in college. Drinking age in Pennsylvania at the time was eighteen.  Place your pinky under the cup, a friend warned, that way chances are it won’t drop from your hand.

Now let’s take this idea to another level. My son just returned from a huge four day concert in Washingston State. He reported how everyone was on something. Imagine an alternative universe, he said, where you-name-it it’s legal. People would come to our tent and ask for mushrooms. People were taking shots at 9 am. But everyone was nice and kind to each other. My son’s report here is pure exposition, almost journalistic, observing and transmitting the reality of the situation. He didn’t say it was good or bad. He simply took hold of the experience-dream he had just been in (from the ground) and relayed it to me with words. Of course, soon we did share reactions. He said it was what he had seen of the film reels of Woodstock. It was crazy, filthy, I’m not supporting the drugs, I don’t do them, but it was a community, no judgment. It was great. I responded with: It was a rite of passage. I’m proud that you made it through and you’re still alive.

What does any of this have to do with this week’s parasha? Well, a lot. It relates to blessings. How do we bless others?  How can we emulate blessings in Torah?

In Nasso we get the Priestly Blessing.  And we understand a few things. First, it’s important. To put it bluntly, God is putting words, exact words, in the mouth of Aaron. Usually when God speaks to Moses telling him to tell Aaron or the Israelites, it’s more general. We’re to do certain things, speak a certain way. But the Priestly Blessing is not screen-play dialogue. You can’t fool with it. This is written in stone. This is a play, in other words and God is the playwright.  Of course, we can translate it, interpret it as much as we like, but any change to the Hebrew will not and cannot hold water. It would simply be something different. The Talmudic and Midrashic rabbis emphasize the importance of this blessing simply through the time they elucidate on it. Pages. A blessing, to be sure, is not some casual thing, something we utter haphazardly or switch-around. It demands intention and focus.

Yes, but what is it? What is this thing..this Torah-moment….that needs intention and focus? Well, it’s clearly a type of transmission. And just like a glance of the eyes can get through a certain message, this transmission can happen without even speaking. It’s a push of intention from the heart. The words, like prayer, stay the same but become internal.

Question: What is meant by transmission? This is any kind of delivery that holds meaning or consciousness. It is non-judgmental. It isn’t about what we think. It goes beyond what we think people need.  In short we deliver a force-of-God-love from our heart-mind to the heart-mind of another being or to the very structure of an object.  But there’s more.

The rabbis debate over whether the blessing goes from down-to-up or from up-to-down. In other words…does this transmission start in our every-day hard-core reality? Or does it start in the esoteric ephemeral radiant  heavens with God?

Rashi says this: It goes from  the ground-up. My thought here:  It seems Rashi is saying that you deliver first to ground-level. I mean, if you have a package you just can’t throw it to the second story window. You have to start at ground level and bring it to the right floor. Same with a blessing. Except all the floors are the right floors.  You shine it from the bottom and bring it up. This is not only logical. This  way you don’t leave anything out.

 According to his relative though, the Rashbam, the blessing moves from the heightened realms to the earthly.

Rashbam’s assertion also seems pretty obvious. If light is coming at us to heal us, it sure isn’t going to come from  the earth but from above.

My opinion therefore is that both Rashi and Rashbam are right.

But, one might ask, how can we bless from the ground-up and from the heights to the ground concurrently? What does that mean? This is the way I see it. As Rashbam infers, we act as vessels. We empty ourselves. We let our bodies be there simply for this transmission-process. We accept the crystalline light from God so that we can and do transmit. And while some people think the buck stops there, this is where Rashi comes in.

We focus that light first and foremost at the real situation, the body-place that is to be guarded and blessed. We shoot that light to the lowest common denominator, the bottom of the human, the place that is not ours to judge, the place of acceptance despite the earthly attributes eating at it. This is the bottom of Torah where we place our careful hand. If you like, the place of Korach. The baby’s rump. The pure chaos and trash at a four day concert. We see it. We know it. We bless it. What is it? This  rock-hard reality and rational-way-of-life that more often than not splinters any modicum of loving-kindness in our behavior into a million sharp edges.  We take hold of the bottom, of this frightening place, focus our light there.

Then we do move from the ground-up. We visualize this transmission with grace rising within the person blessed. We visualize it squeezing-up the light within. In this way, light raises light and nothing gets missed or left behind. It’s simply a squeeze effect happening within the person, or people blessed. Soon, when the divine sparks reach the very height of the human, this is the climax and they…the sparks as well as the people… can then move upwards to God. This movement of all of the divine sparks from all of God’s creations…in their very real and purified forms….towards God…this is Peace. In this state-of-heightened-being, the behavior of loving-kindness is the parallel state-of-being below. So the more we bless (with intention) the kinder we become.

In this way a blessing is not a one-way road. It’s a cycle, never ending. It demands that we deal with the most base earth details, that we maintain a sacred level of equanimity, that we empty ourselves, that we focus with intention, and that we accept that the blessing just doesn’t stop. It continues for eternity.  And the way to show this is by being an example of loving kindness in all situations, no matter what was done to you, said to you, no matter how you feel.  It takes mindfulness, compassion, kindness, kindness beyond truth, kindness beyond thought. It takes believing it when your child says he didn’t take the drugs, and helping to clean up the mess on the floor when you or a friend drops the go-cup.  It is much easier than it looks. And how beautiful if we can all agree to go there.

   

As Rabbi Kook writes….All existence evolves and ascends. Its ascent is general as it is in particular. ….no particularity will remain outside, not a spark will be lost from the ensemble. All will share in this climactic culmination