Bemidbar and Shavuoth 2015

Bemidbar and Shavuoth

 

How do we find our way out of a wilderness?

In Bemidbar we are counted, organized and assigned responsibilities. It seems like a highly practical parshah, one created to show how to physically survive in a world  rife with enemies, how to break out of a wilderness of foreign-caused violence.

My belief though is that in this delicate and exquisite detailed human plan as portrayed in Torah we are being shown how we can connect  and cycle (gilgul) our souls despite our very human idiosyncrasies, our billions of voices, our hundreds of languages, our many moments and months and days. The intricate and specific orientation in fact reminds me of the tiny thin yet strong gossamer threads of a human web, online or off, physical or invisible.

Question: How can we find a way to act as one being, one consciousness, one  continuous and cycling reflection of God while not only in prayer but while in movement, thrown into self-protection, driving to work, engaged in conversation, raising our children, shopping, dining out, traveling and going to school? How can we move as one Being every mini-second and concurrently approach greater expanse and intimacy with nature, love, and God? How can we do this while in complete recognition of our individual human bodies, our  responsibilities, our distinct and holy vows of marriage and family, our vows of tribe and village, of country and race? Of religion?

This is also the question of Shavuoth, the day commemorating our reception of Torah at Sinai. According to the Talmudic rabbis the people cannot hear: They are too frightened. They ask Moses to listen and then to report to them the commandments. How then can each individual hear God despite his or her very specific and intense emotional drive in this  thunder and lightning situation? What God does is to speak to each individual so that he or she will hear Him, whatever the tenor or height of the voice. The meaning remains one. The transmission is individualized.

This is also the aim of the counting of the Omer. For seven weeks we move through the sefirot within self while focusing on  various connections so we can arrive at a oneness of voice that can then connect…in that same mystical form…with the rest of the world.

What this means is not only to recognize our center but to know the taste and texture of that same center.  The rabbi for example often must admit he is not a judge of art as the trained historian or artist. The scholar of literature might need to admit he/she is not a shining expert in religion. And the scholar of religion may need to understand that his or her "radical" method of literary analysis is ancient for the scholar in poetry.

Ah, and what if the Jewish mystic is open to learning Christian mysticism? What if the politician will learn from the trash collector? What if the teacher will learn from the drug addict? What if the priest learns from the rabbi and the rabbi learns from the priest? What if we connect the convict to the judge and the ship captain to the orphaned child?  The writer of the 16th century to the writer of today? If they (who are alive now) pretend to know all they will learn nothing.

What then can we claim to know? According to Alan Watts, knowing self is necessary. It’s like knowing if we camp east, west, south or north. It’s knowing if we are in malchut or hod that week. Being able to connect as One with community and move as One with God depends on oneness of self. This does not mean knowing all.  It means having the humility to see what we don’t know. And to trust the prophetic vision and perception of our friend and neighbor. And to allow the ark within our heart to conceal the exquisite truth. Only then are we in a poetic conscious and sustainable Oneness that can shine our way out of a seemingly forever wilderness.