This Shabbat we read the last Torah portion in the Book of Leviticus, B’chukotai, which begins with: “If you follow My laws and faithfully observe My commandments…” [Lev. 26:3] and continues with defining for us all the rewards G!d will bestow upon us for doing so. It then goes on to say: “But if you do not obey Me and do not observe all these commandments, if you reject My laws and spurn My rules… and you break My covenant, I in turn will do this to you…” [Lev. 26:14-16] and proceeds to graphically detail all the punishments that would result from such behavior.
That concept of G!d deals in rewards and punishments, and it is an idea that no longer works. The thought that righteous behavior yields success, prosperity and peace, and sinful behavior brings disease, poverty and fear—though it might have influenced the people of antiquity—is no longer useful, for it is simply not true. While there is an element of truth that living out of love and not being driven by ego/fear will bring us all kinds of good things, our lived experience cannot be reduced to "do these good things and nothing bad will ever happen to you." This is simply too black and white, too either/or. It creates the concept of a vengeful, spiteful G!d-being who will have our back only if we live up to certain expectations and do certain things. It is a tit-for-tat contractual relationship, which no longer serves our evolved minds.
Is the solution therefore that religion needs to be done away with entirely, along with this ancient notion of G!d? Or is it rather that we might be able to save both religion and a concept of G!d by awakening to a more highly evolved concept of G!d—not to “evolve” G!d to meet our modern minds, but to evolve our minds and souls to understand a better concept of this Holy One-ness we call G!d.
Why? Because at the source of the old biblical concept of a punishing or rewarding G!d lies the outdated notion that the Divine is solely other-worldly, separated from Creation.
“Evolving” our concept of G!d to a new understanding is exactly what the sages did several hundred years ago. Already at the time of the Renaissance, sixteenth century mystics like Rabbi Moses Cordovero or Rabbi Isaac Luria of the kabbalistic school of Safed in northern Israel, presented a revolutionary-at-that-time nondual theology. With it, the idea of G!d as exclusively “out there,” external to, or other than, the manifest Universe was replaced by a vision of G!d which recognized its transcendent aspect, and added the notion that G!d is not only fully present in the manifest Universe, but that G!d is that Universe through and through.
Long before that, the prophet Jeremiah predicted "a new covenant" that G!d will establish with Yisrael. Jeremiah explained his words by saying: "I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts." This passage is unique in that it contains the only instance of the Hebrew phrase, “brit hadashah.”
While most Christians interpret this new covenant as the basis for their faith tradition, placing Jesus as the "replacement" or "final fulfillment" of the “old covenant,” and the blood of the crucified Jesus as the seal of the covenant, various Jewish voices naturally interpret Jeremiah’s words quite differently, seeing clearly that Jeremiah’s prophecy cannot apply to Jesus since the entire prophetic words were not fulfilled during the first century C.E., but are still yet to be fulfilled.
To that end, some see that Jeremiah’s “new covenant” is not a replacement of the existing covenant, but merely a figure of speech expressing the reinvigoration and revitalization of the existing Sinaitic covenant. Others think that this new, internal way of fulfilling G!d’s instructions instinctively will come in a Messiah/Messianic Age which has yet to arrive. And still others see Jeremiah’s words as laying the ground work for Rabbinic Judaism, which maintains the Sinaitic covenant while elevating and evolving our understanding of how to live the Torah to a less literal, much higher spiritual level. Because the Hebrew phrase used by Jeremiah is brit hadashah rather than Torah hadashah or Torati hadashah, Jeremiah is clearly not referring to a covenant that replaces or makes obsolete the Sinaitic covenant, but rather Jeremiah is predicting its renewal, and evolving our spiritual understanding and living of it.
While most Christians interpret this new covenant as the basis for their faith tradition, placing Jesus as the "replacement" or "final fulfillment" of the “old covenant,” and the blood of the crucified Jesus as the seal of the covenant, various Jewish voices naturally interpret Jeremiah’s words quite differently, seeing clearly that Jeremiah’s prophecy cannot apply to Jesus since the entire prophetic words were not fulfilled during the first century C.E., but are still yet to be fulfilled.
To that end, some see that Jeremiah’s “new covenant” is not a replacement of the existing covenant, but merely a figure of speech expressing the reinvigoration and revitalization of the existing Sinaitic covenant. Others think that this new, internal way of fulfilling G!d’s instructions instinctively will come in a Messiah/Messianic Age which has yet to arrive. And still others see Jeremiah’s words as laying the ground work for Rabbinic Judaism, which maintains the Sinaitic covenant while elevating and evolving our understanding of how to live the Torah to a less literal, much higher spiritual level. Because the Hebrew phrase used by Jeremiah is brit hadashah rather than Torah hadashah or Torati hadashah, Jeremiah is clearly not referring to a covenant that replaces or makes obsolete the Sinaitic covenant, but rather Jeremiah is predicting its renewal, and evolving our spiritual understanding and living of it.
Two hundred years later,
the
founding figure of Chassidism, Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer (the Baal Shem
Tov, 1698-1760) and his many successors in the Chassidic movement since,
made
this nondual, panentheistic theology the central pillar of their belief
system, defining G!d through a theological method of "proving the
negative,” which suggests that
there is no one that G!d is not, no where that G!d is not, no when that
G!d is not, no thing that G!d is not. In my mind, that equates to saying
that G!d is Process. G!d is the very ebb and flow, the constantly shifting
and changing essence of life. Holy and Sacred Process.
With that concept of G!d, rooted in the wisdom of Kabbalah and early Chassid rabbis and sages, we come back to the biblical text with a different set of eyes. We come to realize that one of the deeper teachings available in this specific text is that, inherent in Creation, is the existence of light and darkness, plenitude and pain; and that both are expressions of the Divine. This both/and experience is more accurate to our lives firmly rooted in the day-to-day real world.
The more we resist both/and, the more we resist living in the grey areas, the more we seek to exclusively experience light, happiness, and rewards, the more we set ourselves up for suffering. Even the Buddha clearly saw this. If the spiritual path can be defined as consciously living in a relational covenant with our concept of G!d, then perhaps its truest experience is in the acceptance that life is a series of “acts of G!d”-- some fortunate, others tragic, many of which we neither cause nor have control over, and some of which are simply random events.
Our evolved concept does not do away with the notion that G!d is guiding us and intimately involved in our daily lives; rather, it believes that G!d is more deeply engaged in the minutiae of our daily lives than ever. It goes far beyond the notion of a contractual "you do this and I'll do that and if you don't do such and such, I will punish you." It enters into the far more intimate relationship that embraces G!d being right here in the boat bailing water with us.
Life is not all light and happiness. Which is to say, G!d is not all light and happiness. If we believe that G!d is in every moment, as we let go of the need for our human experience to be different than what it is (or what it was)--not as in trying to improve things or striving to be our best, but those situations about which we cannot change (weather, past abuse, other tragedies and deaths--all things outside of our control) and as we are more willing and able to embrace both the light and the shadows of life with equanimity, perhaps that is when we come closer to experiencing our true Divine nature, the nondual Essence of Being that we are.
If G!d's holiest name is "I AM that I AM/I AM Who I Will Be", then perhaps our holiest experience is this conscious embracing of life's moments, good and not so good, as all being of a piece, all wholistic, all divine even if we can't see the divinity therein. Our most G!dly selves begin to embrace the divine in every moment, not just the good ones, knowing deeply that G!d is closer than our heartbeats, more intimately engaged in every aspect of our lives than we are consciously aware. Because, just maybe, G!d is not a Thing or a Person out there, but our very life essence right here, and in which we constantly swim every moment we are alive.Our ancestors defined G!d in a strict tit-for-tat contractual relationship. We, now, get to take our concept of G!d and break it out of that box. The contract moves into covenant, which goes far beyond what each can do for the other out of legal obligation. A covenant is a real relationship, not unlike a marriage. And as in any deeply meaningful marriage relationship, we know that light and dark, good and not so good, for better and for worse, just like a beloved marriage partner, G!d is closer than our heartbeat, right here in the boat, bailing water with us. Even in times of darkness and pain, G!d does not abandon us, because we KNOW that there is no one that G!d is not, no where that G!d is not, no when that G!d is not, nothing that G!d is not. No tit-for-tat contract could ever give us that.
With that concept of G!d, rooted in the wisdom of Kabbalah and early Chassid rabbis and sages, we come back to the biblical text with a different set of eyes. We come to realize that one of the deeper teachings available in this specific text is that, inherent in Creation, is the existence of light and darkness, plenitude and pain; and that both are expressions of the Divine. This both/and experience is more accurate to our lives firmly rooted in the day-to-day real world.
The more we resist both/and, the more we resist living in the grey areas, the more we seek to exclusively experience light, happiness, and rewards, the more we set ourselves up for suffering. Even the Buddha clearly saw this. If the spiritual path can be defined as consciously living in a relational covenant with our concept of G!d, then perhaps its truest experience is in the acceptance that life is a series of “acts of G!d”-- some fortunate, others tragic, many of which we neither cause nor have control over, and some of which are simply random events.
Our evolved concept does not do away with the notion that G!d is guiding us and intimately involved in our daily lives; rather, it believes that G!d is more deeply engaged in the minutiae of our daily lives than ever. It goes far beyond the notion of a contractual "you do this and I'll do that and if you don't do such and such, I will punish you." It enters into the far more intimate relationship that embraces G!d being right here in the boat bailing water with us.
Life is not all light and happiness. Which is to say, G!d is not all light and happiness. If we believe that G!d is in every moment, as we let go of the need for our human experience to be different than what it is (or what it was)--not as in trying to improve things or striving to be our best, but those situations about which we cannot change (weather, past abuse, other tragedies and deaths--all things outside of our control) and as we are more willing and able to embrace both the light and the shadows of life with equanimity, perhaps that is when we come closer to experiencing our true Divine nature, the nondual Essence of Being that we are.
If G!d's holiest name is "I AM that I AM/I AM Who I Will Be", then perhaps our holiest experience is this conscious embracing of life's moments, good and not so good, as all being of a piece, all wholistic, all divine even if we can't see the divinity therein. Our most G!dly selves begin to embrace the divine in every moment, not just the good ones, knowing deeply that G!d is closer than our heartbeats, more intimately engaged in every aspect of our lives than we are consciously aware. Because, just maybe, G!d is not a Thing or a Person out there, but our very life essence right here, and in which we constantly swim every moment we are alive.Our ancestors defined G!d in a strict tit-for-tat contractual relationship. We, now, get to take our concept of G!d and break it out of that box. The contract moves into covenant, which goes far beyond what each can do for the other out of legal obligation. A covenant is a real relationship, not unlike a marriage. And as in any deeply meaningful marriage relationship, we know that light and dark, good and not so good, for better and for worse, just like a beloved marriage partner, G!d is closer than our heartbeat, right here in the boat, bailing water with us. Even in times of darkness and pain, G!d does not abandon us, because we KNOW that there is no one that G!d is not, no where that G!d is not, no when that G!d is not, nothing that G!d is not. No tit-for-tat contract could ever give us that.
No comments:
Post a Comment