|
From the Rabbi:
In contemporary spiritual conversations, you'll often hear words like "presence", "mindfulness" and "vulnerability" used to describe the experience of connection, embodiment and 'living in the moment'. Yet, in our classical literature, from Scripture to Talmud to medieval to modern, these categories are seldom mentioned explicitly. When we imagine a scene like like Ezekiel envisioning the Divine Chariot or Rebbi Akiva 'entering the Pardes' it's not quite the same image we get in today's 'wellness blogs' of someone in yoga pants sitting on a cushion with their legs crossed and their hands folded, with incense and solfeggio resonance music.
Maybe you don't get those images, adds and buzzwords in your feed if you're not listening to podcasts about spirituality, but as neuroscience explores things like polyvagal theory, brain waves and epigenetics researchers are discovering the incredible healing power of presence and mindfulness. It ought to make us wonder, wouldn't the Torah, being of Divine origin also proscribe for us something along these lines? Is being a neurotic, overly-cerebral, perhaps OCD personality obsessed with getting everything right, carrying centuries of trauma and convinced that the whole world is out to get us really the Torah's picture of enlightenment?! And if not, how come so many of us suffer from these maladies, especially people wholly immersed in torah study and religious indoctrination? And why do we have such a hard time just feeling safe and authentic in the present? Are we supposed to just be comforted with "when Mashiach comes, then we'll feel safe and experience God's presence"? Or maybe the world is in such a terrible state that we really should be freaking out and need to empower our sympathetic nervous system and let our fight or flight instinct completely take over?
Or perhaps is all the new-agey stuff about mindfulness, presence and vulnerability is actually right there in the Torah, perhaps going by another name? How do you say "enviro-somatic conscientiousness" in Biblical Hebrew? Could it be that our ancestors practiced mindfulness and presence and that our accumulated trauma has us now dissociating from the invitation (commandment?) to meet God here and now? Could it be that right here in Parshat Ekev sits the Biblical seed of 'Be Here Now' spirituality? I'll give you three guesses...
(Deut 10:12) וְעַתָּה֙ יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל מָ֚ה ה' אֱלֹהֶ֔יךָ שֹׁאֵ֖ל מֵעִמָּ֑ךְ כִּ֣י אִם־לְ֠יִרְאָ֠ה אֶת־ה' אֱלֹקיךָ לָלֶ֤כֶת בְּכׇל־דְּרָכָיו֙ וּלְאַהֲבָ֣ה אֹת֔וֹ וְלַֽעֲבֹד֙ אֶת־ה' אֱלֹהֶ֔יךָ בְּכׇל־לְבָבְךָ֖ וּבְכׇל־נַפְשֶֽׁךָ׃
And now, O Israel, what does your Hashem God ask of being with you? Only to fear Hashem your God to walk with Him in all His ways, to love and to serve Hashem your God with all your heart and soul.
Oh, is that it?
To be present, "and now", aware of His presence (With you) and let that presence elicit from us (asking) wholehearted love, reverence and devotion.
But the first step is so simple. "And now Israel". Just Be Here Now, with me. Be yourself with me. Is that really so hard? Yeah, actually sometimes it is.
Our sages call this passage "Parshat HaYirah", "the Chapter of Awe". It's one of the several iterations of the Scriptural Mitzvah of "Fear of God", and a passage from which we learn the very basics of what that Mitzvah entails. Now in most literary or cinematic presentations, a character who "just wants to be feared" is probably a bad guy, or at least someone terribly suffering. Either the perpetrator or the victim. Neither of those roles really allow us to just be ourself. And, why would the one thing God really wants from us be fear? If it were all about fear inspiring obedience and submission to his domination and authority, why ask for it instead of demand it? And why follow it up with Love and wholehearted devotion?
So we need to understand the nature of this word יראה Yirah, often translated as fear, awe or reverence. But it doesn't really mean those things. פחד Pachad is the emotional response to danger, being derived from פה חד 'It's sharp here'. אימה Aimah literally means "Where, what?!" is used like 'dread', discomfort with the utterly unknown. חרדה Charadah is trembling - a somatic sense of the Flight/Fight response being triggered. גור Gur is another word for fear, feeling like a stranger, not belonging. בהלה Behala is like 'alarm', מהומה Mehuma is 'panic'. And there are other words for worry, anxiety and the whole range of emotions that generally are though of as subcategories of fear. But none of these are what God is asking for. Just Yirah, which literally means "He sees". The mitzvah is to feel seen. To have that experience resonate in our emotions and in our bodies. To accustom ourselves to living in God's sight. Not one day. Not when you die and are judged. Not when Mashiach comes. Now. God sees you now. How do you feel about that?
Feeling seen can be terrifying if you're uncomfortable with the one seeing you or if you're carrying shame. But that's not the experience being articulated here. It's not a demand to submit to being strip searched. Nor a performance opportunity to present ourselves as we'd like to be. Rather, God is asking us to come out of Adam's hiding and be seen totally and completely, as we are. Not judged, just seen. To reconcile with God's Love (which he professes several times in this Parsha). To be seen so that you feel safe, present, loving and integrous. Like a child able to play knowing their parent is watching and schepping nachas. Seen by one who loves you unconditionally.
And this of course can only happen in the present moment. Not anxiety about the future. Not fear of punishment or fear of suffering. No 'what if'. That would be the wrong kind of fear. This is more about Presence. Being present in the present to receive the present of His Presence. And that is the gift he is asking from us! Rashi on this verse quotes our sages as saying "everything is in God's hands except the 'fear of Heaven'. Meaning, Everything is God's, so what gift can we possible give Him? Not presents, only presence. And that's all He wants.
Shabbat Shalom,
Shlomo
| 
