Mindful Torah...and more

כי הנה המלכים נועדו עברו יחדו For here the kings/rulers assembled; they passed together. It is a beautiful Memorial Day here in Amherst, so I'm going to keep today's commentary brief. In my commentary on the previous verse (May 17)  I wrote of the importance of remembering the Divine within us, which connects us to everyone and everything.  When we remember this we can avoid the snares and traps of the ego and connect with the "heavenly Jerusalem," that higher plane which I have presented as the central focus of this psalm. When we remember to connect to the Oneness of the universe, we become as 'rulers' (I am trying to gender neutralize a gendered text) for we find power and majesty within.  But we are not rulers of others, but rulers of ourselves.  It is as if we are all masters of our own destiny.  However, this is not totally true, for this only occurs if we realize that the ultimate source of our power is indeed a Higher Power and not the self or the e...

ישא ברכה מאת יהוה וצדקה מאלהי ישעו They shall lift up blessing from the Eternal and righteousness from the God of their salvation. Last week's commentary concluded with: "By being mindful we can avoid these traps [when the ego tries to convince us that self-centered action is really for the good of the One] and do that which lifts up our soul to holiness and connects the soul to its source. When we act this way, then we will certainly find ourselves standing on holy ground on "God's holy mountain". And that is where we are all meant to be." When any of is able to act in a way that affirms our connection with all creation through the One of the universe then we are standing on 'God's holy mountain.' From our place on the mountain we can see the world and the glory it contains. We are able to see the unity that connects all within God. In every moment when we are mindful and recognize this, then we lift up a blessing from the Divine.  For t...

This week's parashah is Be'haalotekha (Numbers/ Be'midbar 8:1-12:16).  At the end of the last parashah , God was described as speaking to Moses from between the wings of the cherubim (angelic/animal beings too difficult to describe right now) that hovered over the Ark of the Covenant.  This occurred immediately following the completion of the Mishkan / portable desert sanctuary.  In the opening line of Be'haalotekha , God continues the conversation and tell Moses to instruct his brother Aaron, the Kohen Gadol /High Priest concerning his ascent to kindle the lights of the seven-branch menorah .  Hence the name Be’haalotekha , meaning “when you ascend.” Rabbis and commentators through the ages have discussed the symbolism of the menorah as representing the light of the Divine.  In addition, the Kabbalists/mystics imagined that the seven branches of the menorah represented the seven lower sefirot /divine emanations that human beings can experien...

עדות ביהוסף שמו בצאתו על־ארץ מצרים ;שפת לא־ידעתי אשמע              I believe this is the most difficult verse to translate of all that I've come across so far. I looked at any number of translations, and all of them differed in significant ways.  After thinking about the verse for quite some time I would like to propose the following translation:  It is a testimony that he (God) placed in Yehoseph (Joseph) when he went out over the land of Mitzrayim (Egypt); a language that I did not know I shall hear. I still am not sure what I believe these words mean. So I am going to simply present what I have arrived at right now and hope that some of my readers in cyberspace will perhaps offer some additional interpretations: At first, the verse seemed to refer to the previous verse, which commanded the sounding of the shofar on the new moon and full moon.  This verse referred to the shofar as  both a חק hok , a law not easily ...

  I apologize for the absence of psalm commentaries for the last two days (I am not writing them on Shabbat).  As I wrote at the begin, I will try to write these on a daily basis, but there are simply times when this is not possible.   Thank you for understanding.  SPN עמך יהוה ידכאו ונחלתך יענו   God, they may crush your people; they may oppress your inheritance. As in my commentaries on the two preceding verses, "they"  refers to the ego and its forces that try to separate us from the Oneness of the universe. This verse is profound in its very simplicity.  It is these  forces of the ego that try to get us to think that the I , which is merely an illusion, is more important than the One , which is the true reality. These forces, through their manipulations, can ultimately bring about destruction.  However, it is important to remember that the two verbs, translated here as forms of "crush" and "oppress," are not the  future t...

Naso ( Be'midbar /Numbers 4:21-7:89) In the parashah, God commands Aaron and his sons to bless the people with the words that have become so familiar to us, "May God Bless you and keep you; May God's face shine upon you and be gracious unto you; May God lift up the Divine face towards you and grant you Shalom/Peace." Until this day, in more traditional communities, the Kohanim - those believed to be descended from Aaron - stand in front of the congregation and offer this blessing in the same way we believe the ancient Kohanim did.  They spread their hands out in front of them, palms facing down, and their fingers separated in the special manner reserved for the priests (though more familiar to many of us as Spock's "live long and prosper" sign on Star Trek, which Leonard Nimoy borrowed from his Jewish heritage). Then they recite the blessing for all the "non- Kohanim " present.  This ceremony has been viewed throughout t...

Your witnessing is truly affirmed; holiness befits your house, God, for all times. The conclusion of this brief, but joyous, psalm reminds us of the nature of holiness and godliness in our world. It is God that witnesses the beauty, glory and complexity of existence.  We can affirm this completely because it is through us that God witnesses the nature of existence.  We are the eyes of God.  We, One with the Divine, have the eyes to see the world in all its splendor because we are living and acting in eat day after day. If we pay attention, we can  see the splendor around us, even beneath the mire that sometimes appears to be the reality. What we witness when we look at the world with our souls, the godliness within us, is the holiness that exists within everything.  This holiness fills the world, which is God's house. When we see the world in this way we also connect with the holiness within ourselves. The great 18th century hassidic rebbe, Nachman of Bra...

  Torah can be seen as a conversation between God and us.  Or between the Divine that is within us and the human that is within us.  According to one tradition, the only sound that was heard by the people at Mount Sinai was that of the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet....the aleph .  The aleph , though thought of as silent, can be seen as the silent sound within us before we actually create speech.  This evening we begin the celebration of the festival of Shavuot Meaning 'weeks' in Hebrew, Shavuot is the day after we counted 7 weeks from the 2nd day of Passover.  It was originally an agricultural pilgrimage/harvest festival which came to be viewed as the celebration of the giving of Torah on Mt. Sinai, may we all quiet our minds so we can hear the sound of the silent aleph within each of us. Chag Sameakh - Happy Holiday - Steven The Conversation Begins We stand at the mountain Ground shakes    quakes ...

They know nothing, they understand nothing.  They walk about in darkness;  all the foundations of the earth are shaken.  The ego and the forces in the world try to separate us and make us believe that we are alone, self-sufficient and have no need to think beyond ourselves. They try to convince us that they know the truth, when in reality they known nothing.   But these "forces", and those human beings who allow themselves to fall into the trap of the ego (which is all of us various times in our lives), really do not understand the nature of existence.  They do not understand that "going it alone" and "rugged individualism" run counter to the reality of existence. And so, led by the ego, we walk around in darkness, unable to see the truth of what is in front of us.  We may be able to see the physical forms, but the essence of the universe is hidden from us. We spend our days in utter futility chasing after self-gratification and fulfillment so tha...

God is known in her palaces as a stronghold. The psalm continues to extol  Jerusalem, God's holy city.  However, my commentary continues to focus on the "heavenly Jerusalem." I ended last week's commentary (May 10, 2010) with the following: " Our goal in each moment is to be mindful and pay attention to our own spiritual self so that we can find the hidden place within.  That hidden place will enable us to enter that realm where there are no separations or divisions, where there is only unity.  Then the challenge is to bring that sense of oneness and unity back to the world in which we all live and to make it a reality here as well." This week's verse speaks of the palaces of Jerusalem.  The Hebrew word used here is armon ארמון, which can also be translated as a citadel or fortified tower.  But whatever this structure is,  the psalmist makes clear  that its strength comes not from the bricks or stones from which it is made, but from Go...

Only those whose hands and hearts are pure, who has not raised up their soul to emptiness and has not sworn deceitfully. This verse refers to the question in verse 3:  "who may ascend God's holy mountain and stand in God's holy place?"  In last week's commentary I wrote that we all have the ability to "climb God's holy mountain" and to stand in holiness.  In other words, we each have the ability to be present with the Divine if we are mindful.    Verse 4 gives another answer to the question, though I see it more as a further explication.   Again, each one of us has the potential.  We each have holiness and Divinity within our souls.  But in order to truly experience holiness in the moment we need our actions and thoughts to be "pure."  I do not read this as in anyway saying that we should judge which thoughts and actions are to be labeled as "pure."  Rather, I believe that most, if not all, actions can be seen as pure and ho...

The name of this week's parashah, and the fourth book of the torah, is Be'midbar meaning "in the wilderness."  It can be found in the book of Be’midbar /Numbers 1:1 - 4:20). A rabbinic commentary points out that if we change one vowel in the name of the parasha ,  the word במדבר   be’midbar , in the wilderness, becomes be'midabeיr , or with one who is speaking. I found this ironic, since the wilderness is usually associated with silence and solitude. However, we can imagine that the wilderness of Sinai and its surroundings must have been anything but silent, with the multitudes of Israelites and others wandering through it for 40 years. However, we all know that even in the midst of a cacophony one can experience silence, just as one can experience deafening noise while walking in solitude.  What determines the silence or the solitude is not one’s physical surroundings, but one’s inner state. This poem uses the two different readings of the let...