Torah Portion - Magic of 10 commandments
Have one day a week when you are not defined by all of your masks1) Anochi hashem elokecha
The great commandment in regard to God is the commandment to love. What is a commandment to love God? Commandment not only Milashon Mitzvha
but Milashon Tzavtah. Tzavata means to be together with, to be intimate with. The commandment to love God is an invitation to the deepest intimacy with the divine. It is an invitation to the erotic merger with the Shecina in which I realize that I am so much more then a mere skin encapsulated ego. Love at its point of origin is not an emotion but a shift in perception. The lover realizes that she is part of the beloved and that it has always been so. To love is to expand – to include all of and everything in my being – to realize that Anochi- my deepest I – my most radical unique self – my soul print – participates in God.
2) You shall serve no other God but me
Ritual is an act of memory. There was once a time when someone experienced the unmediated presence of God. God who is Shechina – embracing us with infinite tenderness and love in the splendor of her bosom even as he calls us to growth, achievement and greatness of heart and spirit. It is that God that we ritual remembers. To often however the ritual becomes disconnected from the memory. The word religion comes from the Latin Re-Ligare- to reconnect- that is to reconnect to the memory. When the memory gets lost and the ritual becomes the value in and of itself –then too often it degenerates into idolatry.
3) Do not take God’s name in vain
Too often one group of people, be it a religion or a people who love one idea or one country, takes God’s name as its own. "We are the representative of God and truth and none else has a place." In Jewish Renaissance we believe that this Hijacking of God is to take God’s name in vain. Our image of the spirit is that of a symphony in which every plays their own instrument even as they listen deeply to the music of all the other instruments. It is from this diversity that the music of the sphere rises up from and sweetens or existence with moments of pure pleasure and transcendence.
4) Keep the Shabbat
Have one day a week when you are not defined by all of your masks; take a Shevita from all of your acting and all of your roles in the play of life. Understand that you can only be the hero of your own story. Your soul yearns for silence. Silence which according to the mystical masters is one of the inner secrets of Shabbat. It is in the deep meditative silence of the Shabbat that you find the words that your soul craves. This is the Sod HaHashmal in the Holy Ari. Chash—Mal. Chash-silence- Mal- words. Chash Mal- the words that come from the depths of the silence. These are the words of Shabbat. One who keeps Shabbat for 70 years in effect spends 10 years of his life in Hebrew Vippassana!!
5) Honor your mother and your father
In the tradition this means honor but do not necessarily obey. Indeed another verse reads. “Ish Imo VeAviv Terau Ve-et Shabtotai Tishmoru Ani Adonai”; explains the wisdom masters- honor your parents but not if they tell you to break your Shabbat. The powerful idea in this teaching is that we need to receive from the earlier generations great wisdom for which we have great reverence and honor – however we need to be make our spiritual decisions not in obedience to them but with their inspiration and guidance even as we decide independently. This is the principle of Chiddush.
6) You shall not kill
When you read the commandments horizontally instead of vertically we see that Lo Tirtzach is next to Anochi Hashem Elokecha. This is for the deepest of reasons. That which causes ethical collapse is always a failure of Eros. Eros means in the sense we are using it; to live on the inside of God’s face. To experience the fullness of presence which comes from the realization the participation mystique in the God head? To participate in the yearning force of being and finally to experience the interconnectivity of the all and the all. When this Eros is missing then a person is overwhelmed by emptiness. Emptiness always needs to be filled.
If it is not filled with Eros it will be filled with Pseudo Eros. Manipulation, Slander, Abuse and Murder of all Kinds. We in Jewish Renaissance believe that the ultimate ethical embrace which will lead to the healing and transformation of the planet comes only from Eros. It is an ethics that wells up from the deepest nature of our being- from the God self that is our essence and that seeks to embrace and be embraced in love.
7) You shall not commit adultery
Not with someone else’s wife but you must commit adultery with your wife. Said R. Isaac “From the day the temple was destroyed the taste of passionate sexuality was taken from the licit context and given to the illicit context (adultery) as it says “Stolen waters are sweet”. What his means is that the rebuilding of the temple is when we are able to experience the full power and passion of adultery within the context of committed and stable relationships. Amen!
8) Thou shall not steal
This applies not only to physical objects but to what the masters call Genaivat Daat. Daat means consciousness. The stealing of consciousness is not to recognize and honor the different levels of consciousness all of whom have a place which needs to be nurtured and honored.
According the Baal Shem- (and there are analogues in every great system of spirit) the first level of consciousness is called Hachna’ah. This is the level of Orthodoxy. It is also the level of falling in love. It is about total submission. I am willing and ready to do anything you want me to do – to live wherever you want to live – to see whatever movie you want to see tonight – to fulfill all the commandments because I love you.
Level two is Havdalah; Havdalah is religious philosophy, Taamei Mitzvot and the Academic World. I am still involved but I have separated. I experience myself as independent. I look for patterns, explanations; I subject my religious experience to analysis. While it gains in intellectual depth which is crucial it also loses its sense of immediacy and urgency.
Level three is Hamtaka. Sweetness. Here we have arrived at a whole new place. What happens is every new level transcends and includes the previous level. So sweetness transcends but includes levels one and two. In level three we experience the sweetness of dwelling in God’s house which dwells deep in our hearts. Lachazot Be-Noam Hahsem Ulevaker Be-Heichalo.
For example at level two there is a sharp havdala between the masculine and the feminine – between Israel and the Nations and between the human being and nature. These are critical havdalot; when these havdalot do not happen various forms of ethical disaster always loom. A clear gender identity is critical. A unique religious system to which one is dedicated to and follows its spiritual practice with love and discipline is critical. A clear havdalah between human and nature is critical otherwise we can never control nature – including our own natures. Noone wants to or can live in a world where people exercise no control over their natures.
And yet at the level three –Hamtaka- I realize that I must honor and integrate the other gender; I understand that Israel and the Nations are ultimately one that the human being is very much part of nature and disassociates from nature at his peril. The great danger is when instead of going to level three –the differentiation of level two turns into disassociation!
Geneivat Daat happens when you skip steps. When you try and get to hamatka but are not willing to do the work of havdalah or embrace the experience of hachana’ah. A Drum circle at a festival for example can be a level one circle or a level three circle. On the outside they look very similar; on the inside they are totally different. Jewish Renaissance seeks Hamtaka; but if it skips the first two levels it is Geneivat Daat and doomed to failure.
9) You shall not bear false witness
False Witness is to pretend to be what you are not. When you pretend to be what you are not you are always afraid someone will expose you as an imposter. You have not owned your own shadow so you project it on everyone around you. You bear false witness against your friend.
To often our rabbis today claim spiritual stature that they do not really have. They claim a false perfection. They refuse to let us see them as real human beings who rise and fall –who are imperfect and yet striving for the light. It is for this reason that in Bayit Chadash we have started a new Tochnit Hashamach LeRabunut which we call Hashamacha Holistit. The point is that to be a rabbi it to aspire to be a spiritual master.
To do so I must engage my body – my emotions – my mind and my being; what we call in kabbalah the worlds of Assiya (body) Yetzira (emotions) Beriya (mind) and Atizilut (being). Hasmacha Holistit..to train our very deepest selves to be vessels to receive Ruach HaKodesh! That is the real invitation that the spirit offers not only to every Rabbi – but to every human being on the path!
10) You shall not covet that your neighbor’s wife
The secret of joy and goodness is to know that you are exactly where you need to be right now. If you do not know this great truth you will always be chomed that which is foreign to your story. Again we come back to Avodah Zarah. In the worship of the one god which stands opposed to idolatry there are three core truths.
Truth one; you were created to receive the most pleasure that you are able to hold in the vessel of your being. The more pleasure the better.
Truth two: The greatest pleasure is growth; the journey- the path in which you ascend and descend to your highest and deepest self. Spiritual body building for the soul.
Truth Three: There is no journey – you are already there. And let the hint be sufficient to the wise.
Rabbi Mordechai Gafni - Teacher and student of Torah; Leader of Bayit Chadash Spiritual Community and Movement; Chair of Integral Kabbalah at Integral Institute of Ken Wilber
The "Bayit Chadash" website: www.bayitchadash.org
posted by jone @ 12:39
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