When I asked a group of 8-year-old Hebrew school students, “What is the most important question that you have about Judaism?” one boy responded, “Why does everyone want to kill us?” The whole class nodded in perplexity. The question is asked again and again as we encounter persecution, as we remember martyrs, as we try to understand our history. What was the cause of this tragedy or that? What were the factors that led up to it? How could it have been prevented? Was it deserved? Why? What is the meaning of this suffering?
Sometimes I avoid the question. Sometimes I am paralyzed or numbed by it. As every attempt to answer falls short, the question deepens, changes forms, or perhaps becomes the fuel for sadness, cynicism or courage. What I have noticed about these attempts to answer the question is that they all try to explain events in terms of what has preceded them. History looks back and understands the “causes” which have produced the “effects”. These attempts and the methodology that they represent are often brilliant, insightful and thorough (in terms of that methodology), and yet they do not suffice. The question remains …
Time
This failure of history is based on a certain understanding of Time. Time moves forward. The past causes the present. The present causes the future. When we want to know why something is the way it is, we look to the past that formed it. And through an historical consciousness, we see present circumstances as forming our future. Since this strategy has so often proved unsuccessful in explaining events to me, I am challenged to re-examine the foundation on which that strategy is based, namely our concept of Time.
Immanuel Kant, in his Prolegamena to a Future Metaphysics, suggests that Time is a construct of the mind that allows us to order the world and thus experience reality by laying it out in consecutive moments. Imagine all moments coexisting at once. My experience with both meditation and psychedelics confirms the fact that the mind is capable of different, equally valid models of Time, and that the consciousness that we term “normal” is only one of many. Suppose we accept Kant’s thesis and suspend our ordinary understanding of the flow of Time.
Even though the language of cause and effect seems inadequate… from this standpoint outside the course of Time, couldn’t the future be as much as a “cause” as the past? The truth of this suggestion shines out to me through the microcosm of my life. I see that my own experience of suffering (physical and emotional), has offered me the possibility of becoming more compassionate and wise. If I step outside of the construct of time, would it be true to say that the impetus for the growth of compassion “caused” my personal suffering (in collusion with the World-out-there)?
From that perspective, the answer to the boy’s question, “Why does everybody want to kill us?” is from the future of each murder, not its past, and the response might be, “The experience of suffering has given us the opportunity to learn compassion. Shall we?” Is it possible to bring that meaning (that we intuit from the standpoint outside of time) back with us into the life of ordered time? Can we examine the past in terms of the birth of possibilities for growth and learning? Can we experience present circumstance as pointing us towards those new possibilities? Can that expanded meaning inform our lives so that we don’t fall into the pits of despair that imprison us in meaninglessness?
Perhaps the practice of Shabbat can be seen in this light. Shabbat has been called a taste of Eternity, because through its practice, we learn to stand outside the flow of Time and gain a new perspective on our lives. Imagine stepping outside the river of time to sit atop a high, high mountain. From there we look down on the river and can see its origins in the northern slopes to its conclusion at the sea. We see its twists and turns, its rapids, falls and calm water places. We see it all at once at a glance.
We watch in love and awe… and then when Shabbat is over, we climb down and dive back into its currents… refreshed and renewed by the wonder of the whole. Our faith is restored by the wide glimpse that at once encompasses both the rocky steep rivulets and the blue inviting sea.
Space
Now, suppose we looked at space in the same way, as a construct of mind that allows us to experience reality outside of ourselves and with the dimensions of distance. Jewish tradition offers a number of “places” through which we situate ourselves outside of ordinary space. These places are accessible through prayer, meditation, and d’vekut. We have called these places by many names — Gan Eden, Pardes, Jerusalem of the Heart, Zion. All these places belong to that other Israel which exists outside of ordinary spatial reality.
I propose that this Israel plays the same role vis-a-vis space as Shabbat does for Time. From this Israel, the state of mind in which Holiness is encountered, perceived, experienced, defined in terms of space, we emerge with a vision of how to sanctify the life of boundaries, with an awareness of infinity. The Hasidim called this state of mind Artziut, from the root Eretz for “land” or “world.” To understand Artziut, the spacious but non-spatial Israel, as merely a “spiritualization” of the real thing, is to miss its essential nature and trivialize its real potential in bringing holiness into our normal spatial reality. The Hebrew word for space is challal, which is also related to challil, the hollow flute, and chillul, the hollowing out of (for example) God’s Name. And it is related to chol, the word for profane, ordinary, the opposite of holy. How can we, a nation of priests, bring holiness into the ordinary open space, the hollow space, of our lives?
Consider the life of our dreams. Every one of us spends nearly a third of our lives sleeping, and much of that time is spent dreaming. Yet for most people, there is an acute disjuncture between dream life and waking life. The reality of our waking life is considered real while our dream life is not. Those realities that are explored in dream are so devalued that most of us don’t even remember our dreams, and when we do, we are ill-equipped to assimilate or celebrate their gifts or challenges.
When the worlds of our experience are severed from one another, both worlds suffer from sterility and inertia. When bridges between these realities are built, and the connections are valued, each world is enriched. Dreams can inform our waking life with their poetry, humor, expanded horizon and story. They can spark our creativity, inspiration and yearning. In turn, the waking consciousness can provide dreams with questions, focus, direction, and a treasure of images. In connecting the night with the day, we become whole.
Artziut, the Israel of our collective dream, is the dream that we have dreamt in Galut. It is necessary to our health, vitality, beauty, and growth as a people. Aretz cannot replace Artziut nor can the two be cut off from each other or held in opposition. Often these two Israels have been set against each other and this is truly a tragedy. Dedicating oneself to the physical Israel seems in effect to mean losing or losing sight of the (non-physical) Israel… which is the source, the place (like Gan Eden), from which the rivers flow. Just as Shabbat shows us eternity of time, the Israel of Artziut shows us infinity of space, the accessibility of that vastness and the knowledge of being “at home” within ourselves. This experience nurtures the soul in a way that makes it possible for a person to carry that spaciousness into the most crowded and limited circumstance, and still thrive… into the ghetto, into the cramped Bet Midrash. In the Jerusalem of the Heart, the view is always wide, the air pure and golden, and the possibilities for exploration endless.
The dream of Artziut, and the remembrance of that dream, give us the experience and education of yearning. Yearning is composed of two complementary aspects — a glimpse of perfection and an awareness of incompleteness. The conjunction of these two aspects transforms a person into a seeker. It removes complacency, inspiring the passion and courage that allows us to reach beyond ourselves.
Time and Space
What makes my life holy in Time, is not Shabbat. It is the graceful movement between Shabbat and the week and Shabbat again. The rhythm of that movement becomes the beat of my secret heart, the in and out of the breath that enlivens me, the up and down of the wings that give me flight. The holiest space that I know is at the intersection of Artziut and Aretz. There, the very details of the physical world are continually pointing us towards its infinite mysteries. There, the yearning of Galut directs us to our home in God and fills us with strength for the bittersweet journey, a strength that we bring to the world as we sanctify each day.
© Shefa Gold. All rights reserved.