Within You Without You

There are two tensions in the practice of Mussar that are important for us to talk about.

First is the tension between the physical and spiritual dimensions of change. We can change our behavior but not go the next step of transforming ourselves internally. For example, a person might be trying to become more generous (in relationships, with money, etc). Through mussar practice, one could be trained in a kind of Pavlovian way, to perform the right actions. So, you make it a habit to give money, you make it a habit to make sure that people you are in relationship with are taken care of. Yet, internally, your spirit is in rebellion against this and constantly resenting your giving, dubious about the needs of others versus your own needs. This is not the goal of mussar. We are striving to change internally as well - though this may begin with reluctant acts in the physical world. Ultimately, mussar practice is pointing to a higher consciousness, toward a unity underlying all physical existence, so that the practitioner becomes more aware of this deeper reality and more willing, therefore, with the ethical dictates that flow from it.

The second tension is between an awareness of one's flaws and a sense of magnificent spiritual potential within each individual. Mussar practice begins with a very deep sense of self-awareness. The self-aware person will see the many shortcomings, missed opportunities, wasted time, selfish and cruel acts, misguided strivings, etc, etc, that is at the heart of so much of our time here. This self-awareness can lead to a sense of shame and a very low and dejected spirit. If this low state persists, it will become impossible to ascend to the next level - we can't lift ourselves up if we are always focused on our shameful character. The Aish Kodesh (I'm on a big Aish Kodesh trip right now and you will continue to hear much about him in the coming weeks) writes about the impossibility of drawing down Torah from heaven when we are in such a debased state. It becomes impossible to access and draw out the divine potential that is within us if we are blinded to it.

The answer is of course not to try to lower of our self-awareness - ultimately our ability to transcend our current state hinges on our capacity to see a brilliant light within ourselves. The challenge is to see ourselves as complex beings who have a deep core of holiness but who are guided away from that and are led to be out of touch with that. Rav Simchah Bunam famously taught that we should have in one pocket a note that says "I am but dust and ashes" and in the other pocket a note that says "For my sake the world was created." The trick is to know when to reach for each one.

Finally, the lyrics to George Harrison's "Within You Without You" are either terribly insightful, or just ludicrous. But the title fits here, and it's a great song:



We were talking-about the space between us all
And the people-who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion
Never glimpse the truth-then it's far too late-when they pass away.
We were talking-about the love we all could share-when we find it
To try our best to hold it there-with our love
With our love-we could save the world-if they only knew.
Try to realize it's all within yourself
No-one else can make you change
And to see you're really only very small,
And life flows ON within you and without you.
We were talking-about the love that's gone so cold and the people,
Who gain the world and lose their soul-
They don't know-they can't see-are you one of them?
When you've seen beyond yourself-then you may find, peace of mind,
Is waiting there-
And the time will come when you see
we're all one, and life flows on within you and without you.

Lashon Ha-Ra no.3: Last Words on Lashon HaRa

1) Please share your thoughts on the relationship between Lashon HaRa and idolatry in the comments section below.

2) I want to relate a story about the Chofetz Chayim (see previous post). It is suspiciously similar to a story about Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk that ends quite differently.

He was travelling on a train to another town, inconspicuous in simple garb. On the train he encountered a Jew and they be began to talk. After some time, the Chofetz Chayim asked him where he was going and he answered that he had heard that Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan, the Chofetz Chayim, would be teaching in such and such a town, and he was going to hear this luminary among this generation, this incredibly pious and brilliant scholar.

"I know him," the Chofetz Chayim responds. "He's not so great." Outraged, the Jew slapped him. "How dare you speak in this way about such a Torah scholar!" They parted ways.

Later the man goes to see the Chofetz Chayim teach and, of course, recognizes him. Horrified, he approaches the Chofetz Chayim and apologizes profusely.

"Please, don't worry," says the Chofetz Chayim. "You taught me a great lesson. I knew, of course, that it is a great sin to speak lashon ha-ra about another person. But I did not know that it was also a great sin to speak lashon ha-ra against yourself."

Lashon Ha-Ra no.2: The Word on Bad Speech

For those who want to pursue learning on Lashon HaRa, the main source would be Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan, known as the Chofetz Chayim, after the title of his book about Lashon Ha-Ra.

613 Habits - Lashon Ha Ra #1

This is the first of what will be several entries connected to my class, "The 613 Habits of Highly Effective People: Get Over Your Self." I am teaching about the spiritual discipline of mussar. The class will draw on several primary sources from the tradition, but principally is based on Orchot Tzaddikim (The Ways of the Righteous) and Mesilat Yesharim (The Path of the Upright). We will also use Rabbi Ira Stone's "A Responsible Life."

In this month's reading, "Sha'ar Lashon Ha-ra," which is translated by Rabbi Silverstein as "The Gate of Slander," there is a puzzling observation in the second (English) paragraph. The text reads,

Certainly, one who is given to slander removes from himself the yoke of Heaven, for he sins without pleasure and is worse than a thief or an adulterer, who pursue pleasure (Shochar Tov 120:3).

First of all, the "yoke of Heaven," (ol shamayim). This phrase denotes the acceptance of the obligation to live in accordance with the Divine will. The image seems to be one of a painful burden and when we read it we might say, "What am I, an ox? What a drag (pun intended)." If you allow the image to play out you might see it as more meaningful and beautiful. One of the reasons an animal carries a yoke is to pull a plow behind it. The plow digs into the earth to make possible the planting of seeds that will ultimately grow into something beneficial. We uphold the Torah because our goal is to turn the fallow fields of earthly life into something that is abundant with life and sustenance.

What about this idea that this is a more serious sin because we don't derive pleasure from it? I don't actually accept the premise. One of the reasons that lashon ha-ra is so easy to do is that it brings immense pleasure to the one who speaks it. Part of the pleasure is taking the person down a notch or too, perhaps satisfying some deep insecurity we have. That we satisfy this insecurity by our worst impulses (dragging someone down) rather than with our best (elevating ourselves) is one of the signals of the harm of lashon ha-ra: we damage ourselves in the process (as the Talmud says in Arachin 15b, "Lashon ha ra kills three people: The one who speaks it, the one who hears it and the one about whom it is spoken").

There is another pleasure in lashon ha-ra, and our desire for it actually stems from holiness: lashon hara creates solidarity between the speaker and the listener. There is a kind of warmth, the comfort of a bond between one person confiding something that is mutually morally repugnant to another person. This desire for connection and sympathy with others is essential to human holiness, but of course this particular expression of that desire is evil.

The Aish Kodesh writes that every thought, desire and deed that we have can be revealed to have at its core a dimension of holiness. Even within an act as ugly as lashon ha ra is the potential for holiness to be revealed. Lashon Ha-ra is an ugly garment covering, as it were, a light of holiness. While the teshuvah (repentance) that we must do begins by refraining from lashon ha-ra and making a good faith effort to undo damage that we have caused, it should also include an examination of the desire for holiness, warped as it may have been, that might have been at its core.

Does Hitch Pray?

The great Christopher Hitchens, with whom I do not always agree but from whom I always learn something, has cancer. There has been an interesting online debate recently about whether it is proper to pray for this evangelizing atheist.

In this video from the Atlantic he speaks with Jeffrey Goldberg about illness, atheism, agnosticism and prayer. Martin Amis joins in for a bit.

Gay Marriage Decision: A Victory for Jews

I can't make any comments on the legal thinking that went into the Prop 8 decision - some supporters of gay marriage are saying it was a bad decision because its breadth makes it an easy target for Supreme Court conservatives.

However, I do think that Jews should be happy with the outcome. Why? Because the only arguments against gay people marrying are arguments grounded in religion. Wha? Judaism is a religion, so we agree with them, right? Wrong.

While certainly there are many Jews who feel that the Torah calls on them to oppose loving intimate relationships between members of the same sex, that is not really the point (the Orthodox Union supported Prop 8). If we could have the state of Colorado enforce the laws of Shabbat as described in the Torah would we want that? Of course not, because we accept the principal of separation of church and state - we wouldn't want that any more than we would want the state to force people to observe Christian holidays.

And this is why even those Jews who consider themselves religiously bound to oppose gay relationships should celebrate. It is a victory for value-neutral secular law. That is good because it permits us to practice our religion, and permits our neighbors to practice theirs, but is doesn't allow us to force our views on them and visa versa.

If you have any doubts about who has the most at stake in the anti-gay marriage side, look no further than the Alliance Defense Fund. Their lawyers are litigating the case. Their website describes them as a "servant organization that provides the resources that will keep the door open for the spread of the Gospel through the legal defense and advocacy of religious freedom, the sanctity of human life, and traditional family values." The first two lines of their "Statement of Faith": "We believe the Bible to be the inspired, infallible, authoritative Word of God. We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit."

Do I want these people making laws about what kind of society I can live in? No more than I want the Orthodox Union to.

In a religiously diverse society, doesn't it make sense to have religiously-neutral laws that are non-coercive. Let's agree that no one should force anyone into a gay marriage - if you don't want one, don't have one. And no one should stop anyone else from having a gay marriage. Doesn't that allow for harmony in a diverse society?

And isn't it dangerous for Jews to support anti-democratic, religiously grounded arguments while living in a society that is 98% non Jewish?

Mosque at Ground Zero

It looks like the mosque to be built near the WTC site will go ahead. I think this is an excellent turn of events.

I was astonished to find the ADL's Abe Foxman on the wrong side of this issue. It seems to me that the only grounds for opposing the mosque is the charge that one of the supporters of the mosque is CAIR, which has been accused of having links to terrorist organizations. Those accusations don't appear to have much credibility. Foxman's argument, however, does not rest on links to CAIR (though he does allude to the need for more information about the mosque's backers) but rather on Americans sensitivity to having a mosque - apparently, any mosque - at this site. We should remember that the attack on America on 9/11 was an attack on all Americans - including on Muslim Americans.

Parshat Devarim - The Opportunity in Wilderness

Each of experiences a spiritual wilderness from time to time - we feel out of place, alienated from the very core of what we've become and who we are. There is a sense of being cast aside by our own lives and decisions - suddenly a world and way of living that felt rich and plentiful is burdensome and lifeless.

In the Torah portion this week Moses recounts the earlier episode when the Israelites, anxious that their journey will not end well, accuse God of bringing them out of slavery to die in the desert because God hates them.

The Zohar argues that this wandering into the wilderness was an opportunity. The wilderness is a place controlled by the 'sitra achra' - the forces that act against life and goodness. God prepared the journey so that Israel would have strength there and could vanquish those forces once and for all - by wanderin theough the darkness they could overcome it with internal strength. But the Israelites could only see the danger and not the opportunity.
We have to look again at these wilderness walks, their dry arid threats of danger and dissolution and disorientation, and see them not as places empty of meaning, but as places that challenge us to overcome them with internal strength. They are not wrong ways but are rather essential to our development.

Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Joshua Rose
303.499.7077
3950 Baseline Road
Boulder CO 80303

Shema, Yisra'el: Being Present

In the past two weeks I have been doing a lot of sitting in front of my computer, in between diaper changing, sleeping, feeding, and tending to both children. It's led me to more Face-booking, blog-reading, headline surfing.

I've accumulated and shared a lot of information, but what's been lost in this frenetic information exchange? I'm a physical presence, but I'm barely here.

The fundamental religious challenge for me right now is, I think, to try to maintain a sense of presence in the lives of those around me - to really listen - amidst the increasingly frantic pace. But also to maintain a kind of presence and groundedness in whatever it is that I'm doing. I know that the medium is only the medium, a tool is only a tool and all that, but there's something about computers that takes us away.

On that note, goodnight...

Time Out For Fun - New Baby Version

In something I wrote in honor of Eliav's birth, I quoted this song. So, here's another go for another baby. What a hat....

Baruch Ha-Ba

Channah and I welcomed our new baby into the world on Monday morning. A beautiful, huge tiny person, great sleeper and good eater. Pretty overwhelmed right now by the shower of blessings raining down. How to become worthy of that? . So, baruch haba, in the words of the traditional welcome.

(Bradley Shavit Artson wrote a great article on the meaning of baruch. In the context of the beracahot that we say over food or events, we usually translate it as "blessed" but that raises a theological puzzle. If God is blessed, who is doing the blessing? Obviously, humans - but if we stop blessing, is God no longer blessed? Artson argues that the word actually means bountiful, or abundant. So, "You are bountiful God, the one who brings bread from the earth." In the context of Baruch Ha-Ba, which we say to welcome someone (including a new baby), "blessed" makes more sense. I can't find the article online, but for those who care, Journal of Conservative Judaism, Winter 1994).

Reb Zalman encouraged Channah and I to "coo" possible names to the baby and mark his reaction so his neshama can weigh in on the decision. So, we will choose together in advance of the bris on Monday.

Tweeting the Torah

So I read online about a project to turn famous novels into Twitter messages. Twitter is a social networking and microblogging service that enables people to send 140 character messages to a list of subscribers.

So, here's the challenge: I'd love for the brave to take a crack at reducing a torah portion/book of the torah/entire torah to a tweet. 140 characters. This week's Torah portion is Terumah, Exodus 25:1 - 27:19. Give it a shot.

Hope v. Fear

Extraordinarily unsettling news out of Iran, as we have all heard. And while the dangers of a tyrannical and oppressive Islamist (as opposed to simply Muslim) regime acquiring a nuclear weapon cannot be turned away by words and hope alone, William Faulkner's Nobel acceptance speech from 1949 inspires confidence. Hope is not enough, but any attempt to turn away such dread must be rooted in it.

Wednesday night at Har HaShem - Special Event

Gergg Drinkwater from Mosaic will be at Har HaShem on Wednesday night at 6:30 to talk about his work. Come join us. Here's the blurb:

In-Queeries into Torah
February 10th, 6:30pm
Congregation Har HaShem.

Gregg Drinkwater, co founder and director of Jewish Mosaic, will be at Har HaShem Wednesday February 10th at 6:30 pm. Gregg is co-editor, with the head of CU’s Jewish Studies Department Dr. David Schneer, of Torah Queeries: Weekly Commentaries on the Hebrew Bible. The book is a collection of revelatory and incisive commentaries on the Torah portion from a LGBT perspective (or through a “bent lens,” as the book’s author’s write).

Gregg’s organization, Jewish Mosaic, was included three years running in “Slingshot,” a guide to “the most creative and effective [Jewish] organizations in America.” Jewish Mosaic encourages LGBT inclusion in Jewish life through advocacy, education, research and by increasing visibility of LGBT Jews in the community.

Gregg will talk about Torah Queeries and discuss how the Jewish world can be more inclusive

Rabbi Rose will participate by discussing the Jewish tradition’s perspectives on sexuality and how we can confront the tradition with our modern, egalitarian views while preserving ancient ideas about living in a holy way.

Israel Photography Trip from Boulder

I will likely lead another trip to Israel in 2011 but for those who have a particular interest in photography, Byahad Trex is leading a great trip in April.

Good Golem

Thanks to R, who sent me a great article on Professor Henry Makram's Blue Brain project to create consciousness from a computer. You can read it here.

The obvious point of reference for thinking about the meaning of artificial consciousness from a Jewish perspective is the golem. These legendary early animated non-human beings were imagined in the talmud. Significantly, they could be created only by righteous and learned rabbis. This introduces a measure of control over the animated being. Still, though, the golems that were created could wreak havoc. The presence of the world "emet" (truth) on their foreheads is significant for two reasons: one, it suggests that the being is subject to the normal laws of reality (this is my reading of this part of the legend) as we know them. Second, when the first letter of the word emet is erased, it becomes "met" (dead), and the being dies.

A good article on Golems here, Wikipedia entry here.

My tiny brain is not equipped to deal with the Jewish or ethical significance of this now real prospect. I'm going to do some reading on this over the next few months.

Economic Pressure on Israel....from the US

Interesting. George Mitchell (administration envoy for mideast peace) indicated in an interview (transcript is here) that one of the tools in the administration's belt in dealing with Israel is preventing loan guarantees.

As I've written before, I think that Israel's long-term security can only come from peace and stability - something that in my opinion its government is moving away from. Nonetheless, the administration must not use Israel's economic vulnerability against it - not good policy, not good for Israel.

If you are pro-Peace, and pro-Israel, as I am, and you think this is a good option for the US to wield, just think about how it could be used. If we go down the road of the US putting serious economic pressure on Israel, one can imagine Israel being put in a totally untenable position one day. Having to act against its security interests in order to avoid the danger of the loss of US aid.

The Administration is trying to walk it back by saying that he was taken out of context; that clearly, Mitchell was simply talking descriptively, not proscriptively, about the mechanisms that the US could use as leverage. That is, he was just saying that this was technically possible, and nothing more, in response to Rose asking him about possible options.

The transcript itself makes that pretty hard, if not impossible, to defend. My read is that he threw out there, in very careful terms, a very mild and vague warning. He even suggests – depending on how you understand his subsequent remarks – that this is something that the Administration is “discussing.” Obviously it’s not to be understood as a suggestion he’s making for US policy, but a subtle message to the Israelis, “we’re not screwing around.” I just think a guy as diplomatically experienced as Mitchell – which is to say, very – doesn’t throw around such things by accident.

What's strange is how little play this is getting in various media. I can't find anything on it from NYT or CNN. It is very big news in Israel. Reuters has a good read on the Israeli reaction here. The article notes that Israel doesn't intend to use guarantees at least for the next two years.

Time Out for Fun - Miles Davis Quintet, 1966, "Footprints."

I've rediscovered a Miles Davis album I had forgotten about: Miles Smiles. This is a live performance from one of the great combos in music.



The Tehilim (Psalms) were set to music, regal religious music. This to me feels like religious music: I like to think of them accompanying King David.

Pluralism Gone Wild

This article could have appeared in satirical pages of The Onion but it is an actual editorial that appeared this week. It is the idea of western pluralism taken to absurd extremes. If pluralism is so pluralistic that it can't place blame on axe-wielding murderers but rather on their victims, then it can't survive.

As a religious person, I would like to state for the record that I'm offended by the author's supposed defense of religion. Set aside for the moment that the term "religious people" lumps together radical terrorists and people like me. If religious people can't be expected to act rationally, to accept criticism and satire of their culture, without resorting to murderous violence, then they can't be defended.

The author's vision of the religious/secular divide would make it impossible for religion to exist in a pluralistic society. This is how pluralistic/liberal societies consume themselves and become anti-pluralistic: insisting that anti-pluralistic, anti-modern, anti-democratic violence is a legitimate political expression.

Tiger, Save Yourself: Abandon Buddhism!

That's what Brit Hume, in a moment of contemplative babble, tells the world. What can one even say? Nothing, so we'll let Brit speak for himself):