Mitzvah #5 – “Worshipping God”

I’ve had a hard time recreating my entries for Mitzvah #3&4 (I did them really well the first time and I don’t think I’m hitting the mark as I revisit them), so I’m going to skip to number 5 and go back later..

Rabbi Chavel writes this commandment comes from The Sifre where it says when we’re commanded to “serve” God (numerous places in the torah), it really means we’re to worship God.

First, I went to Google to find out what the heck The Sifre is. A collection of midrash halakhah (commentary on the Torah) on the Books of Numbers and Deuteronomy it turns out. OK. That still means fairly little to me. According to Wiki (yup Wiki) Shimon bar Yochai formed a school of thought which was responsible for the books on Numbers. He lived after the destruction of the temple, and just as Christianity was finding its footing. And he was a disciple of Rabbi Akiva who I always heard about fleetingly on Passover, but whom I came to know more about through the elegiac passages of Annie Dillard’s “For the Time Being”. There I learned that Rabbi Akiva was the rabbi whose flesh was combed from his bones with metal picks by the Romans in a form of torture/execution called ‘flensing’ which I would have to say possibly surpasses crucifixion in its horror.

So it was his disciple who is responsible for determining that to “serve” God means to worship him. Are there other possible meanings? Sure: To study the Torah, To serve him by bringing others to the faith, or to partake in actions consistent with The Commandments for starters.

Apparently though ‘To Serve’ was equated with worship for so long it’s taken for granted. But why does God need worship? Surely not for his ego (we hope, though he seems to be a sensitive guy in the old testament. People ignore him for long enough and he just starts smiting people.

So is worshiping for us? For our own good? Does it teach us to be thankful? Does it do something else for us?

And what makes worship? My favorite church marquee reads “Preach the gospel at all times. Speak only if necessary.” I would like serving God to be setting an example without telling someone what is right or not.

But worship seems to come tied to prayer. And what is prayer? Words glorifying and characterizing the invisible. It seems obvious to say, but animals don’t pray. For some reason we have created or tapped into an idea of God animals don’t seem to be aware of. They’re far more aware of things in the physical world from smells to vibrations to the wind, but they seem to have no apparent interest in God or religion.

Our prayers are composed of words, spoken or unspoken and animals just can’t go there. For some reason it seems a very unnatural act because of this. While religion is about as ubiquitous as food amongst humans, it’s as alien for animals as driving a car. And in fact some can be trained to do that, but I’ve never seen an animal pray.

Perhaps we’re commanded to worship then because it’s so unnatural. If we weren’t commanded to do so, we wouldn’t otherwise do it.

But prayer is more than just words. Maimonides writes ‘prayer without devotion is no prayer at all’. The idea being that simply reciting the words without belief, or deep intention, one shouldn’t have even bothered. Maimonides goes as far to say “One must free his heard from all other thoughts and regard himself as standing in the presence of God.” Chavel goes on to say that in the olden days the pious would spend and hour before and after prayer getting ready to go into that devoted state. And through that buffer they are able to attain a greater closeness to God.

Indeed, Maimonides creates the vision of a very personal relationship with God, enumerating that there must be “the absolute exclusion of the thought of any intermediate power, spirit, or angel, from our prayers, which must be wholly and sole directed to the Lord…”

I have to say this personal relationship is appealing in theory and most similar in my mind to that of fundamentalist Christianity (which of course scares me – as do Hassidim and the orthodox of almost any religion). I don’t know how many Jews in the American secular community really have deep personal relationships with God. But I’d like to think it’s possible to have one without becoming a zealot. In truth, we’re a procedural nation bereft of deep understanding of our own religion. Whether you draw from your own experience or watch something like the Coen Brothers depiction of a bar mitzvah in A Serious Man, it’s clear the Hebrew language alone is an incredible impediment to a close relationship with the text and therefore God. And the result is a nation immersed in culture instead of religion. A nation who goes through the actions of prayer by rote – and by Maimonides standards in vain.

And I have to agree with the big M. There’s little worshipping going on in most temples I’ve been to. It’s not unheard of in some of the more progressive places I’ve gone to like Ikar and Nashuva, but the country club temple I grew up in wasn’t the kind of venue that was conducive to real prayer.

So perhaps spending a little time getting ready to pray isn’t such a crazy idea. Just saying the words hardly seems like it’s enough. Now the real question is. Can you have the devotional intention without knowing the words or saying them? I’d like to think yes, and I’m sure there’s a long debate about it somewhere in the Talmud.

Mitzvah #2 – “Believing in the Unity of God”

My computer was stolen two weeks ago. I’d just finished entries covering Commandments 2, 3 & 4. Number 4 was a particularly good entry.

I haven’t written since the computer was stolen partially because I had no computer of my own and the public library wasn’t terribly conducive to writing about God, but also because the book on the 613 Commandments was stolen along with the computer. I don’t think it was the thief’s interest in Hebraic literature as much as the book was in the computer bag as well.

During these two weeks, I’ve been asking myself why my computer was stolen. It’s remarkable the meaning one can make out of such things. “It was a blessing.” I told myself (Must be positive about this!). God wanted me to get a new computer so when I start a new job I’ll look like a pro and be taken more seriously so that my career will be advanced more quickly. Or “Perhaps this is a lesson I needed to learn about not trusting people as much as I have.” And that will serve me well in the future. Or “Perhaps this will teach me about caring for my things better.” – again a lesson for the future. Or “God was encouraging me to get a new computer” because I’d scratched the old screen (right in the middle and I still don’t know how) and rather than living with that unhappily for the next two years, He pushed me to spend the cash and buy a new machine which will make me much happier (already does). So he’s teaching me to be better to myself.

But I also wondered if God was punishing me for my blogs. First, for the “Lost in the Fog” blog entry on The Next Big Gig. It wasn’t so much for the profane nature of the story, or the exaggerations throughout for dramatic effect, but because when I first posted part three I included a section about an insanely talented, beautiful woman I’ve known for over a decade and slept with once and I didn’t have the guts to ask her beforehand if I could write about her. I wrote the section of the story for humor, sensational effect and to explore making love to someone you knew from long ago and how you’re transported to that earlier time when you’re with them finally. I took out that part of the story as soon as she let me know she’d read it. She wasn’t happy. I took the section out immediately. Even though we haven’t seen each other in more years than I can remember, I should have expected she’d read it. And I shouldn’t have posted it in the first place. On Facebook it’s a good rule of thumb that if you post something you don’t want absolutely everyone to see, the people you really don’t want to see it, will read it first and if you have good news you want everyone to know about, not a soul will notice.

So my computer being stolen was my punishment.

I also thought God had stolen my computer and the Rabbi Chavel book to stop me from writing about Him. Clearly He didn’t like what I’d begun writing – questioning the very first commandment, She clearly thought I was starting off in the wrong direction.

Well, God, it’s gonna take more than some Methheads pilfering my Mac to stop me, so following this, I’ll post my recreations of those Mitzvot I’d begun writing about.

* * * * *

Mitzvot #2 – “Believing in the Unity of God”

I’m supposed to not just believe in God, but that there is One God.

Well, that’s not too hard these days in a direct sort of way. There aren’t too many polytheistic options really tugging at me. But if you expand the idea of other Gods as those things we seek out to explain the world or in which we take refuge from the vicissitudes of life, the question becomes more real. It suddenly includes everything from Yoga and The Secret to Reality TV and Celebrity rags.

In an age when the largest portion of the US population in metropolitan areas list themselves as “Spiritual but not Religious” on everything from JDate to Facebook, it makes you wonder what do we mean when we say ‘Spiritual’? Is everyone making up their own rules? Who do you pray to? How do you pray? Do you at all? Upon reflection, I think as a country, we’ve made Gods of our self-help books as we try to navigate our way through our lives – having found little guidance or solace through our traditional religious upbringing. The 613 Commandments (even if I’d heard of them as a kid) provide little direct guidance on how to launch your career as a singer/songwriter, much less how to deal with a co-worker who annoys the heck out of you, or how to find the love of your life.

That and Star Wars has ruined our entire generation.

Seriously. I believe the introduction of The Force is why so many of us are all “Spiritual but not Religious”. The Force provides an alternative possibility to the idea of A Big Guy in heaven. The unexplained rules and regulations of our Jewish childhood provided little explanation of the unexplained nature of The Divine. And fewer displays of the benefits of belief. But the Force is as clear in broad definition as it is in demonstration of its power.

When Obi Wan Kenobi explains to a young and bright Skywalker in “A New Hope” that “The Force is…an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together.” We get a sense of a benevolent universe acting in harmony and we even get to see its power. Luke gets a lesson on the Millennium Falcon en route to Alderan. After his failed attempt fencing with a floating remote, he’s frustrated, but Obi Wan guides him:

Ben Kenobi: Remember, a Jedi can feel the Force flowing through him.
Luke Skywalker: You mean it controls your actions?
Ben Kenobi: Partially, but it also obeys your commands.
[Luke gets shot by the remote.]
Han Solo: [laughs] Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.
Luke Skywalker: You don't believe in the Force, do you?
Han Solo: Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other. I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen anything to make me believe there's one all-powerful Force controlling everything. There's no mystical energy field that controls my destiny. It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.
Ben Kenobi: [gets up and takes a blast helmet] I suggest you try it again, Luke. This time, let go your conscious self and act on instinct. [puts the helmet on Luke, which covers his eyes]
Luke Skywalker: But with the blast shield down, I can't even see! How am I supposed to fight?
Ben Kenobi: Your eyes can deceive you. Don't trust them.

After this small instruction Luke shifts. You see his body take on a different relaxed elastic quality and amazingly, he defends himself from a barrage of blast attacks by the little remote.

To see this minor miracle was inspiring to a generation. It was proof there is something beyond what we can see. And that believing this provides real results. More than that, it even falls in with the generally universal idea that God is One. It even makes everything in the Universe One.

Forget the more flamboyant exhibitions of the Force: Vader’s ability to choke someone to death remotely, Luke’s guiding the death blow to the Death Star only after tapping into The Force’s power. It is this first discovery that wows. That and when Adleran is destroyed. The moment the planet is blown to oblivion, it shakes Obi Wan to the core. He falls back in his seat. When Luke asks if he’s OK, he responds “I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.”

Proof again that we are all bound together and those in touch with The Force are deeply connected. And in the end I think more than anything we all want to feel we are not alone.

Even if God is One, The 613 Commandments provide little solace around the fear we are alone. But perhaps if everyone believed the same thing we’d feel better about it.

I think that’s partially why this commandment comes from Deuteronomy 6:4 “Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is One”. In Hebrew it’s called “The Shema” and it is not only the oldest prayer in continuous use to my knowledge, but it is the one phrase that even the deepest of lapsed Jews, like my brother, know in Hebrew by heart. Even more interestingly, it is sung with the same tune (except on high holidays) in nearly every temple I’ve ever been to. All other tunes might change, but there is a standard here such that you can go into a temple anywhere in the world and feel at home when this one moment of the service comes about.

And what does it mean?

Interestingly, it’s not enough for US to believe that God is One, we are commanded to cry out to ALL of Israel, and admonish them with the reminder. It almost assumes we will forget Exodus 20:2, the first of the 10 Commandments which proclaims: “I am the LORD thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.”

We are instructed to be our brothers’ keeper by addressing all Jews every time we say the Shema (twice a day by current custom). We’re even proselytizing in a certain way. Like the Chabbad or the prophets, we’re exhorting all wayward Jews and instructing them in the most basic of our beliefs - the unity of God.

And what is the unity of God? (Finally!)

Is it simply the admonition to worship other idols? Is it belief The Force?

Or is a unified God something even bigger?

Here I turn to Christian Science once again for a beautiful, radical interpretation. The underlying belief in Science is that “God is All-in-all. God is Good. Good is Mind. God, Spirit, being all, nothing is matter.” (“Science and Health”, p.113)

That syllogism leaves Scientists with the thesis that since God is Good and God is all that All is Good - which is a theological conundrum I’ll tackle at another time.

But in the end, they believe sickness and disease are illusory, the product of a false belief, and not an actual result of sin (Science and Health, pp. 348, 386). "The cause of all so-called disease is mental, a mortal fear, a mistaken belief." (Science and Health, p. 377).

This is a revolutionary proposal. Mrs. Eddy repudiates the notion that we are punished for our sins. Jews began that belief and most Christians echoed it on in their practice if not their literature. In Exodus. in the lines directly after forbidding worship of other Gods. We were warned “Thou salt not bow down unto them, nor serve them; for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me”

Dude.

This is our God. Believe in me OR ELSE.

Mrs. Eddy is suggesting a new relationship to God. One which was unheard of 150 years ago in Christian circles especially. Her God won’t punish anyone for their sins because of her expansive idea of God being One. In her interpretation it’s not that there’s just One God, but that God is One WITH US. Including US. We are all one. Not that we are all gods, but that we are all thoughts of God – existing (in reality) in immateriality – just like God. In this spiritual perspective we are direct extensions of God and any separation we feel from Her is a fantasy. Any belief that the material world exists is an illusion. And evil, sin, sickness and dis-ease we see or experience is a fiction we have created. And those illusions can be obliterated and sent back to the nothingness from which they came by simply knowing God. I truly find this a beautiful thesis. Sadly, I’ve found it so far from my experience of life that I’ve been unable to accept it.

It doesn’t make my computer not be stolen, but perhaps for a moment, I can relinquish my self-loathing, and know that God wasn’t punishing me for anything I did or wrote. And for once I’ll let Obi Wan put the blast shield down and trust we’re all one instead of swatting away at the remote with all my might as I get struck by its laser again and again and again.

Mitzvah #1 - Believing in God.

Easy.

Not.

Where does this idea even come from? The Torah doesn’t begin, “I am God believe in me!” Interesting when you think about it.

Rabbi Chavel quotes (Ex. XX, 2) “I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt.” Really? He waits until the second book before a clear declaration like that? (Do I really have to read back through Genesis, so see if he’s said it sooner. Hlp anyone?) And sure, here God identifies himself in association with that great miracle we’re supposed to be indebted to him for the rest of our collective lives, but even there he doesn’t say ‘believe in me’. He’s just saying who he is as defined by his deeds…of generosity to us. Not I am God, creator of all. Just the guy who delivered us from slavery.

But still, do I believe even that? Do I believe in that God?

First of all, I’ve had a problem with the word God lately. It’s been too wrapped up in images of a finite character. Supreme Being or Supreme Cause as Chavel’s book uses doesn’t fly with me either and while I know there are a few dozen names for God, none I’ve heard work for me. So I’m gonna go with The Divine.

Do I believe in The Divine? Uh. Yeah, I guess. I believe there’s stuff in the world we can’t see or ever fully fathom. Do I believe it’s the beginning of everything? Could be. Sure, why not? Something was the beginning of everything. Does it know my heart and every thought? Well, then you start getting into some kind of religious police that I have trouble with. But let’s get back to the book.

Now Rabbi Chavel tells me “without a firm conviction and clear sense of His All-transcendent Reality…understanding of the Torah and observance of its Commandments become utter impossibilities.”

Great. FIRM conviction? Nope. CLEAR sense? Definitely not. But let’s look at a moment who’s telling me this. Who is this Chavel? And what are some of his basica assumptions?

First, I take objection with the Rabbi Chavel’s use of “HIS” as a way to describe God. That puts a dick on an idea and that’s just not cool. That gendered vision of The Divine is not only ass backwards, as women are the life givers in our experience, but it boxes God in, leaving him far from transcendent. He can’t even supercede gender. At least in Christian Science (you’ll get getting many more references to this, so just prepare), Mrs. Eddy (founder and discoverer of CS) makes the radical step of rewriting the most basic and revered Christian prayer the “Our Father” calling the Divine “Our Mother-Father.” Pretty ballsy for a chick to make that move in the 1880s – decades before Suffrage, much less anything like the equality we’re still striving for a century later. So I’d say the author has a flawed view of God. If that’s Rabbi Chavel’s CLEAR sense of God, then he isn’t even seeing God accurately at all. He’s indulging in idolatry by throwing a penis on The Big Guy and offering up a sliced chicken neck. And if his flawed interpretation is so rooted that he doesn’t even notice it, how am I going to listen to anything he says?

Hell of a beginning rabbi.

The 613 Mitzvot/613 Commandments

As I said I would over at my blog The Next big Gig, I am now beginning a study of all 613 Mitzvot.

Why? Partially as a way to balance my ongoing pursuit of the profane, but more so because it’s come to my attention, once again, that I know nothing about Judaism. I’ve been reminded of this year after year the more I learn about Judaism. Truly, I feel like a dolt of a Jew most of the time. Combine that with my interest and fascination with religion and you have a fine little conflict. But the one thing that keeps getting clearer is that I know nothing about Judaism.

Interestingly, many folks who’ve known me in the last five years think I do. Last year, when I had the pleasure of using the house of my roommate as a staging ground for parties, I’d throw crazy pseudo-religiously themed get-togethers and after a brief monologue on the nature of the event we were celebrating, people actually affectionately spontaneously started calling me “rabbi”. I found this most gratifying as my spoken Plan-B should the rest of my life not work out is to become a rabbi. Or cantor. Or singing rabbi. (Cantors have to study the same number of years as rabbis and just don’t get the same respect, so why not do both?)

So now I’m doing something about my ignorance. I’m gonna find out and figure out each and every commandment. First I have to learn what they are. I figure it’ll just take me 2 years to get through them all.

Here’s a list in case you’d like to peruse the curriculum:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_Mitzvot

What motivated this was that just two weeks ago I was at a morning religious study with the wonderful Rabbi Greyber (a man younger than myself, which I still have a hard time dealing with, as all rabbis ought to be older than me. At least he has a wife and three children so that makes him seem older even if I’ve got a few more years on him.) So I was there with half a dozen other Jews discussing a chapter from Rabbi Heschel’s “Man in Search of God” which I’m told is a classic text of modern American Hebraic literature. I’d never heard of it myself as with most things Jewish which is a constant and growing consternation for me. Why? Because I went to Hebrew school. I got bar mitzvahed. My parents celebrated all the big holidays. We did Friday night Shabbat dinners through high school. And once I went to college, I’d return sometimes to still attend kabbalat Shabbat in little chapel at our temple where the cantor invariably asked me to sing the blessing over the wine at the end of the service. I can read and pronounce the Hebrew letters. I once knew trope and how to chant torah. I read from the torah two out of the last three yeas during Rosh Hashana. I was the macher at my “temple” Nashuva. I’ve been to Israel twice.

And yet I still seem to know nothing.

I should have heard about this book we were studying. Luckily, when the rabbi suggested it, I at least had heard of the author. Two years back, I was introduced to Rabbi Heschel by a friend who’s a ‘Jew by Choice’ (aka convert – I’d never heard that term before either, and dislike it - it somehow smacks of fear of offending someone.) But the point is, a convert with no history of Judaism had to learn me on this famous rabbi.

How have I missed all these crucial things? For Godssakes, I read the whole fucking bible when I got out of college. It was my auto-didactic continuing education program. I just started at Genesis and kept going ‘til I finished. Then I picked up the New Testament and went through that. Then I picked up “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” the foundation for Christian Science and stumbled my way through that.

Christian Science is the only Christian religion which has held much fascination for me. That interest began in high school because my best friend grew up in the religion. But he never talked with me about it. We just knew he couldn’t take drugs or seek medical attention. After much badgering as to what it was all about, one time, he blurted out an answer:

“Basically the entire world is an illusion and reality is immaterial!”

Well, alrighty then. That’s some serious existential shit to lay on a teen mind. Actually an adult mind too. But I’ve continued to be fascinated and infuriated by it. There’s a purity to Christian Science I find bold and idealistic bordering on insane.

Anyway, with all that reading I did after college, I still knew nothing. I retained little in the maze of all those words as my Christian Science scholar of a girlfriend pointed out to me a few years ago.

I was trying to make a point to her one time with something I was sure was a story from the Torah. She assured me I was mistaken, so I said, “Maybe it was a story a rabbi told me from the Talmud.” (Which I’ve still never actually seen). But I couldn’t find it anywhere. Then a year later, as I read a children’s book which was a Christmas present to her adopted Chinese niece I realized the story was just an old Chinese tale.

Another reminder I know nothing about religion. I’m so clueless, a Chinese parable smells like my own religion to me.

Here’s a version of the story:
A man had a prized stallion run away. His friends came to console him and said “We’re so sorry for you. That’s such bad news.” He simply responded, “Maybe. Maybe not.” Sure enough, the stallion soon returned—with six other wild horses. His friends said, “What good news!” But the man just said, “Maybe. Maybe not.” Sure enough, one of the wild horses threw the wise man’s son and he broke his leg. The friends gathered again to say they were so sorry to hear this news, which he must agree is surely bad. “Maybe. Maybe not,” he said. Confounded, they left him thinking he was an unfeeling man and a poor father. Sure enough though, the next day the Chinese army passed through the area taking all the able-bodied young men to be soldiers. The son with the broken leg was not able to fight, so he was left with his father, while all those taken died the following day in a harrowing battle. And the story goes on…

It’s a beautiful story which I try to remind myself of on a regular basis. Some Christians have co-opted the tale to assure followers not to question the mysterious ways of our Lord. It’s a flexible little fable. Either way, I still like the story and wish it were in the Talmud.

But it’s not and I was revealed again to know nothing. I often wished there were some guidebook to the bible. Mary Baker Eddy tried that with ‘Science and Health”, but her “key to the scriptures” is more confounding than that which it tries to decipher. And I was looking for something that smoothed out the curves of the original jagged cobbled together text.

Then, a few years back, I heard there were 613 mitzvot which some also call the 613 commandments. I’d lived 30 years and no one had told me there was a complete list and all I had to do was follow them.

I found them online here and started reading through.

Much to my disappointment I found some to be:

• out of date. #582 - To appoint a king (Deut. 17:15)
• not applicable. #64 - That a eunuch shall not marry a daughter of Israel (Deut. 23:2)
• a bummer. #438 - Not to anoint a stranger with the anointing oil (Ex. 30:32) [ed. Note. But anointing strangers with oil is fun!]
• common sense. #32 - Not to bear a grudge (Lev. 19:18)
• not all that helpful in daily life. #483 - Not to sever completely the head of a fowl brought as a sin-offering (Lev. 5:8)
• cold-hearted and offensive - #602 - To exterminate the seven Canaanite nations from the land of Israel (Deut. 20:17)

But the list came up again at the morning study with Rabbi Greyber, so he lent me a book that covered the positive commandments (half of them). This book isn’t just a list, it’s a translation and commentary by Rabbi Dr. Charles B. Chavel trying to explain why Maimonides picked these rules from the torah in the 12th Century as a guide for all Jews to live a good life.

So starting today, I’m going to go through them one by one and taking a day off for Shabbat every week. I’m only doing half to start with. They’re all the positive commandments and non of the prohibitions. I should finish in a year if I work on it.

And you’re invited to come along for the ride.