Our Jewish path is constructed more from life’s experiences than its dictates. Our faith demands, as Edmund Fleg wrote, “no abdication of the mind”. The secret to our covenantal relationship is found in the imperfection of the Garden of Eden, which can only be made perfect with the introduction of choice and the exercise of free will.
Choice is important because it dictates how we approach the faith stories of our people. These stories are the warp and woof of our people and their written and oral transmission over time has empowered us through dark times and times of joy. The image of the sage surrounded by pupils or the doting grandfather or grandmother seated with their progeny is a well used one. The opportunity that one generation has to guide the next generation forward is essential in our Jewish journey.
I have spoken to families about this transmission from “Dor L’Dor…Generation to generation”. In our personal family stories, this act is most crucial. But its not enough to just share, we have to have had the conversation with one another so that the values which have guided our people will continue through the next generation. Again, it’s all about the choices we give.
As a parent, we give our children choices. Hopefully they will make the right choice. God, in the wilderness, gave the Israelites choices. It was "find faith in God or wander Godless through the world." Mitzvot or averot … commandments or transgressions. Again in Pirkei avot we find: One mitzvah leads to another and one transgression leads to another. Which path did God want us to choose?
Oftentimes, the choices that we are given lay deep within the text of our tradition. In fact, the Torah rarely provides us with options. In most situations, the options come as we engage the text for its ancient time and place and our own. We, like the great Talmudic sage Ben Bag Bag, “hafoch ba…turn it over and over again.” It is often felt that by looking afresh at the text from a different vantage point, we might discover some new nuance or gain some new insight that was hidden from us before.
Each time we read a text, if we are doing our study correctly, we will find some new kernel of wisdom that will bring us back for more. It is the depth of the choices that we have and our ability to interpret divine wisdom that I feel has empowered us in the 21st century. While I may be at odds with my more traditional colleagues (big surprise), I feel that the years of encounter has expanded our worldview and allowed us to grow our opinions on the topics that the Torah espouses. The distance of time has given us more food for thought and enabled stories like the one we explored already, greater significance in our lives.
This is indeed what was assumed or implied when the mystics approached the text. The mystical engagement with our written and oral traditions has long been a fascination of mine. Long before Madonna declared her love for mysticism and Kabbalah books began appearing like dime-store novels on book shelves at Barnes and Noble or Borders, I began a lifelong pursuit of knowledge through the pages of mystical texts.
When I was a college student trying to find my religious path, it was at a weekend conference at HUC in Cincinnati that I was introduced to Kabbalistic literature. Being a child steeped in the rational historical teachings of Reform Judaism, Kabbalah had no place in my religious education. In fact, I can honestly say that I never heard the word until I was 20 years old. Which would be ok if I held fast to the prohibition of studying it until I was 40. But the lure of this new thought caught this unsuspecting college student and I began what has become more than a quarter century of exploration and seeking.
In kabbalah I found a voice for my Judaism that moved beyond the simple reading of a biblical text and its simple interpretation. In my home congregation, as the Rabbi spoke these words, mostly in English, I was taken to that moment at Sinai where no bird chirped. It was as if God was speaking directly from our pulpit and directly to me. Never would I have questioned my rabbi or challenged the view he espoused. Kabbalah gave me a whole new set of sacred questions from which the text was silent and could only be answered by looking deeper than I ever had before.
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