This week, we begin Torah anew. We read the first words of creation, Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning...” and our tradition hands us, once again, an invitation. The scroll is rerolled and our opportunity to start learning and connecting to Torah anew is granted. This Shabbat, I want to offer you a few suggestions of books that might give you a new doorway in to Torah, as well as share with you a spiritual gift. If you have been looking for a way to reconnect to sacred text, have always wanted to read the Torah from beginning to end, and/or are interested in exploring a new avenue of study, might I suggest a few gems, which have brought greater meaning to my own study. As always, if something grabs you, I welcome the opportunity to study together.
A few suggestions:
Genesis, by Stephen Mitchell, provides “a new translation of the classic biblical stories.” This book opens up Genesis in ways that are unique, provocative, and gripping. Mitchell resets the biblical text according to different accounts and reorders certain passages. If you are looking to have old assumptions about Genesis challenged, this is a wonderful place to start.
The Five Books of Moses by Everett Fox provides a fresh translation and wonderful commentary on the Torah.
The Torah: A Women’s Commentary by Tamara Eskenazi and Andrea Weiss is a publication with which many of you are already familiar. If you have not yet picked up a copy, I urge you to do so. I spent a number of years while in rabbinical school serving as Dr. Eskenazi’s assistant, working on the Voices section of this commentary, and co-writing the central commentary on one parasha. This truly was some of the most interesting work on text I have done as of yet.
And finally...
The Language of Truth, by Arthur Green, provides a translation and interpretation of a great Chasidic Text, “The Torah Commentary of the Sefat Emet, by Rabbi Yehuda Leib Alter of Ger.” Green’s commentary provides a key to understanding this marvelously spiritual (and sometimes esoteric!) work.
And now, my spiritual gift to you for the week, a look at a gem from the Sefat Emet's commentary on this week's Torah portion (using Green’s translation and commentary).
This week’s Torah portion, Parashat B’reisheet, includes the following words in its description of creation: “Heaven and earth were finished...” (Genesis 2:1). The Sefat Emet explains that a midrash (rabbinic commentary) on this verse cites the following line from the Psalms, “I have seen an end to every purpose, but Your commandment is very broad” (Psalm 119:96). The midrash suggests, “Everything has a fixed measure, but Torah has no measure” (Green 6).
Yes, teach the ancients rabbis, there are limits to all of life. But, Torah has no limit.
The Sefat Emet takes this assertion a step further. It teaches:
Torah gives life to all of Creation, measuring it out to each creature. But that life-point which garbs itself within a particular place to give it life—it has no measure of its own, for it is beyond both time and nature. ...The same is true within everything: The inward point has neither measure nor limit (Green 6).
Jewish mystics teach that there is a Torah both of this (revealed, limited) world, and a Torah of the other (hidden, infinite) world. While the Torah of this world has, like all of creation, its own limits, the Torah of the hidden world has no limits. Jewish mystics teach that, like Torah, all of creation exists in two worlds. One: The revealed world of limits. Two: The hidden world of infinity. There is a link between this (revealed, limited) world and the other (hidden, infinite) world. This link between the two worlds takes the form of an essential point of limitlessness which is inside each of us.
The Sefat Emet continues:
This is true of the human soul as well; it, too, has no measure. ...The same is true of the world’s soul, because the person is a microcosm. The Sabbath is a revelation of this inwardness, and it is called ‘the day of the soul, not the body’ (Green 7).
The Sefat Emet understands the Torah, the human soul, the world’s soul, and Shabbat to all share the same fundamental link: We all have a core of the infinite inside of us.
Green, commenting on this passage from the Sefat Emet explains:
As each creature knows its deepest self, it knows Torah. Only when Torah enters into this-worldly human discourse, does it take on tsimtsum, the contraction that makes it take on limits. So, too, the soul; its root is boundless. Only as it lives in this world does it have to exist within limits. This is why the soul loves Torah; it recognizes within it a secret partner from the world of infinity (Green 7).
Yes, the Sefat Emet teaches, our souls are called to Torah because deep down our souls know Torah to be made of the same stuff we are, that which is infinite.
On this Shabbat, I pray that all of our souls come to Torah anew. May we find within it purpose and meaning. May we feel a renewed call to study and experience a fresh take on text. “In the beginning…”
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment