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Hearing the Torah

“Judaism is a great storehouse of treasures and blessing. And it is a vital, dynamic, living conversation that spans the globe and the centuries.

Every generation inherits the accumulation of text, music, commentary, law, custom, recipes, and secret wisdom. And it is the responsibility of each generation to fully receive, re-interpret, add to the treasure and pass it on in a form that is more relevant and more alive to our present-day challenges.

This is the challenge we are given as we receive the Torah: to step right into the conversation in midstream. The miracle of Revelation happens in the conversation.

And it is our sacred responsibility to hold up our end. That word – responsibility – makes a lot of sense if you understand it as the ability-to-respond.

Our generation, like each generation of Jews before us, must enter into the holy conversation of our tradition. It is a conversation that takes place across time and distance, and it dies if we refuse to hold up our end.

We must reach in to Torah, into the treasure of our inheritance, in search of answers to the questions of our time.

We bring to this conversation our dilemmas – the crises of body, heart, mind and soul that so urgently call.

Reaching in to the Torah means participating in a process, and becoming part of the conversation. It requires digging down beneath the soil of your everyday life and finding its holiness.

A student, expecting to hear a profound and esoteric answer, asked his Rebbe, “How can I best serve God?” The Rebbe replied, “You can best serve God with whatever you are doing at the moment.”

 

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Receiving the Blessing

“ In receiving the blessing of Torah, we can, like our father Abraham, 'become a blessing.' To be a blessing is to know and radiate the truth that our existence is itself holy.

Those doors have opened slowly over many years, by equal measures of effort and grace. Still, the transformation of Torah from burden to blessing seems nothing but miraculous.

I am drawn towards simplicity and emptiness in my practice, and I struggled against what seemed like endless Jewish ramblings, thousands of years of accumulated clutter. I am an ardent feminist, and I struggled against the patriarchal and sexist attitudes behind the text. Having experienced the treasures of other spiritual paths I have become quite universalistic in my approach, and I struggled against the triumphalism and intolerance that I found in Torah.

Yet, here I am feeling completely blessed by my ancestors, feeling their permission to make the Torah my own. They accept my criticism with humility and ask for my compassion. And they invite me to dig deeper:

Whatever you find here in Torah is also inside you. This is the map. You are the landscape.

My ancestors call me back to Torah again and again, saying, “Do you want to know what it means to be human? Then look here.”

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Accepting the Spiritual Challenge

“What would it mean to consciously receive the spiritual challenge of each moment, each interaction, every feeling, each relationship, each paradox… and accept that challenge wholeheartedly?

In Torah Journeys, Rabbi Shefa Gold looks to each weekly Torah portion, or parasha, for a spiritual challenge:

“The spiritual challenge of Parasha Beha‘alotekha is to hear the murmurings and rebellions of our ancestors and recognize them as our own places of enslavement calling for freedom and healing.

When I witness my ancestors’ complaints, I must listen to my own bitter whining.

Listening deeply with compassion, I hear the fear inside my voice and I remember when that fear was born.

Then I know that my spiritual work will be to heal the wounds that gave birth to that fear and to work at cultivating trust.

When I witness my ancestors’ lust for meat and for the food of Egypt, I turn to investigate my own cravings. When I discover a hunger that seems never to be satisfied; a thirst that is never quenched; a hole inside me that can never be filled; then my spiritual work consists of investigating that craving by entering into that “hole” and experiencing the emptiness within. This will lead me to Truth.

When I witness my ancestors’ weariness with their journey, I turn to examine my own lack of energy for practice.

When I hear their expressions of doubt in the leadership of Moses, my work becomes that of unmasking the face of my own doubt and coming to understand how and why I sometimes silence the voice of the prophet within me.

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Awareness through Practice

“Judaism is a spiritual path that seeks to transform each step of the way into a holy moment of blessing. To know each moment of my life as a spiritual practice is both energizing and humbling. It is energizing because practice gives relevance and meaning to even the smallest actions, and it is humbling because through the focus of practice, I am made aware of how much of my life I miss when I am distracted or scattered.

As a spiritual seeker I have learned that being given an important insight is like receiving a seed. That seed must be planted in the soil of my life and then watered and fertilized by my attention and practice.

In the study of Torah we can receive some amazing seeds, but if those seeds aren’t planted and cultivated, they will remain fascinating, beautiful, disembodied abstractions. We will not be transformed by Torah until we commit to the practice that will grow the seed… which means that we are ultimately called to grow our own souls.

Once we intuit the blessing that is hidden in Torah and then discern the spiritual challenge that Torah lays before us, we are obliged to ask: “What is the practice that will help me to rise to this spiritual challenge and receive the blessing of Torah?”

Spiritual practice requires INTENTION, AWARENESS and REPETITION.

The word for intention in Hebrew is “kavanah.” It refers to the direction of the heart. Energy pours through us all the time; when we consciously direct our hearts towards a purpose or value, the energy then becomes focused and clear. We can concentrate the power of our bodily passions, emotional moods, thoughtful insights, and visionary imaginings towards a single-pointed purpose. That purpose comes to guide us as our practice deepens and evolves over time.

Awareness is the aspect of consciousness that witnesses and investigates the immediate and ongoing effects of practice. In our spiritual practice we move through different states of consciousness. The rule of practice is this:

The awareness of a state magnifies its benefit.

Awareness transforms our practice from a series of spiritual experiences to the possibility of embodying, integrating, and living the spiritual truths of Torah in ways that heal and unify both our souls and our world.

Through awareness we wake up to the blessings that are everywhere hidden.

The rough awareness we learn to acknowledge our resistance and then we’ll know just where to apply our most loving attention.

Another important and sometimes misunderstood aspect of practice is repetition. Each time a practice is repeated there is an opportunity to take it deeper, to explore its subtleties, to receive new insights. Realizing my tendency for impatience, one of my teachers warned me that I needed to do a practice for three months before I discerned its effects, before I could evaluate whether it “worked.” Sometimes I will teach a particular meditation and a student will respond in frustration, crying, “I can’t do this!” or they might do it once and say, “Oh I know this …” and stop right there. In both cases they have missed the meaning of the phrase, “It takes practice!”

Practices that appear quite simple can be deepened and refined over a lifetime. Imagine the old Tai Chi Master who repeats the very same movements that he learned as a child. As his practice matures, those simple movements unlock treasure upon treasure of wisdom and power and gradually reveal the secrets of embodied love.

Our practice gathers up the power and flash of temporary states of consciousness – spiritual experiences that pierce through the dullness of our “normal” trance – and harnesses that power to move us to a new stage of development.

Torah becomes a transformational force in our lives and the world when we move from just reading, thinking and talking about it to actually doing it. The “doing” of Torah is not a literal following of its commandments, but rather an actualizing of its Light. We “do Torah” by cultivating a dynamic and challenging practice that explores the “edge” of our learning.

Knowing and working your edge is an important aspect of practice. My edge can be found in the dissonance between what I know to be true and how I actually live.

In the language of Judaism our practice is guided by the mitzvot, which literally means “commandments.” But what if the commandments don’t come from “out there?” What if the Divine Commander is not separate from the inner core of my Being? What if God’s will unfolds through even the smallest details of my life? What if these eyes, these hands, this heart, these ears are the vehicle for Divine vision, touch, love, and receptivity?

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Finding Healing

“What would happen if I stopped blaming, and instead channeled the energy of blame into self-examination, healing, and wise response?

What would it mean to look for the blessing in each moment?

What would it mean to consciously receive the spiritual challenge of each moment, each interaction, every feeling, each relationship, each paradox… and accept that challenge wholeheartedly? What would it mean to look for and commit to a practice that would help me to rise to that challenge and receive the blessing of each moment?

I thought I was writing a book about accessing the treasures of Torah and I wanted to share this amazing journey. Now I see the true purpose of Torah Journeys. It is an exploration of this method of encountering the text so that we can apply the very same method to our encounter with the texts of our own lives – the day to day struggles and surprises that Life sends us.

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Rabbi Shefa Gold

Rabbi Shefa Gold is a leader in ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal. She received her ordination both from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and from Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi.

Shefa composes and performs spiritual music, has produced nine albums, and her liturgies have been published in several new prayerbooks. She teaches workshops and retreats on the theory and art of chanting, spiritual community building and meditation.

Shefa combines her grounding in Judaism with a background in Buddhist, Christian, Islamic, and Native American spiritual traditions to make her uniquely qualified as a spiritual bridge celebrating the shared path of devotion. She lives in Jemez Springs, New Mexico.

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Preview

From Torah Journeys (download as PDF)

Parashat Yitro (Exodus 18:1 - 20:23)

Yitro advises Moses. The Israelites come to Mount Sinai and experience the Revelation.

THE BLESSING

THE GREAT BLESSING THAT COMES TO US this week of the portion of Yitro is the blessing of Divine Revelation. When, in our wanderings, we come to Sinai, God speaks to each of us directly. The mountain of revelation appears to us on our journey when we are ready to receive the awesome truth of our connection to the Source, to each other, and to all of Creation.

In that moment of Revelation, it becomes clear:

Obviously, God is the true reality;
bowing down to my own illusions would be silly.

Of course, I cannot hurt any other living thing without hurting myself;
we are a part of each other.

Of course, there is no need to steal;
who is there to steal from, but another member of the larger self of which I too am a part?
In that moment of revelation it will become clear that the desire that has created such turmoil within me is based on an illusion of lack; connected to all of Creation, I am rich beyond measure.

And certainly, my father and mother must be honored; they are my own flesh and blood and they gave me this precious life.

And yes, in that moment of revelation
the beauty and sanctity of Shabbat becomes clear;
how else can I remember this moment of freedom that revelation brings if not by stopping and receiving the miracle of Creation anew each week?

THERE IS NO NEED for commandments at Sinai. The moment of revelation is a moment of clarity that informs how we live. In that moment of clarity all boundaries between self and other dissolve; all of our senses confirm the fact that consciousness can expand beyond culturally set boundaries and expectations. Living according to the commandments is a natural by-product of the Divine Revelation. Having experienced Revelation, it no longer makes sense to live any other way.

At Sinai it seems that we see the sound of thunder and hear the flash of lightning. Sound and light are revealed to us as energy. A whole new way of perceiving energy is awakened in us at that moment of revelation. With this new perception, even the thickest darkness cannot obscure the truth that we have been given.

God says, "I have carried you on eagle’s wings and brought you back to Me." God, as mother eagle lifts us up out of our limited perceptions and shows us a perspective of the whole. When we take that view to heart, our lives are transformed.

THE SPIRITUAL CHALLENGE

HOW DO WE PREPARE OURSELVES for the moment of revelation? How do we find our way to Sinai? The portion begins with a visit from Yitro, who is father-in-law to Moses and also his teacher of the mysteries of the wilderness.

Yitro comes to prepare Moses for Sinai. The old master of the wilderness watches how Moses lives, how he tries to do everything himself, and yet is never alone. Yitro says, "This is crazy. You’re wearing yourself down with this life of yours. You sit alone and yet people are around you all the time. You need to change the way you do things."

Yitro instructs Moses in the laws of empowerment - how to see and call forth the qualities of leadership in others, and how to share in the joy and the burden of being human. If you sit alone with the burden of Truth, it will weigh you down. And if you are serving people from morning till night, you cannot become a proper vessel for Revelation.

I OFTEN SAY, "My first practice is sanity." Sanity for me is the condition that allows for the full functioning of my body, feelings, thought and awareness, which then allows me to be present for revelation. Sanity requires just the right balance of solitude and service, spaciousness and stimulation. If Yitro came to you in his wisdom and observed the course of your day; if he had a chance to watch how you balanced the requirements for wholeness, what might he say to you?

GUIDANCE FOR PRACTICE

REQUIREMENTS FOR SANITY ASSESSMENT PRACTICE

MAKE A COMMITMENT TO SANITY and wholeness by taking Yitro's advice to heart. Be honest about your personal requirements for sanity. What must you do each day in order to stay whole and alert? Sometimes we only learn about these requirements when we do not fulfill them and find ourselves out-of-balance, unable to be present for the miracle around us.

THE PRACTICE FOR THIS WEEK OF YITRO is to do an honest accounting of:

our minimum daily requirements,
our minimum weekly requirements,
our minimum monthly requirements,
and our minimum yearly requirements,
for solitude, silence, wilderness, learning, music, dance, meditation, pleasure, beauty, nourishment, intimacy, rest, retreat time - whatever it is that is required in order to feel truly whole and fully alive.

AFTER CONTEMPLATING YOUR REQUIREMENTS, write them down and share them with a Spirit Buddy. Then take out your appointment book.

WHENEVER I TEACH A WORKSHOP on spiritual practice I say that this is the holiest book there is. It’s the one you consult every day and really live by. When you make a specific commitment to a practice, write it in that holy book. Then do it, just as you would take responsibility for fulfilling any other commitments written in that Holy Appointment Book.

BY MAKING A COMMITMENT to your own wholeness you send a clear message to God that you are available, that holiness is your priority.

 

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Reviews

"If you dare be addressed by God — read it. If you dare be transformed by God — practice it."

Rabbi Rami Shapiro,
author of The Divine Feminine

"A remarkable book of  profound depth.  It has taught me much, drawing as the author does from the wells of different faith traditions in her life. Rabbi Shefa Gold is adept at teaching us how to grow spiritually using the Torah as the inexhaustible source. Please read this book if you too want to grow."

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu

"Reb Shefa takes you into the House of Study of the heart and the soul and in this way engages the sacred creativity of the spirit."

Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi,
co-author of Jewish With Feeling and Credo Of A Modern Kabbalist

"A beautiful gift for Torah teachers and students alike. Rabbi Gold opens each Torah portion in profound, new ways, pointing the way for us to find the Torah's most usable blessings, spiritual challenges, and sustainable practices for our own journeys. In Torah Journeys, Torah becomes a mirror for our lives and a tool for personal transformation." 

Rabbi Tirzah Firestone,
author of The Receiving: Reclaiming Jewish Women's Wisdom

"Even old places and familiar texts we thought we knew come alive again in this book of substance and deep spiritual refreshment. Here experience takes precedence over tired and literal dogmatic pronouncements and life comes alive again."

Theologian Matthew Fox,
author of A New Reformation: Creation Spirituality and the Transformation of Christianity

"No other contemporary [teacher] I know presents Scripture as so hands-on-accessible a tool for transforming personal suffering into happiness. By offering so generously of her own life experience, Rabbi Gold--in a voice that is authoritative, hopeful, witty, knowledgeable, gracious and humble--provides a model that readers across the boundaries of religious lineages and at all levels of religious education can use to change their own lives."

Sylvia Boorstein,
author of It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

"Rabbi Shefa Gold has a marvelous talent to touch a reader's soul through contemplative insights and practices that resonate at the core of one's being.

" Her book, Torah Journeys is a wonderful opportunity to discover the depths of Jewish wisdom teachings through the guidance of a teacher who brings a perfect combination of heartfulness and skillfulness along with a passion for profound spiritual inquiry.

Rabbi David A Cooper, author of God is a Verb

"The first Jewish Renewal Torah commentary... a Judaism that speaks to the heart as well as the brain."

The New Jersey Jewish News

"Torah Journeys is an exploration of the weekly portion written from the perspective of spiritual growth and development... remarkable insights and practices that are both profound and accessible."

Rabbi Joshua Waxman, Beliefnet

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A book and a song:
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