Coming into the Presence of the Beloved—Elul 20

S.Y. Agnon, in his wonderful book Days of Awe, writes:

Everyone must prepare himself thirty days beforehand with Teshuvah and prayer and charity for the day when he will appear in judgment before God, on Rosh ha-Shanah. Then let him give all his heart to the service of God. And those who interpret the Torah metaphorically say, “The initials of the words, A niL e-dodi V e-dodi L i (‘I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine’—Cant. 6:13), when read consecutively read Elul. If Israel will long to turn in a complete Teshuvah to their Father who is in heaven, then his longing will go out to them, and he will accept them in Teshuvah.” [Mateh Moshe]

And so we move, so fluently, so gracefully, from imagining ourselves in this month of Elul, passing in review before a judge, to standing in the presence of “our Father in heaven,” to reaching out, full hearted, in longing to our Beloved, who in turn reaches out in longing for us. Coming into the presence in an embrace of love.

Coming into the Presence for our Hearts to be Considered—Elul 19

The world is judged at four seasons: at Passover, in regard to grain; on the Feast of Weeks, in regard to the fruit of the tree; on Rosh ha-Shanah, all the inhabitants of this world file before Him. As it is said, “He that fashioneth the hearts of them all, that considereth all their doings” (Ps. 33:15). On the Feast of Booths, the world is judged in regard to rain. Mishnah Rosh ha-Shanah I.2

We human beings are not alone in being judged, weighed in the balance. All of creation is weighed—the grain, the trees, the rain—to see if it has within it that which will make the creation grow and flourish and bear fruit. And on Rosh ha-Shanah, too, we do not stand alone but with the whole of creation, all hearts, the hearts of rocks and sand and water and beasts and birds and creeping things; with all of them we pass in review before the One who considers the heart fashioned in us, to know if that heart is still fertile and moist, as it was when it was created, or if it has grown sterile and dry, incapable of bearing fruit in the world, giving life to others.

All flesh is as grass: it comes into being and passes away. The question is, What happens in that moment between? That’s the question we should ask ourselves during Elul, on Rosh ha-Shanah, during the Days of Awe, and on Yom Kippur, when we consider whether we will be found worthy or not: What have we done this year with the heart fashioned in us for goodness and abundant life? Has it dried up? Or is it ever greening, ever rising to new life?

Coming into the Presence: Graveyards and Epitaphs —Elul 18

Last weekend, for the tenth anniversary of our father’s death, my sister, my niece, and I traveled to the cemetery where he is buried. As we walked through the grave markers, almost every one of them a modest plaque flush with the earth—no statues or obelisks or worldly glory of any kind for these mostly Dutch Calvinist immigrants and their descendants—one epitaph appeared over and over. One word, directly under the name and dates of birth and death spanning their life: “Redeemed.”

Redeemed. It may strike one at first as arrogant. How do they know they are redeemed? Why are they so focused on their reward, the eternal life of their individual soul, for their believing? But this epitaph isn’t necessarily a sign of spiritual pride. For many it is simply a sign of their trust and hope, based on the verse from Acts 16:31: “And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” They believed, and they rested in the blessed assurance that they had been saved. This gave them comfort in life and their families comfort in their death, knowing that their sins had been washed away and that they were in heaven with the Lord who had atoned for them, not suffering eternal punishment for their sins.

As we walked among the redeemed, my sister noticed one marker that carried a different epitaph: “In His Presence.”

These three words, “In His Presence,” set me wondering, about the person who had chosen those words as the sign of his or her life to others, and how that sign might be different from “redeemed.” Was this person’s longing in life to be always nearer to God, more and more in God’s presence, trusting that when their body died and their life on earth ended they would experience that Presence fully, with no barriers? As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
Perhaps this, too can be seen as arrogant, to claim that one is in God’s presence, has reached that station in death that was never possible in life, or been taken there as a reward for one’s trust while alive. For can we ever make such claims as fact? No. These epitaphs read as claims of fact, but they are signs of trust, and true in this sense.

You may say there is no difference in these two epitaphs. To claim, in trust, one is redeemed is to say one is enjoying God’s presence forever (as the Heidelberg Catechism says it so beautifully), and vice versa. But words matter. And this woman or man chose “In His Presence,” not “Redeemed,” to signify the direction in which his or her life was always moving. These three words focus less on the redemption of the individual soul from sin, and more on the joy of dwelling in the Presence of the Holy One, in this life, and beyond it.

I left the graveyard where my father is buried wondering. About that person who chose those three words, “In His Presence.” About what their experience of communion with God had been, and is. How they imagined coming into that Presence. Standing before the Judge? Wrapped in the loving embrace of “our Father in heaven”? Caught up in the joy of experiencing the end for which the world was created: enjoying God forever?

Coming into the Presence: Gurus, Rebbes, and Lamas, Oh My! —Elul 17

What about the metaphor of standing in the presence of a great spiritual leader? Can that help us understand coming into the Presence? If you had a chance to meet the Dalai Lama, Gandhi, the Pope, Rabbi Schneerson, or any great guru, how would you prepare? What would that encounter be like?

I remember during the Watergate hearings on TV I by accident saw a late-night interview with Abraham Joshua Heschel. I don’t remember now his words, whether he was talking about marching for civil rights or Judaism or social justice or something else. What I remember is this: being overwhelming affected by this person’s presence, even across the strange, artificial medium of television. All these decades later, I can still recall it. Heschel’s presence was deep, rich, full, encompassing joy, love, forgiveness, wisdom, power, hope, truth, righteousness. And the effect of his presence on me was to make me want to become a human being like that. Not to be him, but to be the deepest, richest, fullest human being I could be. In that moment of standing in Heschel’s presence—even across the TV waves—I realized how much was possible for a life and my desire to strive for that was kindled.

This is one of the reasons villagers in the 18th century flocked to the houses of the great rebbes, The Baal Shem Tov and many others. Why in the last and current centuries they flock to the study of Reb Schneerson and other rebbes. Why they travel across the world to stand in the loving presence of gurus like Mata Amritanandamayi, known as Amma, Mother. Because to stand in the presence of another human being who has been graced with great love, to absorb the atmosphere such a person radiates, such a spirit tuned to the infinite, to the beyond that is ever near, is to be changed. By standing in the presence of such a person it is as if our spirits are tuned to that beyond that is ever near, and called to become something larger than we were or imagined before.

We may fall out of tune once we leave the presence of such a tuning fork, but the desire to be in tune may remain, and we will go on seeking it for ourselves.

This, too, may teach us something about coming in the Presence during the days of Elul, the Days of Awe, and every day.

Coming into the Presence: Celebrity Worship—Elul 16

If we no longer know what it feels like to stand in the presence of a king or queen, what experience can help us understand coming into the Presence during the month of Elul, the Days of Awe, or any day?

I’ve always been baffled by celebrity worship. I don’t even ask authors I respect to sign their books. Maybe it’s the fierce anti-idolatry I was imprinted with by growing up Calvinist and that has only been reinforced by being a Jew. Like Mordecai, I won’t bow to any human being.

Many years ago, however, I read an op ed piece somewhere that argued that with the death of God and attrition of religion, celebrities have become our gods. That makes sense to me. We need something to believe in, to look up to, to focus our lives on. And our celebrities are indeed like the Greek gods—fickle, misbehaving, at the mercy of their passions, jealous, cruel, violent, vengeful, silly, lawless, all too human—at the same time that they live high above us on a Mount Olympus of wealth and privilege that most of us will never experience. They’re very human ness perhaps is what makes them dear to us. They are like us, yet not like us. Because they are like us, we are able to form a bond with them. Because they are unlike us, we are able to live out our ideal life through them. In identifying with them, their beauty, their wealth, their “highness,” somehow our lives are elevated from the mundane work and experiences we must slog through every day to survive. They perform that function for us: to incarnate an ideal to which we direct our lives. Perhaps not every one of these ideals is one we would choose to direct our life toward, but they are ideals nonetheless, and not to be held in contempt.

Does this metaphor work for coming into the Presence? Think about meeting a celebrity that would inspire a little trembling in you. It could be Barak Obama. It could be Elvis. It could be Toni Morrison. It could be Janis Joplin, Golda Meir, Nelson Mandela, or Desmond Tutu. Whoever it is, you’d want to be your best self in that moment, wouldn’t you? You might be a little flustered, a little jazzed, but you would pay attention, be present, try to drink in as much of that person’s presence, their atmosphere, as you could in that moment, so that their shining, in whatever way it is that they shine, rubs off on you and changes you permanently, makes you be a better person from that moment on, because you had met them, come into their presence. And from that moment on your life would change; it would now be a life after you had met x, and that is what would make all the difference.
So, as silly as it may seem at first, maybe there is something to this way of understanding coming into the Presence after all.

More tomorrow.

Coming into the Presence— Fear and Trembling, or Fear or Trembling?—Elul 15

Here’s a quote from that great mystic Jalal al-Din Rumi—not the Rumi of sweetness and light and lover and bellowed and love that so many people want to excerpt today, but the man who also knew the One as slayer and violent batterer of hearts. Like Jonathon Edwards, Rumi was well-versed in the complexities of religious experience and he, too, guided seekers, though through poetry and not theological treatises. This couplet of his speaks to the false claims to absoluteness from which condemnation springs, which we saw with Jonathon Edwards. It speaks to our ongoing Elul reflections on “know before whom you stand” and “coming into the presence.” What does it mean to come into the presence with fear and trembling?

And, in true “doctor of the heart” fashion, this couplet guides those finding their way. Seekers often like to measure their progress, against themselves or against others (comparing again!). Rumi cuts through that urge while directing seekers to one of the paradoxes at the core of the life lived into the presence. In speaking of different stations along the way of the spiritual path, Rumi brings this arresting report of following the way from his experience:
It’s from his Mathnawi, # 228, as translated by A.J. Arberry (Mystical Poems of Rumi 2, p. 24):

Know as a station of fear that in which you are secure;
know as a station of security that in which you tremble.

Shabbat Shalom!--Elul 14

Shabbat shalom!