Looking for Jewish Koans

Text study is the koan study of Judaism. Koan study is a part of Zen Buddhism which involves long hours of meditation over paradoxical statements. At some point, the student has a moment of insight and gives the teacher the answer to the Koan. Jews spend long hours in a room filled with books pouring over texts looking for contradictions, and then trying to work on the text some more until the contradiction is resolved. Usually this involves either a deeper reading of the text which may reveal how the seeming contradiction isn’t really a contradiction, or bringing in a midrash or other idea that is not in the text to propose a solution.

Text koan study leads to two things: really, really good critical thinking and/or mystical insight. The former is the result of really close text study and learning to link other pieces of the texts together to form a solution. The second is when there is no solution and after thinking hard on the text, a flash of insight comes that explains the contradiction. Sometimes, when one has the answer, one can go back and find the proof in the text. Sometimes there is no proof, just the insight.

My experience of studying the texts is more the later, the flashes of insight. What seems unusual to me about it is that I often feel the presence of a soul or tzaddik guiding me through the text. When I studied about Jacob and the rape of Dina, Jacob came to me and explained the story to me. I didn’t find the textual proof for what he told me, but it sure made sense.

A shaman is a person who interacts with the spirit world for healing. I have spent the last eight years of my life learning about how to do that and it led me back into Judaism. I’ve just begun my text koan study, and I want to write about the shamanic in Judaism. I see a lot of similarities between my shamanic study and what I am learning in Judaism, and I think the shamanic way of looking at things can help to explain a lot of what it often puzzling to me in Judaism. I don’t know where this will lead me, or why I’ve been led on this path, but I hope that writing about it will give me insight into my studies and maybe help you understand both shamanism and Judaism a little better.

I am also going to see if I can come up with some Jewish Koans. Things like: God is everything. God is Ayn Sof, without limit, so God can not have any boundaries, but as soon as God is everything in the world, there are lots of boundaries and limits. So God is both everything and not-everything.

Mull that one over for awhile.