Joseph: the master at just being

We asked while studying this week: why is it that our forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob sacrificed on a regular basis, but Joseph never did? Neither did God speak directly to him, but he did receive messages in the forms of dreams, though they were more metaphors to be interpreted rather than clear words. So what shifted between the first three generations of Jews and the fourth?

My Hevruta asked if God was always with Joseph, so there was no need to build an alter or sacrifice to bring himself closer to God. At that point, I felt the presence of Joseph come into the room and he showed me how he experienced the world.

Joseph was a person who was always open to the flow of energy around him. He could perceive it and used it to make choices that based on where the energy would flow most powerfully. He could perceive it in others and his reactions to them were guided by his energetic perceptions rather than his physical ones. In that sense, God was always with him because he could always perceive God around him and in the world. He had no need to increase the energy around him as he knew that it was always there.

When his brothers threw him in the hole, he didn't fight or run away because he could perceive that it was the correct thing to happen. I imagine he was very puzzled by it, but he went with the flow as he always did.

When Potifar's wife tried to seduce him, he ran because he could see her evil intentions and knew her seduction was a power play rather than an expression of Love. He ran from her because he could see through her.

When he interpreted dreams, he could feel the meanings within them. He could see how the energetics of the dreams matched up with reality.

He was the master of Being. He didn't puzzle about life or try to make things happen. He just went where the flow was strongest. He didn't need to build power to get close to God because he could always perceive God in the world.

Photo courtesy of Joseph Brauer

The Jewish Standing Stone

Photo courtesy of Minipixel

The study of sacrifices brings us to the story of Jacob's dream. The story can be found in Genesis 28:10-22.

To quickly recap the story: Jacob has left home to find a wife in Paddan-aram and left an angry and vengeful Esau behind. He's on his way and, seeing that the sun is about to set, takes a stone from the area and lays his head upon it. That night, he dreams that there is a ladder fixed to earth upon which angels ascend and descend. God stands by his side and promises him that his many descendants will be a blessing to all the nations. God also says that God will protect him be with him where ever he goes.

When he wakes, Jacob lifts the stone upon which he slept into a Matzebah מצבה (pillar), pours oil upon it, and proclaims that this is the house of God and it a Gateway to heaven. Jacob then vows to God that if God protects him, he will accept God as his God and the pillar will be God's house. Furthermore, of all the God gives him, he will tithe 10 percent  to God.

On the pshat (simple) level Jacob had an unexpected spiritual experience, his first, in which he found that God was protecting and standing next to him. He realized that where he slept was a place of power and created a Matzebeh to mark the place. He then makes a vow to God demonstrating that he was changed by the experience.

One central issue in this story is what is a Matzebah? The word derives from the root יצב which means to station oneself or to take a stand, and appears three times during the story.

The first is verse 12 in reference to the ladder that reaches from earth to Heaven: סלם מצב ארצה "the ladder was fixed in the ground". In this case, it means fixed permanently. We learn here that this is a place where there is always a שער השמים a gate of heaven (Gn 28:17). The ladder is not resting on the ground, but it is fixed to the place.

The next occurrence is in the next verse ה' נצב עליו which can be translated as "God is standing upon him" or "God is stationed with him". Again, there is a sense of permanence here. God will always be with him.

The last two occurrences are in relation the rock. In 28:18 it states: וישם אתה מצבה "and he put it (the stone) as a pillar".  In 28:22: והאבן הזאת אשר שמתי הצבה יהיה בית אלקים "And this rock that I put as a pillar will be the house of God". The Brown Driver Briggs translation of Matzebah is a pillar or obelisk or a stone that is anointed as a memorial of a divine appearance.  In addition to that the Matzebah is a special marker that denotes a place where God can always be reached. Then Jacob poured oil upon it, it was a type of sacrifice to proclaim that this was a holy place, a place of power where the gate of heaven is easily accessible.

A מזבח mizbayach is the more common type of Altar that can be moved or built as needed. The Matzebah is determined by it's location and can't be moved.

Bringing this to the present day, I'm left wondering if there are certain places where everyone can connect more easily with God? Or places where individuals can easily connect to God due to a prior history with the place? Or if we need to build some sort of altar when we want to connect, and what that would look like from a modern Jewish perspective? What do people think?

The Unbinding of Avraham

 

Photo Courtesy of Underpuppy (And Rembrandt)

As my study of sacrifices continues, we have come to the Akeda - the binding of Isaac (Genesis 22). Avraham is asked to sacrifice his only child and in return for doing so, he is rewarded with a promise from God that he will have many, many descendants. The paradox is that in his willingness to give up the thing he most cherished, he was able to assure that it would remain.

The story is very well known and studied. God tests Avraham by telling him that he needs to sacrifice his son as an Olah עלה sacrificial offering. Avraham sets off with his son and two servants. He gets to Mount Moriah, binds Isaac, and places him on top of his newly built alter. As he reaches out for the knife to do the sacrifice, an angel calls out to him and tells him to stop. He raises his eyes and sees a ram stuck in a thicket which he sacrifices instead.

To understand the deeper meaning, we need to look at changes that occurred as a result of the Akeda. As Avraham is approaching the mountain, he and Isaac are described as walking as one: וילכו שניהם יחדו (Gn 22:8). After the Akeda, Avraham returns to his servants but we are not told what happened to Isaac. The two never spoke again after that day, and Midrash has it that they departed separately from the mountain. It is certain that they no longer walked as one.

In response to Avraham's actions, God blesses him with "...descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven..." (Gn 22:17) If the separation that occurred between the two led to the blessing of descendants, then the connection between the two was a spiritual blockage that prevented it. As Avraham was the one commanded by God, then the blockage was inside of him.

In Shamanic healing,  most powerful blockages are usually fear. In this case, Avraham's greatest fear was that he would not have descendants (see Gn 15:2). As is the case with all fears, if they have power over us and we work too hard to try to prevent them coming true, that pretty much ensures that they will come true. In order to take back the power from the fear, Avraham had to be willing to give up his what he most wanted. 

When Avraham reaches for the knife he is stopped and looks up to sees a ram. The text reads "וירא הנה איל אחר" And he saw, here was another (a different) ram (Gn 22:13). The text makes a point earlier in Genesis 22:7-8 that there was no animal for the offering, so how can there be "another" at this point? If you remove the Yod from איל (ram) then you are left with El, God. The fear had become so dominant for Avraham that it had become like a God to him. At that moment, he was finally able to see the fear that had been the other god in his life and in sacrificing it, bring himself back to God.

It was the emotional intensity of the moment that freed him. In order to go through the catharsis, he had to believe that he really was going to do it. When I think of ways to bring this idea into the modern world, we must be prepared to give up things that we want in order to make them happen. It's important to note that Avraham's fears revolved around Isaac and not around himself. He was trying to influence something over which he ultimately had no control.

It's a lesson to all parents, that we can hope for our children, but it's best not to be dominated by our expectations and fears for our children. It will only ensure that the fears will come true. If it's in our control, we can work hard and get it. If it's out of our control, we always have to be prepared to let go of it completely.

One final note on symbolism in the text: when Avraham gets to the top of the mountain, he built an alter, laid out the wood, then bound Isaac. Building the alter is how Avraham builds spiritual power and creates connection to God. Laying out the wood is the preparation that went into the act. In order for wood to burn easily as is required for a burnt offering, it needs to be dried for months and sometimes years. It shows that Avraham had already been putting in a lot of hard work before God enabled him to break through the fear.

The last is the actual binding of Isaac. There is a midrash that Isaac asked Avraham to bind him so when the moment came, he did not flinch. When we go to do things of such emotional intensity, we need to bind ourselves to the act so that we don't flinch when the moment comes.

Home is where your altar is

Photo courtesy of Premasagar

In this post, I will look at how altars are used in Genesis 12 & 13. Avram builds altars to mark places of power, to invoke God's name to help him through difficult situations, and to help him establish a home.

After the Sacrifices in the story of Noah, the next time we encounter them are in Genesis 12:7. God appears to Avram and Avram build an altar to mark the spot. The word for altar is מזבח which derives from the root זבח which means sacrifice or slaughter for sacrifice. An altar in biblical Hebrew is a place where sacrifices happen.

In this case, we are not told if he actually made a sacrifice, but only that he "built there an altar to God". It's interesting that he did not build an altar when God first appeared to him in Ur (Genesis 12:1) and told him to go to Canaan, but only when he arrived there and God showed him the land. In this case, the altar is used as a place marker for a place of power.

There are two general ways of contacting the spiritual world. The first is when the souls or God intrude upon us and they initiate the contact. I don't use intrude in a negative way. The second is when we do some sort of ritual or practice that opens us to the spiritual world. In the traditional metaphor, the first type is that heaven descends upon us and the second is when we ascend. One aspect of places of power in the world is that Heaven is closer to the earth at those points and contact is easier. Avram's altar is marking the place where contact is easier.

The narrative continues and Avram continues to travel through Canaan. He builds another altar when he is in the mountains between Bethel and Ai (Gn 12:8). His innovation here is that instead of a sacrifice, he "invokes the name of God". He has discovered that the name of God is itself powerful and can bring him into the spiritual world. For those of us in the modern world who are averse to animal sacrifice (and I hope most of you are), this has important implications.

It's easy to see his intention for making the altar by looking at the literal translations of his locale (thanks to my chevruta for this insight): Bethel בית אל means the house of God and Ai עי can be translated as destruction or ruin. עי comes from עוה which means distortion or ruin. Avram is in a hard place and doesn't know which direction to go. He sees that one way leads to God and another to ruin, but he's unsure of the path to take so he builds an altar to ask. In the verse immediately following the altar, Avram moves forward on his journey, so clearly he got an answer.

After a brief sojourn in Egypt, Avram returns to the altar and again invokes the name of God. This time, there is strife between his herdsmen and the herdsmen of his nephew Lot. He is looking for a good solution, and invokes the name of God to help lead him to peace between his people and Lot's. Lot goes one way and Avram another.

The last altar in this section is built when Avram moved his tents to Mamre in Hebron. In this case, there is no clear reason given for building an altar. He moves, sets up camp, builds the altar, and then the narrative moves on in another direction entirely. In this case, Avram is setting up his camp and knows that a strong spiritual connection to God is central to creating a good home.

Altars are used in three ways: to mark a place of power, to get direction from God, and to create a home. The commonality is that each use is about creating or noting a connection to God. In the two cases where Avram creates the connection himself, he invokes God's name to do it. This is a little bit different from the next mention of sacrifice in Genesis 15 which involves no altar but cutting animals in half. Stay tuned!

Noah's Ascension

  בראשית כ וייבן נוח מזבח ליהוה וייקח מכול הבהמה הטהורה ומכול העוף הטהור ויעל עולות במזבח  כא וירח יהוה את ריח הניחוח ויאמר יהוה אל ליבו לא אוסיף לקלל עוד את האדמה בעבור האדם כי יצר לב האדם רע מנעוריו ולא-אוסיף עוד להכות את-כל-חי כאשר עשיתי  כב עוד כל-ימי הארץ זרע וקציר וקור וחום וקיץ וחורף ויום ולילה לא ישבותו.

Genesis 8:20 And Noah built an alter to God. He took from all of the pure animals and from all the pure birds and raised them as an ascension offering at the alter. (21) God smelled the pleasant fragrance and God said to his heart, I will not continue to destroy the earth because of man for his heart's inclination is bad from his youth. And I will not again destroy all life as I have done. (22)To the end of the days of the land, during seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will not cease.

The next time sacrifices are mentioned in the Tanach is during the story of Noah (Genesis 8:20-22). After the flood is over, Noah comes out of the ark and builds an alter (מזבח). He takes one of each of the pure animals and sacrifices them in/at the alter. The word for Sacrifice is olah עולה, to go up. The scent of the sacrifice (and possible Noah) go up to God, and in response God says to his heart that he will not destroy the world again in response to man's evil inclination.

This is a very different type of sacrifice then Cain and Hevel. Their sacrifice was a mincha (rest), and the result of the sacrifice was that God gazed upon Hevel. In this sacrifice, the goal of the offering was to ascend, and the result was that God made a change. One question I had was what exactly ascended? In the text, God smelled the "pleasant fragrance". My general assumption is that God is so far beyond us that we can't even begin to understand or explain God, but how does one make sense of God "smelling"?

I think the answer lies in a closer reading of the text. The word for pleasant odor is ריח הניחוח reach hanichoah. The first word can be read as רוח or spirit/wind, and the second is a variation on his name: נח Noah. When God smells (וירח), his spirit (רוח) meets with Noah's. This reading is that the spirit of Noah ascended up to God, God "spirited" Noah's "spirit", and it effected God's heart.

The Mincha sacrafice is a type of offering that results in a connection with God. It seems that the person offering the sacrifice brings God into the world. An ascension offering is more active and one that makes a change in the world. Here, the person goes into the spiritual world to make a change.

I'm excited to see how these types play out as we go further into our study, and what we can learn from how sacrifices were used biblically.

Cain wasn't Abel

Photo from Okinawa Soba

I've recently started studying with a new Hevruta who also has a shamanic background and is a cohen. We've decided to try to explore the practice of sacrifice in Judaism and to see if we can apply what we learn to our practices. We're beginning with the story of Cain and Hevel (Abel), who gave the first offerings to God. The story can be found in Genesis 4:1-16.

The names are very significant: Cain, קין, means acquired, and Hevel, הבל, means vapor or breath. Cain is the farmer, the worker of the land, which is cursed at this point, and Hevel is a shepherd. These facts set up the dichotomy between the two: Cain is a person who must always be busy tending to his fields and to his crops. The life of the shepherd is very different. It's mostly a quiet, meditative life. Cain is very tied to the physicality of the land, while Hevel is able to concentrate on more spiritual pursuits.

In my paradigm, Cain's gift is doing: working and producing. He is most connected to God when he is farming. Hevel's gift is being: meditation and quiet observation of the world. He is most connected to God during "spiritual" times and rituals.

Interestingly, it is Cain who first makes the offering of first fruits to God, and only then does Hevel follow. The word for offering is מנחה (minchah) which derives from לנוח (to rest), and in this form, can mean "to cause to rest".  The purpose of the sacrifice was to cause Cain to be able to rest from his work. My understanding of this is based on my experience when I connect to the souls. I feel very peaceful and relaxed, even to the point where I forget my words or my questions (if I had any). Perhaps Cain was seeking a similar experience.

But God accepts Hevel's sacrifice and Hevel himself, but not to Cain or his sacrifice. The word for accept is וישא, which means to Gaze (steadily with interest) or to turn towards and pay heed. Hevel sacrifices and connects to God. Cain sacrifices and neither he nor his sacrifice connect to God.

In our reading, this makes perfect sense. Hevel connects to God through ritual and through spiritual means. Cain connects through working and producing. When Cain sacrifices, he is trying to connect to God through Hevel's gift, which, of course, doesn't work for him.

It's noteworthy that Cain figured out a good way for Hevel to connect. It's a reminder not to spend all our time with people who have similar gifts to ourselves. Often, the outside perspective enables another to see how we can use our gifts more effectively. It's also important to live in community so that when we are faced with a task that is outside of our power, we have others who can do it for us. Cain's response might have been to ask Hevel to do the sacrifices for him. In turn, Hevel would be probably be unable to do tasks that would require him to be fully in the physical world and would need Cain to do them for him.

And here is where Cain goes astray. He gets angry and disappointed that God wouldn't gaze upon him when he sacrificed, and God chastises him for it. God tells him that "if he does right, there is uplift" (literally exalted and majesty). Doing right, in my reading, is doing and living according to his gift. But God continues, "if you do not do right, Sin crouches at the door". Any time that we try to live according to someone else's gift, we run into trouble.

Cain then kills Hevel. God asks Cain "where is your brother Hevel?", and we get the famous reply "Am I my brother's keeper?" God replies that "Your brother's blood cries out to my from the ground (אדמה)." The ground was Cain's source of power. He was a farmer who derived his power, and connected to God, through working the land. But the murder of his brother poisoned Cain's power so that he would never be able to access it again.

God's punishment to Cain was twofold: destroying Cain's connection with his power and cursing him to Hevel's power which would never really work for him. God tells Cain directly that if "you till the soil, it shall no longer yield it's strength to you." He then curses Cain has to wander the land, which is what a shepherd does, not what a farmer does.

Cain replies "My punishment is to great to bear. Since you have banished me this day from the soil and your presence will be hidden from me..." Cain is aware that he can no longer connect to God as he has been separated from his gift. Cain continues "...anyone who meets me may kill me." God then puts a mark on Cain's forehead as protection.

Why does Cain need protection only at this point? My approach to spiritual protection has always been awareness, love, dealing with fear, and staying within your power. It's a much longer discussion, but my view is that when Cain was no longer in his power, he was vulnerable. Hevel had no trouble wandering the land and living. Cain is unable to do that.

There are some people who naturally avoid fights, and some people who can't seem to go anywhere without having someone start a fight with them. Hevel might have been a person who did not naturally get into fights or quarrels, but Cain, being more in the world, might have. Now Cain is wandering the world with Hevel's power but people are still fighting with him, and he now has no defenses so he needs God's protection.

This story sets up one of the basic polarities in Human existence: those who are more in the physical world and those who are more in the spiritual world. Each has a unique gift that enables them to connect to God and only run into trouble when they try to be someone who they are not.