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112
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2011
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Publié par
Date de parution
26 juillet 2011
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9781580234887
Langue
English
Poids de l'ouvrage
1 Mo
Selected as a Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC)
“Significant Jewish Book”
Jacob was running away from home. One night he lay down in the wilderness to sleep and had one of the great mystical experiences of Western religion. He dreamed there was a ladder, with angels ascending and descending, stretched between heaven and earth. For thousands of years, people have tried to overhear what the messengers came down to tell Jacob, and us.
Now in a daring blend of scholarship and imagination, psychology and history, Lawrence Kushner gathers an inspiring range of interpretations of Genesis 28:16 given by sages, from Shmuel bar Nachmani in third-century Palestine to Hannah Rachel Werbermacher of Ludomir who lived in Poland two hundred years ago. Through a fascinating new literary genre and Kushner’s creative reconstruction of the teachers’ lives and times, we enter the study halls and sit at the feet of these spiritual masters to learn what each discovered about God’s Self and ourselves as they ascend and descend Jacob’s ladder.
In this illuminating journey, our spiritual guides ask and answer the fundamental questions of human experience: Who am I? Who is God? What is God’s role in history? What is the nature of evil? How should I relate to God and other people? Could the universe really have a self?
Rabbi Lawrence Kushner brilliantly reclaims a millennium of Jewish spirituality for contemporary seekers of all faiths and backgrounds. God Was in This Place & I, i Did Not Know is about God and about you; it is about discovering God’s place in the universe, and yours.
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Publié par
Date de parution
26 juillet 2011
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9781580234887
Langue
English
Poids de l'ouvrage
1 Mo
Other Jewish Lights Books by Lawrence Kushner
The Book of Letters: A Mystical Hebrew Alphabet
The Book of Words: Talking Spiritual Life, Living Spiritual Talk
Eyes Remade for Wonder: A Lawrence Kushner Reader
Honey from the Rock: An Introduction to Jewish Mysticism
I m God; You re Not: Observations on Organized Religion & Other Disguises of the Ego
Invisible Lines of Connection: Sacred Stories of the Ordinary
Jewish Spirituality: A Brief Introduction for Christians
The River of Light: Jewish Mystical Awareness
The Way Into Jewish Mystical Tradition
For Children
Because Nothing Looks Like God
with Karen Kushner
The Book of Miracles: A Young Person s Guide to Jewish Spiritual Awareness
How Does God Make Things Happen?
with Karen Kushner
(SkyLight Paths Publishing)
In God s Hands
with Gary Schmidt
What Does God Look Like?
with Karen Kushner
(SkyLight Paths Publishing)
Where Is God?
with Karen Kushner
(SkyLight Paths Publishing)
A Note on the Cover
Like lightning, the ladder of Jacob s dream joins heaven and earth. There are seven rungs corresponding to the seven messengers Jacob meets during the night. The colors were chosen in an attempt to evoke the enormous spiritual energy of the dream now visible in the night sky. And their swirling motion was inspired by Vincent Van Gogh s great painting The Starry Night .
The reader s attention is directed also to the white diamond shape in the center of the drawing. This is a highly stylized version of the Hebrew letter yod , which traditionally represents the Name of God. In addition (as is suggested by the seventh messenger), the letter yod is also the first letter of Jacob s Hebrew name, Yaakov. In the cover illustration and in the colophon beginning each chapter, this letter yod (and Jacob) are suspended midway between heaven and earth, between God and self.
The title of this book, God Was in This Place I, i Did Not Know , is a translation of Genesis 28:16. It is what Jacob says when he awakes after dreaming of a ladder that joins heaven and earth.
God Was in This Place I, i Did Not Know:
Finding Self, Spirituality, and Ultimate Meaning 2002 Seventh printing 1995 Third printing 2000 Sixth printing 1993 Second printing 1998 Fifth printing 1991 First printing 1997 Fourth printing
Copyright 1991 by Lawrence Kushner
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information regarding permission to reprint material from this book, please mail or fax your request in writing to Jewish Lights Publishing, Permissions Department, at the address / fax number listed below.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kushner, Lawrence, 1943-
God was in this place and i, i did not know: finding self, spirituality, and ultimate meaning by Lawrence Kushner.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Spiritual life-Judaism. 2. God (Judaism)-History of doctrines. 3. Hasidism. 4. Bible. O.T. Genesis XXVIII, 16-Criticism, interpretation, etc., Jewish. 1. Title.
BM723.K868 1991 296.7-dc20 91-21200
ISBN: 1-879045-33-8
First Paperback edition
10 9 8 7
Manufactured in the United States of America
Book and cover designed and illustrated by the author.
Published by Jewish Lights Publishing
A Division of LongHill Partners, Inc.
Sunset Farm Offices, Route 4, P.O. Box 237 Woodstock, VT 05091
Tel: (802) 457-4000 Fax: (802) 457-4004
www.jewishlights.com
Acknowledgments
This book grew from a short essay by the late Alexander Altmann of Brandeis University, God and the Self in Jewish Mysticism, that appeared in Judaism, 1954. The essay was published while he was still a congregational rabbi in Manchester, England. In its few pages he synthesized more than I have been able to assemble in an entire book .
I want to thank Marie Cantlon, my editor, for her confidence, vision, and ability to help me see beyond my own words. The sage counsel and support of friends, especially Anita Diamant, Bill Novak, Nehemia Polen, Jeffrey Summit, and Moshe Waldoks, has been invaluable. The creative enthusiasm of Sandee Brawarsky and Selma Shapiro was also of great help. And I am grateful to the members of congregation BETH EL of the Sudbury River Valley for their understanding and good humor and for permitting me to field test so many of the following ideas on them in sermons, classes, and at meetings .
Jevin Eagle s tireless devotion to detail, intellectual energy, and good humor transformed the production of this book into something akin to pleasure. And, of course, without Stuart Matlins, the founder of Jewish Lights Publishing, none of this would have been possible. His advice, trust, and willingness to let me have full graphic control of this book has resulted, I hope the reader will agree, in a seamless blend of aesthetic and literary presentation. He has been mentor, friend, and teacher and made the experience of book-making into one most authors can only dream about .
My children, Noa, Zack, and Lev, have been only blessings throughout the project. The following pages would not have been possible without their continued patience, suggestions, and jokes. Finally, to my wife, Karen: You are my home .
LSK Sudbury, Massachusetts 7 July 1991 25 Tammuz 5751
To my brother Steven
TABLE of CONTENTS
PROLOGUE Surely God was in this place and I, i did not know
1 / RASHI Shelomo ben Yitzhaki, Rashi AWARENESS
2 / KOTZK Menachem Mendl of Kotzk EGOTISM
3 / LUDOMIR Hannah Rachel Werbermacher, the Maid of Ludomir The OTHER SIDE
4 / MEZRITCH Dov Baer, the Maggid of Mezritch SELF-REFLECTION
5 / NACHMANI Shmuel bar Nachmani HISTORY
6 / De LE N Moses ben Shem Tov de Le n The SELF of the UNIVERSE
7 / OSTROPOL Shimshon ben Pesach Ostropoler SELF
EPILOGUE Your Torah and God s Torah
About Jewish Lights
Copyright
The MIRROR in the ARK
One of a rabbi s happier jobs is making guest appearances in the congregation s pre-school. A few years ago as the High Holy Days approached, their teacher asked if I would give the children a tour of the prayer hall.
I decided to save the contents of the ark, with its ornate, hand-written Torah scrolls of the Five Books of Moses for last. But I lost track of the time and suddenly spied the teacher discreetly signaling from the back of the room that school was almost over, parents soon would be arriving.
Not wanting to rush through the sacred contents of the ark, I decided to save them for a separate session. I apologized for not having enough time and promised the children that the next time we met I would open the curtains and together we would see what was inside. Their teacher later informed me that such a hasty conclusion had generated a heated discussion among the little people as to what exactly was in the ark behind the curtains.
One kid, doubtless a budding nihilist, thought it was empty. Another, apparently already a devotee of American television consumer culture, opined that behind that curtain was a brand new car! Another correctly guessed that it held scrolls of the Torah. But one kid, the teacher insists, said, You re all wrong. When the rabbi opens that curtain next week, there will just be a big mirror.
PROLOGUE
Surely GOD was in this PLACE and I, i did not know
-Genesis 28:16
Like the One who has no mouth, who spoke the first letter that has no sound, the biblical word conceals an infinity of meanings. She opens a little window in her hidden palace and reveals her face to her lover, then swiftly withdraws, concealing herself. We read the Bible, fix our attention on a phrase, and suddenly find ourselves in a conversation with centuries of teachers who also have come hoping to penetrate the meaning of the same text, convinced that holy words are intimately related not only to what God means but even to who God is and who we are.
The following chapters are about seven different ways of reading the same biblical verse. And while each stands on its own, all reflect on what Jacob says in Genesis 28:16 when he wakes up after having his great dream in the desert about the ladder reaching to heaven with the messengers going up and down. I am amazed to discover the immense amount of disagreement among Jewish teachers over the centuries about what Jacob really meant. In this book these teachers become the messengers on the ladder. One by one, they will descend its rungs and try to help Jacob understand what it means to say, Surely God was in this place and I, i did not know!
Each teacher s interpretation is clearly supported by the original Hebrew text. Each is coherent, self-contained, and convincing. Jacob may have meant them all, or others still unimagined. We shall never know. Yet, collectively, they represent most, and possibly all, the viable options for understanding the relationship between God s self-concealment and our own self-preoccupation. They also explain Alexander Altmann s elegant dictum that God is in the self, but the self is not God. For this reason these pages are really, in a larger sense, about one s own self and the Self of the Universe.
Ultimately, all the meanings take on lives of their own. They gather around the ancient table in their several costumes, like wedding guests from distant lands and ancient times. Like ourselves, reverent in the presence of the word that bore them. Meeting one another, sometimes for the first time. Grateful to have been invited. A great banquet of meanings. And it is all there in eight Hebrew words.
ORDINARY FOLKS
A careful reading of the text reveals that the angels were going up and coming down on the ladder. The sequence is wrong. If angels reside in heaven, shouldn t the order be the opposite, coming down and going back up? Rabbinic tradition offers several possible explanations.
One suggests that,
