Both "good" and "bad" are impermanent states

How can we do permanent "good" in a dynamic environment? Yesterdays "good" turns into tomorrows "bad" - perhaps better to question the notion of do-ership and agency all together - not in a way that leaves us believing we are powerless, but rather in a way that we acknowledge that what Reality needs to happen will happen, through us or through another...its a very delicate dance and perhaps getting our small "i" out of the way will make for a more elegant and suffering-less performance....

Rav Kook, of blessed memory, wrote a lot about how the seeming individual will (ratzon prati) works within and merges with, the general will, the Divine will.

The Rambam (Maimonides) the great Medieval Jewish philosopher and physician described the fluidity and context dependence of "good" and "bad" a 1000 years ago, and advised it best to adopt a stoic "wait and see" attitude of reserving judgement.

פירוש הרמב"ם על המשנה בברכות, ט, ה

[ה.] חייב אדם לברך על הרעה כשם שמברך על הטובה כו' – מה שאמר: כשם שהוא מברך על הטובה – רוצה לומר, לקבל אותו בשמחה ולב טוב ולכבוש כעסו, וייטיב נפשו כשיברך "דיין האמת", כמו שיעשה בשעה שיברך "הטוב והמטיב". וכמו שהיו אומרים החכמים ברוב דבריהם: "כל מה דעביד מן שמיא – לטב". וזה דבר שכלי אצל בעלי השכל, ואפילו לא הורה הכתוב עליו, לפי שיש דברים רבים, נראים [שתחילתם רעה, ויהיה אחריתם טובה רבה, ויש דברים, נראין] בתחילתם טובים, ויהיה אחריתם רעה רבה. ועל כן אין ראוי למשכיל להשתומם כשתבוא עליו צרה גדולה, מפני שאינו יודע סופה; [וכמו כן אל יפתה לבבו וישמח שמחה שלימה כשתבואהו טובה לפי מחשבתו, מפני שאינו יודע סופה].

To bless "the bad"

 מדרש עמנואל
לקבל יסורים באהבה
זה השער לה' נגילה ונשמחה בו
אל תקרא שער אלא צער


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The Mishnah (Blessings - Brachot- Chapter Nine Verse Five) says a person should bless on the "bad" in exactly the same way they bless on the "good". The thinkers who redacted the Mishna say the source text for this is the biblical verse "and you will love the aspect of mercy and the aspect of justice with all your heart and with all your singular life energy and with all your beyondness (Deuteronomy 6).

Why does the verse say to love G?d / That Which Is with these three different dimensions of being? Doesn't the verse saying you will love G?d with all your heart include the other two? Are they not redundant? The wise ones explain that loving G?d with your soul, or life energy, is to include "even when G?d takes that soul, or life energy away."

I'm not enough of a Hebrew scholar to be sure of this, but I find it strange the word "even" (afeeloo) is used..."even when your life is taken." Surely, given that everyone's life is "taken" (or given, or surrendered) sooner or later, the wording could better be "when....i.e "you will love G?d when your (personal) life is taken and name and form end." Would love to hear your comments.

A final thought, and again perhaps I am defying the laws of Hebrew grammar, but it seems to me the text can be read as predicative and descriptive rather than imperative. In other words, it is not a command to love G-d, but rather a prediction - all will come to Love.

Shabbat shalom

חיב אדם לברך על הרעה כשם שהוא מברך על הטובה, שנאמר (דברים ו) ואהבת את יי אלהיך בכל לבבך ובכל נפשך ובכל מאדך.

בכל לבבך, בשני יצריך, ביצר טוב וביצר רע י.

ובכל נפשך, אפלו הוא נוטל את נפשך.

ובכל מאדך, בכל ממונך.

דבר אחר בכל מאדך, בכל מדה ומדה שהוא מודד לך הוי מודה לו במאד מאד.

פירוש הרמבם

[ה.]

חייב אדם לברך על הרעה כשם שמברך על הטובה כו' – מה שאמר: כשם שהוא מברך על הטובה – רוצה לומר, לקבל אותו בשמחה ולב טוב ולכבוש כעסו, וייטיב נפשו כשיברך "דיין האמת", כמו שיעשה בשעה שיברך "הטוב והמטיב". וכמו שהיו אומרים החכמים ברוב דבריהם: "כל מה דעביד מן שמיא – לטב". וזה דבר שכלי אצל בעלי השכל, ואפילו לא הורה הכתוב עליו, לפי שיש דברים רבים, נראים [שתחילתם רעה, ויהיה אחריתם טובה רבה, ויש דברים, נראין] בתחילתם טובים, ויהיה אחריתם רעה רבה. ועל כן אין ראוי למשכיל להשתומם כשתבוא עליו צרה גדולה, מפני שאינו יודע סופה; [וכמו כן אל יפתה לבבו וישמח שמחה שלימה כשתבואהו טובה לפי מחשבתו, מפני שאינו יודע סופה].

She made me do it officer

The Talmudic imagination: you got to love it...they boldly went where no men had gone before. One of the Taludic sages Rava ( literally 'the great one' )says in Tractate Yevamot folio 53b, that a man can never be considered forced to carry out a sex act, because an erection comes only willingly. In response Rabah, R. Chiyah and others conceive of bizarre alternative circumstances, such as a man falling from a roof with his erect penis (erect because he was planning on sex with his wife) landing in another woman's vagina. Or someone literally inserting the man's penis (erect because he planned on sex with his wife) into another woman.

Sadly, perhaps, I have not experienced either of these possibly delightful scenarios, but they cum to mind because there is another Jewish legal principle "“ones Rachmana patreh” — that the Torah does not hold a person accountable for an involuntary act. With same sex marriage on the public agenda in Australia at the moment, what is the halachic take on it? Well of course that depends on which authority you ask, and if you shop around Jewdiciously enough you will find one that confirms your world view. ( As is the case with all religions and their adherents.) So if for one individual same sex attraction is involuntary, hard-wired, genetic, then the Torah's explicit prohibition and punishing of homosexual intercourse - presumably penetration - would not apply, but would apply to someone who is bi curious and can seemingly 'choose' between hetero or homosexual relationships.

Rava's claim is that erections are always voluntary, and therefore the male who penetrates another male's body is liable for sanction and punishment. The other rabbis attempt to come up with scenarios where penetration was not a voluntary act. ( "He made me do it officer")
What has always fascinated me about these 1800 year old texts is how all subjects are discussed with equal gravitas, and how creative the arguments and counter arguments are.

The Jewish equivalents of Karma

Amidah al haraglayim - standing on your feet. If you can't stand on your legs, what can you possibly stand on ? Legs are a metaphor for both mobility and immovability ( "I'm taking a stand").
While the angels are stable monopods ( in Jewish tradition angels have only one "leg", and are messengers of G-d, only ever tasked with one type of assignment or portfolio, for eg the angel of healing, Refael, or the angel of ATM's Caspiel), in the human realm a tripod is more stable than a bipod, which is perhaps why the Jewish calendar has three legs: Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot. In Hebrew these festivals are known collectively as the three legs... usually translated as pilgrim festivals because the ancient Israelis used to go up to Jerusalem where the Temple stood on those holidays.

Could it be a useful practice to discover this not-visible-to-ordinary-seeing third leg in the same way as we work with the not at first visible third eye?
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The Jewish understanding of angels - called messengers - in Hebrew - is that they are units of causation. The angel of healing causes healing to occur, the angel of death brings death. Above each blade of grass is an angel which strikes it and causes it to grow. People create angels with their actions. This from the Ari. So underneath all the religious discourse lies a theory of causation. Mtzva gorrerret mitzvah ve aveyrah gorrerret aveyra. Bederech sheadam rotzeh lalechet ba molichin too. Shalom aleichem malachei hashalom. Nothing is advised. Nothing is forbidden. And nothing is free (i.e everything has a consequence, creates angels who bring a message...

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Jewishness: difference for the sake of difference or difference that makes a difference?

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"האור הגנוז לצדיקים..."

אבל למה רק לצדיקים כאשר זה ה"רשעים" שזקוקים במיוחד לאור הזה

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(לא אמות כי אחיה (תהילים
= "I was not born and I will not die"
the body will dissolve, my stories will dissolve, but that which makes them possible will neither appear or disappear, come or go...
והוא היה והוא הווה והוא יהיה

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שלם
...מושלם
מאשלים

(i.e "Mashalim" lo "Mashlim" aval ee efshar lenaked)
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"ממקומו הוא יפן ברחמים"
"From G-d's place G-d will turn in mercy...."(from the shabbat liturgy)

The stillness of
place
and everything in its
place
this is the SatGuru
who manifests
from the formless space
in a particular
time and place
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Jewdaism and the reduction of suffering

The strange thing about Judaism is that, despite Jewish experince through the ages being so associated with suffering (in the eyes of so many) suffering and the reduction of suffering do not seem to be at the core of its theology. Suffering is a non-issue. What is central is the requirement to perform the creator's commandments, and to believe in a redemptive creator (less central than the former) who acts in history and both creates the conditions for people's bondage and then the conditions for them to become liberated.

While many of the mitzvot (commandments) may have the effect of reducing suffering [and some may have the effect of increasing it] this is never proffered as their primary function. Mitzvot are performed becuase the eternal suposedly commanded them, and if they have some benefit in terms of increasing soial cohesion or individual self esteem, or more profoundly, assisst each individual to express more profoundly what is at the core of their being as created reflections of the divine, than those are added benefits, but not the reason. There is no utilitarian ethos which underpins the mitzvot, and what could be more useful than reducing the ubiquitous suffering which seems to characterize our experience as embodied - read limited -beings?

Interesting to compare and contrast some "mission statements" of Judaism with those of Bhuddism:

"To be a light unto the nations" (Bereishit - genesis)
"He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does Yud-Kay-Vav-Kay require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your G-d." (Mikah)
"Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole [duty] of man." (Kohelet - Ecclesiastes)
"What you yourself hate, don't do to your neighbor. This is the whole law; the rest is commentary. Go and study." - Rabbi Hillel

Bhuddism
To reduce the suffering of all sentient beings


As for these mission statements, for them to make any kind of sense, what kind of context must be assumed?

That there is a world
That we have bodies
That embodid units - called people - are organised into discreet nations.

Pirkei Banim; Ethics of the Sons

Immanuel used to say: the more thought, the more anxiety, the more pleasure, the more pain, the more pretence, the more tiredness, the more yoga, the more flexibility, the more laughter the more tears, the more laughter and tears, the more better years

What is baruch?

Baruch ata hashem elokeynu melech haolam...

Al tikrah baruch, ela be roch...
With softness you are the aspect of containment and the aspect of flow wwhich rules the universe...


The morning reflection "Elohai neshama shenatata bi, tehora he" = G-d the soul you have planted in me is pure - assumes a duality: there is me(the body? the personality?), and there is the soul that is planted in this "me". But surely the enduring "me" is the soul and the body which comes and goes and is most temporary cannot be the ground of "me"? So perhaps it could be reformulated as "Elohai gufi shenatata li, ben chalof hu, aval ani nishmati nitzutz tahor shel haohr haEloki" my G-d, the body you have given me is ephemeral, but I-my soul is a pure spark of the divine light."

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Culture Makers: Linguistic renewal underpins every other kind of renewal because the first step in manifestation (after thought itself) is naked thought's 'undergarments' - language: http://hebrew-academy.huji.ac.il/English/Pages/default.aspx

The Israeli army as a hothouse of linguistic invention - many new Hebrew words ( a number formed from Acronyms) have their genesis in the operational necessities of a working army. What will we call this truck? This psychiatrist? This fungus growing betwen my legs because I haven't showered for two weeks?

Jewusalem and Jewdaism and non Jewelism

Added some four years after original post:

Jewishness: difference for the sake of difference or difference that makes a difference?
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"ממקומו הוא יפן ברחמים"
"From G-d's place G-d will turn in mercy...."(from the shabbat liturgy)

The stillness of
place
and everything in its
place
this is the SatGuru
who manifests
from the formless space
in a particular
time and place
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A sub cullture that does not define itself in opposition to the dominant culture is likely to be co-opted by it - hence the state of progressive Judaism today - in flux, uncertain, with very little to offer except gender equality and inclusivity rather than exclusivity - but no depth or intensity or "spiritual' insight or tribal solidarity

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I want to push more intensively the idea of "naaseh venishma" as a hugely profound educational principle - especially at the school that I teach at. I'm not sure that we honour that principle enough.
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Funky frum?
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What happens when you have outgrown a set of emotional loyalties, but still understand their appeal, and their value as a bonding device? For example, the "us" and "them" encoded into many Jewish holidays - "we" the few, "they" the many, "we" the persecuted and enslaved, "they" the opressors and the wicked...I find in myself the ability to resonate as much with the Egyptians in thePesach story and the Greeks in the Hanukah story as I can with the Hebrews and Israelis....yet the sweetness of children's faces clustered around the Chanukah lights still calls in avisceral way...and to sing the words of "maoz tzur" - despite their rather vengeful lyrics.

The "Greeks" within all of us and the "Yehudi" within all of us...in this cosmology, the Greek is to value appearance over substance, to reinforce societal values where physical excellence is valued and celebrated more broadly than moral or intellectual excellence, where the body beautiful is commodified a million times a day and used to sell products we don't need, where people are urged to live beyond their means to sustain unsustainable appearances etc etc...vs the Jewish-Hebrew values of modesty, restraint, and sustainability.

How to universalise the Hanukah story? Make it a protest against commodification, against the over valuing of appearance (the tyranny of cosmetics and fashion and consumerism), and the emphasising of doing acts of altruism as the source of true beauty.
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It is often more productive to "(be)hold" Judaism as a dialogue, not a set of answers…and in the process the answers emerge for you, in your time and place and stage, they become clear.
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A polemic arguing for the establishment of a second Jewish state (in addition to Israel)
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On the need for a Jewish holiday which is offered up to the Australian public. Perhap simchat beyt hashoeyva during Sukkot because this was traditionally a time when all the nation sent offerings to Jerusalem. Simchat beyt hashoeyva involves street parades, jugglers, acrobats, wise fools, and lots and lots of devotional music.

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Milchemet haotiot - all the children got dressed up as letters - aleph kicked the thin and reedy vav very hard in the shins - the children arrangd themselvs into the words zayin baayin...lech habayta mora revital...etc etc... lamed smeared their lunch all over taf's face...then Mr Porter came in, dressed as the mighty mem
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Some mind talk ( see ) or self-talk on hearing of anti-Semitic behaviour/speech by some priviledged Australian kids in elite private schools. The words of Eckhart Tolle come to mind...
be at least as interested in your response as in the lifeshock ( ) stimulus that triggers the response

I must protect myself by getting clear

I coul drown in this fear and anxiety

This threatens my very survival

If I don't fight this we will not survive
The truth is I (if I is identified as the body) will not survive irrespective, whether I am eaten by a shark or die of cancer or old age or in a cr crash or killd by a criminal or die peacefully in bed. Given that I will not survive irrepective then waht is the fear that arises of? Of anhilation? Of "premature" anhilation. So is this a wake up call to jettison false senses of self?
I must equip my children to deal with this

I must repond to this in some way

Some practical responses to anti Semitism:
Ecstatic dancing and ecstatic singing of wordless nigunim
Missiles and bombs and sustained small arm fire
An equal and opposite focus and celebration of philo-Semitism
An ongoing and sustained acknowledgement of ourselves and our worth, both as human beings and as manifestations of the infinite and divine