Understanding My Blood and Bones

Johari's Window (a cognitive/psychological tool designed to help people understand themselves better and function better interpersonally) suggests that there are many things that we don't "know" about ourselves and that those around us don't know either.

For many years I have been a lover of comparative religion. There is nothing wrong with this ideologically, but we as temporal beings cannot live in all places at one time. We are designed to pick a path and walk it if we desire to truly nurture and cultivate the building or garden of our soul into a work of art that we gift to our creator in eternity.

In the fall I was struck with what strikes me as a funny thought in this regard... "What is better, a size 10 shoe or a size 12 shoe? Neither, unless your foot is size 12." So which is better: Judaism; Christianity; Confucianism; Buddhism; Wicca; Shinto; Islam etc. ... The best each has to offer is likely comparable- unless you are "tailored" (by nature and/or nurture) to walk in one path as opposed to the other... it is possible that one is better fit for you than another. Which is not to say that you can't learn from them all... It's a question of where you live, not where you vacation.

In my recent return to Judaism (Yes, I wear a size 12 shoe) I have been once again well aware of my deep love for concepts and books... I am without question a bibliophile... I would go so far as to say that learning in and of itself seems to me to be an act of worship and words- written, spoken- can be sacred.

Yesterday morning, in beginning to read Jacob Neusner's, The Classics of Judaism: A Textbook and Reader, I read the following:

• The labor of learning is itself an act of sanctification.
• ...in Judaism if you want to meet God, you open a book and study. That labor of learning, studying a document of the Torah, is the first place, and the most important place, where you find God... The Torah is not the sole point of meeting, but it forms the paramount meeting place.
• The study of Torah outweighs all else.
• When in a spirit of faithfulness someone undertakes to labor in the study of the Torah, God is present- in the Torah, in the act of study, and, in what is studied... When you know that fact you know everything important about Judaism: how Judaism knows God.
  
• God did not give the Torah on one day only at Sinai. God gives the Torah every time and every place that the Torah is studied for the sake of serving God... there can be no "canon" in the conventional sense,... since there is no point of conclusion and closure of revelation.
• (Counsel offered to a Rabbi by Neusner) Every speech you give, every meeting you have, should commence with your statement. "In the Mishnah I was studying this morning, I learned..." or, "in the Talmud I am working on it says..." an d so through life...

This resulted in one of those "aha" moments- a moment in which you learn something you already knew in your blood and your bones... in your unconscious mind. The penchant for books and words is sewn into my bones... infused into my blood.

A caveat... how can Judaism, which place a paramount importance on mitzvot/deeds- our behavior, what we do in the world- suggest that the most important thing is Torah study? Because it suggests that the man or woman whose ultimate value is Torah study will behave like God in the world... with love, compassion and goodness. Torah study that is not transformative and soul shaping is not true Torah study.

Rabbi Meir would say: Whoever studies Torah for Torah's sake alone, merits many things:

· The Torah enclothes him with humility and awe

· The Torah makes him fit to be righteous, pious, correct and faithful

· The Torah distances him from sin and brings him close to merit.

· The Torah grants him sovereignty, dominion, and jurisprudence.

· The Torah's secrets are revealed to him.

· The Torah makes him as an ever-increasing wellspring and as an unceasing river.

· The Torah makes him modest, patient and forgiving of insults.

The Torah uplifts him and makes him greater than all creations.