Luriantics

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Update: As promised, here are some pics from the trip.
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For part of my trip, I went hiking around the woods near Mt. Meron and Zfat. The great Kabbalists often went into the woods to do some of their most important thinking, writing, and teaching. Many of those thinkers are actually buried in the forests between Mt. Meron and Zfat, those that are not buried in the Zfat cemetery anyway. One of the hikes we did was from Zfat to Mt. Meron. That’s where this story begins.

We set out, my friend Sam from Jerusalem and this new friend from the hostel named Alex, around 7:30am. We expected the hike to take about two and a half hours without breaks. We to the trail and hiked in this stunning, rocky valley for about an hour until we came to a good spot to do some Yoga and daven shacharit. We hooked those two activities up and then started to hike again, only to find that we had somehow completely lost the trail. But, since we knew what general direction Mt. Meron was, we walked in that direction.

Then, after about 20 minutes of tramping through the forest without a trail, we saw this teepee and a series of shoddy looking buildings in front of us. Curious of course, we tried to find someone there to talk with. Lo and behold, we had stumbled upon an encampment of about 15 young men who were out in the woods studying Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism). In broken Hebrew, we introduced ourselves and they invited us in to have some tea and hookah and learn a little Kabbalah. Of course, we obliged.

We sat with them drinking tea and coffee, smoking hookah, and learning Torah for about two hours. They showed us around the camp, which consisted of three Teepees, a main building with a few beds, and a large study and eating room. They also had about 20 chickens, a pregnant dog, and a donkey. We learned more about their daily routine: they woke up at 3am to start studying and slept rarely. When asked how long they had been living there, one said in Hebrew, “Since before it was cold.” They couldn’t give exact dates, at all.

We asked how to get back on the trail and they volunteered to take us there themselves. So, we hitched up the donkey and set off with three guides from the camp, refilled water bottles, and a pregnant dog in tow.

Apparently, we were WAY off course, because walking to Meron took 3 more hours, though it may have been the donkey that slowed us down. Friends of mine on Facebook, stay tuned - I’ll have some pictures up soon enough.
I think I know how to get back there. If I didn’t have independent confirmation from friends who joined me for the hike, I might think that my mind was playing tricks on me. I’m going to try to get back there in the spring sometime and stay for a few days with those crazy guys.

That’s the story. A donkey, some kabbalah, and living the dream - ;).

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For Shabbat, I came to Or Haganuz, a Kabbalist yishuv (settlement) at the foot of Mt. Meron. A wonderful man named Tal lead me around, inviting me into his home, and his mind, for the weekend. To pay the bills, the yishuv runs a number of businesses, a printing press, speaking tours, a large conference center facility that can hold up to 150 people, and get this, a Chinese Medicine School. Tal works at the Chinese Medicine School teaching a particular brand of psychology therapy called Imagery Therapy.

I asked him how the yishuv, which is Ultra Orthodox, is able to be live an Ultra Orthodox lifestyle of study and teach Chinese medicine. Many orthodox rabbis have forbidden the practice of Yoga because it has at its core a religious element based in Hinduism. I wondered if the same might be true about Chinese Medicine. His response was that, “The Chinese did excellent research into how the body energy is affected by food, stress, muscular problems, and the like. Their research was absolutely secular, much like the knowledge behind Western medicine. We apply that research with a Jewish angle. And, if you look deeply into the theories behind Chinese medicine, you see Kabbalah all around. Many of us at the school have come to Chinese medicine through Kabbalah, not from applied Kabbalah to Chinese medicine. It’s amazing. Everything fits into the Kabballistic system.”

The second of the apparent contradictions I asked him about was the Kibbutz tradition of collective living based on a socialist ideology and the yishuv’s Ultra Orthodox foundation. His answer pointed me towards the yishuv’s intellectual foundation in the discipline of Jewish Mysticism or Kabbalah, and specifically in the interpretative work of Rabbi Yehudah Lev Ashlag.

Some background: Rabbi Ashlag wrote interpretations to the Zohar, whom some attribute to Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and others to later writers, and the Study of the Ten Sephirot, which was an interpretation of the Zohar written down by Rabbi Chaim Vital and inspired by the teachings of the Arizal, Isaac Luria. First the Zohar, then that is interpreted by Rabbi Isaac Luria and his disciple Chaim Vital, and then comes Rabbi Ashlag’s interpretations of both of these texts. Rabbi Ashlag is one of the first Kabbalists to write in as plain language as he could muster, which his followers see as cracking the code for them to live by the precepts of Kabbalah. Read the rest of this entry »

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While my wife is in the states visiting family for a couple of weeks, I’ve taken some time to do a little personal exploration in the north of Israel, and specifically around the city of Zefat. Zefat is where my namesake (and this blog’s namesake), Rabbi Isaac Luria, taught his version of Jewish Mystical practice.

I got to Zefat on Thursday of last week and stayed all of Shabbat at Ascent for one of their mystical Shabbat tours. The senior teachers and rabbis all come from New York City, either Da Bronx, Brooklyn, or Long Island. I got sick halfway through and spent most of Shabbat in bed. The best part of the experience was going to a serious Hasidic Kabbalat Shabbat service. I had never davened with guys with stremels before. If you don’t know what they are, they are the hats in this photo.

The Kabbalat Shabbat service lasted two and a half hours, with some of the most feverish praying I’ve ever been in. It was nice to be able to get deep into a trance of prayer and let go. Lots of banging on the tables and jumping up and dancing and clapping. It’s clearly where these guys, who you see during the week decked out in their suits and hats hurrying this way and that with serious looks, actually let go and have an emotion or two.

Of course, the service was split between men and women. Men got to pray and the women were relegated to the upstairs. It has been hard for me, ever since I got to Israel, to pray with just the men and know that the women are elsewhere and out of sight. It runs totally contrary to how I feel about women’s role in general to separate when we pray. I grew up with strong female religious leadership in worship and having it lacking in orthodox prayer services in Israel has been alien to me. This was the first time I was able to suspend my belief in equality since I’ve been in Israel and actually pray in a single sex service. It was worth the experience, though I definitely will not make that my practice moving forward.

As for the classes at Ascent, they were fine for what they were trying to do. Ascent is a Chabad house (a evangelical strain of Ultra Orthodox Judaism), essentially, and they are trying to get you to become like them. They might feign an ability to let you practice in your own way, but it’s not really up for debate. Rabbi Mo, who I respect deeply but disagree with on some fundamental issues, said that there were two things that were still up for debate in Jewish law: (1) what kind of knife to use to properly slaughter kosher meat, and (2) how exactly to clean your house of leaven bread before Pesach. I would venture that he possesses a remarkably narrow view of the corpus of debate over Jewish law.

All in all, the Ascent folks were very generous and sweet, but their version of Judaism is a bit too narrow for me. More to come in part deux, with hikes through holy forests and unexpected meetings.

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I like this concept very much. It’s coined by Boston University Professor Steve Prothero, and will be the title of his upcoming book. The public intellectual strikes again!

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Though I am late to the fray on this particular story, I’m catching up on my Forward reading and was struck by this article. The Conservative rabbinate has recently, and rightly, begun an examination of the working conditions within kosher food plants after hearing reports of inappropriate labor practices.

Rabbi Gershon Tannenbaum, a columnist for an Orthodox periodical, said Jews should “repulse any attempts of introducing such alien impositions…[and that the] injection of social or humanitarian considerations, especially by outsiders, would be an unallowable breach of the time honored halachic administration of kashrus standards.”

I’m offended, frankly. It’s as if social and humanitarian considerations are an added burden in the pursuit of a truly Jewish life. Everything I’ve learned, and what I love about my Judaism, is that social and humanitarian considerations are the foundation of Jewish values. It makes me wonder what is more important to them: the rules or the intention.

Further on in the article, one gets the impression that the Orthodox are willing to play to make enemies left and right with this one.

The rabbinic administrator at the Central Rabbinical Congress, Yitzchok Glick, told the Forward that he had spoken with kosher companies and told them not to permit Conservative rabbis into their factories.

“We said that they shouldn’t allow them in,” Glick said. “The Orthodox kosher producers are all of the same opinion. They will adhere to our proclamation. They will not allow them into the plant.”

For all my disagreement, I’m happy to see this dust-up happen. For me, Kashrut is about knowing where your food came from, respecting the people who grew or slaughtered it for you, making it without the use of hormones and pesticides, and blessing the bounty God has provided at every point. I welcome the Conservative rabbis’ attempts to reach a more just agreement on Kashrut, and it may just turn me into one myself!

Full disclosure: My fiancee and I disagree on Kashrut. She wants to do it; I think the rules are just rules for rules sake. But with changes like these happening, I might be persuaded to Kasher our home.

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Faith in Public Life offers a succinct calendar on the latest round of the ‘religion in politics cage-match.’ If you’re wondering, the cage is the Internet.

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After my screed against Mara Vanderslice last night, I decided to do a little more research about her. Here’s what I found out.

• Bill Donahue hates her. Well, one point for you Mara. Any enemy of Bill Donahue is a friend of mine.
• She is an evangelical.
  

  She joined an evangelical Bible-study group at Earlham College, a Quaker school in Indiana, and says she was born again one day while singing the hymn “Here I Am, Lord.”

  Not a Methodist, Unitarian, or United Church of Christ member. A biblical literalist. Not my cup of tea, but hey, folks can believe what they want.

• She has dedicated her life to the Democratic party. She wants to see the party, and our platform succeed.
• As an evangelical, she thinks we win if we reach out to evangelicals on their issues.
  

  Party strategists and nonpartisan pollsters credit the operative, Mara Vanderslice, and her two-year-old consulting firm, Common Good Strategies, with helping a handful of Democratic candidates make deep inroads among white evangelical Protestants and churchgoing Roman Catholic voters in Kansas, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

  And from what I’ve read, her strategy is working.

I just wish it didn’t mean compromising on my values Read the rest of this entry »

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Atrios was right to call out Mara Vanderslice, Kerry’s campaign director of religious outreach in 2004, for suggesting that

atheists and agnostics lack a conscience and a sense of values, and these things only come from religion and the religious.

Kos agreed with Atrios, and took the opportunity to digest recent electoral victories - like Jim Webb’s in VA and Jon Tester’s in MT - have restored a sense of strong values to Democratic candidates without vacuous references to religion.

Then, in rides Jim Wallis on his white horse, to slap everyone’s wrist for classic secular leftism that leaves no room for religion. But he missed the point — it’s not that religion can’t be the source of progressive values, it just can’t be the ONLY source. And if we’re going to take our country back from the people that are convinced there’s only one way, we have to be the torch bearers of multiple ways to infuse values in our politics. I think, as a religious lefty who was raised by religious lefties, that there is more than one way to have values.

Then, Pastor Dan takes a well-deserved shot at Wallis’ elitism:

So Mr. Wallis, let’s make [a deal]. How about if you realize that there are other people in the religious grassroots working carefully and productively to make common cause with secular progressives - they’ve been doing it long before you came on the scene, and they’ll be doing long after we’re both gone - and how about if you save your patronizing lectures. In return, we won’t call you a horse’s ass. How about it?

Booyakasha, Pastor Dan. You got it.

But wait, how did this all start again? Someone is taking John Kerry’s religious outreach chair seriously. Taking her seriously is like taking Neville Chamberlain’s chief negotiator seriously. I say we blame her for the whole thing and move on.

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