(Extra for Shabbat) Mensch•Mark For Elul 25: To Learn by Repetition - Middah Mishnah
We should aim to bring ultimate mysteries into the everyday.
About the Mensch•Mark Series
The Talmudic tractate Avot, 6:6 provides a roadmap as to how to live an ethical life. This passage includes 48 middot (measures) through which we can “acquire Torah.” See the full list here. For each of these days of reflection, running from the first of Elul through Yom Kippur, I’m highlighting one of these middot, in order to assist each of us in the process of soul searching (“heshbon ha-nefesh”). This is the mensch-mark for Shabbat, sent on Friday.
Today’s Middah:
To Learn by Repetition - Middah Mishnah
URJ’s Take:
Text
"Teach them faithfully to your children; speak of them in your home and on your way, when you lie down and when you rise up." (Deuteronomy 6:7)
Commentary
In this Text the verb "teach" in Hebrew is shinantam, which is from the same Hebrew root as mishnah—shin-nun-hey. This Biblical verse is found in the V'ahavta prayer. This verse created the obligation of parents to teach their children about God and Torah. While this verse comes from Torah, or Written Law, parents are instructed to "speak of them," to transmit Jewish knowledge verbally.
Mishnah is also a book of Jewish law. The unique feature of the text called Mishnah is that originally it was only in oral form. The Hebrew term for this Oral Law is Torah sheh-b'al peh, literally "Torah from the mouth." The Hebrew term for the Written Law is Torah sheh-bichtav or "Torah that is written." Both kinds of law and learning are recognized as being equally important in Jewish life.
According to traditional Judaism, the Written Law was dictated to Moses on Mount Sinai. Moses' task was to write it all down word for word. Additionally, when the Written Law was given, God knew there were additional laws that the people would need once they settled in the Land, but the people were not yet sophisticated enough to understand them. These laws were given to Moses verbally and his task was to begin a chain of oral transmission that was to pass from one leader to the next.
This chain of transmission is described in Pirkei Avot:
"Moses received the Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua, and Joshua transmitted it to the Elders, the Elders to the Prophets, and the Prophets transmitted it to the Men of the Great Assembly." (Pirkei Avot 1:1)
Many liberal Jews believe that the Torah was the work of numerous authors who were inspired by God. The Oral Law was derived from the decisions of the battai din, the Jewish courts of law. These courts derived their decisions from the Written Law. The volumes known as Mishnah were compiled from these decisions from over a 400-year period from 200 B.C.E. to 200 C.E.
In the Talmud there is serious debate over whether or not this Oral Law could, or even should, be written down. It was not until the third century that Rabbi Judah the Prince put the Mishnah into its written form.
There are both positive and negative arguments for writing down an oral tradition. These arguments include: When a tradition is oral it remains open to change, variation, mistake, and refinement. Once an oral tradition is written down it can become stagnant, unchanging, accurate, and precise.
My Take: Ritual and Spontaneity - Turning the Stagnant into the Sacred
Ever since I was young, I’ve been intrigued by the seeming conflict within Judaism between keva and kavanah, between prayer that is fixed and routinized, and prayer that is spontaneous, flowing with intent from the heart. (See sources on Keva and Kavvanah here). I’ve always been a kavanah man myself, but I came to recognize that without a fixed time for prayer, without a built-in routine, the chances of ever achieving that spontaneity, that full awareness and appreciation of each moment of life, would be remote. So I embarked on a life-long crusade to transform keva into kavanah, to teach myself and others to, paraphrasing Psalm 90, “Count our days, that we might attain wisdom.” To count our days, to make each day count, each moment. There is nothing more routine than the act of counting; but there is nothing more sacred than the act of making each day count.
So for a term paper in a course in ancient Judaism I invented a Jewish holiday. Sacred time has always been a very big thing for me, but this term paper might have bordered on hubris (and feeding into that hubris is the fact that it won a university prize in Religious Studies at Brown). I looked closely at the Tanakh, studied the ways our ancient sages justified and ritualized celebrations such as Hanukkah and Passover in the Talmud, and I invented a holiday, gave it a biblical support structure and then created an entire tractate of Talmud explaining how the holiday would be observed.
That's what Jews can do every day, when you think of it. We invent holidays.
Today Johnny learned to ride a bicycle? Let's say a Shehechianu, maybe read a passage from Ezekiel or some other mystic who had visions of rolling chariots and wheels aflame; then let's look at what the rabbis said in Pirke Avot about the importance of balance, whether it be balancing one's own weight on a bicycle or balancing the study of Torah with one's more secular work. Then, of course, we eat.
New Years Day is one of those invented holidays. We literally count our days – it’s a real celebration of Psalm 90. Not only the days, but the minutes, the seconds – a countdown so we can count up – one more year.
A ball drops.
The actual notion of a ball "dropping" to signal the passage of time dates back long before New Year's Eve was ever celebrated in Times Square. The first "time-ball" was installed atop England's Royal Observatory at Greenwich in 1833. This ball would drop at one o'clock every afternoon, allowing the captains of nearby ships to precisely set their chronometers (a vital navigational instrument).
The celebration of each day doesn't have to be so elaborate. And the occasion doesn't have to be so momentous. But I believe that when we imbue our moments with special significance, our lives suddenly are filled with purpose; and for me the goal educationally is for people to look at each day through Jewish eyes.
Being a rabbi helps me to squeeze the sacred even out of the most routine events, for two reasons above all: One -- I see the ultimate mysteries of life and death on a routine basis, if I allowed anything to become routine, it would be that. And it can't be that. I see too many precious human lives wasted, or tragically lost, to allow mine to go that route. And two: a rabbi is so busy that even the routine ceases to be routine. When I used to kiss my two boys goodbye in the morning when they were younger, I often didn’t really know when I would see them later that day. So that kiss was more than just a kiss, it was every bit of the loving parent I can be poured into an instant. And when I spent a precious Shabbat afternoon with them, I knew that was our only precious time together. Now when they leave home, I truly don’t know when I’ll see them again, so that kiss goodbye is no less intense.
While my days are a constant rush, I try to take a few moments each morning to see the miracles and the mystery in the everyday. Those few moments I call shacharit, and, they are usually spent surrounded by (God willing) and, when it was more possible, at least nine others doing the same. We have to reflect. We have to bring the mystery into the everyday. In the first portion of Exodus, Moses asks for God's calling card, and the response, "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh," some translate it as "I am that I am," or "I shall be as I shall be," or " I will be what tomorrow demands me to be," as Rashi says, or, simply, "my name is being." God's very name is a mystery -- a mystery wrapped in a mystery.
Or perhaps the simplest translation is the best: “I will be when I will be.” In other words, whenever our “I” is fully present, in any moment that we are completely in that moment, no matter how routine, God is also present there. And if that moment is repeated, again and again, through the actions of ritual, that presence only becomes more intense over time, not more routine. But only if we are fully present and not detached from the experience.
To ponder God at all, to struggle with God, is to seek ultimate mysteries in the routine-ness of life.
See below a quote from Abraham Joshua Heschel on Keva and Kavvanah from Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity (essays edited by Susannah Heschel), Abraham Joshua Heschel on p. 111:
"There is a specific difficulty with Jewish prayer. There are laws: fixed texts. On the other hand, prayer is worship of the heart, the outpouring of the soul, a matter of devotion. Thus, Jewish prayer is guided by two opposite principles: order and outburst, regularity and sponteneity, uniformity and individuality, law and freedom. These principles are the two poles about which Jewish prayer revolves. Since each of the two moves in the opposite direction, equilibrium can be maintained only if both are of equal force. However, the pole of regularity usually proves to be stronger than the pole of spontaneity, and as a result, there is a perpetual danger of prayer becoming a mere habit, a mechanical performance, an exercise in repetitiousness. The fixed pattern and regularity of our services tends to stifle the spontaneity of devotion. Our great problem, therefore, is how not to let the principle of regularity impair the power of devotion. It is a problem that concerns not only prayer but the whole sphere of Jewish observance. He who is not aware of this central difficulty is a simpleton; he who offers a simple solution is a quack."
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