1/9/2022 - Spirituality pt. 2

One of the most incredible things I find in some people is their ability to verbalize what some find to be speechless, but they do so in a way that the significance of that feeling or moment does not dissipate. The verbalization is the delicate bridge between the tangible and intangible. 

I believe it is human to want to possess what we cannot sense. An heirloom to wear as a reminder of our relatives, a souvenir to hold to as a reminder of a fond trip, a framed degree as a reminder of our personal accomplishments. There is no harm in having these objects as they each do the same thing - elicit a memory. With how vast our minds are, sometimes it takes seeing those objects to remind ourselves of the joys and accomplishments we have experienced in life. 

"We must not forget that it is not a thing that lends significance to a moment; it is the moment that lends significance to things." - The Sabbath, Abraham Joshua Heschel

But with something that cannot be captured tangibly how do we remind ourselves of it when the vastness of our minds is relentlessly at work? How do we create that bridge between the tangible and intangible when we are not physically holding the blueprints?

Let's entertain the idea that we lose every memory if we cannot physically capture it, how would humanity move forward? We could still build things and speak to each other, but how would we avoid stagnation?  History would be pointless because there would be no significance attached to it. The same rhetoric would apply to humanity - life would be pointless if we perceive it to be insignificant. So how can we be spiritual if we cannot sense with our bodies what we are connecting with? 

I think humanity often forgets that life is tangible. Our bodies are physical and contain the life God gifted us and the gift of life itself is a connection to God; the bridge between the tangible and intangible because we are both. I believe being spiritual is recognizing that notion. It is not our physical bodies that bring significance to life, but it is a life that gives significance to our bodies.

Since Heschel was referenced earlier, Shabbat is a great example of this (Heschel is one of the magnificent people that can verbalize the speechless.)

Shabbat is not just welcoming the spirit of the bride into our homes, it is also recognizing our body and soul transcending into spirituality. It is easy to celebrate our body and our soul separately but I believe that Shabbat is also the celebration of seeing our body and soul as one. We surrender physical things and instead embrace the feeling of Shabbat and we use the gift of life to sense that. We see each other gathered around, we hear the Shabbat blessings, we taste the wine, we feel the touch of warmth from the candles, and we smell the challah. Perhaps we truly do have a 6th sense - the fullness of the spirit within our bodies.

Maybe it's like the 7 days of creation. A sense was created each day, the shell of man on the 6th day, and the fusion of all on the 7th day; the day of rest after 6 days of creation. Our day of recognizing the time spent creating and using our senses to connect us back to it. A day, as Heschel says, that goes from "--the world of creation to the creation of the world."

I think a lot of people, myself included oftentimes, see the world as black or white, A or B, hot or cold. I think Judaism sees the world in primary colors that mix together to create all other colors. Maybe Shabbat is a week of mixing those colors and taking a day to step back and look at the canvas we have been working on. We are not black or white, in fact, black and white are not even primary colors but a mixture of other colors. Maybe that mixture of colors is spirituality; the recognition that we are a combination of colors to create one color - tangible and intangible, body and soul, time and space. We are not one or the other, but all as one.

I am no Heschel. My attempts at explaining the intense emotions I have felt in these past few months are but a single leaf on a massive redwood tree with endless roots. I think that is what is so moving about Judaism. Even if we can't verbalize or physically hold what we are feeling, we feel it together. It is an unspoken instinct to gather as one and feel what we cannot describe together. Maybe that is why Judaism is not a faith meant to be practiced in isolation.

Maybe because we saw the temple destroyed twice that we realized that Judaism, I believe as mentioned in A Letter in the Scroll by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, ceased being a religion of land and state and became of faith built around homes, schools, and communities. Family, knowledge, and community. Maybe that is why tradition is so prevalent in Judaism; it is our way of connecting not only to God but to our ancestors. Tradition is just one way for us to connect ourselves to that which we cannot hold. This practice and evolution of tradition are what keep Judaism unbreakable because we embrace and embody the intangible, and what is intangible cannot be broken.

It's intense. It's probably why I have been moved to the point of tears many times in service, class, studying, and 1x1s. I don't practice traditions, rituals, blessings, or liturgy because I am obligated to, I practice these things because my spirit is drawn to it. It is easy to physically perform these things as a habit, but to feel them is something else. A very beautiful something else.