The preponderance of the Hasidic masters shared their Torah in their form of teachings on the weekly Torah portion. I wanted to share with you this week my attempt at a neo-hasidic commentary that uses the Talmud rather than the Torah portion as its text. It is a little longer than my typical Word of Torah.
Happy to hear your response to it.
michael (mjstrassfeld@gmail.com)
A word of Torah:
The first tractate of Talmud, Berakhot/blessings, begins with a discussion about when we recite the Shema in the evening. It assumes the reader knows the Shema is a well-known Jewish prayer: Hear O Israel Adonai our God Adonai is one. Mei-aimatai/When can you begin reciting the Shema at night?
The mishneh offers three answers:
1)R. Eliezer suggests: from the time that the priests/kohanim (who were in a state of impurity and were waiting for the passage of the day to become pure) entered to eat terumah (the portion of the agricultural produce given to the priests). The Shema can be recited until the end of the first watch.
2)The sages said the Shema can be recited until midnight.
3)Rabban Gamliel said until dawn breaks.
Hakha be-mai askinan? What are we really talking about here? Why is this question chosen to begin, the central work of rabbinic Judaism?
The Talmud is asking a fundamental question about religious experience. How can we declare the oneness of God when mostly our experience is of division and duality—you and me, humans and God, and good and bad. It is especially challenging to proclaim a faith in God in a time when we feel surrounded by darkness.
The text suggests that the language of creation found in the first chapter of Genesis is purposeful---there was evening and there was morning. Darkness precedes light.
It is only when we perceive the darkness around us and within us that we can challenge ourselves to change what is. Hence R. Eliezer states that when the priests move from impurity to purity is the time for the recital of the Shema. What is that time? It is when the stars come out/tzeit ha-kokhavim. For the truth is, as dark as it is and even more as dark as it feels, when you look up to the heavens, there are numerous stars twinkling in the darkness. The stars remind us of the nitzotzot/sparks of light that are scattered everywhere in the universe. Each person has a spark of the divine within us that can never be extinguished. Human beings are as numerous as the stars in the sky and each one carries a light within that can shine out even in the deepest darkness. We are meant to recognize the person before as another divine spark rather than a lesser being. The plague of darkness in Egypt was that “people could not see one another” (Ex. 10:23). When our sense of fellow humanity is lost, then the plague of darkness has overcome us.
The two other opinions agree with R. Eliezer that the Shema begins with nightfall but disagree until when it can be recited. R. Eliezer said until the end of the first watch (the text states that the night is divided into three watches). The Sages expand the time until midnight, for they want to remind us that the Exodus from Egypt took place at midnight. Egypt is the darkest narrow place and yet freedom can and does occur at the darkest moments. Personal redemption can come when the heart is most broken open.
Rabban Gamliel extends the time of Shema to the whole night until the dawn. Why? Because that moment of enlightenment can occur at any time. The key is to strive to be spiritually aware of that possibility and to be ready for that moment.
Whether it is a moment of light, remembering you have left Egypt once and you can leave again, or striving to be aware that any moment has the possibility of light, all have the potential to remind us of the unity that underlies the complex diversity of this universe. Mei-aimatai/When? —is always now.
Verses of hope from the middle of the Book of Lamentations for the week:
But this do I call to mind, therefore I shall have hope
The kindness of God has not ended, God's mercies are not spent. They are renewed every morning--Ample is your grace.
Hadashim la-bekarim rabbah emunatekha
Lamentations: 3: 21-23
Song lulei toratekha sha'a'shu'oy az avaditi ve-onye; l'olam lo eshkakh pikudeikha ki vam hiyitanu
Were it not for your Torah, my delight, I would have been lost in my oppression; I will be always aware of your precepts for through them I have truly lived
Ps. 119:92-93
