Hello everyone
and welcome once again to the Temple Institute Parsha class. My name is Gedalia Meyer and I am
podcasting from Maale Adumim in Israel. We like to believe that we understand things. One of the
most reassuring experiences in all of life is that sense that we ve got a handle on what s going on.
This is probably a uniquely human experience, being as it is difficult to imagine any animal
really thinking about something deeply and truly feeling that it understands whatever it may be.
This is our arena, and we tend to put a lot of weight on getting things right.
What is the motivation behind this feeling? Is it some innate desire for the truth?
Possibly, but there may be something else at work here. There may be some
mysterious connection between the human mind and the reality that exists outside
of it. This connection may be the source for the drive for knowledge.
It is very fundamental to the human experience to know things. We tend to take this drive for
granted, but if we actually think about it, it is quite remarkable. Knowledge doesn t necessarily
help us survive. It may not make our lives any easier, more pleasurable, or more comfortable.
It may actually be a source of great struggle or pain. Yet we have this drive, and we use it
all the time. It very possibly is what makes us unique among the many species of life on earth.
Paralleling this drive for knowledge is another deeply felt experience. This is the very personal
and profound sense that everything in our reality is a great mystery. This feeling strikes us at the
oddest of times. It may come upon us unexpectedly while eating or while in the shower. It is
difficult to know from where it comes but it is absolutely clear when it is there. It is not a
disturbing feeling, even though one might believe that a sense of profound mystery would leave us
a bit uneasy. On the contrary, the sensation of mystery is one of the most mind-expanding
and eye-opening experiences available to us. It tells us that there is infinitely more to
reality than we can ever possibly hope to fathom. If imbibes within us a sense of the infinite and
the unfathomable - the very opposite of what the drive for knowledge seeks. Yet it also is there,
as virtually every human being can testify to, even if they are at loss to explain it.
It is a strange thing that we have these parallel drives - the drive for knowledge and the equally
powerful drive for mystery. It would seem that one would have to overwhelm the other
as they appear to be mutually incompatible. But they live together within our minds,
each occupying a prominent place and each dominating our mindset at select times.
When we are in a rational frame of mind, we hope to see everything in its logical place,
making sense and fitting together. When we are in the mystical state we wish for just the opposite.
We crave the sense that things just are the way they are without any rhyme or reason to their
being so. It grants us a sublime sense of wonder - the ultimate goal of any mystical experience.
Almost all religions have managed to find a place for these seemingly contradictory drives. In fact,
that, to some degree, is what religion is all about. It seeks an clear and authoritative
understanding of the world while simultaneously hoping to catch a glimpse of the unfathomable
mystery that lies behind the rational. Judaism is no exception to this religious calling card.
On the contrary, this is its most prominent feature. It provides its believers with a
certain ethical and existential clarity while retaining the conviction that, at the end of
the day, everything is a great mystery. The Bible is filled with this dichotomy. From
the opening words we see creation explained as the work of a divine power which functions
according to a very ordered plan. But within that order is the underlying sense that something else
lies behind it all that we cannot penetrate. We are constantly reminded that there are different
ways that God can be perceived in the world - either as the rational force of nature or
the mysterious power that intervenes in our lives and presents us with questions and possibilities
that leave us perpetually wondering if we are where we should be. One manifestation is called
Elohim - the rational power that is so easily identified as nothing more than what we call
nature . The other is called by a deceptively simple four-letter word, the meaning of which
is so ungraspable that it cannot really be translated. Jews have a tradition that this
name cannot even be pronounced, for doing so would inadvertently erase some of its great mystery.
This week s Parsha is called Emor. It is a short Parsha which deals primarily with
laws concerning the Kohanim, or Priests, and a rather detailed list of the various
holidays throughout the year. There are a few other topics sprinkled in with these,
including one of the only narrative sections in the book of Leviticus. That section deals with
an incident of blasphemy - cursing God s name. Although it may be puzzling today to understand
why a mere verbal outburst should be considered a capital crime, this really only reveals the great
divide between the modern rejection of the mystery of God and the BIblical acceptance of it.
We are not going to speak at length about any of this. In fact, we are really not going to
speak about the Parsha at all. Instead, we shall focus on another event in the Jewish
calendar that happens to spring up this coming week. We are in a several-week stretch in which
there are many celebrations or commemorations that have become part of the modern Jewish or Israeli
calendar. It began with Passover about a month ago - the celebration of the beginning of the
Israelite nation. Then it switched to Yom Hashoah - Holocaust Remembrance Day, to commemorate the
greatest Jewish tragedy of modern times. . A week later things reached a kind of crescendo with Yom
Hazikaron - Israel Memorial Day, and Yom Haatzmaut - Israel Independence Day. Next comes the obscure
and almost unnoticeable Pesach Sheni - the BIblical second chance of bringing the Passover
offering. This actually takes place this coming Shabbat and brings us to where we are today.
On Monday evening and Tuesday of this coming week we hit Lag B Omer - the 33rd day of the
counting of the Omer. This counting process comes up in this week s Parsha. It is the
commandment to count the days between Passover and Shavuot - the agricultural celebration that
closes out this string of days. There are 49 days to count so Shavuot comes 50 days after Passover.
On the 33rd day of that count, Jewish tradition has created a kind of celebration that seems to
commemorate nothing in particular. But it has become what is probably
the single biggest celebration in the modern Israeli calendar.
Everyone enjoys Lag B Omer. It doesn t require any particular religious devotion to get into it.
One really needn t know what one is celebrating. In fact, most people really haven t the vaguest
idea what they are celebrating. Some associate it with an ancient rabbinic story about a plague
ceasing on this day. But most tend to focus on its more mysterious origins, which revolve
around the life and death of the central figure of Jewish mysticism - Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai.
He lived about 1800 years ago in northern Israel. He was a very normal and very influential rabbinic
figure of the time, which was the beginning of the great Jewish diaspora and the very roots
of what would become rabbinic Judaism. From the Talmudic discussion one would not suspect
anything unusual about him, but Jewish mystical tradition has associated his name with the origins
of its most significant mystical text - the Zohar. While the Zohar itself first appeared in northern
Spain about 700 years ago, Jewish tradition has firmly and permanently attributed its teachings
to none other than this 2nd century rabbi. The fact that there is nothing solid to back
this up only reinforces the tradition. The Zohar is a work of great mystery, so it makes sense that
its origins should also be shrouded in mystery. It delves into the hidden forces and powers that lie
latent in the world and in the complicated layers of the mind. There is some profound mystery behind
everything according to the Zohar, from the observance of the simplest commandment to the
deepest reaches of prayer. These mysteries are not really meant to be understood - that would
spoil them to some degree. They are meant to be appreciated for what they are - mysteries.
Lag B Omer is the day on the Jewish calendar that has somehow come to be identified as
the celebration of that mysterious aspect of Judaism. The reason given for this is
that this day is traditionally associated with the Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai - the
anniversary of his death. While this may seem to be a cause for mourning rather than celebration,
Jewish tradition has somehow reversed things and perceives his death as a kind of elevation
of his soul to whatever level it deserved to reach. Thus Lag B Omer - the 33rd day of this
count between Passover and Shavuot, is the day when Jews of all walks of life celebrate
their collective and perhaps unappreciated drive to seek out the mysterious in life.
Perhaps it is appropriate that there is no making sense of how all this came about. There is no
solid evidence that Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai was associated with these mystical teachings.
The evidence connecting him with the Zohar is marginal at best. There is no real backing of
the fact that he died on this particular day, let alone that his soul was finally released to
ascend to its next stage. The Zohar itself is of highly uncertain origins, and virtually every page
of it expresses some sense of impenetrable mystery. But all of this uncertainty only
reinforces the traditions associated with this person, this book, and this day. They were and
are meant to be mysterious. Nothing else would do to capture this entire side of our existence.
We live in a world that can be explained by science and within which we crave rational
explanation. We need it to function, to keep the wheels turning in a world that
frequently defies logic. Our technology is based around such rational thinking and it
works to keep us secure in believing that things happen the way they are supposed to.
But underneath that thick veneer of rationality, lies a profound sense of mystery. We crave this
just as much if not more, as the reassuring predictability of the computer. We need
to believe that behind that veneer there is something greater than all those bits and bytes,
something that we are part of and within which we exist. The ultimate mystery is God,
whose reality lurks within all. This dichotomy - between the rational and the mysterious - is
what we celebrate on Lag B Omer, even if we are not really aware of it. Shabbat Shalom!