Jew in the Lotus Part 5
"The angels who praise G.o.d are called seraphim," Zalman continued. "Then there are angels that look like animals. One with a face like a lion. Another has a face of a bull. Another one has a face like an eagle and another has a face like the human being. These angels represent the signs of the Zodiac of the year. Each person has a nature. Sometimes a person has a bull nature, sometimes a person has a lion nature, or an eagle nature, and there's a person who is a human being. So all these natures are influenced by those angels." He pointed up to the heavens. "That's how we talk about it."
The Dalai Lama actually giggled.
"Right. And then below that, still more below, there are angels we call wheels. These angels have to do with shifting energy around. Sometimes we come into a room and the room feels flat, no energy. Sometimes a room is filled with energy. Ophan Ophan, one of those wheel angels is there and energizes the thing. But angels..." Zalman swept his hands in the air, as if dismissing the subject. But the Dalai Lama was undeterred.
"So these angels have some connection with the weather condition?"
"Yes, yes, yes."
"There was some small earthquake at seven this morning. So there was some angel?"
Zalman nodded. "That's right. They say not a blade of gra.s.s grows without an angel saying, 'Grow, grow, grow.' Angels are pushing fruit to ripen. So they speak of all kinds of beings, but when we use the word angel, that is only human speech because the number and variety of these beings is beyond being able to count. Okay. But I want to go away from the angels, I want to go higher." He made a sweeping away motion with his hands again, this time more forcefully, and then pointed upwards with his thumb as the Dalai Lama laughed.
"Oh," he said, looking slightly abashed.
"Okay?" Zalman asked.
But even then the Dalai Lama did not want to let the subject go. Instead, he steered the conversation toward a point of some subtlety. The Buddhist leader wanted to know if the action by these angels is ultimate. Do they have autonomy and authority or "did all their activities come through the creator's guidance?"
Reb Zalman answered, "If I would use an electrical image, I would say, the infinite needs transformers for lower levels." He built a transformer tower with his hands raised high and then represented the cascading down of energy with large spirals. "Ultimately there are no angels, ultimately there is G.o.d. But the garment G.o.d wears appears to us as an angel. So G.o.d has a little finger, and the little finger, as it were, has a glove, and the glove has another glove, and the outermost glove is what we would call an angel, or what we would call a wind or a force in the universe. But what moves them is always the power of the creator."
This discussion had taken some time, and Rabbi Schachter was anxious to get back to his charts. But just as Marc Lieberman had predicted, the real energy in the dialogue emerged in give-and-take with the Dalai Lama. The ophanim ophanim, the wheels, were moving around the room, exchanging energies all around.
I could see that the other Jewish delegates were getting a bit uncomfortable with that energy. Rabbis have egos too, and perhaps some were simply concerned that Zalman would use up most of the time that day. (As indeed he did.) But there was something else too. Although the group had already a.s.sumed Rabbi Schachter's material would be of interest, they could not have antic.i.p.ated this absolute explosion of curiosity from the Dalai Lama. It hit with enormous force. Suddenly they confronted their own embarra.s.sment about the subject, which was not just theirs personally, but endemic to contemporary Judaism itself.
Rabbi Greenberg, for instance, felt the need to add some spin control. "What you're hearing is the mystical tradition-actually there are two or three. Many in the more rational or more legal systems would not affirm all these beliefs." Then Rabbi Joy Levitt piped in, to general amus.e.m.e.nt, "And some of us are hearing them for the first time as well."
Even though her comic timing was impeccable, her remark defined in brief the whole mainstream Jewish att.i.tude toward mysticism. Repression of angels had been going on for centuries, but somehow the Dalai Lama had cracked it open and released them.
Then Moshe Waldoks joined in. "There is no obligation to accept this, but if it helps you in reaching the higher levels, then you can accept it. Some people can reach higher levels maintaining a very rational position or ethical position without the use of angels. It's all an image, a colorful enjoyable image." He added, with unintended irony, "But some people get very frightened."
Yet the power of the angels could not be dismissed all that easily. Zalman's discourse partook of both belief and imagination. Though Moshe Waldoks was right to say that angels are an image, they are not just just an an image but how mystically minded Jews experience the living reality of G.o.d in everyday life. The question for the Hasidim is how to develop kavvanah kavvanah, a strong spiritual intention, in order to lift everyday acts to higher realms. Visualizing a world in which every blade of gra.s.s growing has a cheering section of angels is a powerful help. At the rational level where contemporary Judaism tends to operate, it is important to discriminate. Logically, angels are either real or not real. But in the world of intuition, that logic no longer applies. Beautifully and profoundly, the image of two angels in dialogue captured the essence of the exchange between Rabbi Schachter and the Dalai Lama. Together they had raised the dialogue between Jews and Tibetans from the world of knowing to the world of intuition. And that was a very high place to be.
As Moshe Waldoks admitted later, the Jewish delegates had no reason to be embarra.s.sed because the "esoteric is like gefilte fish to the Dalai Lama." It became obvious that the Buddhist leader had noticed the divisions in the Jewish group because a little later he joked about it. This, after a rather long consultation with the lamas behind him on a point of Buddhist doctrine. When he finished, he turned back to us and said, "I consult and they agreed. And they're the more Orthodox type." Over the ensuing laughter, I heard Yitz saying to Moshe Waldoks, "You see, it's the same the world over. Covering your right flank."
Perhaps because of Yitz's spin control, the Dalai Lama looked for confirmation from Zalman. "What you are explaining about angels, do you find it mentioned in the Torah?"
"Yes," the rabbi affirmed. "In the five books of Moses it says when G.o.d closed off the Garden of Eden, he planted there an angel with a flaming sword. He sent angels to Avraham our grandfather, to announce the coming of a child. Our grandfather Jacob sent angels to his brother. The word angel also means messenger, so you can read it as messenger or as angel. If you have an inclination to mysticism, you say angel, and if you want to see everything as plain reality, then you say messenger."
But Zalman still had two more worlds to take the Dalai Lama through and not much time.
He had traveled from a.s.siyah a.s.siyah (doing) to (doing) to yetzirah yetzirah (feeling)-where the angels dwell. The realm above the angels is (feeling)-where the angels dwell. The realm above the angels is beriah beriah, first creation. "If I were to borrow a word from your tradition I would say samsara is here." He explained that beriah beriah is the beginning and source of the object world, the source of name and form and individuality, though it is "not yet object," but instead, "the divine mind conceiving of objects." is the beginning and source of the object world, the source of name and form and individuality, though it is "not yet object," but instead, "the divine mind conceiving of objects."
Above beriah beriah is the realm of is the realm of atziluth atziluth, emanation. Atziluth Atziluth "is so infinite that it's both full and its empty. It's full of G.o.d and it's empty of everything, no object in it." This linking of G.o.d to a concept of emptiness was a crucial point of contact with Buddhism, as we would see. "is so infinite that it's both full and its empty. It's full of G.o.d and it's empty of everything, no object in it." This linking of G.o.d to a concept of emptiness was a crucial point of contact with Buddhism, as we would see.
Rabbi Schachter was giving the kabbalistic road map of G.o.d's creative processes. But because man was made in G.o.d's image, it is also a map of human creativity. The four worlds cosmology gave me a new vocabulary: one could speak of an intuition arising in the realm of emanation, becoming a thought in the realm of creation, being formed into a particular shape in the realm of formation, and eventuating in an action in the realm of function. There is a fifth level, as Zalman had hinted, above emanation-known to the Lurianic kabbalists as "Adam Kadmon"-but that was not discussed. Instead he turned from view to path.
Here Rabbi Schachter was going to address the second matter of interest to the Dalai Lama, what Michael Sautman at our breakfast meeting had called "thought transformation." This key element of Buddhist practice includes visualization, meditation, and as a preliminary to those practices, techniques of purgation such as prostrations. One Western Buddhist monk had told me about the one hundred thousand prostrations he was performing to purify himself to receive advanced teachings.
In Jewish terms, these activities correspond to prayer-in Hebrew, tefillot tefillot; in Yiddish, davennen davennen. Not just prayer in synagogue, but the blessings or brakhot brakhot spoken throughout the day. spoken throughout the day.
"Here is a very important part," Zalman explained. "Nothing we are to do should we do with instinct alone. Every instinct that we have can be gratified. But it always calls for stopping and becoming mindful. So we say a blessing before we eat. The blessing I said on greeting you is also part of this discipline."
With that, I understood better what Jonathan Omer-Man had meant by the inner ch.o.r.eography of that blessing. He was speaking of kavvanah kavvanah. Only with the proper intention would the blessing succeed in elevating our sense of the moment as we entered into dialogue.
"Here is where all the laws come in," Zalman continued, "to which all Jews are obligated. We speak of 613 of these laws."
"Six hundred and thirteen?" The Dalai Lama seemed impressed by the count.
"Six hundred and thirteen. So when a person in your tradition becomes a monk, he takes on 250. In the same way, when a boy becomes bar mitzvah, a girl becomes bat mitzvah-they take on the commandments. And from that time on there's an expectation of doing what leads to purification."
The next stage up the ladder from doing is formation or feeling. "Purification of the action isn't enough because what leads a person to do the wrong action is often the wrong att.i.tude. So then on this level of formation or feeling comes the development of calm and of loving respect toward G.o.d and the universe-cleaning up the heart."
Borrowing a basic term from the Buddhist Eightfold Path, right aspiration, or right feeling, Zalman explained that "the laboratory for right feeling is prayer in the heart. Here is where we work, asking, Why did I do it? Before you go to sleep, you say, What was my day like? What did I do? Why did I do this? Once a week you do this deeper before the Shabbat. And once a year, at Rosh Hashana, you go though the year and you ask yourself, Why did I do what I did? and try to clean up all the karma, and this is where the discrimination of feeling comes in."
The Dalai Lama studied the chart intensely, looking it over like the detailed plans of a house. Zalman gave him time and for a moment the room fell quiet. Then he looked up and Zalman continued, "I can ask myself, Why do I hate that person? What's in my heart? Asking these questions, and working in the heart is what we do on this level of the path.
"But then we find out, that, why do I hate somebody? Because I have a wrong thought. If I would understand the context of that person's actions, I wouldn't hate him. So I have to now go to that realm of thought. And this is called hitbonenut hitbonenut, the contemplation of truth and also impermanence. This is where our traditions come very close. Our rabbis would be saying, 'Nothing of this world remains. Everything changes, everything falls apart.'"
"Yes."
"Yes. So at the level of thought when I understand this, why should I get so upset? The story about the wheel that turns-we use the same word, galgal ha-hozer galgal ha-hozer. Today he is poor, tomorrow he is rich, it's all on the wheel"-Zalman's voice lilting, almost chanting-"it's all on the wheel. And the word that we use is gilgul gilgul, being on the wheel."
The Dalai Lama p.r.o.nounced gilgul gilgul to himself a few times. It made an important contact between the two traditions-for Zalman was touching again on rebirth. He cited a bedtime prayer from the Art Scroll Siddur. "Before going to sleep: Master of the universe, I here forgive anyone who sinned against me, my body, my property, my honor,...whether he did it in this transmigration [ to himself a few times. It made an important contact between the two traditions-for Zalman was touching again on rebirth. He cited a bedtime prayer from the Art Scroll Siddur. "Before going to sleep: Master of the universe, I here forgive anyone who sinned against me, my body, my property, my honor,...whether he did it in this transmigration [gilgul] or another transmigration."
They would return to the subject, but the Dalai Lama had more questions about what he'd heard already. At the dialogue in New Jersey, the Buddhist leader had deferred any discussion about G.o.d or atheism, explaining that it was best to save such discussions over apparent disagreements until the two religions knew each other better. Now, evidently, that time had come. "Of course," he said, "you know Buddhism does not accept a creator. G.o.d as an almighty or as a creator, such we do not accept. But at the same time, if G.o.d means truth or ultimate reality, then there is a point of similarity to shunyata shunyata, or emptiness." Shunyata Shunyata is also called by the Tibetans "dependent arising," the interrelatedness and interdependence of all things and beings. All phenomena that arise do so through previous conditions and relationships-nothing stands independently, permanently, or absolutely. All is interrelated. Such interrelatedness implies enormous individual freedom and responsibility. Perhaps that is why the discussion on angels had interested the Dalai Lama. It showed that in Jewish thought there is also a respect for different levels of creation, or "different levels of sentient beings." It corrected a simplistic notion-which seemed common among even Western Buddhists-of G.o.d as an autocrat, an all-powerful commandant. is also called by the Tibetans "dependent arising," the interrelatedness and interdependence of all things and beings. All phenomena that arise do so through previous conditions and relationships-nothing stands independently, permanently, or absolutely. All is interrelated. Such interrelatedness implies enormous individual freedom and responsibility. Perhaps that is why the discussion on angels had interested the Dalai Lama. It showed that in Jewish thought there is also a respect for different levels of creation, or "different levels of sentient beings." It corrected a simplistic notion-which seemed common among even Western Buddhists-of G.o.d as an autocrat, an all-powerful commandant.
Of course, many devout Jews do carry such an image of G.o.d. After all, in the prayer liturgy, G.o.d is described as a father, a king of kings, an almighty. But within the four worlds cosmology, the highest contemplations avoid such imagery. As Zalman had mentioned, the realm of nearness (atziluth) is both full of G.o.d and completely empty-because at that level there is no "thing" for G.o.d to be. The name the kabbalists used for G.o.d in atziluth atziluth is is ain sof ain sof. This literally means no limit or infinite. Yet in some interpretations, ain sof ain sof is translated as is translated as ayin ayin-nothing. For instance, the thirteenth-century kabbalist Joseph Gikatilla writes, "The depth of primordial being is called Boundless. It is also called ayin ayin [nothing] because of its concealment from all creatures. If one asks, 'What is it?' the answer is, ' [nothing] because of its concealment from all creatures. If one asks, 'What is it?' the answer is, 'Ayin,' that is, no one can understand anything about it." As the Dalai Lama had carefully phrased it, there is "a point of similarity" between the kabbalistic ain sof ain sof and the Buddhist and the Buddhist shunyata shunyata. It would be exaggerating to say they are identical. The kabbalistic approach emphasizes that G.o.d is No Thing. But it still affirms an absolute existence-even if ineffable. In the Buddhist approach, all existence is empty because none of it has inherent reality, or absolute reality in itself.
Clearly though, by presenting the kabbalistic view, Zalman had changed the Dalai Lama's perceptions of monotheism. Now he saw that G.o.d is "the basis of all existence, not necessarily to create with a certain motivation or willingness."
"So personally," the Dalai Lama told Zalman, "when you explain it this way, it gives us a much wider perspective. When it becomes wider, or more sophisticated, then naturally there are more similarities."
I felt a tremendous excitement at this moment, a sense of a real meeting between the two religious traditions that Marc Lieberman must have had in mind for the dialogue all along. Zalman, who loves computer talk, would probably have called it a successful interface. The most obvious and fundamental difference between the two religions is zero and one, Buddhist nontheism and Jewish monotheism. But now that the angels were talking, shunyata shunyata had met had met ain sof ain sof. It was not necessary to equate the two concepts. But Rabbi Schachter and the Dalai Lama had narrowed the gap, and I felt the sparks leaping across the empty s.p.a.ce.
The very word G.o.d G.o.d had always been a stumbling block for me, but Zalman had made the concept much broader and more sophisticated, not only for the Dalai Lama, but also for me. had always been a stumbling block for me, but Zalman had made the concept much broader and more sophisticated, not only for the Dalai Lama, but also for me.
The Dalai Lama had mentioned creation and Zalman wanted to amplify. "I would like to suggest that the notion of a creator who comes from outside, who makes something happen, is not the way kabbalah spoke about it. Kabbalah speaks about emanation. It comes out of G.o.d. There is nothing but G.o.d, so it all flows from G.o.d." He explained that there is a new feminine insight emerging that sees cosmology in female terms. Instead of seeing creation as "papa does and goes away, it is seen as more like mama, and child growing, and worlds begotten. Reality begotten-and arising out of. And so we speak of the womb of being, which could be seen as out of shunyata shunyata. Our theology is now very much in transformation because of the impact of feminist thought. People are saying the way you have expressed it up until now is how men think, do, and act."
This prompted a flurry of discussion about the role of women in Buddhism, a topic that would be covered more thoroughly at the second session. For now, the Buddhist leader wanted Zalman to complete his discussion of view, path, and goal.
So Rabbi Schachter explained that the goal of the Jewish mystic "at the highest level of all is not to come back in the world, but to achieve what is called the annihilation of the personal, to be totally drawn in to the being of G.o.d." This goal might be achieved over several lifetimes or reincarnations. So we were back to the wheel. And the Dalai Lama hadn't forgotten the angels. He wanted to know if angels could also experience rebirth, as devas devas do. do.
Reb Zalman answered, "Ravi Nachman of Bratzlav had a beautiful teaching. He said all of reality is like a spinning top. Sometimes that which is above becomes that which is below. That which was an angel becomes an animal, that which becomes a stone..."
The Dalai Lama interrupted with delight, "Oh. The same."
"When I first met with Geshe w.a.n.gyal in America," Zalman continued, "he asked me, is reincarnation only human or also in animals? I used to be a shokhet shokhet. It's one who kills the animals that are kosher. Before I would kill the animals I would send all the people out of the room. I would say to the animals, 'I don't mean to harm you, I mean to give you an opportunity to raise you up. When people eat you with mindfulness and they will open their hearts and their minds to G.o.d to pray, you will be able to experience human consciousness and move up on the level of incarnations.' That was part of the task."
The Dalai Lama did not linger over the image, but it made me smile-Zalman talking gilgul gilgul to poultry. I had to wonder how the chicken felt about the opportunity. to poultry. I had to wonder how the chicken felt about the opportunity.
The Buddhist leader wanted to know how rebirth worked in Jewish doctrine. "What determines whether an angel in the next rebirth will be a bird or an animal? What is the main factor? Buddhists call it karma."
The term karma karma has entered popular American culture as a fuzzy synonym for fate. But serious Buddhists consider the theory of karma a science. Beginning with the simple idea of cause and effect; that is, every action produces a consequence, teachings about karma confirm that there is an ultimate overall economy of actions. In the long run, good actions will produce good consequences for those who do them, and likewise bad actions will produce bad consequences. Since this is not immediately obvious in the world we live in, karma in Buddhist thought presupposes rebirth. The long run includes life after life in various bodily frames, not only human, but also as animals, h.e.l.l creatures, and has entered popular American culture as a fuzzy synonym for fate. But serious Buddhists consider the theory of karma a science. Beginning with the simple idea of cause and effect; that is, every action produces a consequence, teachings about karma confirm that there is an ultimate overall economy of actions. In the long run, good actions will produce good consequences for those who do them, and likewise bad actions will produce bad consequences. Since this is not immediately obvious in the world we live in, karma in Buddhist thought presupposes rebirth. The long run includes life after life in various bodily frames, not only human, but also as animals, h.e.l.l creatures, and devas devas. Rebirth is the Buddhist explanation of why bad things happen to good people. Our actions in one life plant seeds that may not flower or bear fruit until future lives.
For the Buddhist the goal of purification practices, such as prostrations and reciting of mantras, is to release one from the negative effects of previous actions, to purify bad karma. Unfinished karma provides energy for another birth, it keeps the wheel of rebirth spinning. The ultimate goal-known as nirvana-is getting off of the wheel. Now the Dalai Lama asked about the goal of the Jewish system.
"If an angel takes rebirth in animal form, is it due to the creator, or is it fate? How much is due to one's own behavior? How much is in G.o.d's hand?"
Rabbi Omer-Man spoke up. "Perhaps, I can give an image we use. Each soul has to create a garment. And each incarnation, each remanifestation, we make a little more or we undo a little more. Ultimately the goal is to complete the garment, which is a garment of light when it is finished. And some incarnations, we do more damage, we pull more threads out, in other incarnations we put more threads in. So how we are remanifest depends on what we have done in the past."
The Dalai Lama took this in and asked Jonathan, "The next reincarnation, what kind of reincarnation will take place, is that mainly due to the previous life's behavior?"
"Yes."
Now he appeared satisfied. This sounded very much like karma. The two mystical systems of rebirth appeared to have remarkable degrees of similarity.
Some monks came in with pots of tea, kneeling before us individually. I noticed we were being served by Karma Gelek and some of the other high officials, high lamas and sages, which was typical Tibetan Buddhist behavior-an effortless humility. For now, the dialogue at the mystical level was over. But it would be resumed in the next few days, and at the second session Jonathan Omer-Man would make an extraordinary presentation on Jewish meditation. A connection of surprising force had been made between the two traditions. I was now much more receptive to Nathan Katz's suggestion that they had somehow met before.
Yet Rabbi Schachter had gone very far in reaching out to Buddhism to make that connection. After all, mysticism is the front door of Tibetan Buddhism, but a very hidden back door of contemporary Judaism. I had no doubt that Zalman's presentation was well grounded in the Jewish mystical tradition. What I wondered, though, was how it connected to the Jewish present.
One part of me kept saying, Does he really believe all this stuff? Does a twentieth-century man with a computerized wrist.w.a.tch believe in angels? Clearly not in the same way some of the Tibetan refugees in chubas chubas believed in believed in devas devas. I a.s.sumed their beliefs were premodern, Zalman's postmodern. The Tibetan agony is, in part, that of a medieval culture pa.s.sing violently into the modern world. Jews have been wrestling with modernity ever since the Enlightenment, producing, among other things, the Haskalah movement, Zionism, and Reform Judaism. For most American Jews, very few of the old traditions have survived intact.
In its early triumphant phase, American Reform Judaism was particularly scathing, abolishing every thing from yarmulkes to bar mitzvahs. Even in these more observant days, if a Reform rabbi announced that he believed in angels, would the board renew his contract? To meet the Tibetans halfway, Zalman was doing a lot of translating, a lot of updating, a lot of psychologizing-he was pedaling pretty hard. But was the bike moving? Or was it all an exercise? There is a difference between understanding how a system works, or might have worked for certain Jews in previous centuries-and the next step, which would be living that life today. Zalman had kept saying, "That's in our tradition." Yes, but where? And who has access to it now?
These are hard questions, not only for one who has stayed within Judaism, but maybe more for those who have left it. I was curious to hear from the JUBUs what they made of the angels.
For me, as for Rabbi Levitt, much of Zalman's presentation was news. But it was very good news. I decided to suspend disbelief and trust in the world of intuition what I could not yet confirm with my intellect. I stayed with my delight. After all, I had heard the Angel of the Jews speaking to the Angel of Tibet.
8.
Always Remind.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25, DHARAMSALA.
Rabbi Irving Greenberg's presentation would take us away from the supernal realms of ain sof ain sof to a much more familiar deity, a G.o.d who acts in Jewish history. to a much more familiar deity, a G.o.d who acts in Jewish history.
Less theatrical than Zalman, Rabbi Greenberg brought just as much pa.s.sion to his presentation. Teaching Jewish history to the Tibetans, he believed, was a religious obligation, one that could be found in the Torah pa.s.sage of the week, Lekh Lekha Lekh Lekha (Gen. 12:1-17:27). (It was getting to be a very rich and useful (Gen. 12:1-17:27). (It was getting to be a very rich and useful parasha parasha.) Because when making a covenant with Abraham, G.o.d promises that the Jews will be a blessing to other nations.
So Rabbi Greenberg spoke with great warmth to the Tibetan leader: "All of us came here with a sense of wanting to learn from you, but also with a feeling of love. The love is identification, for we have suffered some of the tragedies you have suffered, and we would like to help in some way. So we asked what learning might be helpful."
Yitz was keenly aware that the Tibetans faced a crisis that could mean their end as a people as well as the end of their religion. Jews have faced similar crises, not only during the time of the Holocaust but also two thousand years earlier.
Actually, we Jews have a rich menu of crises to choose from. The expulsion from Spain in 1492, the Inquisition, and the Crusades were all terrible disasters. And the Babylonian captivity provides fascinating parallels to Tibetan history. But all of us were thinking most about the Holocaust. Seeing photographs of the Chinese destruction of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, temples, and libraries, I recalled the systematic n.a.z.i destruction of synagogues. When I read about celibate Tibetan nuns and monks being humiliated and tortured, I remember the SS forcing rabbis to spit on the Torah before shooting them. And the death of more than a million Tibetans as a result of the occupation brought up the inevitable charge of genocide. As Rabbi Lawrence Kushner had told the Dalai Lama when they met in New Jersey, "The Chinese came to your people as the Germans came to mine."
The parallels are not exact-how could they be? The Holocaust took place quickly, and extermination was the conscious goal of the n.a.z.is. The Chinese are not seeking a "final solution," though by favoring Han, or ethnic Chinese, over Tibetans, a strong element of chauvinism is playing itself out. Their princ.i.p.al aim is to dominate and exploit the Tibetan territory, to make Tibet part of China by eliminating any vestiges of Tibetan resistance. But the result of their suppressing Tibetan nationality, culture, and language through decades of brutally repressive rule may well be a genocide played out in slow motion.
One-third of the Jewish people were murdered while the world stood by. Much the same is happening right now to the Tibetans, and not a single nation is protesting with any force. Though many Jews wish to reserve the Holocaust as a unique historical event and object to its use as an a.n.a.logy for other people's suffering, that doesn't trouble me so much. My problem is, the a.n.a.logy offers the Tibetans too little in the way of hope.
Perhaps Yitz might have chosen to discuss the Babylonian captivity instead. At about the time of the Buddha, in 586 B.C.E. B.C.E., the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar had sacked Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple, and led fifteen thousand Jews into captivity in Babylon. The intellectual leadership of priests and scribes left the country while the poor Jews remained on the land. This resembles in some ways the Tibetan case. In exile, the educated Jews carefully compiled their sacred writings-as the Tibetans are doing today at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in Dharamsala. Jews kept their religious teachings alive and, within a generation (by 516 B.C.E. B.C.E.), were able to return to the land and, ultimately, rebuild Jerusalem and its Temple. Upon their return, they reformed their religion and democratized it further, much as the Dalai Lama is attempting to adapt his religion to contemporary circ.u.mstances.
Obviously the Babylonian story offers much more hope. But I knew why Yitz chose instead to make a parallel with events surrounding the Roman destruction. The Tibetans might well be facing a long exile. And not far from his mind also was the Holocaust and the theological questions it raises.
I would put these questions simply. How can Jews affirm faith in G.o.d and his covenant with the chosen people after Auschwitz? The question is settled for most secular and liberal Jews-they can't. Obviously such a position is unacceptable to an Orthodox Jew. While some simply drew inward and clung to a reactionary faith, Rabbi Greenberg had seen that new answers were demanded.
Perhaps it is true, as Jewish sociologist Arnold Eisen has noted, "that not much creative work has been forthcoming over the last two decades" in Jewish theology. In part, as Eisen explains, Jewish theology demands a unique combination of skills: someone deeply committed to Judaism but with a secular education. Among the most important postwar thinkers have been Rabbi Abraham Heschel and Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, Rabbi Greenberg's mentor. Heschel, for Hasidim, and Soloveitchik, for Talmudic Judaism, each represent in their thinking an encounter between Jewish tradition and modern philosophical thought.
In contemporary Orthodox Jewish theology, Rabbi Greenberg's own substantial contribution has been the concept of the "voluntary covenant." According to Eisen, "The word 'voluntary' is crucial to Greenberg. It emphasizes that the initiative-now, more than ever-is on the human side rather than on G.o.d's. It suggests that we will be faithful, we will uphold the covenant, even if G.o.d in the Holocaust did not."
Therefore, Rabbi Greenberg told the Dalai Lama that the covenant is "the most seminal idea" in Judaism. The covenant that began with Abraham has not been abrogated-even at Auschwitz. Instead, he affirmed to the Buddhist leader his own faith: "The creator G.o.d seeds the universe with life. Humanity can become a partner with the divine in making the world better or perfect."
What has changed is the human role in the partnership. And that happened, not in recent times, but "about nineteen hundred years ago, halfway in the history of the religion. The Jewish people in Judea were conquered by the Romans and their Temple destroyed by the Roman empire. It was devastating." Rabbi Greenberg explained that Jews could no longer make pilgrimages to Jerusalem, offer sacrifices, or receive divine messages through the priestly oracle. They were cut off from direct access to G.o.d.
"Then within a century or two the people lost the land altogether. So it was a major crisis. We lost many great teachers and important religious figures."
In the first century, many interpreted the Roman destruction as abandonment by G.o.d, the end of the covenant. "And since the whole Jewish idea of covenant is that the world can be made better, this would be such a victory for evil that many Jews simply gave up. They a.s.similated and joined the very dynamic culture around them, h.e.l.lenism. Another large group, the Zealots, put all of their energy to recapturing and rebuilding the Temple. They reconquered Jerusalem for two years, but then they were crushed again." The final revolt against the Romans ended in the ma.s.s suicide of the Zealots at Masada in 73 C.E. C.E.
The Romans not only destroyed Jerusalem, they renamed the capital and drove her people into exile. More than one million Jews died at that time, and Jews did not regain sovereignty in the land until 1948. But Judaism did not die. The religion was saved by the first-century sages, known today as the rabbis, the teachers.
Yitz explained, "There was one great rabbi of the time, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai. The Talmud says, when the Romans had Jerusalem surrounded and were about to destroy it, he was able to break through to the Roman emperor and was given one wish. He said, 'Give me Yavneh and its scholars. I want to set up an academy there.'" There he told his students they would outlast the exile by teaching, interpreting, and preserving the tradition.
"Yochanan ben Zakkai basically said, 'If we don't have our Temple, but we have our learning, our texts-our Bible with us, we have the power by learning to create the equivalent of the Temple. It's a portable homeland.'
"It's not enough to preserve. His power was to say that as partners in the covenant, fallible humans have the authority to add new insights, so that their activity was the equivalent of a renewal of the convenant. Their courage to renew preserved the past."
After Jerusalem was laid waste, the rabbis found a home in Yavneh, a tiny town near Ashdod. There, in a vineyard, their leader, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, declared the academy of rabbis successors to the Sanhedrin.
As Yitz told the story of the first-century sages, I felt the power of our being there, as Jews. Dharamsala, as much as one can argue by a.n.a.logy, is surely the Tibetan Yavneh. In this small Indian town, with no more than five thousand souls, lies the main hope for the survival of Tibetan Buddhism. And I could see-with a little squinting-the Dalai Lama and his leading abbots and monks as the Buddhist equivalent of Yochanan ben Zakkai and his sages.
The Dalai Lama interrupted Yitz's history lesson to ask the inevitable question about the covenant, "The concept of the chosen people, is it right there from the beginning, or later developed?"
Rabbi Greenberg answered that it was relatively early-and begins with the first Jew, Abraham. "Chosenness means a unique relationship of love. But G.o.d can choose others as well and give a unique calling to each group. Each has to understand its own destiny and can see its own tragedy not simply as a setback but as an opportunity."
"Certainly," Yitz added, "I never thought I would learn from a Buddhist monk until you came to the world. In the same way, the Jewish people in their tragedy had an opportunity to be a model of how one persists, how one takes suffering and enn.o.bles it. In essence, this was the challenge they faced in the first century."
Yitz returned to his topic. He said the strength of the first-century rabbis came from their basic a.n.a.lysis. They did not choose to believe that G.o.d had abandoned them, and they insisted that the Torah was still fully binding and valid. They interpreted G.o.d's nonintervention with the Roman destruction as a sign that, henceforth in history, the human partner in covenant must take more responsibility for the outcome. In the past G.o.d might have parted seas, rained down manna, performed signs and wonders to save the Jewish people. But G.o.d was no longer going to step in and do the miracles for his human partners.
Listening to Yitz, I had to reflect that the first-century rabbinic remaking of Judaism was an extraordinary feat. For six hundred years, after the return from Babylonian captivity, the Temple in Jerusalem, the site of pilgrimage and sacrifices, had served as the mainstay of religious life. Then, in one blow, Temple, Jerusalem, and priests were gone. Along with them went all the magic and grandeur of ritual-the incense and sacrifices, the awe of the High Priest entering in the Holy of Holies. In their place, the rabbis evolved the text of laws and the stories and debates known eventually as the Talmud.
The memory of the Temple was never lost-but it was turned into literature. More than two-thirds of the Talmud is devoted to descriptions of Temple rituals and implements. In that sense the Talmud is much more an imaginative literary text than a collection of laws. The rabbis declared that reading about the Temple laws was now the equivalent of Temple service. And this sort of sleight of hand, though brilliant, is a step back from the immediacy of ritual, what we'd seen, for instance, the day before in the Dalai Lama's temple, with its rich incense, colorful banners, and deep throat chanting.
More-the magical side of religion, especially the yearning for a messiah-was subdued, if not basically suppressed, by the rabbinic sages. And this became a dominant cautionary note in rabbinic thought for centuries to come, extended not just to messianism but to mysticism in general. It is still dominant in Judaism today, in all of its branches. Reason became the keynote of Jewish religion, and though some of the rabbinic sages were themselves mystical pract.i.tioners, the Talmud certainly expresses strong cautions against too much interest in mystical topics.