I've been reading the Tanya -- the central philosophical text of the Chabad Hasidic movement of Judaism, written by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi and published in 1796. You can read a page a day and finish it in exactly a year.
I had tried reading it in 1999, when I was a student at Pardes, the liberal modern Orthodox yeshiva in Jerusalem. My cousin, Raymond, in South Africa, who is part of the Chabad movement, gave it to me. I made it through the beginning.
The beginning is amazing enough. Rabbi Shneur Zalman describes the Benoni -- the intermediate one, whose good and evil impulses are nearly balanced, but who chooses good. That, it turns out, is the best to which we can aspire.
There are some other amazing things in the Tanya. Once concerns the spiritual implications of Hebrew letters, a concept drawn from the Kabbalah. Each has its significance -- none more than the letter Hay (ה), which has an "h" sound.
Hay is the letter of breath. It is also the letter of the definite article "the." It is almost abstract, and yet fundamental. Its shape suggests the role of God in the world: mundane reality is the detached foot, part of God but also independent.
Another is the idea of how one's soul should love God. There are two forms of loving God -- and these, in turn, are opposed by mundane desires. The Tanya describes the latter as a kind of "rival wife," which is a fascinating concept.
I've still got about 3 months to go, and this won't be my last time studying the Tanya, because I'm only reading it at a superficial level, but it's really a privilege to engage in any meaningful way with old or ancient texts and spiritual insights.
This week'd portion begins the book of Numbers. Interestingly, the Hebrew name for the book is "In the Desert," not "Numbers." The portion, which happens to be my bar mitzvah portion, focuses almost as much on the names of the princes of each tribe as the number of soldiers it fielded. It also focuses on the configuration of the tribal camps around the central Tabernacle and the Levites.
So why "Numbers" instead of "Names" or "Places"? The numbers are, to be sure, a unique feature of the opening of this Biblical book -- but they are not the focus of the rest of the narrative. The Hebrew focuses on the place where the events in the book take place, because essentially this is the narrative of the Israelites' wanderings from Egypt to Israel, across 40 years. We move from the giving of the Torah and the construction of the Tabernacle in Exodus and Leviticus, to the final valediction of Moses in Deuteronomy -- Bamidbar is the story of wandering that happened in between.
The question of ...
This week's portion begins with the laws of the Sabbath and the Sabbatical year, and the Jubilee year that restores all land to its original (tribal) owners. It also explores laws of property and labor that will apply in the Land of Israel, and the laws of vows and inheritance.
The Israelites are presented -- not for the last time -- with the essential moral choice that they must face, and the rewards for choosing well, along with the consequences for choosing poorly.
We learn that doing good things will earn God's protection from enemies. That does not mean that victims of terror, God forbid, were sinful. But it does mean that we can respond to evil by committing ourselves to a higher path.
This week's portion describes the major sacrifices that are to be offered by the Jewish people, including those that are offered only by the priestly Kohen class, and physical requirements of the people (men) who serve in that role.
Inter alia, there are interesting commandments -- such as an injection to treat animals with respect and care, first, by letting a mother animal nurse her offspring for a week before being offered in any sacrifice; and second, by refraining from slaughtering an animal and its offspring on the same day.
The commandments regarding animals remind us of the purpose of those regarding human beings: to uphold a divine connection, through ritual.
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/111878/jewish/Rabbi-Isaac-Luria-The-Ari-Hakodosh.htm
