Feeling True
Whoever gives thought to the way he lives in this world will merit divine salvation. Tractate Moed Katan page 5 folio a
The way – You and I have every reason to examine how we live. In fact, this examination is our only hope of actually changing direction and meriting God’s favor. Of course, as you must know by now, this has nothing to do with the way YHVH feels about us. His everlasting hen is as much a part of who He is as His holiness. But it has everything to do with us. We must act in accordance with what we are commanded to do and what we are able to do. And that means separating the wheat from the chaff. In the words of the Sages, giving thought to the way we live now.
Over the last few weeks we have been giving thought to the way we live. Hopefully you have discovered something about your feelings regarding life, the assumptions you’ve made about living and the consequences you have borne as a result. Hopefully some of this examination has caused you to shift a bit, to change your course, to remove what doesn’t belong and take on those things that matter most. Hopefully you have discovered a way to trust Him more and put less of yourself in the ethical equation.
But sometimes even all this isn’t quite enough. Sometimes we know perfectly well what must be left behind, what must be embraced, how we must trust more to His care—and we are still emotionally unable. Sometimes we have been crippled by the past so deeply that we limp the rest of our lives. Jacob discovered that his ability to manipulate things in his favor ran up against the wall of the will of God. For the rest of his life, he limped. Perhaps you have also encountered that stranger in the night, the one who will not be defeated and who causes you some permanent telltale sign of your struggle. What then? What’s left after limping?
Jacob’s injury became a permanent reminder of his vulnerability. That’s what’s left. We must have some reminder that we are vulnerable. That we are still broken. That we can’t walk without help. I suspect, as my friend John once said to me, that you and I have pushed the intellectual aspect of this exploration to its utter limit. On this side of the brook Kidron, we have come face to face with the inadequacies of our attempts to find a rational solution, a controlled outcome. We have reached the end of the mental analysis—and have been defeated. What is left is crossing the brook, entering into a new form of life, a new way to engage the world. What is left is experience, not more analysis. We must experience the care of the Lord if we are going to survive. We must feel His compassion, not because the verses tell us He is compassionate but because someone wipes away our tears. Someone holds us in the night.
There is no more thinking. The yetzer ha’ra has full command of that avenue. There is only the raw emotion of who we are, where we have been, what we have become—and the desperate desire to cross this brook without dying. I know that God cares. Now I need to feel His care. I feel afraid. I fear being alone. I feel empty. Now I need to feel loved even if it hurts. The Sages tell me that if I am able to bring these feelings to the light of His countenance, if I will allow Him to examine the ways I have protected myself, then I will merit His grace. Then I will find deliverance. Then I will wade across.
Topical Index: Jacob, emotions, Tractate Moed Katan page 5 folio a
The Way is “fenced in” TORAH. Pray to YHWH to “disable” the you in you!
Yacov’s ability to fornicate was disabled by (the angel of) YHWH. He was obviously not struck on his hip but somewhere else. This put him in a special position. He has recently unknowingly cursed the wife he loved, removing her right to enter the promised land. His way was now Torah, physical adultery was impossible for him. His lost put him on par with the highest angelic hosts:
“Of the Nefilim [this should probably be Gregori] it is said: “and the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair” (Gen. 6:1f). These form a second category of the Nefilim, already mentioned above, in this way: When God thought of making man, He said: “Let us make man in our image, etc.” i.e. He intended to make him head over the celestial beings, who were to be his deputies, like Joseph over the governors of Egypt (Gen. 41:41). The angels thereupon began to malign him and say, “What is man that You should remember him (Ps. 8:5(4)), seeing that he will assuredly sin before You.” Said God to them, “If you were on earth like him, you would sin worse.” And so it was. For “when the sons of God saw the daughters of man”, they fell in love with them, and God cast them down from heaven. These were Uzza and Azael; from them the “mixed multitude” derive their souls, and therefore they also are called nefilim, because they fell into fornication with fair women.” (Zohar 1:25b)
…Uzza and Azael actually opposed it [the creation of man]. For when the Shekinah said to God “Let us make man”, they said, “What is man that thou shouldst know him? Why desirest thou to create man, who, as thou knowest, will sin before thee through his wife, who is the darkness to his light, light being male and darkness female?” The Shekinah answered them: “You yourselves shall commit the very crime of which you accuse him”; and so it is written, “and the sons of God saw the daughters of man that they were comely”, and they went astray after them and were degraded by the Shekinah from their holy estate.’ Said the colleagues: ‘Rabbi, after all, Uzza and Azael were not wrong, because man was really destined to sin through woman.’ He replied, ‘What the Shekinah said was this: “You have spoken worse of man than all the rest of the heavenly host. If you were more virtuous than man, you would have a right to accuse him. But whereas he will sin with one woman, you will sin with many women, as it is written, ‘and the sons of God saw the daughters of man’- not a daughter, but daughters; and further, if man sinned, he was ready to repent and to return to his Master and repair his wrong.” ‘ (Zohar 1:23a)
[And the third was named Gadreel:…, and he led astray Eve (Sefer Chanoch 69:6)],
They therefore went to R. Simeon and laid the matter before him. In reply he cited to them the verse: “What is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou visitest him?” (Ps. 8:5). ‘The exposition of this verse’, he said, ‘is that it was uttered by those in charge of the world at the time when God expressed His intention of creating man. He called together various companies of heavenly angels and stationed them before Him. He said to them: I desire to create man. They exclaimed, “Man abideth not in honour”, etc. (Ps. 44: 13). God thereupon put forth His finger and burnt them. He then set other groups before Him, and said: I desire to create man. They exclaimed, ”What is man that thou shouldst remember him?” What is the character of this man, they asked. He replied: Man will be in our image, and his wisdom will be superior to yours. When He had created man and he sinned and obtained a pardon, Uzza and Azael approached Him and said: We can plead justification against Thee, since the man whom Thou hast made has sinned against Thee. He said to them: Had you been with them you would have sinned equally, and He cast them down from their high estate in heaven. (Zohar 3:207b-208a)
uh….You lost me there Pieter.
Pieter,
I have no clue as to what you just said.
Why am I frozen? It is fear. Why do I hide? It is shame. Why cannot I receive love? Because I am carrying my guilt. Why do I want to run from where I am, or at least cover it all up with pretense or an altered state of reality? Because I cannot stand myself! Why will I get up tomorrow and do the same things I did today? Because, where my mind has not been renewed by the washing of the water of the Word, I am still insane, and the hallmark of insanity is the repetition of the same action or thoughts, with the expectation of a different result this time. Y’all, this is the closest I ever get to faith or hope in my flesh! Pitiful, isn’t it?
I stand with Paul, who said that he did what he didn’t want to do, and didn’t do what he wanted to do. This is double-mindedness, which leaves me unstable in all my ways. I cannot even WANT to do right sometimes! There is nothing in my flesh that finds sin repugnant; the only thing my flesh wants is to get away with it, and the only thing my flesh is ever sorry for is getting caught. But, at the end of my day, guilt and grief overwhelm me. I mourn when it is too late. I suffer after the tent comes down and everybody goes home. When I am all alone, the tidal wave of my day hits me. And, once again, I cannot stand myself.
I cannot receive the love of G-d in my flesh; nor can I receive the love of myself or others. I cannot receive it because fear says I cannot trust it, guilt says I don’t deserve it, and shame says, well, the only thing shame ever says: hide! I cannot give love in my flesh, either, because love seeks to give, but all my flesh has to offer is need and greed – or actions that attempt to cover that need or greed so as to serve need and greed better! To give and receive love is the fulfilling of the Law (relationship), but the flesh is utterly incapable of love. Worshiping Self as the only ‘safe’ source; believing lies that leave me confused and shattered, regarding all else and others as essential competition, or as downright enemies, I am isolated in what Paul calls the enmity of the flesh: I am fractured. I am going nowhere in this position! I have no power from here, because I am stuck in a place where I have no choices left except the lesser of two or more evils. I find I cannot choose my way back out of disaster, because the disaster IS the lack of the freedom to choose! But G-d! He left me exactly one choice in my flesh; one choice that no sin except the unpardonable one can ever separate me from, and that is the choice to stop. I can quit. I can lay down my arms. I can cry “uncle!”. For decades, I believed to the bottom of my soul that I could never quit; that it was righteousness to keep on ‘trying my best’. At the bottom of my Self-sourcing soul, I think, if I am to be utterly honest with myself, that I was suffering from the insane thought that the whole universe might collapse – or at least all my fears would come true – if I gave up. Sitting in a twelve-step meeting, trying to find a way to do what the third step suggested, and find a way to turn my will and my life over to the care of G-d, I ran into the key that broke my self-imposed conundrum. Someone suggested that I stop trying to think of it as giving up, and try to think of it as giving IN. All of a sudden, the confusion cleared, and I could see. The universe might not collapse after all, if I handed it over to Him to hold! So, for just micro-seconds at a time, I started trying to do that. Baby steps toward trust.
If I stop the insanity of thinking it is all up to me, the fear recedes. If I stop trying to justify myself, I quit carrying my guilt around like the burden that it truly is. The advantage of confessing my sin is that at that point He can defend me; He can revenge me; He can justify me. If I humble up and face the music; if I quit trying to run (like, how far did I ever get, anyway?!), shame no longer has a legal right to torment me. Shame only exists in places where pride is still trying to keep a toe hold. Repent for pride, and shame will vanish, too! It’s a two-for-one deal! To get rid of the bad stuff, I have to become willing to trade it in for the good stuff. In the kingdom of Self, where every mistake is fatal(!), fear, guilt, and shame are my cruel taskmasters. I have to choose to accept the rule of a new Master before I can get out from under the old ones, but this new Master says He is my yoke Buddy: if I agree to go the Way He is going, He will pull my load: my accumulation of fracture and its resulting baggage, if I agree to pull His load in return. Y’all, He isn’t dragging anything! That’s light enough! All I have to lose in this deal is my dross. What a trade! Halleluah!
This was exactly what I needed at the exact time . Thank you, Skip!
Uh……me too.
Great write Skip!
Love your comment also Laurita.