Growl and Moan
This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success. Joshua 1:8 NASB
Meditate – True confession time. I have been seriously thinking, as opposed to occasionally entertaining important thoughts, for more than four decades. Today I realized that I am just now beginning to understand a few things. Not deep things, mind you, but just some of the more obvious, but important, things about the way we understand the world. About how subtle and insidious our traditional assumptions about the world really are. About how finite we are when it comes to grasping things of the Spirit. About how infinitesimal is our real appreciation for what is happening. About how much I have yet to begin to grasp. About how inadequate I feel about all this. Deep things probably elude me, as much as I try to come to terms with them. This leads me to haga, the Hebrew verb translated “meditate.” Amazingly, it doesn’t usually mean “meditate.” It usually means something like “growl, moan, mutter” or “whisper.” That is enormously helpful. I often find that I am moaning over some verse, growling about something I thought I once knew, muttering to myself as I wrestle with another shift in the paradigm and whispering with those who seem to be on the same track. The last thing I find myself wishing to do is preach about these things. They are simply too dark for me.
Maybe that’s why meditation is so important.
Consider this: Moses gives YHVH’s revelation as a manual of freedom, a way of enjoying the presence of YHVH and His blessings. Joshua accepts this revelation and commits himself to live according to it. This Torah requires deep consideration and in that consideration all sorts of amazing things happen. First, it convicts us. We immediately realize that if this is God’s instruction and we aren’t practicing it, we have forsaken a guarantee from our own Creator. How foolish is that? Secondly, once we attempt to align our actions with this instruction, we discover that all sorts of circumstances that we typically ignore demand attention. We learn first-hand what the rabbis mean by the statement that a man does not encounter Torah unless it sears him. Suddenly those things that we took for granted become objects of concern. We are forced to reconsider our ways. We are forced to do some serious introspection. And then haga comes alive. We growl at the thought of changing. We moan over our prior disobedience and reluctance. We mutter to ourselves something like, “How could I have been so wrong?” We whisper prayers for guidance, correction and safety. Life becomes difficult—joyously so because we feel the stretch of growth. We leave the ossified presuppositions of the past and venture into the dark, trusting that His ways will be made known to us. We step out—and then the waters part. That’s what it means to meditate.
Topical Index: haga, meditate, Joshua 1:8
AMEN
Skip, What a challenging TW this is and how feeble have my attempts of meditation been.
Thank you for your honesty and sincerity
Yup.I called in sick, started my fast, went to synagogue. If I talk it I must walk it.
“Growl, moan, mutter and whisper”. Emotionally based reactions to the convicting Presence. Meditate can also mean chewing a cud, from what I understand. If you have owned a cud-chewing animal (which is a kosher animal, incidentally), you can learn that the animal does not have the ability to break down it’s food upon initial ingestion. Multiple stomachs, in which complex colonies of digesting organisms live and work on that food matter, assist in holding the food long enough for the bacteria to break down the cellulose, mainly (a lot like a termite does this), so that the food can be utilized. The animal regurgitates the food multiple times, as it passes from stomach to stomach (um, could that be like “glory to glory”, I wonder?) and chews it at its leisure each time; over and over.
Perhaps it is possible for this creature to “Growl, moan, mutter or whisper” while it gradually assimilates this matter. It certainly lacks an innate ability on its own to accomplish such exegesis, or transformation, into the nourishment necessary for its biology. It needs lots of time, accompanied with repeated re-chewing, as well as lots of foreign help (those helpful little digesting organisms). If it tried in the natural to do this right, first time around, it, of course, would die of starvation. No cud-chewing (again, that would be a kosher) animal can claim a ‘natural’ ability to assimilate its own nourishment. Hmm. I think its time for me to go have some more interaction with forces outside my own, as well as getting directly and emotionally involved myself, in the process of actually receiving my daily bread from heaven.
I am still growling, moaning, muttering and whispering about ” the monstrosity of disobedience and the supernatural recovery of obedience ” from an earlier post – Cosmic Affair.
Once we recognize John’s insight, we can appreciate the monstrosity of disobedience and the supernal recovery of obedience. We are being swept up in something beyond our wildest imaginations. We are being carried along in the reclamation of God’s expression of love.
Keep your head down, your heart lifted up,
and walk in the light as He is in the light.
“How could I have been so wrong?” This is a most common reaction to Today’s Word for me over the last several years. I thought i had a decent grasp. I didn’t. I am so grateful for the insight Skip shares with us.
Ahhh…YES! Tears fall from my eyes in that I have realized that your words remind me that this is the description of PRAYER also! Baruch Adonai is forever on my lips: Deut 30:20
Skip interesting reminder. With this we may still need to write our personal Torah how God controlled and changed my life. Not for others to read but to remind me of the importance of God in my life.
Would these be why the Teacher reminds us that a lot of study drain’s the body while in the writing of books there will be no end.
While the most important lesson is to acknowledge God and permit Him to guide and direct our actions.
And I add starting from what is recorded (Bible) until we are enlightened to progress in a new covenant one that God did not make with our forefathers but with us…
Christ in you (us)…
“We learn first-hand what the rabbis mean by the statement that a man does not encounter Torah unless it sears him. Suddenly those things that we took for granted become objects of concern. We are forced to reconsider our ways. We are forced to do some serious introspection. And then haga comes alive. We growl at the thought of changing. We moan over our prior disobedience and reluctance. We mutter to ourselves something like, “How could I have been so wrong?” We whisper prayers for guidance, correction and safety. Life becomes difficult—joyously so because we feel the stretch of growth. We leave the ossified presuppositions of the past and venture into the dark, trusting that His ways will be made known to us. We step out—and then the waters part. That’s what it means to meditate.”
Skip, I tend to take your TWs’ very personally as in applying to my individual circumstances. But as I read this again, I think about how you are trying to get us to see how important it is to understand what God is saying to us through his words. And what Yeshua was saying to us. About how important it is to understand the paradigm we are coming out of even if we weren’t that firmly entrenched in the first place. (Although maybe that is another point, we are so entrenched in this culture we live in without even realizing how far off the path we are.) Maybe that goes back to my point about the yetzer hara and hatov. It is easy to point out the so obvious ways such as a drug addiction or marital infidelity. But what about all those things leading up to these “bigger” desires that get us into trouble. And all the very subtle ways we ignore God. Not to mention the major ways we ignore God’s instructions for living. God is not an afterthought, BUT I think to the average believer, He is. I mean people who claim to believe in God but so little of there life even considers Him. I know some people would say they don’t have a relationship with God. I don’t know if I agree with that because to me there is where the paradigm comes into play.
I’m just thankful I have truly found the “good life” and so I just feel sad for people now that seem so lost.
Moses Luzzatto’s book, Mesillat Yesharim, is about learning to identify those tiny little details that eventually derail us BEFORE we get on the wrong track.
I have a friend who was very much aware of the tiny details as she had gone down a road she did not want to go down again. So she directly let this person know but she was derailed by the actions of this person. There are some situations in which people are limited or I would even say fall victim to someone else’s Messiah complex. Dangerous