Shemoth : Disillusionment,
Catharsis and Finding Life in the Desert
A person
may well ask: How can anyone understand anything from this? It is a jumble of
contradictions!
To
understand, we need to internalize a process whereby confusion and dissonance
are not threatening. This requires a
deep understanding of reciprocity, through which I can see how I am connected
to the world. Then, those things that once seemed so devastating or intolerable
to me become the very things that connect me to the universe.
When we
stop defending and covering up our disillusionment – when we start embracing
and accepting it we find ways to move out of the darkness, by taking the risk
of moving out into the desert. Going down involves a catharsis that is often
experienced as a crisis. Going up is the subsequent movement out into the
wilderness, the unknown.
The
Ishbitzer calls the process of constant repetition of the same dysfunctional
pattern ‘working with the branches of your deficit’. This is a defensive
position which originates as a strategy for survival. When it becomes a
repetitive pattern a person becomes stuck, and no change can occur. In therapy,
healing occurs when the person stops banging his head against a wall in
frustration, and starts working with his problem. The Ishbitzer calls this
“getting to the root” of a problem. It is characterized by a cathartic cry of
recognition and acceptance, like that of Joseph when, in Pharaoh’s prison, he
finally acknowledged his role in his misfortune.
The
movement into the desert represents a profound challenge to the ‘slave
mentality’ of repetitive defensive patterns. The desert is the place where the
slave mentality transforms.
This
movement, however, is never straightforward. As in an electrocardiogram, a
straight line denotes death. Life is full of ups and downs. As in the macro
picture of creation, the tzimtzum/contraction, followed by a shattering,
is how all new things come into being. We can learn much about micro/individual
experiences by looking at the macro/corporate experience.
God gave us
the Torah – a book of rules – but He also gave us a very confusing world, in
which situations are not always clear-cut. Through these real life situations,
God is constantly emphasizing ambiguity.
If God
wanted everything to fit neatly into a Book of Rules, why didn’t He make neater
systems? Why does God create ‘freaks’? Why do people die young? Why do things
not always work out the way they should?
God created
a lumpy reality, in which He can be found inside the darkness, or the
“lumps”.
Most people
picture God as perfect, and totally functional, and yet the truth is, He is
found inside our darkness and our dysfunction.
In his
commentary on Parshat Shemot (Mei Hashiloach, Vol.2), the Ishbitzer quotes the
verses (Exodus 2:23-24) ‘The Children of Israel were groaning because of their avoda.
When they cried out because of their slavery, their pleas went up before God.’
In these
two verses we have three words, each for a different type of crying. The last
word – shu’ah/cry/plea has the same root as yeshu’ah/salvation.
The teaching of the Ishbitzer is exactly inside the marriage of these two
words. The cry and the salvation are intrinsically related. Only when we go to
the brink of despair, and cry out, as Joseph did in prison, does salvation
follow. The cry is a key moment in the cathartic process. The shu’ah/cry
is an acknowledgement of one’s hisaron/deficit, and the yeshu’ah/salvation
is the subsequent journey out into the desert. The cry is an opening to
vulnerability, leaving a person able to connect.
The
Ishbitzer says that from the beginning of their crying out, the cries of the
Children of Israel rose up to God.
The Baal
Shem Tov differentiates between prayers that one keeps to oneself, and prayers
that go up to God. Prayers that ascend are always genuine cries for help.
In order to
arouse God’s compassion our prayers must be communal. In Torah reality, each
person individually is judged quite harshly, but corporately the weakness of
one person complements that of another; one person covers for another as
collateral, and so weaknesses become strength.
The
difference between these two situations is illustrated by the difference
between two sets of brothers – Cain and Abel, and Moshe and Aaron. In both
cases, the brothers are very different from each other – Abel was a spiritual
dreamer and Cain was a pragmatic farmer, and on the Sephirotic Tree, Moshe is
Netzach – the intransigent outward thrust and commitment to absolute truth, and
Aaron is Hod – the epitome of submission, acceptance – a man who was willing to
lie in order to make peace.
Cain and
Abel find each other intolerable. According to the Midrash, Abel can’t tolerate
Cain because he believes Cain will never come close to God, and Cain can’t
tolerate Abel because he believes Abel is an impractical dreamer who gets all
God’s attentions, while he gets none.
Moshe and
Aaron, however, are able to work through their Netzach/Hod differences. For
example, Moshe is fully committed to truth, while Aaron is willing to lie, if
it will save a relationship, but there is a reciprocity set up between Moshe
and Aaron that resolves conflict.
Moshe and
Aaron epitomize the functional relationship. In a dysfunctional relationship,
which is characterized by entropy, people swing between the poles of
assimilation (‘fusion’), and persecution (total irritation). This applies as
much to individual relationships as to the entire history of the Jewish people.
By observing and analysing corporate patterns, we gain insight into individual processes.
In a
functional relationship, two individuals can work together through a
reciprocation of their faults. In many ways this represents their strongest
connection, because our vulnerability – and therefore our intimacy – comes out
of our faults.
The
question arises: how do we connect through our faults, rather than make them a
source of irritation? This is not easy, especially as we tend to become
established in defensive positions that originally served as survival
mechanisms.
In his
commentary on Parshat Shemot, the Ishbitzer says, “The cry is really the
beginning of salvation, for until this moment, there is no arousal in prayer.”
This
defines prayer not by its content, but as a special moment of connecting to God
through our deficits. Prayer is the
shattering of isolation and the beginning of relationship.
The
Ishbitzer goes on to say, “Since Hashem wants to save them, He arouses them to
cry. This is the beginning of salvation.”
This, then,
is the beginning of relationship. When you feel that there is no solution, when
you feel trapped and there is no way out, then you cry out to God. This is a
critical part of the therapeutic process.
Next, the
Ishbitzer quotes King David (Tehillim) “Blessed is Elokim (the God of
karma/cause and effect) who has not removed my prayer.”
David is
blessing God for giving him the consequences without which he would never have
hit rock bottom. If he was given a reprieve, or a way around his problem, he
would never have reached the brink of despair that brought about his cry, and
his true prayer. The great irony is that Elokim – the God of strict
judgment and karma, is the highest manifestation of divine compassion. The cry
is actually the greatest kindness, because it is only through this that relief
comes.
The Ishbitzer explains that until Hashem points it out through cause and
effect experience, a person is not able to identify his hisaron/deficit.
When Hashem wants to save a person, He shows him the root of his deficit, by
“sending him the power of prayer”. (Elsewhere, the Ishbitzer defines this as
the moment of v’yihi or/’Let there be light’).
Most
people, when they first enter into therapy, have no idea what their sense of
emptiness really consists of or where it comes from. A big part of therapy is
in defining that empty space – this is what the Ishbitzer calls identifying the
“root” as opposed to perpetuating the problem by merely “working with the
branches”.
The
Ishbitzer, in this commentary, places emphasis on how a person cries out to
God. How a person prays is very important, because with a true cry from the
heart, a person is expecting help – he expects someone to hear his complaint –
and this is the beginning of an intimate relationship with Hashem. The
relationship with Hashem is the beginning of all reciprocal relationships. The
Gemara (Hagigah 3a-b), quoting Deuteronomy 26:17-18 defines the relationship
with Hashem in terms of kedusha, the way a marriage is defined: ‘‘You
have avouched the Lord this day…and the Lord has avouched you this day.’: The Holy
one, blessed be He, said to Israel: You have made me a unique object of your
love in the world, and I shall make you a unique object of My love in the
world.’
The key
word here is ‘unique’. When two people make a connection and become unique for
each other, then they respond through their differences –through what the Ishbitzer calls the ‘root of their
deficits’ - which are what makes them
unique, and their faults and strengths become reciprocal. This reciprocity is
very difficult to achieve, because, when left to themselves, relationships tend
towards entropy, and people drift towards the negative, and towards isolation.
The natural drift, on the macro and the micro levels of existence, is towards
darkness, isolation and lower energy. This is the tendency of our habitual,
instinctive ‘animal’ soul, and this soul will govern us, unless we consciously
make the break, move out of the darkness, and into the desert.
The Gemara
(Ibid) asks: Why are the words of the Torah likened to a goad? To teach you that
just as the goad directs the heifer along its furrow in order to bring forth
life to the world, so the words of the Torah direct those who study them from
the paths of death to the paths of life.
Without the
‘goad’ of Torah, we are like vagrant cows, ruled by our nefesh behemah/animal
soul. With the ‘goad’ we can be directed out of the matrix into the desert ‘in
order to bring forth life into the world’. The world is the place of sleep,
where God is hiding. In order to wake up, we need the prod, or the ‘goad’ of
Torah. In this way, each Mitzvah comes to be a prod. The natural
tendency is towards death. To find the balance of the ‘furrow’, a person needs
walk the razor’s edge, and to do this, he needs to be awake. The two sides of
the furrow are like either side of a dialectic – in therapy, as in Torah, the
main goal is a sense of balance, which is called ‘objectivity’,
‘consciousness’, or ‘life’.
The Torah
shows us that this conscious life is found in the wilderness. According to our
‘normal’, ‘unconscious’ perspective, Mitzrayim is the place of action – of
technology – the seat of ‘civilization’.
We find the desert threatening because we are unable to do anything
there. The desert/Malchut/Shabbes is an
empty space – a place of vulnerability and passivity. Entering the desert is
like entering the ‘zone’ – where there is no constant internal dialogue.
The Torah
comes and throws this perception on its head, by showing us that the desert is
where things happen. This is a tremendous paradox.
In the
Cain/Abel dichotomy, Cain says, “I am the active one – Able is passive.” With
the Torah’s perspective we can see things differently. It teaches us to hear the women’s voice, the
‘still small voice’, the voice of Malchut and Shabbes, the voice of the desert
that is otherwise lost in the ‘rudderless voyage called Progress’.