Jew in the Lotus Part 11

I think the Dalai Lama has a similar att.i.tude. The Nechung oracle has always provided good advice, and therefore there is no reason not to consult him.

The kuten kuten listened to Zalman's explanations of the Jewish oracle with a good deal of interest, nodding his large teardrop-shaped head and interjecting 'Ah...ah...ah...' as Alex gave the translation. Having established, however tenuously, an oracular connection, Paul Mendes-Flohr asked Alex gently, "Would he accept a question from us?" listened to Zalman's explanations of the Jewish oracle with a good deal of interest, nodding his large teardrop-shaped head and interjecting 'Ah...ah...ah...' as Alex gave the translation. Having established, however tenuously, an oracular connection, Paul Mendes-Flohr asked Alex gently, "Would he accept a question from us?"

"Yes."

"Should we go by plane or by car?" Yitz Greenberg interjected, and everyone laughed. A long conference between Alex and the kuten kuten followed. "He says that it's okay to go by car this evening," Alex reported. "They will say prayers, ask for the protection of the Protector, you shouldn't worry. With the people here and His Holiness's request for protection, very naturally, there's no problem with traveling this evening." followed. "He says that it's okay to go by car this evening," Alex reported. "They will say prayers, ask for the protection of the Protector, you shouldn't worry. With the people here and His Holiness's request for protection, very naturally, there's no problem with traveling this evening."

However, to back that up, the kuten kuten graciously offered us packets of barley seeds-bright orange-in plastic envelopes. The seeds, known as graciously offered us packets of barley seeds-bright orange-in plastic envelopes. The seeds, known as chaynay, had been blessed by Dorje Drakden. They were believed by Buddhists to have magical protective powers, and Nathan Katz took several packets of them for Buddhist temples in Tampa. But I noticed that we all lined up eagerly to accept them. Were we losing our rationalist edge, or were we just afraid? I figured it was a fair trade: we would be giving the Dalai Lama the Torah that had protected us on the way to Dharamsala. So the magical seeds seemed like the best possible subst.i.tute for our trip back.

While we were saying our good-byes and taking pictures, Blu Greenberg took the kuten kuten aside and asked whether one of her sons, a nice Jewish boy over thirty, would get married soon. The oracle a.s.sured her he would. Soon I heard Yitz explain to Nathan Katz with wry casuistry as we walked to the Tibetan Astro-Medical Inst.i.tute, that he was on perfectly good Orthodox ground accepting the blessed seeds, "As long as I don't think they work." aside and asked whether one of her sons, a nice Jewish boy over thirty, would get married soon. The oracle a.s.sured her he would. Soon I heard Yitz explain to Nathan Katz with wry casuistry as we walked to the Tibetan Astro-Medical Inst.i.tute, that he was on perfectly good Orthodox ground accepting the blessed seeds, "As long as I don't think they work."

He added that "superst.i.tious practices that belong to other religions are prohibited on the grounds that you are taking the superst.i.tion seriously. But if you don't take it seriously, then it's an act of gracious friends.h.i.+p that he's sharing it. That's my joke."

"Then it can work," Nathan said, "catch-22."

"Yes, blessings of good people do work, that's my catch. As long as you don't take it seriously, you do take it seriously."

But Yitz was thinking more seriously about the contact we'd been making that morning with the more exotic aspects of Tibetan Buddhism, trying in his careful way to fit it all into a pattern. He explained to Nathan and me how two very different religions might be compared, especially in regard to the att.i.tude each took toward this world in the light of the ultimate goal of each religion. In short: the tension between everyday life and perfection.

He thought both religions start "with the equally utopian vision: that we'll overcome all sickness, all suffering, all death, all war-everything will be totally overcome." (In Judaism, this is the messianic vision; in Buddhism, the promise of nirvana.) "But," he went on as we walked down a dusty path, "in Judaism the process along the way toward that final perfection works with imperfection and partial steps. So you combine the utopian vision with the pragmatic, in an unrelenting work toward perfection. That's tikkun olam tikkun olam [repair of the world]. 'That's the constant process of [repair of the world]. 'That's the constant process of tikkun tikkun. You are as perfectionist as the Buddhists, but you define all the partial steps as having equal dignity" with the larger vision. In Jewish terms, then, the world "is not illusion, it's not lower, it's the very essence of achievement." He did not think that Buddhism honored the earthly steps toward perfection, because they viewed the ordinary world, the world of samsara, as naarishkeit naarishkeit [foolishness]. But he acknowledged that "in all religions you have a spectrum of 'perfection.' What happens is that each religion typically cl.u.s.ters around certain pieces of that spectrum, but it has a range of that spectrum and not infrequently the whole range, though the mainstream will be cl.u.s.tered around a certain place. If you look carefully, you will see that the other religion has the same theme, but it's not a major theme, it's a minor theme. The major theme is in another cl.u.s.ter. If you look even more carefully, if you can step back and see the whole spectrum, they actually have filled in those intermediate links in their minor traditions." [foolishness]. But he acknowledged that "in all religions you have a spectrum of 'perfection.' What happens is that each religion typically cl.u.s.ters around certain pieces of that spectrum, but it has a range of that spectrum and not infrequently the whole range, though the mainstream will be cl.u.s.tered around a certain place. If you look carefully, you will see that the other religion has the same theme, but it's not a major theme, it's a minor theme. The major theme is in another cl.u.s.ter. If you look even more carefully, if you can step back and see the whole spectrum, they actually have filled in those intermediate links in their minor traditions."

I remembered that during Zalman's presentation on the four worlds and reincarnation, Yitz had interjected the term "minority view" to describe-and downplay-the importance of these kabbalistic traditions. I suppose, broadly, what he meant was that although both Tibetan Buddhism and Judaism share beliefs in reincarnation, or angels/devas, these are major beliefs in Tibetan Buddhism and minor ones in Judaism.

Nathan Katz responded to Yitz's ideas enthusiastically. "Exactly, exactly. I was telling Chodron, both Judaism and Mahayana Buddhism are religions of transformation. Our transformation is dominantly of the world, but to transform the world means to transform ourselves too. Whereas their transformation is primarily of themselves, and by so doing they transform the world. And they do overlap."

"And if you look more carefully," Yitz suggested, "when the world is transformed it paves the way for the kind of spiritual perfection they are talking about anyway. So it's really not separable, and if you really are reaching out for that kind of spiritual transformation, it would be of this world as well."

In Yitz's wide view, the difference is finally, then, a matter of emphasis, of foreground and background. For Judaism the transformation is focused much more on "this world," but the aim is universal spiritual perfection. In Mahayana Buddhism, one begins with personal spiritual transformation with the hope of going on to transform this world.

Yitz's scheme also suggested to me another comparison: Judaism appears to be a very rationalistic religion, and Tibetan Buddhism much more mystical. Why is it that again and again in our history, the rational side of the Jewish mind has triumphed? Is Judaism inherently more rationalistic, or is our current view of the Jewish spectrum distorted by the last two centuries of Jewish experience, in which we have tried to a.s.similate to modern and Gentile expectations?

Just after World War I, when the great scholar Gershom Scholem began his studies of kabbalah, there was almost no one in the field. German-Jewish scholars.h.i.+p stressed the rational heritage of Judaism and dismissed Hasidism, kabbalah, and mysticism as superst.i.tion and nonsense.

Despite that rationalist climate, one that persists in many Jewish religious circles today, Scholem succeeded, almost single-handedly, in establis.h.i.+ng kabbalah as an essential subject of Jewish scholars.h.i.+p. At the end of his career, he reflected on the impulses that drove his research. He explained that the questions that motivated him in 1917 were these: "Does halakhic Judaism have enough potency to survive? Is halakhah halakhah really possible without a mystical foundation?" Scholem felt he was trying to "arrive at an understanding of what kept Judaism alive." really possible without a mystical foundation?" Scholem felt he was trying to "arrive at an understanding of what kept Judaism alive."

He clearly felt that mysticism was an essential element of the Jewish spectrum. And now, through our visits with the oracle and the library, we could see and feel how preserving and transmitting their own esoteric tradition has been key to Tibetan exile survival, too.

I was also tasting, a little ruefully, some of the magic Judaism had lost. It was obvious, from the way we all lined up for the magical barley seeds, the chaynay chaynay, that Jews really enjoy the sense of play and wonder in religious life, which the Tibetans have preserved in great richness.

There has to be a way for Judaism to find the right emphasis between logic and mysticism, without one suppressing the other. I know that as we made our way back to Delhi, I would be very Jewish and thisworldly, but I would also carry my magical seeds, my chaynay chaynay, in my pocket, hoping they would keep us safe.

15.

Secret Doors.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 29, THEKCHEN CHOELING.

Our last hours with the Dalai Lama were very rich. Doors were opened and secrets exchanged with an ease, frankness, and humor that came as one product of our week's immersion in a living Buddhist community. We had reached the stage Rabbi Jonathan Omer-Man had imagined upon leaving Delhi. He had quoted to several of us a Buddhist text stating that in pure dialogue you and I would become we and us. That had sounded purely visionary then. But when, during a brief press conference at the start of the session, Shoshana Edelberg from National Public Radio asked the Dalai Lama, "Why have you invited these Jews to Dharamsala?" he didn't hesitate, but laughed and said, "Because we are both chosen people."

The chosen people may be a red flag for some of the Jewish Buddhists I spoke to, but not for the Dalai Lama, who explained that the Tibetans also considered themselves chosen by Avalokiteshvara, the Buddha of Compa.s.sion. Then he grew reflective and answered seriously and with some feeling, "When we became refugees we knew our struggle was not easy, would take a long time, if not generations. Then we very often referred to the Jewish people. Through so many cen turies, so many hards.h.i.+ps, they never lost their culture and their faith. As a result, when other external conditions became ripe, they were ready to build their nation. So there are many things to learn from our Jewish brothers and sisters." I found this a very moving statement.

At this session, the Jewish sisters in the group, Blu Greenberg and Rabbi Joy Levitt, would explain the survival secrets of the synagogue and home. But I had a question about survival, too, which I put to the Dalai Lama just before Shoshana's.

"Your Holiness, all week long we've been meditating on the connection between the history of the Tibetan and Jewish peoples. With each of its crises, the Jewish people responded with spiritual crises and spiritual renewal. How has Tibetan Buddhism responded to its current national crisis, in particular, in relation to the concept of karma? What is national karma or group karma?"

I still had misgivings after my discussion Friday night with Geshe Sonam. I had been shocked, a little outraged, by what I'd heard about the Buddhist view of the Holocaust. I could not accept that the suffering of the Jews was somehow a result of their previous actions. Wasn't the knowledge of shared victimization the source of Jewish identification with the Tibetans? Weren't we fellow victims, fellow innocent innocent victims? Yet I gathered from Geshe Sonam's response that in Buddhism, the whole notion of an innocent victim carried little weight in a.s.sessing how one responded to tragic circ.u.mstances. victims? Yet I gathered from Geshe Sonam's response that in Buddhism, the whole notion of an innocent victim carried little weight in a.s.sessing how one responded to tragic circ.u.mstances.

So. Two peoples had gone through an a.n.a.logous experience of destruction. The Jewish people had responded by becoming more militant, more aggressive, by armoring themselves psychologically and in Israel, militarily. Survival had become a key issue for Jews everywhere. In my view, a reflex of responding decisively to enemies had become part of the contemporary Jewish character.

He listened carefully to my lengthy question and, after a pause to absorb it, p.r.o.nounced it "quite complicated," which brought down the house. Then he responded.

"Buddhism gives us a different att.i.tude toward one's own enemy," he said, "since we believe a negative experience is due mainly to our own previous life, or the early part of this life's action. Due to that, unfortunate results happen. So therefore the so-called enemy, or the external factor, is something secondary. The main force is one's own, either the collective karma or individual karma. That is really helpful in the sense that it induces us never to feel negatively toward the external factor. Because negative things happen due to our own action, therefore, we have the potential to change that. Why not create a new action and it will bring positive results? So that I think is something relevant in our case."

That he calmly referred to the Chinese who had murdered his people and forced him out of his country as "the external factor" was breathtaking.

I understood one benefit of the Dalai Lama's thinking; namely, that by such clarity and lack of hatred toward the "so-called enemy," one could overcome any sense of despair and hopelessness. That was vital. Also, one could think more clearly and take more effective action when one is not burning with hatred and pain.

I wondered how the Dalai Lama's answer would apply to the current situation in the Middle East. One of the agonies of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has been the sense of ent.i.tlement that both groups derive from their history. Each side can claim with justice a history of victimhood and pain, and each side tends to blame the other for its misfortunes. So long as each side considers itself an injured party, there seems no way out of the impa.s.se. Past grievances will justify continual mistrust and a sense on each side of righteous indignation. When, three years later, I saw Yasir Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin shake hands on the White House lawn, I remembered the Dalai Lama's response. It seems that through sheer exhaustion and disgust with the continual violence, important political elements on both sides have come to conclusions very similar to the Dalai Lama's viewpoint. I was moved when the old soldier, Rabin, called for an end to conflict. "We who come from a land where parents bury their children, we who have fought against you, the Palestinians-we say to you in a loud and clear voice: Enough of blood and tears. Enough!"

Still, letting go of self-righteousness is a very hard process, for Israelis and Palestinians, and for Jews, Muslims, and Christians in general. We are all caught up in the notion of justifiable violence-it is built into our political thinking and our law. In the West there is such a thing as righteous indignation and justifiable homicide. I gathered that these would be foreign concepts in Buddhist thought.

Jews in particular have always felt strongly about righting wrongs, whatever the cost. Deuteronomy warns us, "Justice, justice thou shalt pursue." It does not say being angry will damage you. And that sense of justifiable anger often filters down to everyday life, to the way we as Jews interact with one another, in our communities and families. Here Blu's comment about our angry Tibetan tour guide-that such anger is "realistic"-found its context.

The very Jewish secret of survival we'd brought to the Dalai Lama-memory-meant that Jews survived by keeping alive the joys, but also the enmities of the past. In fact two of our most joyous holidays, Pa.s.sover and Purim, dwell on the triumph over our enemies. Other holidays mourn the losses and defeats in our past. In particular, the memory of the Holocaust, and the long history of European persecutions that preceded it, still conditions the way Jews respond to present conflicts. So it was plausible to many Jews when Menachem Begin compared Arafat to Hitler, a comparison that had nothing to recommend it in regard to historical clarity, or certainly in regard to improving the situation.

There is a Buddhist teaching that being angry at an enemy is like stabbing yourself through the stomach to hurt someone standing behind you with the tip of your sword. (And I had to consider that maybe Buddha had discovered here the origin of ulcers.) I thought back to the Frankfurt airport, to my feelings of anger at hearing German voices or just being on that soil. This was not clarity or wisdom-this was walking through a nightmare of my own projections, the ghosts of an experience I'd never had. When I mentioned those feelings to Zalman Schachter he had told me, "If you want to stay in prison all your life, become a jailer. Being vindictive, being angry at somebody, saying I'll never forgive that person-so the people who say I'll never forgive the Germans are still in a concentration camp."

Jews as a group, to a large extent, have been in a concentration camp for fifty years. Zalman had agreed, "Many many Jews haven't been able to make their way out of it. I want to say a lot of times, they aren't there. It's just that it's a cover, such an easy cover for everything you don't want to do. 'What? After the Holocaust-you want me to keep the Shabbos?-Where was G.o.d da da da...' You can shoot down any serious challenge to your personal life with that terrible, terrible thing."

Anger over the Holocaust has paralyzed many Jews spiritually and emotionally, and as I learned more about the motivations for Jews leaving the tradition, I became increasingly aware of the high price that anger exacted.

On the other hand, especially after seeing the real conflict in the Tibetan exile community over how to handle the Chinese, I wasn't so sure that the Dalai Lama's position was, to use Blu's word again, realistic. So there was much to think about. Is Jewish anger, however damaging in some respects, essential to Jewish survival? Or will a Judaism that continues, in some ways, to dwell on and even nourish a sense of anger over past injustices prove to be an increasingly burdensome heritage to pa.s.s on to our children as we enter the twenty-first century?

Before the session was through we would get some illuminating answers from the delegates, and from the Dalai Lama himself. But first we came to satisfy the Dalai Lama's "very personal curiosity-to learn more about the inner experiences" of Jewish people. As he said that, he twisted his wrist, as if turning a doork.n.o.b.

The Dalai Lama's strong interest in the Jewish esoteric at the first session had already opened doors-and eyes-among the Jewish delegates. Moshe Waldoks thanked him for that. "You created a group of Jews that otherwise would never have gotten together and made our outlook broader and warmer." Moshe himself-through his prayers and humor-had done a lot to make that happen.

Moshe spoke about the four levels of interpretation-the Dalai Lama remarked that there were four as well in Buddhist tantric teachings. The first three were the literal, implicative, and midras.h.i.+c; the fourth, and deepest, level is called secret. In Hebrew they are pshat, remez, drash pshat, remez, drash, and sod sod-the first letters spell pardes pardes, or paradise. For Jews, the journey to paradise is a journey of interpretation.

It is said in the Zohar Zohar that every new interpretation of Torah creates a new heaven. I had actually come to appreciate that saying in a very personal way during our stay in Dharamsala. All the days and nights we'd spent together studying the Torah and bringing out new meanings that fit our situation had created a new reality, a new heaven for me. that every new interpretation of Torah creates a new heaven. I had actually come to appreciate that saying in a very personal way during our stay in Dharamsala. All the days and nights we'd spent together studying the Torah and bringing out new meanings that fit our situation had created a new reality, a new heaven for me.

I recalled Zalman's comparing the Dalai Lama to Melchizedek. And I remembered another drash drash he'd done during the Shabbat weekend in London that had opened me up to the Torah in a new way. he'd done during the Shabbat weekend in London that had opened me up to the Torah in a new way.

That Sat.u.r.day afternoon, about twenty of us sat around in our stocking feet in the living room of a London town home, where a Torah lay lovingly wrapped in a tallis. We had read the story of Noah. I wanted to know how G.o.d could have made such a botch of things that he had to wipe out his creation with a flood. Zalman answered with a midrash on the phrase of Abraham's, "G.o.d of my youth." It so happens the Hebrew can also be read, "G.o.d in his youth."

The midrash says that the flood happened because G.o.d used to be younger. When G.o.d was younger, he made mistakes.

With that twist, Zalman turned a point of doubt for me into a point of faith. "When G.o.d was younger" was a very liberating idea. It meant that G.o.d evolves in the Torah-and in our lives. A G.o.d who evolves, a G.o.d still evolving, a G.o.d whose evolution I had a stake in-this was a refreshment.

Zalman went on to show us that the Torah was much more open to interpretation than I'd ever thought. He pointed out that the first word of the Torah, in Hebrew, beres.h.i.+t beres.h.i.+t, is almost always mistranslated. Beres.h.i.+t Beres.h.i.+t does not mean "in the beginning" but "in a beginning." (I later found that Ras.h.i.+, the great Torah commentator, had pointed this out more than nine hundred years ago.) does not mean "in the beginning" but "in a beginning." (I later found that Ras.h.i.+, the great Torah commentator, had pointed this out more than nine hundred years ago.) It was stunning to me that the most familiar opening of any book in the West has basically been mistranslated. It's almost a metaphor for the whole way religious texts have been used and abused. If we can't get this right, what else have we been missing? As Ras.h.i.+ demonstrated through comparative Hebrew grammar, the first verse of Genesis should be read as a subordinate clause, not a sentence; "When G.o.d was beginning to create the heaven and earth,..."

This has more than grammatical interest. To Zalman "in a beginning" suggests that the biblical account of creation is not intended as a rigid recitation of G.o.d's plan, the way fundamentalists often argue, but something looser, more creative. "In a beginning" could mean something like, "one way of telling the story." This teaching liberated me from my own unconscious fundamentalism, my own rigidity about the Torah. It suggests that there is much more freedom to be found in its language than I'd thought, if only I would take another look.

This was just what Moshe Waldoks was explaining, in general terms, to the Dalai Lama: how midrash broadens the Torah and makes it relevant.

Midrash begins with the prophets, who come to the people quoting "a verse from the Bible. And they say, 'This is what it means for you today.'" Through their midrash, the Torah becomes again a living presence, a tree of life. Interpretation remains vital today, Moshe explained, because the life project of the Jew is to make the Torah a way of living. "Loving your neighbor in a book is easy; loving your neighbor in life is hard." Given the Hindu-Muslim conflict that hung over our departure, everyone could agree.

Moshe set the Sephardi Torah upright on the table in its hard-sh.e.l.l case. As the Buddhist leader examined the text, I thought of it bouncing along in Paul's lap: its strenuous journey from Israel to Frankfurt to Delhi to Dharamsala was now nearly complete. It would be left in the Dalai Lama's library-imagine in some distant centuries an archaeologist digging it up and wondering how it got there!

Now Moshe showed how the word Torah itself could be interpreted at the four levels. At pshat pshat, the plain level, Torah is a book of stories and laws. That meaning is refined through remez remez, implication. Then through midrash, "the level that the rabbis developed, used today in every synagogue" comes "a freedom the Torah gives us. The word drash drash means...Seek me out, take me, stretch me, make me real to you. If this stays a book, it's dead. If you make it part of your life, it's a tree of life to all that will hold fast to it." means...Seek me out, take me, stretch me, make me real to you. If this stays a book, it's dead. If you make it part of your life, it's a tree of life to all that will hold fast to it."

At the deepest secret level-"That's the esoteric," Moshe said. "This Torah is really the name of G.o.d, repeated again and again. It's made up into a narrative so people can understand it and you can teach it to children. But the reality is far deeper, and you spend a lifetime searching for the real meaning, the secret."

Further explanation of sod sod would be left to Rabbi Omer-Man. His legs paralyzed by polio, the rabbi had made his way through crowded airports, traveled rough roads, and walked on crutches up and down the rocky terrain of Dharamsala. There were no wheelchairs in town. Once, to reach the telephone at Kashmir Cottage, a few of us had to carry him up the stone steps in a wooden chair. He handled this moment with regal dignity. I later learned from Blu Greenberg that, as we departed Dharamsala, he left a donation with Rinchen for a wheelchair for the town's residents. would be left to Rabbi Omer-Man. His legs paralyzed by polio, the rabbi had made his way through crowded airports, traveled rough roads, and walked on crutches up and down the rocky terrain of Dharamsala. There were no wheelchairs in town. Once, to reach the telephone at Kashmir Cottage, a few of us had to carry him up the stone steps in a wooden chair. He handled this moment with regal dignity. I later learned from Blu Greenberg that, as we departed Dharamsala, he left a donation with Rinchen for a wheelchair for the town's residents.

The Dalai Lama greeted him with special warmth. Jonathan is a very clear writer and thinker and spoke with enormous clarity now. If Zalman embodied some of the mad energy of the old Hasidim, Rabbi OmerMan represented the other pole of mysticism, the quietist.

He began with the difficult situation of the mystic in contemporary Jewish life. "Many Jews who are not in the esoteric say we are wrong." Remembering Yitz Greenberg's previous comment about Zalman's presentation, he added, "The esoteric is perhaps a minority in the Jewish people."

The group had discussed Rabbi Greenberg's efforts at spin control after the first session. According to Moshe Waldoks, "We very clearly said to Yitz, 'Look, it's not our job to give the Dalai Lama a blow-byblow of intra-Jewish politics. No one's asking you to sign on to everything everybody says, the way no one is necessarily signing on to everything you say.'"

Rabbi Omer-Man had been particularly disturbed and told the whole group he was going to be "more extreme than Zalman and I don't want to be told that I'm not in the mainstream." Jonathan later thought a difficult, but fascinating aspect of the dialogue was how the group represented a microcosm of intra-Jewish politics. He told me, "Defining one's Jewish religious experience is a profoundly political act that the leaders of certain movements and inst.i.tutions do. People who have other experiences tend to be delegitimized. Sometimes there is a need to fight for s.p.a.ce with those who would set the parameters for what Judaism is."

Rabbi Omer-Man traced briefly the history of the esoteric, alluding to its origin among the elite of the early Talmudists, its popularization through Hasidism, which made it much simpler and helped bring "the esoteric to ordinary Jews everywhere," and its present situation, "where in fact the esoteric is no longer in the middle of the Jewish people.... If today," he lamented, "a Jew wishes to discover the esoteric, they might go to their synagogue and their temple and there will be no way. The rabbi or the inst.i.tution will not let that go any further."

I was sure Jonathan was right about that last point. In defense of the synagogue rabbis, very few of them would have time to study kabbalah. The demands of the job include everything from social work and pastoral counseling to bar and bat mitzvah lessons and public relations-in short, the exoteric.

Yet despite what he described as a peripheral position, "We believe, those of us in the esoteric, that we are the heart that keeps the entire organism alive." He added with quiet defiance, "The other Jews don't agree, but that doesn't matter."

The Dalai Lama asked about the provenance of Jewish mysticism. Rabbi Omer-Man explained that formerly it was in all countries, but the greatest number of followers had been killed in the Holocaust. A few teachers escaped to Israel and the United States. He himself had received two teachings, one Hasidic from Eastern Europe and the other "a North African teaching that came through Paris to Jerusalem." But he emphasized the fragility of transmission. "The esoteric is losing force in the Jewish world today." He mentioned the two young Jews from his hometown he'd met on the porch of the Dalai Lama's temple. "There are more Jews seeking the esoteric in Dharamsala than there are in my synagogue in Los Angeles."

Jonathan told me later, "All my work is among people who see the door slammed in their face when they seek the spiritual. On that balcony at Dharamsala, I accepted two students, people from Los Angeles who had no idea where to study the spiritual teachings of Judaism. For instance, you go to the temple on a spiritual quest and the rabbi may read a quote from books, but you will not find someone who will be ready to lead you on a path of spirituality."

The issue of the accessibility of the esoteric would come up again. For now, Rabbi Omer-Man wanted to say a few words about Jewish meditation.

He admitted to speaking with some embarra.s.sment, first because it is an enormous field and his knowledge was limited, and second, because he considered the Buddhist tradition to be so highly developed in this area. He explained that there are two forms of Jewish meditation. One attempts to open a person up to greater insight, clarity, and vision. The other works on "purifying the vessel, changing the human being, making the human being more perfect." Though distinct, these two purposes to some extent overlap.

As an example of the first type, he spoke of doing meditation during prayer. "We examine ourselves during prayer, we focus on sounds." He described chanting the name of G.o.d, but using different vowel sounds with the consonants yod he vov he yod he vov he. (In ordinary Jewish prayer, the sacred name of G.o.d is not vocalized at all. Instead, it is read as adonai adonai, Lord.) Rabbi Omer-Man called this "a very powerful, enlightening, opening meditation."

[image]The sefirot sefirot arranged in a traditional pattern. arranged in a traditional pattern.

Through this meditation different vowel sounds are joined with colors and organs of the body. Jonathan described such meditation as working "on different parts of who we are, different powers in different names" of G.o.d. Though he didn't use the term, he was referring to the kabbalistic theory of the sefirot sefirot, ten powers, aspects, or grades (translations vary) of G.o.d. They are commonly named (1) Keter Keter (crown), (2) (crown), (2) Chokhmah Chokhmah (wisdom), (3) (wisdom), (3) Binah Binah (understanding), (4) (understanding), (4) Chesed Chesed (kindness), (5) (kindness), (5) Gevurah Gevurah (power), (6) (power), (6) Tiferet Tiferet (beauty), (7) (beauty), (7) Netzach Netzach (endurance), (8) (endurance), (8) Hod Hod (majesty), (9) (majesty), (9) Yesod Yesod (foundation), and (10) (foundation), and (10) Malkhut Malkhut (kingdom). Through prayer and meditation one connects with these (kingdom). Through prayer and meditation one connects with these sefirot sefirot as a way of coming closer to G.o.d. as a way of coming closer to G.o.d.

The Dalai Lama asked Jonathan if such meditation required permission, as it does in Tibetan Buddhism. He answered that there are no formal initiations, "but we do have teachers-and this is a problem." Jonathan meant that in recent years especially, a number of people have been purporting to teach kabbalah and Jewish meditation in a popular way. And for centuries there has been a literature of what some scholars call "trash kabbalah," popular adaptations sold as secret wisdom. Jonathan believed that those who tried to learn Jewish meditation from books and without teachers could damage themselves. That was why he has started a school of Jewish meditation, to give an authentic line of transmission.

The second type of Jewish meditation aimed at transforming the human being is close to what the Tibetans call "purifying the mind of afflictive emotions." To Tibetan Buddhists, as we'd already seen, such human failings as anger, l.u.s.t, and ignorance are obscurations of the true clarity of the mind. (In fact, these three in particular are known by the Tibetans as the three poisons.) Getting rid of these poisons requires a tremendous discipline of meditation, prostration, and recitation of mantras.

Rabbi Omer-Man felt the Jewish method of transformation was very different in form from the Buddhist discipline, because "much of the work of inner clarification we do in dialogue with a teacher. My teachers often change me through stories."

Jonathan was referring to the Hasidic masters, who often offered counseling to their followers in the form of parables or tales. The stories the masters told, and the stories about the masters themselves, were compiled by their followers. They are probably best known in the general Jewish world through Martin Buber's well-known collections, Tales of the Hasidim Tales of the Hasidim. But, as Jonathan intimated, the stories were not intended as literature but as ways for teachers to change students. Hasidic counseling is usually one-on-one and includes the delicate art of picking the right story for the right student at the right time.

Jonathan then explained some specific Jewish meditations. One he thought "very unlike Buddhist meditations was screaming-going alone to a place and shouting and crying to G.o.d...'G.o.d, I'm afraid. G.o.d, I'm alone. G.o.d, I need you.' For a whole hour, once a night for a year or two. What this does is to take away all the surface and after you finish, very subtle things emerge." Jonathan had learned this meditation from a teacher influenced by the Bratzlaver Hasidim.

We had done a little screaming ourselves, as part of an emptying out meditation Jonathan led outside Kashmir Cottage just before the first dialogue session. One partic.i.p.ant found that exercise frightening. The harshness of our voices calling out sounded too intense. The expression of vulnerability Jonathan described is not customary in mainstream Judaism. But the Dalai Lama had no problem with it. He remarked that the calling out to G.o.d resembled taking vows of refuge in the Buddha.

Jonathan Omer-Man described two more paths. In the path of joy one "forces oneself at all times to discover a place of joy, with singing, with laughter and wine. It's very difficult. The nonesoteric says you pursue joy with all your heart, all your being, with a great deal of self but in the esoteric path, when you pursue joy you have to be transparent."

There is also a path of tears. "One does not weep from one's own pain. One weeps for the pain of the Jewish people, for the pain of exile. There is a wall in Jerusalem called the Wailing Wall. They don't weep for their own problems. They weep because the world is broken."

The Dalai Lama commented that the path of tears resembled the meditation for the initiation of the altruistic mind, or bodhichitta bodhichitta. For instance, the Buddhist pract.i.tioner visualizes in great detail the suffering of all sentient beings. Then the pract.i.tioner visualizes all of this suffering as taking the form of black smoke, which enters into the heart and is there dissolved. This sort of mental self-programming can be a very powerful way of transforming an individual.

While the Jewish path of tears, as Jonathan described it, is very emotional and expressive, and the Tibetan visualization much quieter, both practices move past individual feelings of depression by helping the pract.i.tioner conceive of the much larger weight of sadness in the world.

Both open up the heart. Jonathan Omer-Man had demonstrated that the Jewish tradition also has techniques of mental transformation. But he told the Dalai Lama, "We have a very big problem in the West. The work of transformation has been stolen from us by the psychiatrists. The work of transformation, for us, is a holy path. But more and more people who seek transformation, and who are stopped, don't go to a rabbi or a priest. They go to a psychiatrist, who will teach them not enlightenment, but self-satisfaction."

The Dalai Lama smiled broadly and said, "Very good." Jonathan concluded his presentation by discussing his personal path, keter malkhut keter malkhut, or the crown of sovereignty. It meant "to be a sovereign human being, to be a king, to be not reactive, but active, to know one's place in the world, to be conscious. And it is extremely hard work. The ego always gets in the way, all the needs get in the way; it is a long, long path. But the path is very specific."

He added, "King doesn't mean the boss. The person who sweeps the floor could be king and very often is, more than the person at the top." Although there were no formal stages or initiations toward being a king as in Buddhist paths, "we do have pictures of what the end is like, what is a complete human being, a person who has got there. He may be described as a knower of G.o.d. And we say for the person who has reached the level of knowing G.o.d, the knower, the knowing, and the known are one. Another picture is the lover of G.o.d, in which the lover, the beloved, and the love are one."

Then, perhaps in part to demonstrate the power of Jewish storytelling, Jonathan concluded with a story directed to the Dalai Lama's situation. "Moses was not allowed to enter the land of Israel. He made some mistake on the way that could not be corrected. There are many attempts to understand what was his sin. The answer given by my greatest teacher, Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, is that Moses had reached the level where he could exist twenty-four hours a day knowing G.o.d, in communion meditation with G.o.d. But he had to serve the people. The people down there needed his help over boundaries, over laws, over many things. And Moses went down, but Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav says that his sin is that for a moment-he resented having to go down. Because he resented having to break off his communion with G.o.d, he could not enter the land of Israel.

"This teaches us a great deal about the Jewish esoteric tradition. You must always stay in the world of service. We can never seek completion outside the world, even the human being who has reached the level of being a knower of G.o.d or a lover of G.o.d."

"You must always stay in the world." The Dalai Lama lived that lesson every day. I recalled the intensity of Lhasang Tsering and other Tibetan intellectuals we'd met with and the inevitable jealousies and petty intrigues the Dalai Lama would have to contend with as the leader of an exile community. It reminded me of the stories in Exodus where Moses is called upon to settle every little quarrel and dispute. It is why, perhaps, the Tibetan leader has sometimes stated that he will be the last Dalai Lama. Moreover, should he return to Tibet, the country will become a democracy, and secular and religious realms will be separated.

For Rabbi Omer-Man indirectly to compare the Dalai Lama and Moses was a great compliment from a committed Jew. The Dalai Lama made his own connection. The story reminded him of the bodhisattva who "does not long for just nirvana or his peace alone. He comes back into the service of human beings."

That was the end of the formal part of Jonathan's presentation. What followed was a close question-and-answer session, which took a surprising turn toward the topic of s.e.x and the esoteric.

16.

Tantra and Kabbalah.

Now the two teachers, rabbi and Buddhist master, compared notes on admission policy. First the Dalai Lama asked about age limits. Jonathan explained a law that you should not learn kabbalah "until the age of forty. The truth is," he added, "all the greatest kabbalists were dead by the time they were forty."

"Which proves the point!" Moshe Waldoks joked.