Power of People
Nitzavim 5776/1 October 2016
In the next few weeks we will all encounter a massive amount of liturgy that will leave us feeling by equal measure uplifted and exhausted. Much of it is specific to the themes of the High Holy Days, but such material is built upon a scaffold of ordinary daily and weekly liturgy that we are more familiar with.
I’ve always felt that it was a shame there is so much liturgy. Even on ordinary weekdays there is more than enough. When Shabbat or Hagim are added it becomes more unwieldy. The further additions for the High Holy Days borders on the overwhelming. I understand the Rabbinic culture in which the appreciation for such over-abundance of words was second nature, but for us for whom the knowledge of the remarkable spiritual insights contained in each small segment of the Machzor or Siddur is lacking, I wish we could take one such piece at a time, explicate it, internalize it before moving on to the next, if we even need to move on to the next.
Over the past year, feeling that I’ve finally reached an age of sufficient stability, I’ve been studying Kabbalah. The conventional wisdom that Mussar and Kabbalah are almost antithetical strands of Jewish thought has proven to be entirely false. Indeed I’ve discovered that Mussar is an essential outgrowth of Kabbalah and Kabbalah describes the theological underpinnings of the behavioral focus of Mussar.
To put it exceedingly succinctly, Kabbalah unpacks the meaning of the Torah’s injunction: “You shall be holy,” while Mussar describes the necessary actions that lead to holiness. The primary insight of Kabbalah – and very likely the reason it had to be taught secretly – is that the full responsibility for maintaining the balance of the universe is in the hands of human beings. Every human act either contributes to a universe in which goodness is manifest or not – and there is nothing, no power besides us, to intervene. That this is, in fact, the raison d’etre of the universe, so that people can bring it to a state in which goodness is suffused. This state is called holiness. To reach this state requires a disciplined pattern of behavior in which each movement is evaluated for the contribution it makes to our pursuit of this state. That is Mussar.
This morning’s Torah reading reminds us that we are standing on the border of liminal time, a time between the past and the future. In truth, of course, we are always thusly positioned. Every moment stands between past and future and presents us with a choice. However, the burden of remembering this is too much for us. We need to create for ourselves these special days of reflection. Extending these special days beyond the month of Tishrei, which is ultimately necessary in order to suffuse the world with goodness, is the rationale for all the methodologies invented by the sages of Israel along with all the true sages of every human culture. In our case, the more well- known methodology of halacha and equally important, if less well known, because it is so much more demanding – Mussar.
However, as I said, undergirding all the methodology is the theology. What we can call the basic insight that empowers the methodologies: the fact that the world is sustained by goodness and human beings are fully responsible for the propagation of goodness. This terrifying and ennobling responsibility is best expressed liturgically, which brings us back to where I began: with a familiar piece of liturgy, a building block of every liturgy, weekday, Shabbat, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur: the Kiddusha (open your siddurim if you like to page 157). The basic Kiddusha has three parts: The seraphim, one group of imagined angels, chant kadosh, kadosh, kadosh. Another group of imagined angels, the ofanim chant “Baruch kivod Adonai mimkomo.” Finally, there is our part of this cosmic choir: “Adonai Yimloch L’olam elohiyick tzion l’dor vador Halleluyah.” This is a piece of performance art – like all good liturgy is. We act out a scenario that is not literally true, but that expresses our deepest understanding of the meaning of our lives. Most commentaries on this tripartite chorus see us as trying to join our voices metaphorically through our actions in this world, to the angelic chorus. This in itself can be inspirational enough. However, Kabbalah rejects this interpretation and radicalizes it by turning it upside down. Both groups of angels are envisioned as inert. They have no power to interact with or impact on the larger cosmos. That power rests solely with human beings and that is what the Torah means by our having been created in the image and likeness of God: that everyone of the nearly infinite worlds and powers that constitute reality contributed a bit of themselves to our creation and therefore only we have the power to connect and enliven all the upper worlds stretching back to the unfathomable source of all there is. The angels await our song before they can sing. And our song is only hinted at in the Kedusha where we recite the last line of Psalm 146. It is the rest of the Psalm that is germane: The Lord sets prisoners free; the Lord restores sight to the blind; the Lord makes those who are bent stand straight; the Lord loves the righteous; the Lord watches over the stranger; gives courage to the orphan and widow, but makes the path of the wicked tortuous. Adonai Yimloch L’olam elohiyick tzion l’dor vador Halleluyah.
Did you ever see the Lord do all these things? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we lived in such a world? Since we don’t, what could the psalmist have been talking about? Kabbalah explains it, terrifying as it is. It is we who have been given the power to effect these values. When we do, we can sing Adonai Yimloch. When we can truly sing it, the whole universe comes alive and using our breath – our Nishama – joins in the song.
Next time you sing the Kedusha, before you stand on your toes as you say kadosh, kadosh, ask yourself what you’ve done lately to give life to the universe. That is where Mussar and Kabbalah meet.
Tags: Kabbalah, Kedusha, Mussar
