Though I haven't unrolled my yoga mat in years I still DO yoga quite frequently. Of course, if you've ever done yoga in any meaningful way (read: more than just for the purposes of sweating and stretching) then you understand that we don't truly do yoga so much as we live yoga. Yoga is breath, yoga is mindful presence, yoga is centered-ness; quite simply, yoga just IS.... Certainly, we each take from our individual yoga practices only those "results" aligned with the degree and quality of investment that we bring to our practices; input and output in equal measure (you shouldn't expect bliss to emerge out of skepticism and laziness... though you might be surprised to learn that these attitudes represent a huge number of beginners who gradually venture on to great mastery of the yogic disciplines).

In actuality, what most of us probably hope to accomplish in living our yogic values each day is a gradual refinement of those qualities that we invest in our practice. Rather than longing for any spiritual mastery or any awakening to the greater mysteries of consciousness, we just want to bring stress or nervous energy to the mat in the hope that we might relax enough to re-purpose those energies into a passable contentment or that we achieve a degree of self-awareness about our conditions in the process. The list of intentions for practice is endless, as are the initial motivations for practicing and the long-term results attained.

What I have discovered during my absence from the mat is that many of the big results that I reaped when I was a regular at my favorite yoga studio haven't lost any of their impact or importance in my life now that I have wandered down a different path and engage in other practices. Sure, I no longer get to bask in the after-practice glow, my joints creak more than they used to, and I have lost the calm I once had when I was forced to endure gridlock traffic. But the lessons learned on the mat - the truly life-altering lessons - have shown considerable resiliency. Yoga never stops teaching us how to embrace the present once we've experienced what that truly means. Of course, that doesn't mean we can't and don't revert to fretting about tomorrow and get pissy standing in long lines at the grocery store; we have to work harder to recall a state of mindful presence when we aren't in control of our surroundings. But are we ever really in control to begin with? Perhaps yoga's greatest lesson is that it teaches us nothing about the world beyond the boundary of our own skin.

We cannot effect the world in any lasting way except through how we relate to it. Yoga is about that relationship between the internal and the external on the meeting ground of our senses. On the mat - and after it - we seek a way of action in the world where meaning is discovered through self-awareness, where freedom is encountered when we surrender to the forces in our lives that ceaselessly entangle us.

The Way of Equinimity

"Herein is the mystical secret that holy sparks are raised when we fully realize that we are nothing but vehicles for the expression of Divine Will. Paradoxically the vehicle itself has its own free will. When the conductors (you and I) of this free will believe that we are separate identities, we limit and detach ourselves from the source of life, and the sparks thereby cannot be returned to their root. When we appreciate that we are empowered by a central force, then our free will is used for the benefit of this central force, and the holy sparks are returned to their root." Rabbi David A. Cooper,God Is a Verb: Kabbalah and the Practice of Mystical Judaism

The more I explore Judaism, the more I recognize similarities between the core of its mystical expressions and that of Vajrayana Buddhism. To many, this might seem a far-fetched comparison, but at least insofar as my own experience is concerned, I find my attraction to the meditative and transformational elements of Judaism strikes very similar chords to my opening to the Dharma. The most poignant example of this is the oftentimes understated consequence of practicing an observant Jewish life: the diminishing of ego and exaltation of the web of inter-connectivity that links us all in the fabric of creation.

Though I could spend a lifetime fleshing out the exercises offered in Cooper's God is Verb, I think that I would like to start by focusing on each of his recommended practices for raising the sparks of the Divine on a case-by-case basis. It isn't that I don't trust him and need to prove something to myself before diving in. Actually, I am certain that these processes yield an abundant harvest because I explored similar practices as I familiarized myself with Mindfulness meditation and centering prayer in the context of my Buddhist practice. Rather, I am exciting to take each exercise very slowly so that I can slow down and really taste and savor what he is asking me to drink. I know that this is a rich feast, so rather than rush through it, I'd like to enjoy it.

In this spirit, I'd like to start a bit out of order and jump directly to what Cooper calls the Path of Equanimity. 

This is found on page 225 of God is a Verb:

Practicing Equanimity: Part 1

1. Sitting quietly, allowing the mind to reflect, try to recall as many times as you can during the past year when you were angry, and what caused it.

2. Try now to remember as many times as you can in your entire life when you were angry. How many details can you remember?

3. You will notice that no matter how much you try, you will be able to remember only a relative handful of times; even for these, many of the details will have disappeared. Notice that more than 90 percent (and it may be as high as 99 percent) of the angry experiences you have had are completely forgotten. Reflect upon this for a few minutes.

4. Now, try to remember all of the experiences of great joy that you have had in your life. Try to remember all of the details as best you can.

5. Of course, you will have noticed that more than 90 percent of the joyous experiences also are completely forgotten. It is true that at various times something will happen in our lives to cause us to remember an angry, sad, or joyous moment, but the point of this exercise is to realize that experiences of great emotional power do not last for long and most of the time are forgotten. Again, reflect upon this for a few minutes.

6. This is all there is to the practice. The more we reflect upon the ephemeral nature of our emotions, the more we realize that the next time we are caught in an emotional response, it will surely pass and be forgotten, even though we may not feel this way in the moment of our passion. 

I have had a lot of extreme ups and downs in my life, so I am looking forward to reflecting on them through this exercise over the next couple of days. Perhaps this equanimity resonates within the Shalom that we yearn for and pray to be made manifest in our personal lives and in all of creation.

Why not sola scriptura?: Torah and rabbinical interpretation

"The Rabbis emphasized interpretation of the Torah as the way to know the will of God... because they were convinced that the Torah needs interpretation, that even the accepted revelation in the Torah could not stand alone. There are sects of Christians who are "fundamentalists." They try to make their decisions in life solely on the basis of the Bible. There also have been sects of Jews who have tried to do that, including the Karaites (who were strongest in the ninth and tenth centuries but who still exist today) and, to a lesser degree, the Sadducees. (Even though these sects tried to rely solely on the Bible, they themselves found it necessary to develop their own tradition of interpretation.) The Rabbis, however, claimed that living by the Bible alone was impossible since its verses are open to many different interpretations." Elliot N. Dorff, Conservative Judaism: Our Ancestors to Our Descendants.

Before I began my exploration of Judaism and started learning about the centuries (millennia, in many cases) of tradition linking the prayers and rites of the modern synagogue to the ancient practices, I carried a particular view of contemporary Jews as a people far adrift from the religious structure shown in the Torah. Of course, I couldn't have been more wrong, but my understanding was warped by my own fundamentalist Christian upbringing. To a Pentecostal, scripture is the only source for mediating the relationship of creation to the creator. Tradition is okay for the hymnal and church decoration, but when it comes to God, the Bible is the final and only word. Strange then, that we seemed to have no problem picking and choosing which parts of it we wanted to follow (all of the New Testament, of course... especially Paul) and which parts we could safely ignore (all of the Hebrew Bible mitzvot minus the ten commandments). Add to this a few heaping scoops of charismatic preacher cult, faith-healing, and One-True-Church-mentality and you can get a pretty fair idea of the kind of environment in which I was educated about the rest of the world. We were very insular, very suspicious, and very, very committed to our view of the inerrant English translations of God-breathed scripture. Jesus himself might as well have spoken in the King James vernacular.

So, given this background, as an outsider looking in (not very closely, mind you), the world of rabbinic Judaism seemed so far distant from the picture of the ancient Israelites that it was very easy to dismiss it as apostate (as we did with every non-Pentecostal version of faith). Certainly, Jewish rejection of Jesus as the messiah only sealed their fate in our eyes. In our understanding, WE were the new Chosen People - the new priesthood for a fallen world. Jews had missed the boat and have paid the price: exile and rootlessness. In our egotism, we were blinded to the hypocrisy that veiled our a la carte piety beneath that particularly insidious hood of Certainty. Never mind the contradictions, forget the irrationality, ignore the picking-and-choosing; we got it right... everyone else missed a few steps.

Though I have long since abandoned the Fundie perspective of spirituality, my ignorance of the rabbinical links between contemporary and ancient Judaism preserved my heavily-flawed understanding of Jewish spirituality. Things that seemed so un-scriptural to me - wearing kippot and tefillin, pious devotion to the Talmud and Responsa, orthodox prayers for the resumption of temple sacrifice - are, of course, heavily rooted in a long tradition of rabbinical interpretation of the written Torah woven through the Mishnah, Midrashim, and beyond. Therein lies a truth so profound that it has shaken me to my core: within our human desire to demonstrate our love for a thing by shielding it we sometimes stifle and smother it. The Fundamentalists (of every religion) so greatly fear for the security of their positions that in holding so tightly to the letter of the law they squeeze out the living spirit of the law. This spiritual bear hug tries to wrestle the ancient understanding of God onto the mat, to pin it to the ground, to keep it firmly under grip. But when imprisoned, living Truth dims and hardens - radiant color fades to black and white, organic dynamism and responsiveness stiffens and becomes scaly, eventually crumbling. 

What I have learned to appreciate most, thus far, in my first few moments with Conservative Judaism is the centrality of Torah interpretation. In following the train of interpretational tradition through history, we are able to link ourselves to the roots of faith in the Torah through generational vines that flower and blossom under careful touch. As we travel further down the vines we move closer and closer to the milieu of the Torah, unraveling its historical significance along the way much as we might follow the sequence of logic in a geometric proof. 

This is the same concept behind judicial precedent. Each generational interpretation emerges from the one before it, each is seeded by the previous and grows and yields its own seeds for the next. In this way, Torah is not uprooted and dragged along the generations as a lifeless husk to be carved and chopped for a shelter that will prove uninhabitable after so many years. No, Torah continues to live! It lives within the cells of its progeny - its tree descendants that have sprouted up in a forest of interpretation and devotion. This living, breathing forest not only shelters us eternally, but it yields fruit in abundance, feeding us, nourishing our minds, enriching our souls. Yet beneath the forest bed, the roots of tradition intermingle in the very same place as that original Torah mother tree and are fed by the very same spring. Torah is eternal and meaningful and resonant precisely because it is living. Only when we crush it for fear of losing ourselves in its abundance do we threaten its survival.           

Belief and Action

"The Torah, the foundation of Judaism, contains 613 commandments (commonly called "Taryag Mitzvot"... "Taryag," is the Hebrew numerical equivalent of 613). Almost all of them tell you to do something or not to do something; none of them says "believe something" or "don't believe something" with the possible exception of the first of the Ten Commandments. Judaism has certainly always included a number of beliefs which serve as the source and rationale for observing the commandments, and we could probably even describe a mainstream Jewish position on many issues; but it has largely left it to the individual to decide the particular form of belief to adopt, as long as the person continues to observe Jewish law." Jewish Law Within the Conservative Movement, Conservative Judaism: Our Ancestors to Our Descendants.

I have always cringed at the suggestion that faith is rooted in thought rather than action. The human mind is far too chaotic - too easily swayed by its link to emotion and ego-identification - to allow for faith to be seated in personal cosmologies or subscription to dogma. That is to say, human will - not emotional affinity with any concept of Truth - is the real basis for faith, though insecurity and guilt often cause us to question this understanding. 

Less the Temple and sacrificial observances, there are 297 mitzvot which can still be fulfilled today. I admit that I am somewhat intimidated by such a large number of laws. Yet, just behind the veil of my trepidation is an indescribable joy. I am not sure if the joy springs from the challenge to commit myself so fully to practicing my convictions or if it is rooted in hope for what could arise out of the commitment. Perhaps, my nervous joy resides somewhere in between. Certainly, my adoption of a fully observant practice will be a gradual process, but the undertaking has already begun. The hardest part will be doing-before-understanding, but I am confident that my journey down this heavily-trodden path won't leave me alone in the cold.

My Christian heritage has planted very deep roots. I was brought up to understand religious commitment in terms of believing, wherein faith is meant to be understood as trust: trust that God will renew my sinful nature and (quite literally) create a new nature within me - a nature that craves holiness and purity. Action - according to this understanding - is an afterthought. A tree will be known by its fruit. This is a nice concept until you are faced with trials in life that wedge themselves into your belief system and begin yielding undesired fruits (from the Christian perspective): doubt, skepticism, and cynicism. 

It is hard to be a doubting Christian. In my experience, preachers generally frown upon exploring doubts about what we have been taught is central to our salvation. Instead, we are told to continue trusting. "God will sustain us if we only have faith enough to believe." Salvation is, after all, a work completed entirely on our behalf without any effort on our parts, thank you very much(!). "Good works don't save you," we are told.

Not only do I think that this is the most difficult portion of Christian doctrine to swallow, I also think that Jesus never intended for there to be such a separation between belief and action. In fact, he is purported to have said "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them" (Matthew 5:17). How has the Church moved so far from this declaration of Jesus' own commitment to the mitzvot? 

Committing oneself to a life of religious observation must mean more than a mental nod to a doctrinal creed. Though 297 might seem a large number of commandments to observe, it is precisely this weaving of the sacred thread through the fabric of our practical waking activities - everything from eating to dressing to working to loving - that gives me such comfort and provides such relief to my usual spiritual anxieties. I do not have to commit to a belief to justify an action. I just have to hear, understand, and obey. In doing, I absorb the effects of my action; I see the results of my observance; I learn from the doing. Bradley Artson explains it thus: "Judaism is the indispensable framework that translates ideas, emotions, and values into the organization of home, family, and community. That framework is embodied in halakhah. Halakhah touches every aspect of Jewish living, transforms mundane habits into opportunities to renew our commitment to Jewish values, links us to Jewish history and the Jewish people around the world, and opens pathways to God and to a sense of the sacred in the everyday." (It's a Mitzvah!)  

I am particularly drawn to this last part: "Halakhah...opens pathways to God and to a sense of the sacred in every day." As familiar as this concept must be to lifelong Jews, it is absolutely revolutionary to me! The idea that faith is rooted in action, that faith is a verb rather than a state of mind... radical stuff for me.

This past weekend I was privileged to participate in the Tapestry of Jewish Learning here in Austin. Central to everything I heard (in three VERY different classes: Queer Spirituality, Jews and Tattoos, and The Kibbutz Movement in Israel), was this idea that Jews do or do not do... [insert any activity here]. Of course, behind each of these do's and dont's are millennia of scholarship, interpretation, re-interpretation, and debate. But initially the commandments and prohibitions enshrined in the Torah were intended to address the concern of greatest importance to the ancient Israelites: setting themselves apart from their archenemies, their former captors, the Egyptians. This setting themselves apart, creating for themselves an identity unique in the world in practicing an understanding of the Divine that was also unique in the world, has been what has preserved them since their earliest days in the Sinai. Jews are still known for what they do and do not do. In this "apart-ness" they find community, they share values, they discover and renew spirituality, and they commune with God. Whether or not they believe in or even agree with the reasoning of the mitzvot, their identity is still preserved... their spiritual vitality is still protected and perpetuated. Life is given meaning through action. Like love, faith is a verb. Like love, faith is expressed in doing.

Tradition

"The historical school has never, to my knowledge, offered to the world a theological program of its own. By the nature of its task...it pays but little attention to purely dogmatic questions.... As far as we may gather from vague remarks and hints thrown out now and then, its theological position may perhaps be thus defined: - It is not the mere revealed Bible that is of first importance to the Jew, but the Bible as it repeats itself in history, in other words, as it is interpreted by Tradition." Solomon Schechter, as cited in Conservative Judaism: Our Ancestors to Our Descendants.

Tradition simultaneously frightens and relieves me. I am frightened insofar as custom (tradition's louder sister) can carry outdated and ignorant legacies into the present (sometimes well-beyond their shelf life), but I am relieved by the knowledge that the Biblical text isn't frozen in ancient past, beyond our ability to recognize both its impact on all of the generations before our own and the life that it can breathe into our own experiences here and now. This is the line in the sand dividing the polar extremes of fundamentalism and relativism. 

When my father would gather us together around the kitchen table for Saturday morning bible study, there was never an option to look at the scriptural text as anything but a literal, historical record of events. Certainly, allowances for miracles lent themselves to occasional mystical interpretations of events, but never was there more than just a very slight amount of elbow room given to questioning the facts of the narrative. An example: God created over a stretch of six days and rested on the seventh. This was to be taken as a very literal, 144-hour period. No serious debate followed. Forget evolution, forget what you've been told by the geologists... Six days and it was done. Here's another one: Methuselah lived to be 969 years old, dying just seven days before the beginning of the Flood. No significance to the numbers, no message behind the text... God said it, Moses wrote it down, the translators of the Bible ever since haven't changed, amended, or redacted the text at all since its final compilation. 

This is the familiar fundamentalist concept of the divinely inspired text. It matters little to those who identify with this school how the text has been interpreted and reinterpreted over the millennia, how the historical context of the writers and redactors (there were none of these, remember) influenced the compilation of sources, nor how theology and religious practice has evolved to interact with the text throughout the ages. I have always found this stubborn opposition to questioning the relevance of the scriptural text to previous generations and to our own times to be a source of great frustration and disappointment. After all, the scriptures remain central to our contemporary understanding of legal code, ethics, and concept of public morality. This, of course, sets up very deep pits of contradiction. 

Consider our present-day attitudes towards slavery, prostitution, the subordination of women, exploitation of children and oppression of racial, religious, and sexual minorities.... We do not live in a society where these customs are even begrudgingly tolerated, let alone justified and legitimized with the guidance of scripture. In fact, most of these are considered historical abuses and are cause for serious condemnation. But, as we know, this has not always been the historical reality. Every one of these abuses has at one time been given the blessing of interpreters of scripture. And these very same blessings have often proven to be the biggest obstacles to progressive justice.

So, how do we avoid sliding down the eaves on the opposite side of the roof into relativism? If we should not passively yield to Biblical text as it was applied among the ancients, what can and should we look to for guidance in our own time? How do we resist the urge to dismiss the entirety of Torah if many of its accepted standards and practices conjure moral repugnance and distaste in our contemporary sensibilities? Which parts of the law are worth keeping and why? What is the limit for speculation about the intents if the text?

Schechter has offered us a valuable insight into how Conservative Judaism navigates the narrow channel between the extremes: Tradition. That is, we shift our perspective of the Biblical text from its role as static historical document to one that is dynamic, elastic, and alive. It is a huge oversimplification to compare it to the U.S. Constitution, but there might be some merit in the comparison. The foundation document of American society is imbued with a very healthy dose of reverence for the intentions of the founders. However, it was created to reflect the image of the country well beyond the imaginations of those same founders and was accordingly made to contract and expand to meet the unforeseen needs of endless future generations. So while we recognize the evils of slavery that found protections in the Constitution and have moved to outlaw that institution and correct its many collateral consequences, we can and should look beyond the attachment of that provision to its roots in private property protection and use this as the basis for contemporary interpretation of their intent. In both legal and theological terms, this is phrased as "Spirit of the law versus letter of the law." Our judicial system works the same way, using legal precedent - analyzing the decisions of prior courts - to gain an understanding of the intent of legislation to see beyond its particular application in any given time period and evaluate its value and practice for our own time. The answer is never as simple as "this is what was originally written, so this is what we do." Precedent - tradition - is the unbroken link between us and the intents of scripture. As we look into how each successive generation has gleaned wisdom from its predecessor generation in interpreting scripture, we can follow the thread back to the source and honor it in our own contemporary understandings and practices.

"...It is not the mere revealed Bible that is of first importance to the Jew, but the Bible as it repeats itself in history, in other words, as it is interpreted by Tradition."

 

 

Mitzvot: The language of Judaism

"The language of Judaism is its mitzvot... the commandments by which a Jew makes the world a more sacred, sensitive, just, and compassionate place." Bradley Shavit Artson, It's a Mitzvah!

In all honesty, the part of Judaism that has always scared me the most is the focus on observing the commandments. As a child, I was always a bit rebellious. As an adult, I have just been disinterested in religious obligation. I think that this stems from the evangelical Christian emphasis on faith as belief, the idea that what we believe about God reveals our true bearings in relationship to holiness; a kind of target board religion where hitting the bullseye means believing a certain set of doctrines. This has always caused me more angst and irritability than anything else in my religious background; that how we relate to the text of scripture - how we believe God is revealed to us - is more important than how we act upon that belief. Certainly, many Christians that I know would try to stop me right there and interject with "Wait a minute! A tree is known by its fruit. True faith yields actions consistent with belief." Hmmmm.... this is problem if one has doubts.

If salvation (however that term is understood) is founded upon belief - if faith is rooted in a person's profession of what they believe is the essence of salvation - what then is the consequence for acting out of alignment with the belief? Aren't humans masters of hypocrisy? Wasn't this the very core of Jesus' own teachings, calling humans to act justly and mercifully toward one another and vilifying the pious person who talks the talk but fails to walk the walk?

So, while this has always been a source of great internal conflict for me in my relationship with the form of Christianity in which I was raised, my ignorance of Judaism (still bound to the law, after all) has always served as a safeguard against my further explorations of its practices. I always assumed that if Christians could profess their faith and win salvation and still have problems just keeping 10 commandments, how is it even conceivable that a Jew can reconcile their beliefs to the practice of more than 600 commandments?!

Of course, the linking of faith (in the confession of belief) to action has been the error in my equation all along. Though I have much to learn and still do not quite grasp the subtleties of nuance in the many Jewish traditions, I am starting to see that emphasis on action - conviction mobilized in practice - is what lies at the heart of being Jewish. Well, this is quite an epiphany to me. That I can have doubts, that questions can rise up with each answer like new heads from the hydra, that I might not really have any grasp on where I fit in the scheme of the cosmos is no prohibition on my practice of faith. The idea that God's covenant with the Jewish people is to bring order into the chaos of the world is revolutionizing my understanding about what it means to have faith. This is about action. Certainly belief plays a role in our understanding about God - we hold onto a concept (any concept) whether or not we want to or until we can find a better substitution - but belief is not requisite for action.

Consider the commandments related to the giving of charity. How we feel about homeless people, down-and-outters, welfare mothers - whether we consider them victims of circumstance or lazy bums - though reflective of our hearts and necessity of interior transformation, is irrelevant when it comes to the charity commandments. That is to say, our introduction of resources into these peoples lives - our bringing order into their world of chaos - is unrelated to our personal motivations, desires, hopes, fears, suspicions, etc. God introduces order with or without our consent through our obedience to the commandments.

For me this is a big WOW realization. I can have my doubts, I can question and go back and forth about exactly what it is I believe, and still serve as a conduit of Godliness in the world through my actions. And the best part? I might learn something about myself in the process. Through the keeping of the law I might be confronted about my prejudices and weaknesses. I might just be introducing order into the chaos of my own life in learning to live the mitzvot, in learning to speak the language of Judaism.

The Messiah Conundrum

"...[T]he doctrine of the Messiah means that human history will find its fulfillment, on this earth, that there is 'an end of days' in which injustice will be abolished and wrongs put right for all humanity here on earth. If it be asked, why this should be necessary since the individual soul will enjoy its bliss of nearness to God in the Hereafter, the traditional Jewish answer, is that God has His plan for the whole of human society here on earth, and that every good deed will be rewarded not in Heaven but by paving the way toward the messianic future of total goodness." Louis Jacobs, The Book of Jewish Belief


I have always struggled with the concept of Messiah, this idea that somehow all of creation is elevated out of despair and suffering by divine intervention in the form of a human being. I'm not speaking here of the Christian concept of divine incarnation; I surrendered that belief years ago, long before I began to realize that Christianity unravels without a Jesus-mask fixed firmly on the face of God. But, even what I am reading of the different Jewish traditions about the Messiah would have left me feeling a bit cold if not for the encouragement to ask questions and explore doubts.


What I have kept from my explorations of Buddhism is the idea that enlightenment/spiritual evolution/metamorphosis on the macro-level (out in the world) occurs and is fully represented on the micro-level (in the heart of the individual). That idea isn't unique to Buddhism. Gandhi - a practicing Vaishnava Hindu - perhaps summed it up best when he encouraged his followers to "be the change you want to see in the world." But, we can see this sentiment echoed in many different mystical religious traditions, including (from what I have seen thus far) the different strands of Judaism. But without a link between belief and practice, there seems to me a danger of anticipating the Messianic Age at the cost of committing oneself fully to engagement with the here and now. This does not mean that I shy away from hoping in a future world scrubbed clean of violence, injustice, hatred, and fear. But, I do maintain that balancing our spiritual practice between prayer and action is an essential step in clearing the path for world renewal that begins with personal transformation.


Let's pull back a little a bring this down into more tangible elements. Rabbi David A. Cooper (God is a Verb) adds valuable nuance to the conversation: "The Lurianic approach is that the messiah comes through the continuous preparation of humans who constantly raise holy sparks until the world ultimately attains a higher consciousness. At that time the appearance of a being who embodies all of the characteristics of a messiah will be the result of this new awareness rather than its herald. ...The old model of the messiah suggests that a savior will come in one of two ways: the world will be primed, or the world will be so debased that it will be on the edge of total collapse. In either instance, the messiah is the hope for the future." This is a beautiful vision of the future restoration of peace and the healing of creation, something to give us hope in the promise of a better tomorrow. It is very easy to be lulled into a blissful slumber while meditating on this sublime vision. 


This, in my opinion, has been the single greatest failure of the vast majority of Christian churches: the investment of energies into longing for the New Heaven and the New Earth at the cost of acting in the present to ease suffering, combat injustice, and live peacefully. At the heart of the future-centered spirituality is a denial of responsibility for the present circumstances that threaten the survival of not only massive portions of the human population, but of the whole of entire species of animal life. Both the human being and animal alike are dependent upon resources and ecological balance that have suffered or could soon suffer total ruin because of a refusal of some societies to live into the B'reishit commandment to care for the land. Of course, this is just one of many examples of how some religious peoples (of every tradition) have neglected observance of commandments to maintain a focus on acting upon wrongs in the present because of an imbalanced hope placed in the promise of a divine future rescue.


Cooper continues, "When we imagine the presence of the messiah, typically we think about things like more lovingkindness, great gentleness, pure calmness, extraordinary peacefulness, deep understanding, infinite caring, enormous sympathy, and so forth. The presence of the messiah is a dream hidden in all of our hearts. The question we must ask ourselves, however, is this: 'What are we waiting for?' The new paradigm suggests that while waiting for something to happen, we are unbalanced, constantly 'leaning into the future.' Whenever we dwell on the future, we miss what is happening right now. As Rabbi Zera indicated, whenever we conjecture about the coming of the messiah, we are drawn away from the essential element required for messianic consciousness, which is to be fully present in the here and now."


I certainly do not want to discourage hopefulness in the promise of a better reality that each of us longs for amidst the turmoil and instability that inevitably creeps into our lives. It is an undeniable truth that we live in troubling times: national economic woes erupt into our psyches as generalized anxiety; the crumbling of family life in our society causes us to question investments in relationships; random violence and the spewing of hatred over broadcast airwaves feeds our fears and threatens to overwhelm us with hopelessness. It is easy to run toward the very welcoming refuge of a messianic figure who will cast aside these traumas. But perhaps, instead of investing so much into hoping for the divine rescue, we are to be engaged in preparing the path for a messianic age through our own acts of benevolence in the world. 


I don't claim to have any answers. Maybe the promise of Zionism as the gateway of human redemption is the best hope for humanity. Maybe the dawning of a Messianic Age is what we should anticipate rather than the emergence of a single figure who will cast away the shadows of despair. Then again, maybe the orthodox view of a reestablished Davidic kingdom is the once and future anchor of creation's renewal. One thing, however, is certain: we live in the only time in which we can have an impact on our own reality and on that of those who share the planet with us; we live in the present. It is in the present where our deeds can be planted as seeds to yield a future fruit. It is in the present where our commitments to peace and justice lay the foundations for a future of greater civility in the world. It is in the present where our prayers and meditations are uttered and practiced, loosening the blinders from our eyes to see hope amidst despair and the spark of new life in the ashes of death.