The Mystery of  Torah

Driving home, one clear but frosty January evening, from a Kabbalah class I attended each week, I was mulling the very recent discussion around in my head, with a sense of uneasiness. We were learning a segment of the Shaar Ruach Hakodesh, Gates of the Holy Spirit, a 16th Century text by Rabbi Chaim Vital, a disciple of Rabbi Issac Luria, the celebrated Kabbalist of Safed. I read and reread the material several times both before and after the class, and I kept running into a stone wall. The text implied something more than just the words alone conveyed, but I couldn’t quite grasp it; I could almost feel it. I realized there and then that words, particularly those of holy text like Torah, were limited by the boundaries of the human mind. I then set out on a path to uncover a way in which we can indeed transcend the limits of the written word.

First I decided to find out what the world of psychology had to offer on the subject. The first bit of information I stumbled upon came from Awareness, a book by John O. Stevens, a colleague of Fritz Perls the founder of Gestalt therapy. Dr. Stevens writes, “Awareness is based on the discovery that it is more useful to simply become deeply aware of yourself as you are now. Rather than try to change, stop, or avoid something that you don’t like in yourself, it is much more effective to stay with it and become more deeply aware of it. You can’t improve on your own functioning; you can only interfere with it, distort it and disguise it. When you really get in touch with your own experiencing, you will find that change takes place by itself, without your effort or planning. With full awareness, you can let happen whatever wants to happen with confidence that it will work out well.” In other words awareness surpasses the spoken word, the pensive word and the written word.

I looked up “awareness” my dictionary: Conscious, cognizant, sensible, alive awake alert, watchful, and vigilant. To be mindful or heedful of something. Awareness implies knowing something either by perception (experience) or information. “Conscious” emphasizes the recognition of something sensed or felt. This definition, I realized, is almost identical with the Hebrew word “kavannah” except it lacked the notion of intention, to have a plan or to give something meaning.

With that in mind, I explored a few Kabbalah texts a little closer to tie some of these thoughts together. The Kabbalah teaches that, the fundamental reality is not matter, but energy, set of vibrations that pass through the world, making it dynamic and alive like a person’s thoughts or the human soul. Man can feel these energies and control them, change them, and channel them in other directions. Thought is the tool for mastering the energy; it can channel unconscious vibrations into conscious meaning. Each person has the power to perceive his vibrations and bring to light that which was previously hidden. Thus, each person is responsible for himself, his needs and his beliefs. According to Kabbalah, we are capable of changing physical, psychological and spiritual vibrations through thoughts.

Just as awareness applies to life’s situations, it applies to Torah as well. Many of us grapple with the text, leaving dissatisfied with the meanings or answers that we are seeking. For over two and a half centuries, sages and scholars have been offering commentaries on every aspect of Tanach (the Jewish bible) to the extent that we now possess such exhaustive collections that makes it impossible for anyone to digest, let alone research. These varying and often opposing interpretations encompass thoughts from the sages of antiquity, right up to you and me.

But all this material leaves us with nothing more than intellectual satisfaction, while the spiritual benefit is neglected. Somehow we believe that only trained rabbis are capable of interpreting holy text, but in fact we’re all qualified to understand from the narrative what we require to put our lives together. We don’t have to know any answers; Torah study is not a test of your knowledge. Each verse, each mitzvah is an opportunity to breakthrough old limits (barriers) and venture into uncharted territory. Through the relentless intent (Kavannah), we breakthrough the old barriers of knowledge and see the light.

The Talmud defines “Kavannah” as directing the heart. By heart, it seems to be implying a kind of higher level thought, a contemplative thought. When we study or observe with mochin gadlut, higher mind, we come to understand, as Dr. Stevens points out “that change and understanding takes place by itself”. Everything we need for our development we already know; it’s just a matter of bringing it into consciousness.

By studying Torah and observing our lives with “kavannah”, we become able to explore new possibilities of spiritual and emotional breakthroughs. We can look at a piece of text or a shortcoming in our lives, focus our awareness upon it and soon utter “aha”; that’s it. It’s incredible how much you can realize about your existence by simply paying close attention to it and becoming more deeply aware of your own experiencing.  What the sages have said for centuries is really true: the world is right here—all we have to do is empty our “minds” and open ourselves to receive it.