Follow Pleasure
The final chapters of Leviticus offer a meditation in time and purpose (or rather - moments of apparent purposelessness). Leviticus 25 sets the maximum degree to which land and people can be pressed into productive service. Land and people observe a shabbat - rest. Indentured slaves must not be oppressed (their human dignity must remain intact - our understanding today assumes even the “kindest” slavery violates human dignity). In other words, this chapter carves out time where our reality is not only consumed with labor, productivity, and cultivation. But what are we to do in this open time?
Leviticus 26:2 answers in part: “Et shabtotai tishmoru!” We might translate this as: preserve these shabbat times! Keep them sacred, don’t let anything override these reminders of our full human dignity and agency. One sage, Sforno (16th century, Italy), stresses this point: “Even in days of servitude or oppression, even though the restfulness (menuchah) of them just reminds us [painfully of our lack of] freedom.” Sometimes our attempts to be fully ourselves make us confront how many forces are restricting or rejecting us, trying to control or erase us. Nevertheless, sh’mor shabbat - preserve that non-productive bubble of time.
But that still doesn’t answer what we are to do within the shabbat time. How are we to experience ourselves as fully whole? The Jewish tradition developed a rich framework of Shabbat observance, which through its many “do’s and don’ts”, has created a beautiful communal container for counter-cultural connection and soul nourishment. But I think there is more we can do to internalize oneg shabbat - the delight of shabbat - as a daily practice.
That’s where the Jewish Studio Project’s studio rules come in. As I mentioned last week (link here), JSP has four rules that create a container for art-making. “Follow pleasure” is the most delightful and sometimes the most bewildering rule. Is pleasure actually good to follow? That sounds a bit self-indulgent, dangerous even if we’re just looking out for our own gratification! Now that I think about it, what even is pleasure? Do I know what feels good to me, not what I think should feel good? How do I hear my own voice amidst all the advertising and social pressure and cultural expectations? Can I trust myself?
Notice young children playing and you’ll rarely catch them doubting or wondering about pleasure. Rabbi Adina Allen explains that “There is something very playful about art-making... It is a process of letting oneself be led by pleasure, it allows other parts of oneself to come to the fore. It is a chance for adults to practice what children do all the time: parallel play.” If the opposite of shabbat time is work, then perhaps one aspect of shabbat is play.
But it is something we lose touch with as we grow older. Shel Silverstein had a tragic little poem that highlights the consequences of forgetting or fearing what brings us pleasure.
“Masks”
She had blue skin,
And so did he.
He kept it hid
And so did she.
They searched for blue
Their whole life through,
Then passed right by -
And never knew.
And according to Rebbe Nachman (an early Hasidic master), it isn’t just us who lose pleasure when we hide away from it (Likutei Moharan I, 60:6):
“There are people who are virtually asleep their entire lives, and even though it appears to the world that they serve God and engage in Torah and prayer, even so, God gets no pleasure from any of their efforts, because all their work remains below and cannot rise and ascend above.”
Art-making, and specifically granting ourselves permission to follow pleasure and practice listening to our own senses, is a way of re-awakening to ourselves. The call to follow pleasure is urgent, spiritual, ethical - not a distraction or disaster. Alive to ourselves we can appreciate the aliveness of other beings and protect them from abuse and exploitation. Reclaiming our right to say, this feels good and that doesn’t, disarms the manipulative messages that bombard us. “Pleasure,” writes adrienne maree brown in her book Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, “is a measure of freedom.”
Leviticus 26:13 declares that freedom powerfully: “I Adonai am your God who brought you out from the land of the Egyptians to be their slaves no more, who broke the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.” Kom’miyut - erect, upright, free, standing in your truth and power and dignity and agency. Kom’miyut - an interior reality that arises when you follow pleasure, learn to trust your intuitive wisdom, and play creatively in the world.
Wishing you a pleasurable, playful Shabbat!
Rabbi Jay LeVine
