On the Way to Wholeness
Shabbat Shalom! Let me start with what is usually my sign-off, to linger for a moment with that word shalom. When we greet each other on Shabbat with that phrase, I usually think about it as wishing someone a peaceful day of rest, or perhaps a day of generalized well-being.
But consider this teaching: “Everything that came into being during the six days of Creation requires improvement - for example, the mustard seed needs to be sweetened…also humans need tikkun (rectification, improvement)” (Bereishit Rabbah 11:6).
And this teaching: “Shabbat is 1/60th of the World to Come” (Talmud Berachot 57a).
The six days are for the labor of the world, for cultivating and maturing both externally and internally. And Shabbat is for glimpsing what the end result of all our labor will be like - a peaceful wholeness (shleimut, from shalom), where everything has been harmonized to sweet perfection. So when I say, “Shabbat shalom,” perhaps I’m hoping that you and I will have even one small moment in the week that reminds us of our most cherished visions for ourselves and our world. We pause the striving, and rest in the awareness of deep enoughness. And then on Sunday, start improving ourselves and the world once again.
We are intentionally brought into being imperfect, on the cusp of Shabbat’s promise. “The one stone on which the entire building rests is the concept that God wants each person to complete (mashlim, from shalom) themselves body and soul…” (Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, Da’at Tevunot).
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Yesterday (July 6) was a minor fast day in the Jewish calendar, the Seventeenth of Tammuz. It marks the historical breaching of the walls of Jerusalem which eventually resulted in the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD. And it inaugurates the three weeks of mourning leading up to Tisha B’Av, which mourns the day of destruction itself of both the First and Second Temples (among other tragedies). From Tisha B’av through Rosh HaShanah, we are in a time known as the “weeks of comfort/consolation”, a spiritually fertile and ethically charged season of introspection and character development.
These ten weeks are an opportunity to delve deeper into our Jewish tradition and our human nature, as we seek to mashlim ourselves, bringing ourselves closer to integrity, wholeness, holiness, healing, or whatever term captures for you the ultimate goal of a good life.
One rich and pragmatic Jewish practice for moral and spiritual improvement is Mussar. Mussar is based on a virtues ethics approach, where we thoughtfully attend to specific values, character traits, and emotions in order to bring them into balance and express them skillfully and wisely in our lives. We’ve had some opportunities to begin exploring Mussar at Kavana in the last year, through monthly Shabbat gatherings and through a weekly Classics of Mussar class. The next opportunity I’m excited to announce is a “Kavana Reads” experience! We will be reading what has become by now a classic of contemporary Mussar literature, Everyday Holiness, by Alan Morinis. Please consider purchasing a physical or digital edition of the book, share with a friend or small group, or let us know if you would like to borrow one from a limited number that Kavana has purchased. And stay tuned for more details soon on how our learning will be organized!
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Mussar shows up in an intriguing way in our Torah portion, Pinchas. Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah, five daughters of a man who has died and left no male heirs, approach Moses and point out a flaw in the inheritance system. In this overwhelmingly patriarchal system, only men own land. The daughters ask, “Why should the name of our father be lost from among his family, just because he had no son? Give us a possession amongst our father’s kinsmen!” (Numbers 27:4). Moses doesn’t know the answer. He asks God, who replies that the daughters have a good point. “If a man dies without having a son, then you shall assign his inheritance to his daughter” (Numbers 27:8). Presumably, when those land-owning women have children of their own, if they have sons only the sons will inherit, so it is still far from an egalitarian system.
Nevertheless, it is a remarkable moment when literally disenfranchised women confront a man with power and seek change. What character qualities enable the women to act as they did? Courage, certainly. A sense of justice. And what character qualities must Moses muster to act as he did? He could have ignored them, belittled them, or gotten defensive. But here he lives up to his reputation of humility and simply turns to a greater authority for help responding to their request. And what about God’s character?
“When the daughters of Zelophehad heard that the land of Israel was to be divided according to tribes, according to the males and not the females, they gathered together to make a plan. They said, God’s mercy and compassion is not like the compassion of human beings. Human beings favor men over women. God is not like that. God's compassion extends to men and women alike.” (Sifrei Bamidbar 27)
Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah perceive an opportunity not just to benefit personally, and not just to partially shift the needle towards a more inclusive and egalitarian society, but to infuse a flawed human understanding of compassion with the divine fullness of its potential.
To learn Mussar is to sit at the feet of these women and learn about courage and compassion, to study humility with Moses, and to aspire to be molded in the image of a radically compassionate God.
Shabbat shalom!
Rabbi Jay LeVine
