Apr 07/07 — Shabbat Chol Hamoed Pesach

Commentary by Rabbi Alan Green

I will sing to the Lord, for He is greatly exalted;
Horse and rider, has He thrown in the sea.
The Lord is my strength and song;
He has become my salvation.
This is my God, and I will glorify Him;
The God of my ancestors:
I will exalt Him.

Exodus 15: 1-2

Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, quoting the great medieval poet Judah Ha-levi, taught: “God, where can I find You? And where can I not find You?” For most of us, it’s “God, where can I find You?” God is an unknown reality. Lacking clear perception of the Divine One, we tend to flee to the extremes of spiritual seeking: religious fundamentalism on one hand, and secular materialism on the other.

Unfortunately, neither path generally lives up to its spiritual promise. In its attempt to make one single religion ultimately meaningful, religious fundamentalism ends by demeaning every other spiritual path. Of course, rejecting all spiritual paths with the exception of one is a betrayal of the very nature of Spirit, which is infinite, unbounded, and not limited to any particular time, space, or ethnicity.

On the other hand, in its glorification of the transient values of material life, secular materialism inevitably demeans the human spirit and the whole of spiritual life. Attempting to derive spiritual fulfillment from the material objects of sense is like expecting to be nourished by sucking on a rock.

“And where can I not find You?” The human condition in relation to God is very similar to that of fish in the ocean. For fish, the ocean is their whole frame of reference. They breathe it, swim through it, are suspended in it, and mostly, they consist of it. Therefore, a fish could probably be forgiven for not being aware of the reality of the ocean, because a fish has nothing to which the ocean can be compared.

We human beings are similarly immersed in Spirit. We breathe it, we move within it, and mostly, we consist of it. It surrounds us on all sides, including the inside. It is the source of all that we experience, as well as our life, and the life of this material universe. Our very heart beat, our every breath, each impulse of our consciousness, is an expression of Spirit.

This could well explain why we are so totally oblivious to spiritual reality. Like the fish, there is nothing to which it may be compared. And we are too distracted by the material manifestations of Spirit—the objects of sense, in all their beauty and variety—to take note of their source. Cut off from the perception of Spirit, we end up severely, spiritually challenged.

These spiritual challenges are what separate the world in which we live from the one in which we’d really like to live. “War begins in the mind of men,” says the quote on the wall of the United Nations lobby in New York City. Should it not then be possible for peace also to begin in the minds of human beings?

Certainly, there is no shortage of great scripture in the world. There is also an abundance of great religion, theology, and philosophy based on these scriptures, much of it translated into English and available at the mall. However, there is a profound shortage of individuals capable of actually living the values of love, compassion, and ethics espoused by those religions, theologies, and philosophies in their everyday life and relationships.

Divine values of universal love, compassion, ethics, and devotion to God have always been in short supply. Perhaps this is the reason why, in the Midrash, God provocatively declares, “Would that mankind would reject Me, but behave according to My Instruction!”

Every religious individual experiences the gap between what God expects of them, and their ability to fulfill those expectations. But the potential to live a fulfilled life in God Consciousness, pervaded by the unity of the Divine One, is built into the very nature of a human being.

We can, therefore, pray that the day should soon come when the leaders and followers of every religion on earth will be able to live together in true harmony. Perhaps then, everyone will be able to point at the same universal, transcendent reality, join Moses at the shores of the Red Sea, and sing with him: “This is my God, and I will glorify Him; the God of my ancestors: I will exalt Him.”

With such clarity of perception, and unity of purpose, we all would have reason to sing long and loud for many good and peaceful years into the future. May we live to see it in our lifetimes!

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach.