Parashat “Spirituality”?

R. Yaakov Bieler

Parashiot Acharei Mot-Kedoshim, 5769

 

            A recent article in the Washington Jewish Week, by Ben Harris, entitled, “Study: Spirituality Up, Ethnicity Down,”[1] discussing research that was done under the auspices of the S3K Synagogue Studies Institute,[2] caught my attention. At KMS, we have been meeting over the course of the last few months regarding trying to heighten the level of “spirituality” of services that the synagogue offers, and I wondered if the contents of Harris’ article might provide further insights into the issue. One of the first things about which I was curious was the author’s working definition of “spirituality,” something that those talking about the issue have found difficult to pin down. He writes, “the notion of spirituality is an elusive one, the researchers[3] concede, though they generally understand it to mean the quest for meaning, purpose and connectedness.” However, the specific jumping off point with regard to the meaning of “spirituality” referenced in the actual S3K report[4] is understandably richer and more evocative than could be captured in a concise newspaper review:

(p. 1) Sociologist of religion Wade Clark Roof attempts to define the term (spirituality), even as he notes its ambiguity:

Spirit and spiritual remain difficult to grasp… Spirituality…may…include religion in the sense of tradition, yet for many it is not bound by doctrinal, creedal or ecclesiastical categories. … [That said] spirituality encompasses … four … themes:

a source of values and meaning beyond oneself,

a way of understanding,

inner awareness,

and personal integration.[5]

 

            A second challenge that the researchers obviously had to address before carrying out their research is the manner by which spirituality could be measured. Among the instruments that they devised in order to try to ascertain the degree to which spirituality could be detected among American Jews, was “the Spiritual Inclination Scale,” which is described as focusing upon the following:

(p. 3) … Whether the respondent had a spiritual experience within the   last year,

the level of commitment to spirituality in one’s life,

the amount of time devoted to spiritual life,

the importance of growing spiritually,

interest in spiritual exploration,

desire to learn about sacred texts,

and feeling it is essential that one’s clergy talk about spiritual needs.[6]

 

The report further states with respect specifically to Orthodox Jews,

(p. 11) On the Spiritual Inclination Scale (scored on a 0 to 100 metric), the Orthodox out-score the non-Orthodox who are children of in-married Jewish parents[7] by a factor of nearly 3:1. The Orthodox score a mean of 47 as compared with just 16 for the others.

 

            The fact that Orthodox Jews were found to score so high on the Spiritual Inclination Scale leads one to think about spirituality from the perspective of classical sources. A “chicken and egg” type of question presents itself, i.e., is the fact that Orthodox Jews see themselves as engaged in spiritual pursuits the result of their lifestyle and study or primary and secondary sources, or are spiritually-oriented individuals drawn to the practice of Orthodox Judaism, or some combination of the two?[8] 

 

            When we look to ancient Jewish sources for discussions of spirituality, probably the Hebrew word that most closely resembles spirituality is “Ruchaniyut”, whose antonym is “Gashmiyut” or physicality, materialism. Yet Jewish thinkers writing about spirituality would appear to reject the relevance of the “Ruchniyut/Gashmiyut” dichotomy in terms of classical Jewish concepts. Arthur Green writes,

This Hebrew term (Ruchaniyut), not found in the Bible or in early Rabbinic speech, is an artifice of the medieval translators, first created to express philosophical and scientific concepts that were Hellenic in origin, and taken over only afterward by Kabbalists and pietists to describe the religious ideal that by then was a thorough amalgam of the spiritual legacies of Israel and Greece.[9]

 

Adin Steinsaltz similarly dissuades us from using Ruchaniyut as the terminology for the ideal of traditional Jewish spirituality, if such an ideal is viewed as something to which we should uncritically aspire and engage in extensively and deeply:

 Spirituality and spiritual entities are not inherently superior or better than material ones. Good and evil can both be spiritual or physical. Although some religious groups tend to equate spiritual with good, matter and body with evil, it is obviously untrue. (This is a rather ancient idea, best developed in the Manichaean religion, which had a strong influence on some other religions, and some extreme manifestations in numerous sects…)[10]

 

            It would appear that a much stronger case for what the Jewish ideal of spirituality would consist of, could be made for the concept of Kedusha, holiness, both the name and the subject matter of the second of this week’s Parashiyot, Parashat Kedoshim. R. Elimelech Bar Shaul[11] notes that not only does the name of the Parasha derive from the first significant word appearing in the first verse, i.e., (VaYikra 19:2) “Kedoshim Tihyu Ki Kadosh Ani HaShem Elokeichem” (You will be holy because I the Lord your God am Holy), but a summary verse in the middle of the Parasha (Ibid., 20:7) “VeHitkadishtem VeHiyitem Kedoshim, Ki Ani HaShem Elokeichem” (And you will cause yourselves to be holy because I the Lord your God am Holy), as well as a concluding verse (Ibid., 26) “VeHeyitem Li Kedoshim, Ki Kadosh Ani HaShem, VaAvdil Etchem Min HaAmim Lihyot Li” (And you will be holy because I God am Holy, and I will Separate you from the nations to be to Me) reiterate the theme of holiness. In an attempt to define how “holiness” might be understood, Allen Grossman has written,

… The supreme human work … is the voluntary performance[12] of the transactions of holiness (i.e., whereby that which is either not or less holy, is made more holy), which reciprocate and complete God’s Creation of the world by restoring it day by day, fact by scattered fact, to His Nature …

Indeed, inclusion in the category of holiness erases the intrinsic nature of a thing and returns it…to the source of all being where it has in itself (intrinsically) no nature at all except its freedom.[13]

 

Holiness consequently becomes the degree to which an aspect of the Creation can be understood as either close to or distant from its point of origin, i.e., God Himself by means of man’s thought and action.  Perhaps the idea can best be conceptualized by positing that there is a range, with God, the quintessential manifestation of holiness on one end, and everything else lining up along a continuum with respect to how “Godly” it is or is not. R. Kook’s formulation to the effect that everything in the world is either “holy” or “not-yet holy” reflects the assumption that all of Creation ultimately should return on its own, or be helped to return to its point of origin, the source of all holiness, God.

 

            In his essay on Parashat Kedoshim, R. Bar Shaul notes a major distinction between the Jewish approach to holiness as compared to other conceptions:

The Tora does not posit the concept of holiness outside the course of ordinary life, but rather the Tora intends to make holy / sanctify life itself. The Tora comes with its manifold Commandments into the very midst of human existence in order to sanctify them from within, by means of forging such life anew, inserting into its original moulds the Will of the Blessed God, Who (Kohelet 7:29) “… Made man straight / just…” vis-à-vis his nature.

 

In other words, Jewish belief maintains that a Godly life, rather than being supernatural or artificial, requiring a break with normal practice, is actually natural,  normal and intrinsic to every human being, in accordance with the Divine Goals of Creation itself and the fact that each person is created in God’s Image. . Consequently, we are left with the counter-intuitive result that it is specifically those who appear devoid of Holiness in their day-to-day existences that are out of step with their basic nature and raison d’être. Therefore, rather than man needing to retreat from everyday life in order to be Holy, he must search out the means by which Godliness can be injected into all that he does during the hours of the day when he is in a state of consciousness in order to lead a satisfying life that is true to his essence.

 

            Approaching spiritual Holiness in this manner casts new light upon one Rabbinic source that I had always thought was merely striving to encourage the performance of a certain seemingly minor ritual practices by associating them with the grand concept of Kedusha:

 

Berachot 53b

(VaYikra 20:7) “VeHitkadishtem”—these are the first waters (the water used to wash one’s hands, prior to partaking of a meal          including bread);

“VeHeyitem Kedoshim”—these are the final waters (“Mayim           Achronim” which are poured on the hands prior to the recitation      of Birchat HaMazon);

“Ki Kadosh”—this is pleasant oil (in some traditions, placed on the           hands so that they not only will be clean, but also fragrant.)

 

Despite the fact that the Shulchan Aruch[14] declares that Mayim Achronim are “Chova” (obligatory), many Orthodox Jews are not careful about this practice, often citing Tosaphot on Berachot 53b, d.h. “VeHeyitem Kedoshim, Eilu Mayim Achronim” who explain that this practice dates from the period when a dangerous substance known as Melach Sedomit (Sodomite salt) was extent and which needed to be removed from the hands in order to avoid harm to one’s eyes. Since Melach Sedomit is no longer common, concludes Tosaphot, the practice has lost its obligatory status for most people, not withstanding the association of the ritual with the term holiness in VaYikra 20:7.  But if we were to try to envision a level of meaning beyond the practical concern of cleansing our hands of harmful agents, and see hand washing as a symbolic action representing the need to sanctify not only our hands, but, by extension, the various actions that we perform, religious and non-religious, with our hands, the importance of even something like Mayim Acharonim as one more reminder or how we should strive to sanctify as many aspects of our lives as possible, suddenly takes on new significance. This type of associative spiritualization is clearly articulated with respect to the ritual hand washing that is done in the morning when an individual rises from his bed, by the Kabbalistic Shulchan Aruch ARI, ZaL, Hilchot Netilat Yadayim, #1, also cited and interpreted by R. Bar Shaul:[15]

 

When washing the hands in the morning, one should concentrate to imbue this action with spiritual significance with respect to three hands: Yad HaGedola (the large hand), Yad HaChazaka (the strong hand), Yad Rama (the upraised hand).

 

R. Bar Shaul:

It is the individual’s responsibility to know how to use his hands—when to raise them and when to put them down, when to spread them out and when to clench them together, when to use each hand individually and when to use them in unison, There is a hand of kindness, a hand of courage, and a hand of glory.

 

But how one uses his/her hands is representative of any and all human actions. A person’s actions include not only what one does physically, but also what one says, how one interacts with others, how one pursues his business and professional affairs,[16] how one parents or relates to parents, how one spends his recreational time as well as his resources. If only we could infuse all that we do with more Kedusha, Godliness, than we currently do, we would feel that much closer not only to God, but also our very essences. Perhaps this is what RaMBaN means when he writes regarding Shemot 13:16 that the fulfillment of each Commandment reminds us of God, His Greatness, His Miracles, which in turn should inspire us to wish to not only think of Him, but do all that we can to spread His Holiness throughout all that we do, even activities that are not defined specifically as fulfillments of one Commandment or another.

 

            However, the S3K report contains a caveat regarding how Orthodox Jews might regard spirituality that should give us pause. Cohen and Hoffman write,

 

(p. 11) Seeing themselves as “religious” or “observant” Orthodox respondents may react positively to statements about “spirituality” simply because they see “spirituality” as a near-synonym for “religious.”

 

In other words, the statistic might be skewed in the sense that at least some individuals equate going through the motions of religious observance with spirituality. I think that we are all too aware of how easy it is to fulfill our various practices, even something as personal as prayer, in a mechanistic manner without a sense of connecting to something outside ourselves, aspiring to some higher reality, looking to grow in our awareness of God and His Law and Standards. We are lucky to be provided with a structure that can remind us constantly of our relationship with the Divine. Whether we properly take advantage of it is clearly up to us. Parashat Kedoshim can offer a recipe for holiness/spirituality; whether we choose to become Kedoshim ourselves is very much up to us.

 

           

 


[3] The authors of the S3K report entitled “How Spiritual Are America’s Jews?” are Steven M. Cohen and Lawrence A. Hoffman.

[5] Roof, Wade Clark, Contemporary American Religion, MacMillan Reference Books, New York, 1999, pp. 34-5.

[6] This latter dimension at least in part inspired the formulation of this Dvar Tora.

[7] This specific distinction is later clarified in the report when it is stated:

(p. 11) Jews with two Jewish parents score lower on all measures of spirituality and religiosity than do Jews with just one Jewish parent or with none. Another way of putting it is to say that a child growing up with at least one non-Jewish parent will more likely resonate with spirituality.

It is interesting to try to account for this finding. While the authors suggest that since spirituality is a term with which non-Jews are more comfortable, having one non-Jewish parent might account for the presence of such a concept within the child’s mindset, it seems to me other explanations are also possible.

[8] The reasons offered by Cohen and Hoffman for the higher level of “spirituality” associated with Orthodox Jews are curious and evocative:

(p. 11) Orthodoxy today has been shaped not just by the details of Halacha but the spiritual reasoning behind those details, especially through the Rov, R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, whose writings (Halachic Man and The Lonely Man of Faith) are unabashedly spiritual. Then too students in many (though not all) modern Yeshivas are increasingly attracted to Mussar (Helmreich, The World of the Yeshivah), a trend towards spirituality established by R. Israel Salanter (1810-1883)—not the austere asceticism and emotive extremes of its early years, but its value-based and inner-directed understanding of Halacha (Soloveitchik, Halachic Man.)

Is it being suggested that the average Orthodox congregant has read the Rov’s works, or at least these two books? Is Mussar study going on regularly?  Is it Rabbinic leaders who are reading these types of books and imbuing their public talks with such ideas? Should a distinction be made between Modern and Chareidi Orthodox—I could imagine that whereas the former would be more likely to be familiar with the Rov’s ideas, it is the latter who most probably have engaged in Mussar study. I will try, Beli Neder,  to obtain additional information about this.

[9] “Spirituality” in Arthur Cohen and Paul Mendes-Flohr, ed., Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought, The Free Press, New York, 1986, pp. 903-4.

[10] “Spirit and Matter” in Simple Words, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1999, p 66.

[11] Min HaBe’er, Re’em, Tel Aviv, 1980, p. 114.

[12] Grossman’s use of the term “voluntary” is not consistent with an observant Jew’s belief that s/he is commanded in the  Tora to engage in the sanctification of himself as well as all that around him, as per (VaYikra 19:2) “Kedoshim Tihyu.” Perhaps this author is suggesting that whether or not the individual chooses to bind himself and respond to such a command is voluntary in the spirit of Devarim 30:19 “…Life and death have I Placed before you, blessing and curse, and you will choose life…”

[13] “Holiness” in Cohen and Mendes-Flohr, p. 390.

[14] Orech Chayim 181:1.

[15] p. 117.

[16] In a presentation on business ethics, I once suggested that categories of Mitzva performance should be applied to such enterprises, i.e., Hiddur Mitzva, Chumra, to fulfill all legal perspecives. In other words, how can the action be done in a beautiful manner that would constitute a Kiddush HaShem? Even if there are various views as to how to conduct a proceeding, why not aspire to the most rigorous and honorable? Why should a legal decision that is questionable by relied on when a stronger, universally acceptable point of view could be adopted? In this manner, holiness enters the marketplace, in addition to the home and the synagogue.