podcast #8 Tsav

Shalom Lekulam. Hello everyone. Another Shabbat is approaching and it's Parashat Tzav, but not only is it Parashat Tzav, it's also Shabbat HaGadol right before Pesach. If you're not living in Israel, then you may be following what's been happening here from afar. It's a pretty dramatic week. We still don't know yet how it will all transpire. But thank God Shabbat is here and thank God there's a Parashat to discuss and talk about. My name is Elisha Wulfit. I'm the Rabbi of Tel Aviv. I'm sitting here with Professor Shlomo Meital, discussing this Parashat. Elisha, I had a religious experience reading your Tzav. This is Parashat Tzav, the second Parashat in Leviticus. It's about animal sacrifice. Come on, a religious experience reading about animal sacrifice. But thanks to your Tzav, and I'll explain during our conversation, I had a deep religious insight and I find that amazing and Vayikra. I'm curious. I want to hear about your insight. Alright, here's a clue. There's a word that you mentioned eight times. You know on the computer you can count words. It counts words for you. So I counted how many times did Elisha use the word flow. Eight times on the Tzav. And the reason that excited me and gave me an insight is because perhaps the greatest book ever written on creativity is called Flow, the Psychology of Optimal Experience. I'll mention that a little bit later. But I always felt, Elisha, there was a connection between religious experience and creative ideas. And this came together reading your Tzav about flow and Parashat Tzav. I love the word flow. I think it's only a coincidence that the word appeared eight times. I didn't count. But there's something about the experience of flow which is indeed a spiritual experience. I can see how it's connected to creativity. And the opposite of flow is stuckness. And there's nothing more painful and difficult than feeling stuck. And it's interesting because right before Pesach, we were stuck in Mitzrayim. And Pesach is getting unstuck and beginning the flow to flow out of Egypt. And then we keep on getting stuck and unstuck and stuck and unstuck. So I guess flow is our conversation today. Yes. And apropos getting stuck, you use the metaphor of a river, the flowing river. Rivers that don't flow, water that's stagnant, it becomes smelly. It's terrible. But in terms of Pesach, so as you know, we just married our grandson and we just came back from Shabbat Chatan, a huge family celebration. And many distinguished rabbis were there. And I was told, you have to say something. Oh my gosh, what am I going to say with all these learned people? So I spoke about something we had discussed in the podcast. There are two parashat in which the world is created, just two. There are 15 parashat with the korbanot and the mishkan and detailed, detailed instruction. Isn't that a lack of proportion? Creation of the world? And the answer is no. Why? Because we're slaves in Egypt. We come out of Egypt, we're slaves. We're an enslaved people, have no ideas, no initiative, no creativity. God and Moses and Aaron have to transform this slave people into a people of freedom with initiative and energy and ideas. How do you do that? In Hebrew we call it a gibush. You have a mission, a task that you do, and you have to build a mishkan, you have to do the sacrifices properly together with teamwork and gather the funds. This is a welding of people into a free people. And of course, I drew an analogy to marriage. You go from being a free person, a bachelor, into becoming part of a married couple. And that's also a transition, just like the people of Israel. How do you do it? So I gave some words of advice after 56 years of marriage. You said it. Yeah. So I want to connect with what you're saying. There are a lot of transitions here, a lot of transitions around Pesach and the parashah as well. In a way, the Israelites were married to the vision of Pharaoh, the vision of materialism, the vision of building beautiful monuments and buildings. And on the other hand, they're invited, they're taken out in order to marry God. And the vision of the marriage between the children of Israel and God is also prevalent in Jewish texts. And maybe the question is, who do we choose to be married to in this world? Do we choose to be married to materialism, or do we choose to be married to... and now what is that other option? If not materialism, then what? And maybe flow is that other option. So say more about flow. Let's talk about flow. Okay. So you mentioned that in parashat Tzav, there's this issue of receiving and giving. The Kohen gives, but also receives. And you mentioned that this holy duty is to maintain the divine flow. So I mentioned this book. It's by a psychologist named Michaly, Csikszentmihalyi. He's from Czech Republic. He has an unpronounceable name. It took me a long time to learn to do this. His book is called Flow, the Psychology of Optimal Experience. And he wrote a book about creativity in a really good way. He interviewed a hundred creative people. He went to the horse's mouth. I've written books before, and I write my ideas about creativity. He wrote people who are creative and what they feel when they're in the creative process. They all describe something called flow. Flow is being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost. Elisha, have you experienced flow? Yes, yes, yes, yes. I love that experience. I'm addicted to that experience. Yes. When? When did you experience flow? When did I get to experience flow? Yes. Well, when did I get to experience flow? So first of all, often when I go out to nature, I get to experience flow. Often when I write, not always, but often when I write, I kind of think there's a... Is there any rules here to the feeling of flow? And I'm not so sure. It's almost as if it's a divine gift, flow. So yes, but there is another that comes to mind. I propose this, Elisha. Since I was a kid, I didn't have the words then to call it stuckness and flow. But I remember when I felt agitated or stuck or, I don't know, in some kind of stuck place, I would start to organize my room. I would clean up the room, or I would clean up a corner, or I would take one drawer and just do some seder, apropos Passover. Seder in Hebrew is order. Bring some order. And that really put me in a place of flow. Cool. I have another example. I have experienced when you are in a state of flow. So we're privileged to have you as our teacher, and we have class on Sunday night, and we just finished 10 sessions on love, which were fascinating. And I think you experience flow when you are into a deep and interesting subject and interpreting it to us. Yes, yes. And your voice rises, and you are enthusiastic and full of energy, and it just rolls. It just rolls. And there's another flow that you and I have experienced. You once described the process of doing dishes. You and I share this in common. We both do lots of dishes in the kitchen. Doing dishes is a yucky, boring, tedious job. But you describe being in flow and learning to enjoy doing the dishes. And I, too, have learned that from you in doing the dishes. And Chikmat Mechayli mentions this specifically. Flow is not just when you're doing something super enjoyable and pleasant. Flow happens also when you're doing something that is uniquely, inherently unpleasant. Maybe cleaning up your room or something. But the process itself, somehow, you're into it, and it's described as autotelic. This is a big word, which is very important. What's the word again? Autotelic. Autotelic. What does that mean? Telios in Greek is cause, and auto is self. Self-motivating. Flow is self-motivating. You're into doing something, and the experience is so powerful, it has nothing to do with what you're producing, whether it's the book you're writing or the article or the dress you're writing. It's the process itself is so gratifying that you're simply immersed in it. And that's why I think creativity is a religious experience. Because religious experiences are somewhat like that. When you're into the religious experience, like when we talk on the Yom Kippur, under the trees in the park, and the sun is setting, and it's autotelic, it's self-motivating, independent of the words that you're saying. Interesting, interesting. That's really interesting. I want to connect to what you're saying, which is also connected to the exodus and even the sacrifices. I found recently that when I insist on, when I'm determined to do something that I really don't want to do, I've been putting it off for a long, long time. I didn't want to touch it. There are all kinds of reasons, and very often it's like these are subconscious reasons that kind of keep me away from the task that I refrain, the word in Hebrew is Himalut, and putting it off. And I'm really good at doing that. And it's the cause of a lot of procrastination. And then at some point, for whatever reason, maybe because it's really the last minute and now we have to do it, or because we say to ourselves, yalla, let's just do it. And I find that when I do something that I've refrained from doing because of inconvenience, for whatever reason, fear, whatever, discomfort, that I immediately enter a state of flow. And that's true for dishes, and that's true, so in other words, one of the things that gets us stuck in the world is when there's something that seems unpleasant for whatever reason, unpleasant, maybe a little bit scary, maybe we feel queasy about it, uncomfortable about it, so we put it off later, later, later. And then it becomes even more unpleasant, obviously, and it builds up, the stuckness builds up. And then when we just do it, it's like opening the pakak, the cork, the plug, and the flow begins. And it's a beautiful experience. So I have a little practice that's related to that, Elisa. I try to do one difficult thing every day. And it's kind of like a muscle. If you practice doing hard things, things you know you should do, but you don't feel like it, or maybe they're not so pleasant, you get practiced, and after a while, it turns from being unpleasant to becoming almost, almost flow. Beautiful. Do you have an example? Do you have an example of something? I mean, you do this daily, and I think it's a great idea. So I have this thing, Elisa, I don't like talking on the telephone. I hate the telephone. But there are people I have to call, I need to call, I need to call family, we have lots of grandchildren. And so I practice this by diversion of calling people, talking on the phone. And sometimes, sometimes it causes a feeling of flow. Let me just quote your address, Elisa. Whether we are aware of it or not, you write, we are all part of a holy flow of the divine in the world. In essence, we are all intermediaries, earthly vessels, enabling the flow to occur. And I love this idea, because as I've said many times in the podcast, they work with brilliant, creative people, and they have unbelievable ideas. And I always wonder, where in the world did you get that? And here's the answer. We are conduits. We are intermediaries, and this flow of divine-inspired ideas comes from the good Lord, and goes through our minds, and creates value for many, many people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I have to admit that I like what I write here, but I'm going to say something, I'm going to use what I just said now, and kind of flip it on its head a little bit. I feel like saying, oh, wow, yeah, did I write this? Yeah, that's really impressive. Where did that come from? And the question, where did that come from, is a genuine question. I think taking credit for anything that we do, and I would say for anything that we do, and even more so anything that we write or create, is actually really problematic. If we are aware that everything comes from the Source, the Source being God, and God is a word, God is a word, so I like to encourage myself and others to remind ourselves over and over again, God is not Dumbledore sitting on a cloud, or in his room up in the castle, but rather God being the Source of all, God being the connecting tissue of all, God being all that is. So if we recognize that all comes from God, and God is the Source, our most sublime experience will not be for ourselves to be the Source of the wisdom, the Source of a good statement, but rather to allow ourselves to be a conduit through which the Source can flow, God can flow through us. And if God kind of flows through us, but gets stuck in us because we are not generous in giving it away, i.e. sacrifices, then we kind of become that stagnant pool of water that you described earlier, that's able to receive water, but not to give it away, not to let it continue flowing. Exactly. And so I have a question. I'll do a little bit of homework before we meet. And I looked up a book by a psychologist, I think there's a lot of overlap between psychology and religion, by William James. William James is my absolute favorite psychologist and philosopher. Wow, alright, and mine as well. So William James wrote a book called Varieties of Religious Experience. It was actually a lecture, he was supposed to give a series of lectures in Scotland, he wasn't feeling too well, he gave just one, but he made it into a book. And this is a key point that he makes, and I want to ask you about this. Individual religious experiences, rather than the precepts of organized religion, are the backbone of religious life in the world. In terms of Judaism, we have all the mitzvot, 613 of them, and we know many people who are believers, deep believers, and who follow the mitzvot, but Elisha, I have a feeling the mitzvot become the end, rather than the means. And for me the mitzvot are important and they are the means to religious experience. You experience God by carrying out some of the mitzvot, not all of them, but some of them have a deep religious experiential meaning. The word for God in the Bible, Yud-He-Vav-He, from Havayah, some people use the term Havayah for God experience. You experience God. What is your take on experience versus mitzvot, precepts? Okay, well, okay. So you touch on a very deep subject which I'm very close to and drawn to and passionate about. My spiritual teacher, I'm sure I've mentioned him already in the past in our podcast, who has been my spiritual teacher for many, many, many years, since childhood, is Aaron David Gordon, A.D. Gordon, and he was the one who actually created the Hebrew phrase for Havayah. Now, he made a distinction between Havayah and Chavayah. Havayah is with a hey, Chavayah is with a chet. And Havayah, which is, as I said, the four letters of God, is really like being, being. Havayah is today used as the word for experience. And he said, when he coined that term, Havayah, he said the closest we can get to God, to grasping God, is through experience, through experiencing life. His whole Zionist thought was, Zionism was a way of getting Judaism to return back to the soil, back to the land. Don't just say, hamotzi leshem, it brings bread out of the soil, but actually be a conduit for that to happen. Like, really dig your hands deep into the soil and make that happen. So, experience is really, really, is really important. And I have to say, when I'm here at Shul or doing anything, you know, daily, davening and practicing my Judaism, if I don't feel, don't experience God there, if I don't experience the religious experience, I get agitated. I get really, I'm in despair. And when I start davening, I am looking, I'm actively looking to experience God in the davening. And I will do everything that I know how to do, in order to bring God into the davening experience. And I'm talking about a daily, on a daily basis. And that's true for everything. For me, God, if you don't experience the Divine and God, then if it's just a philosophical idea, then that's not the religion for me. So I think, Wilden James was in deep despair at a certain point in his life. And before his great turning point, when he saw the light, so to speak, and became, in a way, religious, because he was stuck in intellectual despair, nothing meant anything. Everything seemed, science seemed so mechanistic and meaningless. And when he realized that there's a choice to be made, you can choose to experience life. He said it in different words. I know I'm kind of hijacking his philosophy for my own uses. But if you can actually experience it, then it doesn't matter if objectively it's true or not true. You've just made it true. You've made it real for yourself. And you've brought God alive. Exactly. And he was attacked for that. Because the philosophers said, this isn't philosophy. This isn't rigorous. You haven't written real philosophy experiences. What has that got to do with concepts, philosophy? Right. But he believed. He believed and he understood, I think, the experiential basis of religion. And what's interesting is that him and Gordon lived the exact same year. Gordon passed away 11 years after he died. James died in 1910. Gordon died in 1922. So 12 years. And neither of them were truly understood. And both of them are enjoying today a huge comeback. Yes. They enjoyed a comeback because of an interesting story. A psychologist named Martin Seligman. And Martin Seligman wrote about learned helplessness and a very dark side of psychology. How we become helpless in the face of trials and emergencies. And it's depressing and we sink into dark moods. It was brilliant psychology and well-founded, but he was attacked by it and had personal tragedy. I believe his son did something to himself. And Seligman saw the light and turned a corner and built something called positive psychology, which has its roots in William James. Because James makes a distinction between the dark side of religion, the terrible things that will happen to us if we're not good people, and then the bright side, this experience that we have, the godly experience that is the key of everything and it's positive. So Seligman basically built on James and built a powerful theory about positive psychology, how we can see the goodness and the light in the world and how that can strengthen us. And he's not religious, Seligman. He's Jewish, but he's not religious. But this is definitely, I believe, a part of our religion, this positive psychology, the flow, we are conduits of God bringing goodness and light into the world. Yes, yes, yes. I think one of the takeaways from this conversation is, it's really a reminder that there's a philosophy of truth. We can try and look for the truth, for the objective truth. And obviously there is no such thing. So we're forever seeking and searching and never finding and living in despair, as Ecclesiastes kind of suggested. And what James, Seligman, and Gordon, what they're all suggesting is, it's not about the objective external truth. It's about the experience of life, of truly living, of living your life. So flow, which is the concept where we started from, flow, if we are in flow, we are in flow, we can't lie about that, we can't say beautiful words about flow. And then if we're not in a state of flow, then all these words are meaningless, have no meaning whatsoever. It doesn't matter how true they are. So experience becomes truth. And seeking to experience, experience life, experience God, experience flow, is perhaps what the book of Leviticus is all about. And Savs, Sav comes over to command, commanding us to experience God and not just philosophize and talk about God. I must say, after that, when I read Vayikra, and Sav, and all of these 10 Parsha in Vayikra, I will see them in a new light, Elisha. And by the way, the young people, the young Israelis, they use this term all the time, Lizvom, to flow, Lizvom. They get it, they get it. This is it, this is flow. The last time you used the word flow, almost at the very end of your There's a beautiful quote, maybe we can end on this. Parshat Sav commands us, the receivers turned intermediaries, to enjoy the plenty in God's world. This enjoyment is the mechanism through which divine abundance flows in the world. Divine abundance flows through us, provided we don't block it, provided we experience this incredible, incredible flow. Yeah, so thank you for helping us flow so much. And we want to wish you all Shabbat Shalom, and also Chag Sameach, Pesach is approaching. So may you flow out of Egypt, may you flow out of Egypt in Hebrew, Mitzrayim. Mitzrayim comes from the word narrow. So may we all emerge out of the narrow straits and flow, continue flowing on our journey to the promised land. And Elisha, may I wish you and me, as we engage in Pesach cleaning, which is arduous, not my favorite experience, may we appreciate it and enjoy flow, as we do the arduous task of cleaning the hametz, with a toothbrush. Amen, amen, amen. Thank you everyone, thank you for listening.