God and the Self as Nothing

The Source is nothing. Nothing does not mean a vacuum, but no thing (no/thing). No/thing is pure energy.

A favorite quote of mine in this regard is from Dov Baer of Mezrich as translated in Lawrence Kushner,The Book of Words, p. 96 (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights, 1993): “You need to think of yourself as nothing. Forget yourself entirely. Pray only for the sake of God’s presence. Only then will you come to transcend time and attain the ‘World of Thought.’ No contradictions. No distinctions between life and death or sea and dry land. All the same . . . This can only happen if you forget yourself entirely. But it cannot be the case while you are attached to the tangible reality of this world. Fixated on the distinctions between good and evil and mundane creation. How otherwise could one possibly transcend time and attain ultimate unification. Thus, as long as you remain convinced that you are ‘something,’ preoccupied with your daily needs, then the Holy One cannot be present, for God is without end, that is, ‘nothing,’ no vessel can contain the One. But this is not so when you think of yourself as nothing.”

Here, “nothing” really means without boundaries and limits.

Dov Baer expresses his ideas more dualistically than I would (e.g. “attached to tangible reality,” “mundane creation,” and “World of Thought”), but his message is beautiful: To feel the presence of the Source, one must drop all categories, especially the self.

A Person

You can no more equate a person with an image than you can cup your hands to hold the wind.

Where am I?

Where am I? Here? Or there?

Judaism and Social Action II

This is an email response to a friend of mine:

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We both agree then:  The Government is US, and there are appropriate and inappropriate uses of government (federal, state, county, city).  And you’re right that the GI bill and the federal interstate highway system are projects WE commisioned government to implement.  That’s exactly my point:  “They” is “us.”

But here’s where we disagree.  The very projects that changed our lives are “improvement” projects.  They are a form of “social action.”  The GI Bill allowed a whole generation of people to move into the middle class.  The interstate highway program (even though it began as a defense project) made it possible to truck goods quickly and efficiently all across the country and helped to unify this county by making it accessible to a much larger percentage of the population.  Social Security and Medicare helped to transform the economic and social status of our elderly population.  Affirmative Action (flawed as it is) made it possible for large numbers of women and minoirites to enter into careers and companies from which they would otherwise have been excluded.  Etc.  This all involves improvement.   If you call that “socialism,” then I guess we’re stuck.  I call it intelligent public policy.  And nothing is value-free.

Further, “improvement” is related to “stability.”  Look at Cincinnati and what happens when a city fails to deal with deeply rooted policies of racial prejudice.  City government in Boston did something different.  When confronted with the same problems, the mayor and council adopted a plan that changed the ethnic and racial makeup of its police force.  Guess what?  The problems diminished, and Boston (once synonymous with racial tension) has developed a reputation for decent community policing and relative ethnic harmony.  In other words, if you want stability, you also need “improvement.”  I don’t see how you do this without government (WE), though private corporations and non-profit groups are equally important.  Cliched as it is, “private-public partnerships” is an excellent and apt phrase.  By its very definition, government is involved in forms of social action.  Otherwise, I guess we’re back to the state of nature.

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