11 Cheshvan is the day when mother Rachel passed away. As will be explained, it is also a day to remind ourselves about connecting to our true Jewish nature. And since we are now in the year of “nine” (תשעה, 5775), the time of pregnancy, let us also collectively give birth to our true selves; to give birth to something called, “natural consciousness.”
This past Saturday night I tuned into one of my favorite YouTube channels courtesy of Rabbi Moshe Genuth. He had posted the introductory class to this semester’s “Faith and Confidence” course of the Torat Hanefesh school of Jewish psychology, and I with coffee in hand welcomed the chance to watch it.
The Sugar Cube Meditation
During the class he recounted the story of how the Ba’al Shem Tov would drink tea with one hand, while holding a sugar cube in the other. As Rabbi Genuth explained, he was reminding himself of spiritual sweetness without consuming the external manifestation, i.e., the physical sugar cube. As King David writes in Psalms, “Sweet to my palate is Your word, more than honey!” And so he held the sugar in his hand and this was enough for him. This was enough to remind him about things that are sweeter.
Now we could ask a question: Why did he need to hold the sugar cube at all? Instead of holding the sugar, let him meditate on spiritually sweet things while drinking physically unsweetened tea?
Streaming Connections
The next morning during prayer I had placed my smartphone on the table directly in front of me. While it was upside down, the desire to check for updates swelled within. Just to glance at Gmail… to nimble quickly onto a news…
Staving off the gale force wind tide, I was reminded of this Ba’al Shem Tov story from the night before. Here I was attempting to communicate to the King of Kings and I was drawn to take a peek at my inbox.
Now this realization could have come without the smartphone. I could have meditated upon communicating with God without the Samsung Galaxy. But as in the story of the Ba’al Shem Tov, there were both the physical and potentially spiritual components to the story.
What this episode offered me was an opportunity to embark on a three-stage growth process (also from the Ba’al Shem Tov) called submission, separation, and sweetening. To explain the process in the context of this story, instead of repressing our desire to communicate, now that we realize that the smartphone and social media are not the answer (submission), we begin to ask what the answer is (separation), and then seek to implement the answer (sweetening).
For instance, whether a person is addicted to Facebook or has decided to abstain from it, either way, true separation has yet not been achieved. The separation stage means identifying with the Divine soul. While repressing the desire to “check” only delays the inevitable, what does help is to hold the sugar cube… to see the smartphone before you and consciously connect with the source of the desire to stay connected.
Natural Consciousness
Kabbalah teaches that mother Rachel symbolizes the Jewish People. The exile of the Jewish People is referred to in Kabbalah as the exile of Rachel. And as Rabbi Isaac of Homil explains, liberating or “reconstructing” Rachel means returning the Jewish people to their true Jewish nature.
In exile, our true nature is concealed, unbeknownst even to us. But when we return to Israel we also return to our true identity. Jewish nature is much more than observing the commandments. It is a return to our natural, Jewish state of consciousness—when our entire identity is motivated by our connection to God.