By Nic Levy
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks tells us that Jewish mystics differentiated an “awakening from above” from an “awakening from below.” The former is pure revelation. An act initiated by God, causing a temporary mark on our conscience. Something supernatural requiring no human effort is overwhelming yet leaves no lasting impression. An “awakening from below,” on the other hand, is not a passive act. We must all partake in this internal awakening, and thus leads to something permanent. Many wonder why the first set of tablets, holy artifacts created solely by God, were destroyed while the less holy, manmade tablets lasted. This is equivalent to the written Torah, handed down to us by God, and the Oral Torah, which is a “collaborative partnership between G-d and man, where revelation meets interpretation”
To this day Judaism remains a religion strongly based on interpretation and re-interpretation and discussion. There are many commandments in our Torah, but very few are easily understood or taken literally. For example, I am commanded to observe Shabbat, i.e. “Six days [I] shall work and on the seventh day [I] shall desist…from plowing and harvesting.” Obviously “work” is a term that is up to anyone’s interpretation. I have come to see Shabbat as landmark; a day to separate last week and next week. I try to relax on Shabbat and to put my weekly responsibilities on the back burner for a day. When I started this dvar, I was stressing about finishing it before Shabbat. Now that that time has come and gone, I have relaxed and allowed myself to enjoy what I am doing rather than focus on the end-goal.
I urge you all to spend this Shabbat doing something memorable, so that when you look back at your calendar your brain identifies each week with its corresponding Shabbat memories, and thus the seventh day is placed above the rest.
I also loved the idea of “awakening from below,” or as I would call it, “from within.” Making our own decisions and discovering things on our own accord is empowering. We need to realize our place in social relationships. When someone asks us for advice, we often feel the urge to pass judgment and relay our own feelings onto that person “from above.” We should recognize that this is usually not beneficial in the long run. For a more significant impression, it is important for us to help reveal advice from within rather than give advice. If we all honed our active listening skills, we would not have to fear judgment and “advice” from our friends. Rather, helping a friend would consist of asking questions rather than making statements.
Here is a link to Rav Sacks’ article: here
Anyways, thanks for reading. To quote my OkCupid profile: You should message me if: “you can tell me the most interesting thing you learned this past week.” Or if there is any other cool thing you wanna talk about!
Enjoy those Olympics doe! Go team America; we stand on guard for thee