The Vibrant Oscillation of Shaky Joy
“Serve God in fearful awe, and gilu bi’re’adah וְגִילוּ בִּרְעָדָה - rejoice while shaking.”Psalms 2:11
“Our moods do not believe in each other.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
I’ve been fascinated by Emerson’s quote for a long time, because when you are feeling something big, you enter an emotional world unto itself and it really can be difficult to remember that other states of being exist at all, let alone to imagine experiencing them once again. That is certainly true for difficult moments, personal or political, when gloom clouds over possibilities. But it is equally true of joyous and even calm moments, at least in my experience.
I am constantly guilty of assuming that the inner and outer weather of today will be true tomorrow as well. If it is raining today, or I’m just a bit blue, or another awful thing happened in the world, my brain stealthily projects the trend forward. I’m startled when I wake up and don’t need a raincoat…
And when it is sunny in Seattle, I quickly get a little hazy on what it was like to wipe mud off my boots. (Of course, sometimes our habitual mindset never lets us really trust the sunshine, and we’re just waiting for the other raindrop to fall…)
It’s a strange thing being human!
If there’s one thing the Jewish tradition teaches us, it’s that we have to pay attention to two things at once. Some prominent dualities include:
Halakhah (law) and Aggadah (story)
Written Torah (Tanakh) and Oral Torah (Talmud)
Hillel and Shammai (the two great schools of rabbinic teaching)
Yetzer haTov (altruistic inclination) and Yetzer haRa (selfish inclination)
Olam haZeh (this world) and Olam haBa (the world to come)
Kodesh (holy) and Chol (mundane)
“Religious” and “cultural”
Jews as a religion; Jews as an ethnic group
These are not binaries exactly, but dynamic fields generated by the partnership of two forces, a psychospiritual or metaphysical chavruta (the classic Jewish study pair). As Jay Michaelson writes: “the goal is not to attain some sense of balance but rather to transcend the binaries and engage in a vibrant oscillation between the poles...”
So even if our moods don’t believe in each other, we invite them to sit down and learn from and with each other!
In parshat Beshallach, several intense moods appear in the Song at the Sea (Exodus 15). The Israelites have fled Egypt, with the Egyptians in hot pursuit. Free on the other side of the sea, as its waves wash death and destruction down on the Egyptians, the Israelites sing. Intense fear, intense joy, intense everything. Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg raises an important question:
How is it possible to sing, to praise God for acting both cruelly and kindly? Indeed, this problem (of the relation between din and rachamim, hard-justice vs. mercy) is a central theme of the Song of the Sea.
The complex reality that is celebrated in the Song - death and life, suffering and joy, justice and mercy - transcends a simple split between 'us vs. them': the suffering and fear as the enemies’ portion, the joy and elation of the Israelites.
The [19th century Chassidic master] Mei HaShiloach says: "If there is no wisdom, there is no fear, but if there is no fear, there is no wisdom" (Pirkei Avot). The Sea symbolises fear and prayer, the dry land indicates strength and confidence, as in the mastery of Torah, which is Israel's strength.
One knows one's prayer is answered if one can move out of prayer and into the study of Torah. Likewise, one knows that one's study of Torah is true if, together with the Torah study, there is a cry of prayer in the heart. For one must connect the two, prayer and Torah - fear and confidence.
This sort of prayer mood is worried, anguished, yearning, aware that something is wrong.
And a Torah study mood is delight at being deep in the details of the divine word. It is the feeling of being on firm ground, and of feeling adventurous because you know where home is.
Someone once said that prayer is when we speak to God, while Torah study is when God speaks to us.
Now, while I appreciate the Mei HaShiloach’s confidence that Torah study is a core competence of the Jewish people, for many of us, Torah study is not a place where we may feel particularly confident. However, Rabbi Laura Rumpf helped me reframe what Torah study means here through a quote from writer Suleika Jaouad:
When you’re in a fearful place, the idea of charging forward without a trace of apprehension is intimidating. Such an expectation can immobilize you. And so, rather than moving forward and through, you remain stagnant, ruminating about something that may or may not come to pass… You just have to be one percent more curious than afraid.
The firm ground of moving forward may or may not be a realm of confidence, but it can certainly be a realm of curiosity for all of us.
May the drama of the crossing of the Sea and the turbulence of life around us bring us into vibrant oscillation between praying with holy fear and learning with curiosity. Or in the words of the psalmist, finding a shaky joy at being alive, being ourselves, and doing what we are meant to do.
Shabbat shalom!
Rabbi Jay LeVine
