blogs/rabbi-huberman

Behave, Belong, Believe 

A few months ago, my wife commented about how many boxes seem to be arriving at our home each day courtesy of Amazon, eBay, or Groupon.

She wasn't wrong.

I can't remember the last time a member of our family visited a shopping mall or department store. It's so much easier to buy online. You can purchase everything from groceries to cosmetics to made-to-measure suits.

These days, we expect the entire world to come to us.

We shop twenty-four hours a day. We can tweet, text, Skype, or Instagram with almost anyone in the world, whenever we wish. We can even observe streaming religious services and sermons without ever leaving our homes.

But does that apply to spirituality?

This week, in preparing for this Shabbat, I recalled the religious journey of a close friend who moved to the west coast last year. He searched everywhere in Los Angeles for a synagogue that would spiritually move him, and, over nine months, he attended more than thirty different services.

"I'm not feeling it anywhere," he told me.

I suggested that he change his approach.  

"Why don't you stay home a few Friday nights, and light Shabbat candles.  Invite someone for dinner. Turn off your technology. Be in the moment.  Stop creating."

Within a month, not only had he begun celebrating Shabbat, but he'd also located a spiritually fulfilling synagogue a block from where he lives, where he's now an active member.

This speaks to what I consider to be Judaism's inherent three-step program to spirituality: Behave, belong, believe.

When our parents and grandparents first came to America, they brought with them an assumption that the basis of Judaism is contained within its sense of obligation.

In his landmark book, Conscience, the late Rabbi Harold Schulweis noted that his grandfather believed that he was indebted to God for the gift of life: a debt he repaid by praying three times a day.

But times have changed.

Many today believe religion should come to them. We want it easy and approachable. While in many ways that is important, it can't be all.

The great Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin (1749-1821) wrote that, while so many of us seek to follow God, it's more accurate to say that God is looking to follow us. Reb Chaim taught that each of us can activate God through our actions.

This is why Judaism, at its core, believes that spirituality begins with behavior. When we behave in a way that is true to ourselves and our consciences, we help to build spaces and communities in which we belong.

It is when we both behave and belong, and only then, that belief comes to us.

Behave, belong, believe.

This week's Torah portion, Shmini, reminds us of that.  Amid its descriptions of sacrifices and rituals performed in the desert, one sentence stands out which punctuates the importance of doing in order to feel God within us: 

"This is what the Lord has commanded that you do, that the Presence of the Lord may appear to you." (Leviticus 9:6)

In other words: do first, and the feeling will come.

We no longer sacrifice animals at our Temple.  That system of worship died with the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in the year 70 CE. Instead, Judaism offers a system of spirituality which begins with action.

The High Holiday prayer book (Machzor) reminds us that above and beyond fasting during Yom Kippur, we can activate God "by sharing [our] bread with the hungry, taking the homeless into [our homes], clothing the naked... Do not turn away people in need, help those who have no help, be eyes to the blind, be feet to the lame... Love your neighbor as yourself, love peace and pursue peace, and love your fellow creatures."

"Then," the passage concludes, "the cleansing light shall break forth as dawn."

Too many Jews today regard themselves as "not religious" because they do not regularly attend religious services. I disagree. More accurately, the Talmud tells us that true Torah "begins with kindness and ends with kindness." (Sotah 14a)

The spiritual experiences which are most enduring occur when we step forward, and through our actions and deeds, make the lives of others and this world a little bit better.

This week's Torah portion reminds us of that. Within eachmitzvah that we perform there contains a spark of God.  Complete the commandment, and you are more likely to experience understanding.

It really is quite simple when you think of it.  The road to spirituality begins with action, and the rest follows.

Behave, belong, believe.

Shabbat Shalom, Chag Sameach (Happy Pesach)

Rabbi Irwin Huberman