HOLDING BALANCE
What is balance in 2022?
It is a question I return to if not every day, then certainly on the regular.
I want to run and to cycle, I want to grow vegetables, I want to search for wisdom and learn in our Torah and wisdoms beyond our tradition, I want to be a loving husband an da good and of course to put bread on the table.
Our worlds take up so much of us, sometimes even take more than we have to give and so a big question of balance emerges. I am a person constantly in struggle with balance .
Naso our Parsha contains within it laws on the Nazir, a person who takes an oath of sanctity and specifically abstinence from alcohol. It evokes with our rabbis a discussion of whether bodily denial is good or bad.
It connects me to a story in the Talmud (Shabbat 33b) that a Ḥavruta, learning partner, and I have been studying for many months, it is the story of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and the cave, he goes on the run from an oppressive Roman government and hides out with his son. What begins with escape turns into 13 years of life with just the most basic necessities; carob from a tree and water from a brook and the study of Torah, Jewish wisdom, as a daily focus.
The lesson of the story is about the importance of spiritual journey and the possibility of self-denial as a way to heighten spiritual experience. It is a story of escape from the world as an important aspect of that journey and in this story there a real so elements of the real world calling Shimon bar Yochai and his son back. The call of a wife and home, the tradition that he learns in that comes from beyond the walls of the cave, the life that carries on in their absence which calls out to them.
When I was living in Jerusalem, one of my teachers and dear friends said to me at quite an early stage of my rabbinic journey: “you can run away but you cannot escape your life”. I have lived in many places but since then I have always been distinctly aware that escape can only take you so far..
And yet escape is such a strong part of our culture:the allure of religious journey or escape, the endless clips on my phone which speak to the beauty of escape to new places and cultures or more seriously the temptations of significant addictions, some more contained, some more destructive.Our phones, our comfort or alcohol, drugs, sex, pornography and gambling all of which can have greater or lesser destructive capacity over our lives..
Our Parsha (Torah portion) asks :is the self-denial a spiritual strength or weakness? Is escape good for us or bad?
There are two options that two of our rabbis present, the Rambam (12th Century Spain) our world is here for our enjoyment and whilst we must walk a path of balance, we should live it up, enjoy the finer things in life. The Ramban (Nachmanides, 13th Century Spain) responding to the Rambam, says, the ideal state is one of self-denial, a perfect space of connection and dedication to the spiritual path without interruption or distraction.
There is of course a third option that the Nazir, the one who becomes teetotal, takes this position because they are unable to temper their consumption of booze. We know this story too well in our own communities and in all corners of our society.
This week we are invited to have real conversations about our own addictions, our struggles and our excesses in order that we might find better, more healthy coping mechanisms and ultimately better balance.
Absolute escape and release whilst alluring may never serve us, the world will always call us back
