The poem, one of his most deeply moving, not only uses the kaddish as its framework but also employs the rhythm of the ancient Aramaic prayer to undergird its sound.
YIS-bo-RACH v"YISH-tab-BACH, v"YIS-po-AR, v"Yis-ro-MAM, v"YIS-nas-SEH...
MagNIFiCENT, MOURNED no MORE, MARRED of HEART, MIND beHIND, MARried DREAMED, MORtal CHANGED...
This shows a deep a.s.similation of Jewish religious experience in spite of Ginsberg"s own self-declared ident.i.ty as a "delicatessen intellectual." They don"t say kaddish in the delicatessen.
In general, Ginsberg definitely fits the prophetic Hebrew modes: the angry prophet demanding society"s attention and denouncing its hypocrisies-whether the issue is the CIA or nuclear waste; the anguished prophet keening and mourning for lost Edens of kindness and brotherly love; and the comic prophet exploding with humor and rage. He has been crucial in opening up our awareness of human suffering and bringing to focus those previously at the margins-and I see this activity as well in the prophetic tradition.
Again, like some of the prophets, such as Isaiah and Ezekiel, Ginsberg sought and cultivated visionary experiences. He saw visions. He heard voices. And he clung to these visions with tremendous courage and at high personal cost. Because, in our society, to be obsessed with a vision about how to make a better automobile makes you a genius, but to be obsessed with a vision about the nature of reality makes you a nut.
In the avant-garde literary circles of his time, such prophetic obsessions were viewed, at best, wryly. In a 1959 poem, the essential New York poet Frank O"Hara has a line, "And Allen"s back in town talking about G.o.d a lot."
The actual visionary event has been retold many times by Ginsberg. It took place in a tenement building in Harlem in 1948. He heard the voice of the English mystical poet, William Blake, and saw a tremendous order, coherence, purposiveness-intentionality-in the universe. The vision unsettled him, especially since, at the time, Ginsberg"s mother, Naomi, had been recently hospitalized for paranoid delusions.
He went around to leading intellectual and literary figures recounting his vision. He was advised to see a psychiatrist. The vision itself did not return. In part to recapture it, Ginsberg experimented repeatedly with LSD. All he had to show for himself after a string of bad acid trips was a bad case of writer"s block. So, in 1962 he traveled to the East, looking for a language, "babbling to all the holy men I could find about consciousness expansion."
But the first holy man he babbled to was Martin Buber. On the way to India, he stopped off in Jerusalem and asked the great Jewish thinker how to handle bad acid trips. "He had a beautiful white beard and was friendly; his nature was slightly austere but benevolent." As a result of taking drugs, Ginsberg had been frightened by a nightmare vision of writhing insect forms in a nonhuman universe. As Ginsberg recounted it to me in 1992, "Buber said, "Mark my words young man, our business is with the human, not the nonhuman. You"ll remember my words years from hence.""
Since Buber was a leading authority on the wisdom of the Hasidim, it"s possible to conceive that this answer might have been satisfying, and the encounter might have led Ginsberg toward exploring Hasidism and Jewish mystical texts. Based on his poetry and his whole approach to life, Ginsberg"s natural spiritual home would appear to be Jewish. But although Ginsberg did mark Buber"s words, he told me-"That was a very good answer, but it wasn"t quite good enough. It didn"t explain the experience. I wanted to see how to absorb it and integrate it.
"Whereas the Buddhist view from Dudjom Rinpoche, in that same year, 1963, was if you see something horrible, don"t cling to it. If you see something beautiful, don"t cling to it. In a sense Buber was saying cling to a certain aspect of life."
Ginsberg now feels he "fell into a theistic trap because I couldn"t find any words for it, so I began to refer to it as a divine vision or G.o.d and so forth, but that solidified the experience into a concept, and once it became a concept I became very totalitarian about it and aggressive and nuts."
As a result, Ginsberg continues to be critical, even vituperative, about Jewish religious language-what he calls "Jehovic" conceptions, feeling that "sooner or later, where you have the Jewish thing, one tries to sneak in a central intelligence agency...a central divinity" and this leads to spiritual and political problems.
Here is where the crux of the JUBUs" quarrel with Judaism comes in: the language about G.o.d. Because within Judaism there"s certainly plenty of authoritarian, masculine, and even paranoid language: G.o.d is a father, G.o.d is a king, G.o.d is a source of wrath and punishment-there"s plenty to back up Ginsberg"s claim about "the Jewish thing."
It"s fascinating, then, that had Ginsberg explored Hasidism, he would have encountered a very different language about G.o.d, one that would have been far less likely to have made him "aggressive and nuts."
In fact, in that same seminal summer at Naropa, 1974, he came very close to encountering it, in the person of Zalman Schachter, who was also teaching there.
Zalman"s father died that summer, and being rather isolated-as the only religious Jew on the faculty-he asked Ginsberg to help him organize a minyan, so he could recite kaddish. And remembering the power of Ginsberg"s own "Kaddish," he asked the poet to read Psalm 49. The whole experience in Boulder was deeply moving to Zalman-he told me Ginsberg read the psalm as if he"d written it himself.
And at that emotional moment, gathered around him were all the Jews who were teaching there-"out of the woodwork," Zalman described it: Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield, and others. It hit Zalman with tremendous force how Jews and Buddhists might learn a common language.
As Zalman tells it, "I said the kaddish and then we said aleinu aleinu [prayers of reverence]. In the middle of [prayers of reverence]. In the middle of aleinu aleinu it was like lightning hit me. There"s a line that goes, "For they bow down to emptiness and void and we bow down to the king of kings, the holy one blessed be he." Now usually it means, they bow down to it was like lightning hit me. There"s a line that goes, "For they bow down to emptiness and void and we bow down to the king of kings, the holy one blessed be he." Now usually it means, they bow down to gornisht mit gornisht gornisht mit gornisht [Yiddish: nothing with nothing], emptiness, void, stupid...But [Yiddish: nothing with nothing], emptiness, void, stupid...But there there, I read it: They bow down to Emptiness...and Void...and we bow down to the King of kings...and both of these are legitimate ways. You can imagine how that hit me. That"s a story I tell people who are involved in Buddhism. If you do meditation and you see deep in meditation what this is all about, you see that emptiness and void is just one look and king of kings is the other look."
I know from our conversations that Allen Ginsberg would not agree. King of kings King of kings could lead to a real ego trip. could lead to a real ego trip. King of kings King of kings is a look that has also put off many Jewish women, who simply cannot identify with the male imagery. And underlying these spiritual struggles is a deep Jewish family problem: women and h.o.m.os.e.xuals often feel excluded from Jewish spiritual life. is a look that has also put off many Jewish women, who simply cannot identify with the male imagery. And underlying these spiritual struggles is a deep Jewish family problem: women and h.o.m.os.e.xuals often feel excluded from Jewish spiritual life.
What Zalman"s anecdote does tell me is that, at least theoretically, Ginsberg might have found answers within a Jewish context. Because Jewish prayer and Buddhist meditation can both be seen as visualizations. Just as a tantric Buddhist might contemplate an image of a deity, so a Jew in deep prayer might contemplate the image of king of kings. But in the depth of that contemplation, one is not identifying one"s ego with the divinity: this is a key point.
Jonathan Omer-Man had already insisted on this in his conversation with me about s.e.xuality in Jewish mysticism. If one comes to the s.e.xual experience as an ego, then the identification with G.o.d and Shekhinah Shekhinah is dangerous. is dangerous.
Likewise in regard to king of kings: Here is where Jonathan OmerMan"s explanation of thought transformation through Hasidic prayer fits in. He had explained to the Dalai Lama his own path as keter malkhut keter malkhut, the crown of sovereignty-an intense meditation on the kingly nature of G.o.d. But king does not mean boss-the janitor sweeping the floor could be on the path.
The Jewish mystical encounter with G.o.d is definitely not supposed to be an ego trip. That"s why in fact the path requires very careful preparation, and very careful training, and a specific teacher. It isn"t something you do on your own, or do out of a book. If an experience of closeness to G.o.d makes you egotistical and angry, then you aren"t doing it right, at least as the Hasidim describe it.
More than a century ago, the Hasidim had struggled with Ginsberg"s problem of "totalitarian" ego. They"d written treatises about it. One of the most influential was written by Dov Baer of Lubavitch, the son of Reb Shneur Zalman, the founder of Lubavitch Hasidism.
In his tract on ecstasy ( Qunteros Ha-Hithpa"aluth Qunteros Ha-Hithpa"aluth), Dov Baer describes the problem of the ego-what he calls the yesh yesh-the "thereness" of the human self and of the material world in general. The higher one rises in contemplation, the more the yesh yesh dissolves. One becomes transparent through clinging to G.o.d. The closer one gets-through prayer, meditation, and vision-the less ego one has. The highest level is only reached when the dissolves. One becomes transparent through clinging to G.o.d. The closer one gets-through prayer, meditation, and vision-the less ego one has. The highest level is only reached when the yesh yesh has been utterly dissolved, a process known as "the losing of self in the divine has been utterly dissolved, a process known as "the losing of self in the divine ayin ayin, the divine Nothingness."
In Zalman"s language, the king of kings is one look, and emptiness and nothing is another look. They are in fact the same look, and the paradox of the highest Jewish contemplation is that the closer one gets to an experience of unity with G.o.d, the less relevant the traditional images and languages become. The imagery of father, king, and judge that so deeply concern many JUBUs-and obviously create a barrier-dissolve in the contemplation.
But Ginsberg looked to Buddhism for his answers. Back in 1962, the Tibetan dzog chen dzog chen master Dudjom Rinpoche had advised Ginsberg not to cling to visions, whether horrible or beautiful. Instead, as Ginsberg explained it, "the Buddhist notion is not to look for a vision. In ordinary mind, you don"t collect experiences, you don"t collect visions. If they come, you let go of them. There"s no sense cultivating them." master Dudjom Rinpoche had advised Ginsberg not to cling to visions, whether horrible or beautiful. Instead, as Ginsberg explained it, "the Buddhist notion is not to look for a vision. In ordinary mind, you don"t collect experiences, you don"t collect visions. If they come, you let go of them. There"s no sense cultivating them."
Today Ginsberg no longer regards his Blake experience, which once so preoccupied him, as a vision. Rather, "as time goes by it seems more like it came from within me as a projection of my own." He finds a helpful a.n.a.logy in the Buddhist concept of deity. "In most Buddhist practice if you have a deva deva or a or a yidam yidam or a meditation divinity, it begins with emptiness meditation, and you visualize the divinity in practices and then you dissolve it into yourself-dissolve the divinity completely and go back to or a meditation divinity, it begins with emptiness meditation, and you visualize the divinity in practices and then you dissolve it into yourself-dissolve the divinity completely and go back to shunyata shunyata, so there"s a built-in definition that this is a creation of your own imagination, that it does not exist outside your own projection. Whereas there doesn"t seem to be that built-in security system against sneaking in an external deity in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition."
Ironically, as mentioned, there is is such a built-in security system, certainly in the Hasidic tradition, and also in the great mystical traditions of Christianity and Islam. such a built-in security system, certainly in the Hasidic tradition, and also in the great mystical traditions of Christianity and Islam.
I don"t say that Ginsberg should have known this. Given the situation of Judaism, I don"t blame him or anyone for looking elsewhere at the time. I am not mad at people for leaving the fold-they are perhaps the scouts for the big anthill of Judaism.
But in the long run, there is no need for anger on the scouts" part either. And I think it arrogant for JUBUs to a.s.sume that Judaism is somehow inherently inferior to other religions. I just don"t buy that. If there"d been a brief pause in persecuting and murdering Jews in history, maybe I would look at it differently. But our picture of Judaism today, fifty years after the Holocaust, is just that-a picture. Judaism is so old and has so many contradictory currents and elements that two things can be said: it is likely to survive, and it is unlikely to survive in its present form. So the question is, what shape will it take as we move forward, post-Holocaust and with a modern state of Israel?
I have a sense that everything happened for the best, that it was necessary for some Jews, led by Ginsberg and others, to seek answers where they were available in a language, and in a setting they found compelling. The Hasidim represented everything Ginsberg"s family in particular had run screaming from for two generations. It would have been absurd to say to him, "Look, you"ve got it wrong. Leave your apartment on Fourth Street and go to a Lubavitcher Hasid and he will explain Tanya Tanya and Dov Baer"s tract on ecstasy to you. Sit in a yeshiva and learn Hebrew, daven with us, and it will all come clear to you." and Dov Baer"s tract on ecstasy to you. Sit in a yeshiva and learn Hebrew, daven with us, and it will all come clear to you."
Ginsberg and the other JUBUs were starving, and the Buddhists fed them. So there is no point in Jews being angry about it.
My hope is that perhaps some day he and others will see there"s also no point in being contemptuous of or angry at Jews, Judaism, or G.o.d. If nothing else, Buddhist practice should tell us that.
But the issue today is different. The job for Judaism is to make sure that the very powerful esoteric language of Judaism does become more widely available-so that when the next strong wave of spirituality occurs among Jews, it takes place within within Judaism. This, in essence, is what the Dalai Lama told us when he advised us to open the doors of our esoteric teachings. Judaism. This, in essence, is what the Dalai Lama told us when he advised us to open the doors of our esoteric teachings.
As my conversation with the poet makes clear, this represents a formidable problem of translation. And a major task of Jewish renewal.
20.
A Synagogue in Delhi.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1990-DHARAMSALA- TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1990, DELHI.
At three in the morning I woke to the sound of our broken tire rapping against the curb. Our cars clumped together-and a tired collection of Jews milled around disconsolately in a small Punjabi town, which came increasingly alive as we loitered. First some figures rose from cots on the shoulder-a string-bed motel where they"d been sleeping. Then a car repair shop opened-or had it ever closed?-followed by an outdoor restaurant. While our flat was fixed, some flat bread was patted on a stove, chai chai was served, sweet with cloves, anesthetizing lips and tongue. was served, sweet with cloves, anesthetizing lips and tongue.
Zalman and Jonathan had been nonstop yakking Jewish and Buddhist metaphysics, trailing a bright stream through the Punjab. I worried about beating the curfew. After our repair, our car lost touch with the caravan. In Harayana, we entered a low white fog, thick as wool. Mr. Singh pressed ahead, guided by Sikh internal radar. I fell asleep, woke with a jolt to the sway of the vehicle. The windshield filled with the cab of a giant truck. I heard Shema Shema muttered in the back seat. My life was over. Mr. Singh swerved into oblivion and the moment pa.s.sed. I blinked and fell asleep. We stopped again just outside of Delhi. Tire trouble again. Mr. Singh went for help. I unfolded my body. I watched an old harijan, wrapped in a long white rag like a winding cloth, shoveling a house-high heap of manure into an ox cart with the side of his bare foot, a ghost worker in h.e.l.l. muttered in the back seat. My life was over. Mr. Singh swerved into oblivion and the moment pa.s.sed. I blinked and fell asleep. We stopped again just outside of Delhi. Tire trouble again. Mr. Singh went for help. I unfolded my body. I watched an old harijan, wrapped in a long white rag like a winding cloth, shoveling a house-high heap of manure into an ox cart with the side of his bare foot, a ghost worker in h.e.l.l.
It was the hour of the metaphysical hangover, the descent from the holy mountain to the world of dung.
Singh patched the flat and we rolled away, my head pounding, my belly full of phlegm, my eyes bleared and sandy. I muttered OM MANI PADME HUM OM MANI PADME HUM to the rhythm of the throbbing veins in my temples. The jewel in the lotus. The Jew in the lotus. I babbled the to the rhythm of the throbbing veins in my temples. The jewel in the lotus. The Jew in the lotus. I babbled the Shema Shema and felt for the little orange barley seeds in my pocket. I was a living confusion, a messy dialogue. But I had no use for talking. The car was silent as we rolled into Delhi. The fog lifted in tatters with the first gray sun. We"d beaten the curfew, though as we turned toward Connaught Circle and our hotel, I saw a truckload of men all dressed in white tunics and caps, packed tightly against the slats of an open truck, and felt for the little orange barley seeds in my pocket. I was a living confusion, a messy dialogue. But I had no use for talking. The car was silent as we rolled into Delhi. The fog lifted in tatters with the first gray sun. We"d beaten the curfew, though as we turned toward Connaught Circle and our hotel, I saw a truckload of men all dressed in white tunics and caps, packed tightly against the slats of an open truck, kar sevaks kar sevaks-Hindu fundamentalists-on their way to Ayodha. That day there would be several more deaths in the ancient battle between Allah and Ram.
We"d left the bright hopes of dialogue behind in Dharamsala. That was the dream, and the intent eyes of the fundamentalists were the reality. These eyes were Hindu, but I"d seen Jews, Muslims, and Christians with that same fixed stare. The light changed. Their truck lurched away.
We"d left Dharamsala in a rush. At Kashmir Cottage, Chodron and Alex Berzin said good-bye and exchanged addresses; Richard Gere had left the afternoon before. We had tried to be cool around him all week. But at the last moment, the Greenbergs persuaded the actor to pose for a farewell snapshot. We all came running, waving our cameras. Gere took one look and bolted. He seemed to have very long legs.
We had a more dignified farewell with Rinchen-la, thanking her for her hospitality with a small gift. In the fumes of Delhi, I recalled the rose gardens around Kashmir Cottage and our time there with Laktor, Karma Gelek, and the Western Buddhists as a sacred precinct of a brighter, greener world.
But there were sacred precincts in Delhi too, as I would find out the next morning.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, DELHI.
I saw Ram Da.s.s in the hotel lobby, dressed in white pants and sandals. The old s.h.a.ggy beard was gone; he looked like a retired tennis star, very handsome and trim, with short white hair and blue eyes. I remembered him from my college years as Richard Alpert, a Harvard professor fired, along with Timothy Leary, for his experiments with LSD. After that he went to India, studied with a guru, and became one himself. He wrote a bestselling book-Be Here Now-and more since then. I"d lost track of his spiritual evolutions, so my first question was, "What religion do you follow these days?"
"I worship a monkey."
I laughed-though I was a little taken aback, as I suspect he wanted me to be. He explained that the monkey in question, Hanuman, is a servant to Ram, and that his devotees likewise stress service to others. Specifically, Ram Da.s.s helped start the Seva Foundation, which funds charitable projects in South India. Now this Jewish Hindu was on his way to Dharamsala to meet with the Dalai Lama, another dancer in the circle Zalman had visualized for us Sat.u.r.day night. Strangely, the next time I would see him would be in shul.
Zalman, Nathan, Blu, and I left the hotel with our driver, Ran, a tall Sikh in a blue turban. We headed for the shrine of Nizamuddin Auliya, a fourteenth-century Sufi saint.
Nizamuddin is credited with attracting many Hindu followers to Islam with his gentle ideals of "all-embracing love and great affection for the poor and needy." Today his shrine is the Sufi Jewish Community Center and a.s.sociated for a very poor section of town, with a mosque, public kitchen, and bath.
Ran parked at the end of a narrow street, and we threaded our way through a crowded bazaar where merchants sell carpets, tapestries, books, and religious items. A row of goats perched on the mud wall that lined one side of the street. Children enjoyed a hand-cranked ferris wheel, a four-seater. Threading through a maze of indoor booths, I purchased garlands of orange geraniums and rose petals wrapped in a broad leaf. The custom of visiting Sufi saints" tombs is widespread in India. Miraculous powers are said to reside near the bones of the holy dead. Some Sufi saints cure leprosy, others the bites of mad dogs. Dust from another tomb is sprinkled on the foreheads of schoolchildren to lift their IQs. For most, the shrines provide a moment of intense communion with a spirit still held to be alive. But we Jews have the same custom. In Tiberias, I"d once visited the grave of the Rambam, Rabbi Moses Maimonides, a dazzlingly white loaf of cement. In the Talmud, it is said that on fast days people go to the graveyard and ask the holy dead to pray on their behalf. The whole notion of saints (in Hebrew, hasidim hasidim) is not much thought of in mainstream Judaism. But in Meron, near Safed, at Lag B"omer, Sephardim, kabbalists, and Hasidim make an annual pilgrimage to the tomb of the holy rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the reputed author of the Zohar Zohar.
So with some sense of familiarity, and wearing newly acquired Muslim yarmulkes, we removed our shoes at the threshold to an open courtyard. I was embarra.s.sed to find holes in my socks. Near the marble edifice of the saint"s tomb, we were greeted by the duago duago, or caretaker, Haji Mubarak Nizami, who later would write to me for contributions in a charmingly obscure letter, asking for help during "Ramzan" for the "large number of saints, Durwaishes, Devotees and poors" who gather at the dargah "from and near to offer prayers."
When we reentered the teeming bazaar, Blu got into a price dispute with a Muslim yarmulke vendor. In the joy of haggling, which Jews and Muslims share, she didn"t notice the crowd she was drawing. I took her by the arm and as we rushed to our car, we were mobbed. We slammed the doors shut as Ran gunned the engine and the beggars beat their palms on the sides of the car. Now I knew how Richard Gere felt.
Nathan Katz had worried with some affection about exposing Blu to the raw poverty of this poor section of Delhi. Personally, on that day of unrest, I just didn"t want to get killed. A Jew could get in trouble in the Muslim part of town. Later we would visit the grave of one who had.
But there were also peaceful precincts to be found. Zalman led us to the nearby shrine of Hazrat Inayat Khan, a contemporary structure of clean white marble oblongs and traceried latticework. As we entered, an ancient doorkeeper in a filthy white tunic and his young granddaughter, holding her little baby brother, stared at us with beautiful, solemn, intense eyes and said not a word.
In 1926, the year before his death, Inayat Khan brought Sufism to the West. A musician and prolific poet, his poems praising G.o.d, Allah, Christ, Ram, Krishna, and Buddha covered the far wall, welcoming all.
I felt very welcome in this syncretic shrine. I personally appreciate any religion that honors poetry. Also, the simplicity of the architecture and its harmony with nature was powerful. A flourishing tree that had long grown near the tomb pierced the roof, adding a lively green touch. Inayat Khan"s tomb was profligate with flowers and I heaped on a few more garlands.
That morning, Zalman and Nathan had davened in their hotel with tefillin tefillin. But Rabbi Schachter told Nathan to stop before Shema Shema, and Nathan knew Reb Zalman had something special in mind now. He asked Nathan and me to join hands with him, and this expert in davenology led us in chanting a familiar prayer. (In English, "The Lord is King, the Lord was King, the Lord will be King, forever and ever.") We repeated it in the style of Sufi dhikr dhikr and, following Zalman, tossed our heads in the four directions of time: left-the past, right-the present, down-the future, and for eternity-lifted high. The three of us became an elaborate human prayer machine-an organic vehicle, a chariot, chanting until our necks were loose and our spirits light. It was about joy finally, the practice behind Zalman"s theory of four worlds, uniting the motions of the body, the words of the mouth, and the meditations of the heart. Especially with Blu there, even with her standing apart as a witness, it seemed we all had come a long way together since the evening in Karnal when Zalman had davened in a Sikh temple. and, following Zalman, tossed our heads in the four directions of time: left-the past, right-the present, down-the future, and for eternity-lifted high. The three of us became an elaborate human prayer machine-an organic vehicle, a chariot, chanting until our necks were loose and our spirits light. It was about joy finally, the practice behind Zalman"s theory of four worlds, uniting the motions of the body, the words of the mouth, and the meditations of the heart. Especially with Blu there, even with her standing apart as a witness, it seemed we all had come a long way together since the evening in Karnal when Zalman had davened in a Sikh temple.
Blu had been deeply moved by Dharamsala. She now felt sufficiently relaxed that she could have integrity as an Orthodox Jew but still understand the joy of other religions. Though still guarding her traditional boundaries, she understood "those boundaries were a little larger" than she had come to India thinking.
To Nathan, our prayer in Inayat Khan"s dargha was a meditation. In our freshly purchased, white, lacy Muslim yarmulkes, I thought so too. There was nothing in our prayer a Muslim could not affirm. With so much pain between Jews and Muslims in recent years, I felt a certain release now. I saw as I left the precincts of the dargha that the sculpture on the outer wall was a heart with wings...
So there was my Jewish predicament in a nutsh.e.l.l: one minute, fear and paranoia, mobbed in a Muslim marketplace; the next, praying Jewish Sufi dhikr dhikr. But my depression of the day before was lifting, I was coming up on the side of hope. Maybe our encounter with the Dalai Lama could provide a model for a dialogue between Jews and Muslims. During our visit, the Dalai Lama reaffirmed to Michael Sautman his long-held desire to come to Jerusalem to convene a world conference of religions. That would be a dialogue of dialogues.
Since our trip to India, Zalman Schachter, at a gathering sponsored by the Jewish renewal group, P"nai Or, has made public several practical proposals for increasing dialogue with Muslims.
He mentioned a custom of Jews in Arab lands of providing their neighbors a meal at Eid al Fidr Eid al Fidr at the end of the Muslim fast at Ramadan. He described a at the end of the Muslim fast at Ramadan. He described a bris bris where Muslims were invited as honored guests. Since both groups share the rite of circ.u.mcision, this would be a good point of contact. where Muslims were invited as honored guests. Since both groups share the rite of circ.u.mcision, this would be a good point of contact.
There is an ancient dialogue between Islam and Judaism, but we have forgotten it in the West. For six centuries, Jews and Muslims interacted, and the tenth to twelfth centuries marked a Golden Age for Jews in Muslim Spain, which some have compared to the situation for Jews in America today. In that period, Jewish religion and culture flourished under unusually tolerant Muslim rule. The Jewish poet Judah Halevi borrowed forms and techniques from Arabic poetry and composed his great philosophical work, The Kuzari The Kuzari, in Arabic. The great Spanish kabbalists, such as Moses de Leon and Joseph Gikatilla, also borrowed from Islamic mysticism. Most of the very complex angelology in Jewish mysticism came through Islamic teachings, so that perhaps some of the lore Zalman had given to the Dalai Lama was Islamic in origin.
In these days of continued Arab-Israeli conflict, it would be of benefit to reconciliation if the degree of interpenetration were known more widely-and talked about more in the Jewish community. It seems to me that every time a rabbi gets on a pulpit and denounces an Arab leader, he ought to spend at least some time remembering the great harmony and richness of Jewish-Islamic contact, at least during certain periods in certain countries. History is what we choose to remember, but I think as Jews we are big enough to acknowledge all of our history.
For instance, we had spent hours wondering if we could call the Dalai Lama His Holiness. Our visits to Sufi tombs threw a whole new light on that discussion, because although external influences on Judaism are almost never acknowledged, there is particular evidence that Sufism influenced Jewish concepts of holiness. To this day, yeshiva students study Bahya ibn Pakudah"s Duties of the Heart Duties of the Heart, an eleventhcentury devotional masterpiece written in Arabic during the Golden Age by a dayan dayan, or judge, in the rabbinic court. It is the most influential Jewish guide to the inward quality of Jewish religious conduct. Yet, as the scholar Louis Jacobs points out, throughout the text ibn Pakudah quotes numerous ill.u.s.trative tales of "a certain hasid hasid" who, in fact, was a Sufi saint.
The Golden Age for Jews ended abruptly with the rise of more fanatical Muslims, which forced the greatest medieval Jewish philosopher, Moses Maimonides, to flee Spain for Egypt. Maimonides"s great works, such as The Guide to the Perplexed The Guide to the Perplexed, were written in Arabic and show that he was certainly aware of Sufism. His son, Abraham ben Moses ben Maimon (1186-1237), succeeded his father as nagid nagid, the temporal and spiritual head-in effect the Dalai Lama-of Jewish Cairo. Outside the synagogue, Abraham practiced Sufi-style meditative prayer in his home, with a small group of like-minded Jews. It was very much a chavurah chavurah group and makes Abraham ben Moses ben Maimon a pioneer in Jewish renewal. group and makes Abraham ben Moses ben Maimon a pioneer in Jewish renewal.
In Dharamsala, mystic to mystic proved to be the warmest connection between Judaism and Tibetan Buddhism. Perhaps a similar opening can be found for Jewish-Islamic dialogue in encounters between Sufis and kabbalists.
After stopping off at the Bahai Temple, marble shaped into an immense white lotus, we ate lunch in Bangla Market, vegetarian plates and fresh-squeezed pomegranate juice. Now we were ready for Sarmad.
Like the Taj Mahal, the grand mosque of Delhi, Jama Masjid is a symbol of the splendor of the Moghul rulers of India.
A quarter mile of pavement stretched before us, bordered by park land, the fences lined with vendors selling carpets, baskets, and tapestries. Two young boys and their father sold shish kebab on a huge metal tray garnished with red onions and bright yellow lemons. Musicians squatted on the steps to the mosque playing drums. A young girl of twelve in a ragged green dress tugged at my sleeve. She told me her name was Janet. She insisted I take her picture, then demanded ten rupees for the privilege. Well, she was worth it.
Zalman guided us unerringly to the dargha. We found above the roof of the tomb a weather-beaten red sign telling the story in "English"-"GRAVE ( (MAZAR) HOLY HAZRAT SARMAD HOLY HAZRAT SARMAD His Holiness was executed in the year 1650 by the orders of Emperor Aurangzeb. When his head was chopped he took his head in his hand and climbed stairs of jama masjid and a voice was coming from his head and from that day onward Emperor Aurangzeb could not get peace for a moment." His Holiness was executed in the year 1650 by the orders of Emperor Aurangzeb. When his head was chopped he took his head in his hand and climbed stairs of jama masjid and a voice was coming from his head and from that day onward Emperor Aurangzeb could not get peace for a moment."
Sarmad lived in the time of Shah Jehan, the great Moghul ruler, builder of the Taj Mahal, the Red Fort, and the Jama Masjid mosque. He taught in the court of Shah Jehan"s son, Dara Shikoh, a mystic whose conflict with his more orthodox brother, Aurangzeb, ended in his death. To scholar Annemarie Schimmel, their conflict expresses "those trends which were to result in the part.i.tion of the subcontinent in 1947."
Caught in the middle was Sarmad, a Persian or Armenian Jew, who came to India as a merchant, but like many other visitors before and since, fell under the spell of mysticism. His reputation as a poet and mystic spread to Dara Shikoh, who summoned him to court.
Though nominally a convert to Islam, there"s evidence Sarmad remained a Jew. He encouraged the first translation of the Torah into Persian and contributed the Jewish chapter to an extraordinary work of comparative religion commissioned by Dara Shikoh, the Dabistan. The scholar Walter Fishel notes, "Through the medium of the "Dabistan" Sarmad thus became the channel through which Jewish ideas, though with a Sufic blending, penetrated into the religious fabric of the India of his time."
When I looked at the text, I discovered to my delight that the chapters on "Tabitians" and "Yahuds"-Tibetans and Jews-follow one upon the other. Since Dara Shikoh frequently staged religious debates, it seems very possible that in the Muslim ruler"s court, Sarmad had preceded us in Tibetan-Jewish dialogue three centuries ago. But religious dialogue was not to the taste of Dara Shikoh"s younger brother Aurangzeb. He was offended by his brother"s a.s.sociation with infidels. In 1657, Aurangzeb seized power and executed his brother. Then he rounded up his a.s.sociates.
The "atheist Jew" Sarmad was brought before the new emperor for a theological trial of a kind sickeningly familiar to students of Jewish history. He was asked for a profession of Islamic faith-the traditional Shahadah Shahadah, which resembles the Shema Shema, "There is no G.o.d but G.o.d." Sarmad stopped with, "There is no G.o.d..." When the emperor demanded that he continue, Sarmad replied, "Forgive me, but I am so caught up in the negative, that I can not yet come up to the positive. I cannot tell a lie."
To my ears, this echoes the kabbalistic conception of G.o.d as ain sof ain sof, about which nothing can be stated.
Sarmad means everlasting. That day I thought of another meaning as well. Sarmad is nearly an anagram-for Ram Da.s.s. They had much in common: wandering Jews, spiritual seekers in India, an everlasting type of the syncretic Jew, the polar opposite of the particularist-the spark that flies off the wheel.
Zalman, Blu, Nathan, and I entered his dargha with garlands of flowers. The tomb was fenced by bright red, low walls, and its roof was supported by red and white tiled columns. A bare incandescent bulb poked rudely from a receptacle above the headstone.
Zalman and Nathan said kaddish. It all felt quite right, a recognition of our predecessor in dialogue-or a martyr to intolerance, take your pick. That there was such a thing as a Jewish Muslim saint opened yet another door.
Our last stop was the Sikh temple complex. We were getting tired, but Ran, our Sikh driver, would have been insulted had we not visited his his "shul." It was quite a beauty. A golden onion dome capped a white marble building set in a huge courtyard paved in shining marble tiles. Inside, shiny silver columns supported a pavilion under which the guru sat, a black bearded man in a cobalt blue turban. Three musicians in turbans to his right played hand drums and electric keyboards. "shul." It was quite a beauty. A golden onion dome capped a white marble building set in a huge courtyard paved in shining marble tiles. Inside, shiny silver columns supported a pavilion under which the guru sat, a black bearded man in a cobalt blue turban. Three musicians in turbans to his right played hand drums and electric keyboards.
Blu Greenberg told me later, "I didn"t want to leave that place. I loved watching. My eyes were bulging." With the music going constantly, Blu said she was "taken up in the life of it. What on earth is a nice Orthodox girl doing in a Sikh temple and enjoying herself? I wasn"t praying and yet I wasn"t just standing there coldly and observing. It wasn"t a religious experience for me in the Sikh sense, but it was a religious experience."
I understood what she meant. My contact with Buddhism had opened me up. In Delhi, facing the multiplicity of religious expressions, and the obvious quality of devotion in several of them, I could feel the pressure of competing ident.i.ties burst and melt-it was an emotional confrontation with pluralism that stripped away the need to feel one way was better than another.
Paradoxically, this did not make me feel less a Jew. Rather, I had gained a much broader view of the power of all religions, including my own. As Sarmad had written, "Only when being has been left behind/ Canst thou the only source of Being find." That sounded a lot like the Shema Shema to me. If the source of being is one, then despite the apparent contradictions, this was the One others are worshiping, the One behind the whole sacred whirl. to me. If the source of being is one, then despite the apparent contradictions, this was the One others are worshiping, the One behind the whole sacred whirl.
But who or what was this One?
Before I left on this trip, I was basically an unthinking agnostic-I neither believed nor disbelieved in G.o.d. Now I was haunted by Zalman"s challenge, "Your G.o.d is a true G.o.d," which seemed to give me both enormous freedom and responsibility.
What experience did I have of G.o.d?-that"s what I didn"t understand. There was just-nothing. And a terrible sense often that the world was empty of meaning.
During the Shabbat with the Jewish renewal people in London, Zalman had retold the parable of a Hasidic master. The Kotzker Rebbe explains the seeming absence of G.o.d. G.o.d is like a child who plays hide and seek. He hides, but sadly, no one comes to look for him.
Then Zalman extended the image. He asked us to picture a G.o.d who was not only playing a game that no one else wanted to play, but who feels very lonely sitting in a kind of prison of isolation. This G.o.d is lonely because G.o.d has no peer, G.o.d has no G.o.d.
In fact, G.o.d is an atheist; when Zalman said that, it hit me right where I live and doubt. A G.o.d who is an atheist was something I could relate to.
I am sure that part of the impact was that I did feel rather lonely and apart in the presence of this very warm group of Jews who had formed their own special community.