I’m thinking this week about the distinction between the material and the spiritual.
Before I go further I should probably define the word spiritual. Depending on your sensibility, the word can either be a turn-off or an invitation to explore; something to which you say, no thank you or yes please. Some associate “spiritual” with a sense of “woo-woo,” crystals, and chants; others, like Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, define Jewish spirituality as an approach to life that encourages us to become aware of God’s presence and purpose, even in unlikely places. In other words, spiritual alludes to that which comes from God but which we cannot empirically touch, see, measure.
Rabbi Alan Lew cites a notion of this in his famous High Holiday tome, This Is Real And You Are Completely Unprepared. In it he cites inventor R. Buckminster Fuller’s answer to his students’ question of who the most important figure of the 20th century was.
“Sigmund Freud, he said without a moment’s hesitation.” His students were shocked. “Why Freud? Why not Einstein, about whom Fuller had written extensively, or some other figure from the world of science or economics or architecture, to which he had devoted his considerable energy?
So Fuller explained himself. Sigmund Freud, he said, was the one who had introduced the single great idea upon which all the significant developments of the twentieth century had rested: the invisible is more important than the visible. You would never have had Einstein if Freud hadn’t convinced the world of this first. You would never have had nuclear physics.
For all Freud’s animus against Judaism, his idea was an extremely Jewish one.” Lew wrote. “In fact,” he said “it may not be too much to suggest that it is the Jewish idea… Judaism came to say that beneath [the] appearance of conflict, multiplicity, and caprice there was a oneness, a singularity, all-powerful and endlessly compassionate, endlessly just.”
Now, In some ways, Judaism doesn’t always love the distinction between material and spiritual. It all comes from God, Judaism says. Spirituality can be found everywhere, including the corporeal. Hasidut/Hasidism, the modern, mystical movement has a tenet called Avodah b’gashmiyut — service to the divine through corporeality, through the material. A bite of an apple with the right kavanah, the right intentionality can free a spark, can lift up a divine spark hidden in an apple, reuniting it with its divine source — service to the divine through corporeality.
So drawing a distinction between the material and the spiritual is not to suggest asceticism—is not to suggest we Jews should deprive ourselves of material/bodily engagement as a means to spiritual ends. Judaism says we can very much find spirituality within the material.
Still the word spiritual, ruchani, implies something within or beyond that which we can perceive. The word ruch-spirit, is the same as the word for wind— spirituality is in the wind—ungraspable.
So what help can this concept of spirituality in Judaism, as distinct from the material, the perceptible, bring us?
It comes up for me in the context of theodicy, which is the fancy word theologians use for how to make sense of the fact that there is injustice in the world — that there is heartbreak. How can we reconcile a God we are called upon to love — v’ahavta et adonai eloeichah — you shall love Adonai your God, with all your heart; with all your soul; and with all your might —how can we reconcile a God we are called upon to love, with the heartbreak we see in the world?
One way to answer this question, also grounded in Hasidut, which I learned from Rabbi Art Green, is the notion that we are called upon to act on the material plane, to work to repair this broken world, while God underlies it all in the spiritual realm. It’s our work to engage with tikkun olam — to work to repair brokenness, but we draw our inspiration from Hashem in the ever present spiritual dimension. God has a need for humanity to act on the material plane, while we take our inspiration from the spiritual one, drawing on the infinite source of love that is Adonai. It is a partnership.
This idea flows from a Jewish midrash on the creation of the universe, wherein to make space for the creation of the world God had to withdraw a part of God’s self — tzimtzum, as we say in Hebrew — for before that, all was God, and nothing could exist but God. The withdrawal of part of God’s self meant there could be the material world, and God reintroduced God’s light in order to create it, but the withdrawal also also meant there would be imperfection, flaw — and humanity was created — an imperfect humanity — to help heal the brokenness that was inherently a part of that world; an imperfect humanity operating on an imperfect material plane— drawing inspiration and nourishment from the spiritual — remaining connected to God whose presence imbued the world, but who could not or would not intervene on that material plane.
An element of this shows up in this week’s parshah, Vaykikra — the first torah portion in the Book of Leviticus, a book built around the mysterious practices, facilitated by the levites, of bringing offerings to God in the sanctuary.
As Rabbi Anne Brenner writes, “as the ancients watched their offerings go up in smoke, [these offerings] made the transition from matter to spirit and connected with an invisible and omnipotent God.” The sacrificial offerings highlighted the tension between the material and the spiritual: the Israelites would take something of significant material value to themselves — a choice offering from their flock — and watch it transform into the spiritual: first into smoke and then evaporating altogether, imagining it cross over from realm to realm, to God. Material to spiritual — God present in it all, but signaling this difference in dimensions.
One way of articulating this difference in real life, is to use a distinction articulated by Rabbi Brenner: that difference between being cured and being healed. In this imperfect world in which we live, there is sickness; there is death. That is the world in which we find ourselves.
Still, we pray for healing. When we feel a tearing in our heart, a tearing in our soul, we pray for healing.
“The Misheberach prays for a refuah shelema (complete healing) of body and soul,” the concept of dual realms of healing — body and soul — encourages an understanding that refuat haguf —healing of the body and refuat hanefesh — healing of the soul — are at once distinct and interrelated, and this awareness helps those who suffer confront the erroneous notion that healing and cure are synonymous. Promoting this understanding teaches that sometimes the body’s symptoms ameliorate but the soul continues to ache, and other times the body does not heal but there is a transformation and healing of the soul. In addition, sometimes the expanded view of the meaning of refuah shelema must in some cases include the difficult truth that relief will come only with death and that this, too, is a form of healing. By offering the Misheberach or other prayer and sharing these insights, [we can promote] the belief that even in the absence of a cure, healing is still possible. This shift in understanding is a healing in itself.” Healing can happen even when there is no cure.
To be clear, none of this teaching is meant to suggest we should minimize someone’s pain, suffering, or loss because there is a parallel notion of healing beyond the physical. Healing can’t happen when we try to rush or smother someone’s grief. But it is to suggest that being Jewish includes and makes available the understanding that there can be a deeper level of healing and reconciliation with Hashem even above and beyond the physical. It invites us to experience our life in two realms—the material and the spiritual, the mundane and the holy, the holiness within and the holiness beyond.
