“As long as I assume the world is something I discover by turning on the radio or looking out the window I am deceived from the start. As long as I imagine that the world is something to be ‘escaped’ in a monastery–that wearing a special costume and following a quaint observance takes me ‘out of this world,’ I am dedicating my life to an illusion. Of course, I hasten to qualify this. I said a moment ago that in a certain historic context of thought and of life this kind of thought and action once made perfect sense. But the moment you change the context, then the whole thing has to be completely transposed. Otherwise you are left like the orchestra in the Max brothers’ Night at the Opera where Harpo had inserted ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game’ in the middle of the operatic score.”
As soon as I attained to His Unity I became a bird with a
Body of Oneness and wings of Evelastingness, and I continued
Flying in the air of Quality for ten years, until I reached
An atmosphere a million times as large, and flew on, until I
Found myself in the field of Eternity and saw there the Tree
Of Oneness.
–Abu Nasr al-Sarraj
http://www.uga.edu/islam/sufism/sarraj.html
The Kitáb al-luma’ fi’l-Tasawwuf of Abú Nasr ‘abdallah b. ‘Ali al-Sarráj al-Tusi; edited for the first time, with critical notes, abstract of contents, glossary, and indices
To consider persons and events and situations only in the light o their effect upon
myself is to live on the doorstep of hell. Selfishness is doomed to frustration, centered as it is upon a lie. To live exclusively for myself, I must make all things bend themselves to my will as if I were a god. But this is impossible. Is there any more cogent indication of my creaturehood than the insufficiency of my own will? For I cannot make the universe obey me. I cannot make other people conform to my own whims and fancies. I cannot make even my own body obey me. When I give it pleasure, it deceives my expectation and makes me suffer pain. When I give myself what I conceive to be freedom, I deceive myself and find that I am the prisoner of my own blindness and selfishness and insufficiency.
It is true, the freedom of my will is a great thing. But this freedom is not absolute
self-sufficiency. If the essence of freedom were merely the act of choice, then the mere
fact of making choices would perfect our freedom. But there are two difficulties here.
First of all, our choices must really be free—that is to say, they must perfect us in our
own being. They must perfect us in our relation to other free beings. We must make
the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves. From this
flows the second difficulty: we too easily assume that we are our real selves, and that
our choices are really the ones we want to make when, in fact, our acts of free choice are (though morally imputable, no doubt) largely dictated by psychological compulsions,
flowing from our inordinate ideas of our own importance. Our choices are too often
dictated by our false selves.
Hence I do not find in myself the power to be happy merely by doing what I like.
On the contrary, if I do nothing except what pleases my own fancy I will be miserable
almost all the time. This would never be so if my will had not been created to use its
own freedom in the love of others.
My free will consolidates and perfects its own autonomy by freely co-ordinating its
action with the will of another. There is something in the very nature of my freedom
that inclines me to love, to do good, to dedicate myself to others. I have an instinct that
tells me that I am less free when I am living for myself alone. The reason for this is that
I cannot be completely independent. Since I am not self-sufficient I depend on someone
else for my fulfillment. My freedom is not fully free when left to itself. It becomes so
when it is brought into the right relation with the freedom of another.
At the same time, my instinct to be independent is by no means evil. My freedom is
not perfected by subjection to a tyrant. Subjection is not an end in itself. It is right that
my nature should rebel against subjection. Why should my will have been created free,
if I were never to use my freedom?
If my will is meant to perfect its freedom in serving another will, that does not mean
it will find its perfection in serving every other will. In fact, there is only one will in
whose service I can find perfection and freedom. To give my freedom blindly to a being
equal to or inferior to myself is to degrade myself and throw away my freedom. I can
only become perfectly free by serving the will of God. If I do, in fact, obey other men
and serve them it is not for their sake alone that I will do so, but because their will is the
sacrament of the will of God. Obedience to man has no meaning unless it is primarily
obedience to God. From this flow many consequences. Where there is no faith in God
there can be no real order; therefore, where there is no faith obedience is without any
sense. It can only be imposed on others as a matter of expediency. If there is no God,
no government is logical except tyranny. And in actual fact, states that reject the idea of
God tend either to tyranny or to moral chaos. In either case, the end is disorder, because tyranny is itself a disorder. The immature conscience is not its own master. It is merely the delegate of the conscience of another person, or of a group, or of a party, or of a social class, or of a nation, or of a race. Therefore, it does not make real moral decisions of its own, it simply parrots the decisions of others. It does not make judgments of its own, it merely “conforms” to the party line. It does not really have motives or intentions of its own. Or if it does, it wrecks them by twisting and rationalizing them to fit the intentions of another. That is not moral freedom. It makes true love impossible. For if I am to love truly and freely, I must be able to give something that is truly my own to another. If my heart does not first belong to me, how can I give it to another? It is not mine to give!
Free will is not given to us merely as a firework to be shot off into the air. There
are some men who seem to think their acts are freer in proportion as they are without
purpose, as if a rational purpose imposed some kind of limitation upon our liberty. That
is like saying that one is richer if he throws money out the window than if he spends it.
Since money is what it is, I do not deny that you may be worthy of all praise if you
light your cigarettes with it. That would show you had a deep, pure sense of the ontological value of the dollar. Nevertheless, if that is all you can think of doing with money you will not long enjoy the advantages that it can still obtain.
It may be true that a rich man can better afford to throw money out the window
than a poor man, but neither the spending nor the waste of money is what makes a man
rich. He is rich by virtue of what he has, and his riches are valuable to him for what he
can do with them.
As for freedom, according to this analogy, it grows no greater by being wasted, or
spent, but it is given to us as a talent to be traded with until the coming of Christ. In
this trading we part with what is ours only to recover it with interest. We do not destroy
it or throw it away. We dedicate it to some purpose, and this dedication makes us freer
In every interaction there is a giving and receiving that happens simultaneously at multiple levels. Each level of giving and receiving constitutes a unification. The base level is when the giver gives what is to be given and the receiver receives it. The giver gives a vessel and the receiver receives and takes possession of the vessel being given. This is how conventional street wisdom understands giving and receiving.
This base level is not unified when the transaction is not complete. That is, when the receiver does not take possession of what is given. But this is not the only level. For the giver gives not only the vessel but also gives a spiritual essence along with the vessel. The spiritual essence is the essence of the giving from the giver’s point of view. The essence is relative to the giver’s intent of the giving and to how the giver hopes the receiver will be able to utilize the given vessel for both physical and spiritual purposes.
When the receiver receives what is being given, the receiver not only receives the vessel, but also receives the spiritual essence of what is given, as this spiritual essence is interpreted by the receiver. In the complete transaction, the receiver indicates to the giver that the receiver has received the spiritual essence of the giving by giving back to the giver the acceptance of the giving. For the receiver, in accepting what is given, is also giving this acceptance to the giver. To complete the unification at this level, the giver must accept the receiver’s acceptance.
This second level of unification is easily understood by thinking about the usual social etiquette in the giving of a gift. The giver gives and the receiver receives. The receiver says something like, “Thank you, it is just what I wanted.” indicating such an acceptance of what is received that the receiver’s acceptance constitutes the receiver’s giving to the initial giver. Then the initial giver says something like “Enjoy and use it well.” This constitutes the initial giver’s acceptance of the receiver’s giving the receiver’s acceptance of what the initial giver has given. Because the receiver has already told the giver that “it was just what I wanted,” the giver’s statement, “enjoy and use it well,” completes the unification.
But when the receiver does not accept what the giver is giving, the transaction is not complete. Instead of a unification there is a disunification. The giver will feel rejected or angry. And unless the giver is able to control these feelings, the giver will initiate an entire new action sequence that in effect rejects the receiver’s giving that consists of a rejection of the initial giver’s giving. It would not be unusual for the initial giver’s rejection to be emotionally raw and initiating a new round of disunifications.
There is yet another level to the giving and receiving that is not necessarily apparent from the verbal social interaction. This level is a higher spiritual level and has to do with the more global understanding and intent of the giver and the receiver. This level is activated when the giver understands and feels that the giver has been the receiver of Divine giving and as an agent of the Divine, the giver chooses to pass along the giving. The giver’s understanding and feeling that the giver has been the receiver of the Divine giving constitutes the giver’s acceptance of the Divine giving. For this the giver thinks or says a blessing. This level is unified when the receiver understands that the giver is in fact acting as an agent of the Divine and therefore, the receiving is not just a physical/spiritual receiving, but a spiritual receiving from the Divine as well. For this the receiver thinks, says or gives a blessing. And this constitutes the receiver’s acceptance of the Divine giving.
There is one higher spiritual level. This is the level at which both giver and receiver make a conscious choice to understand everything happening in their lives starting from the point of receiving the Divine giving. This is the level of so aligning their individual wills with the Divine will that the giver and receiver are always evaluating and understanding, not from their individual point of view, nor from their family’s point of view, nor even from their country’s point of view. But they are evaluating and understanding from the point of view of the Creator. The issue is whether the act in question will in its direct and indirect effects be of greater benefit to the universe than any other act that could be undertaken.
We call this level the level of cosmic consciousness. It carries with it a central internal calmness and peacefulness, an equanimity, that cannot be shaken. For at this level, the ego is nullified. There is no reason for reacting or getting upset about the seemingly bad things that others are doing. There is no reason for being upset about a giving that is not being received. All this is understood as the hand of the Divine setting up situations that make possible the revealment of the highest level of virtue that we, to whom the badness is done, or we whose giving has been rejected, are capable of revealing. For it is in these situations that we have the possibility of bringing into manifestion (open revealment) the virtues of a tzaddik.
The challenging or difficult situations are precisely those situations in which a special Divine spiritual giving is occuring to us. The issue is whether we are open for receiving it. When we are, we are deeply thankful for this possibility. We complete the transaction by completely receiving what has been given and we do what must be done to reveal the highest level of virtue that we can. Our center is not moved and we experience indescribable delight.
Let us consider the situation where the giver forces the receiver to receive something the receiver does not want to receive. The receiver may not want to receive the given vessel itself or may not want to receive the spiritual essence given along with the vessel, or may not want to receive either. For example, what happens when the giver gives an insult to the receiver or when the giver-merchant overcharges the receiver-buyer. In these kinds of giving the receiver has been wronged and the unification of the complete-giving/complete-receiving will not happen, unless the receiver acts in a specially virtuous way.
The insulting statement not only is a put down, but it is not true. The overcharging merchant is not fair. We engaged in the transaction with an implicit understanding that the exchange was to be a fair exchange. We had no desire to get from the merchant either more than what is proper or less than what is proper for the fair exchange. We, the receiver have been violated by the bad thing given to us.
Let us look more closely at the situation. The giver was in control. The giver was the initiator and was responsible for the wrong doing given to the receiver, a wrong doing that has a dimension of vessel and has a dimension of spiritual essence. And the receiver must receive the bad thing the giver is giving. How can the receiver completely receive such a giving? For the giving by nature was not complete.
In another kind of situation, we may be the giver who gives essential and important information to a receiver. But the receiver actively rejects the information. Here, the rejection by the receiver constatutues a giving to the initial giver and the initial giver becomes the receiver of the initial receiver’s rejection of the initial giver’s giving. This rejection by the receiver constitutes the receiver’s giving back to us. Our perception of this giving is that it is not a good giving. We have received something bad. When we receive a bad thing we feel bad for having been wronged; we get angry. An injustice was done. Our essential being has been violated.
In every situation that we do not completely receive, we judge that in some sense we have been violated. When we are violated we get angry. As the receiver, our problem is to completely receive a violation! How can we do that?
We must think as follows: We must think that the giver of the violation is the hand of God. Perhaps the bad we have been given is spiritually similar to a bad that we had earlier given to someone else. Or perhaps it is a bad that we were about to give to someone else. Or perhaps the bad we have been given carries within it a spark of Godliness and the situation has been expressly created for us to provide an opportunity to bring into action a virtue, to manifest a quality of Godliness, that is beyond what might be ordinarily expected. For example, God might have expressly created the situation for the purpose of providing us the possibility to manifest the appropriate virtues which would help the giver become a complete giver. If we, the receiver, could do this then since the giving would be complete, the receiving would be complete and the violation and hurt would disappear from existence. Or God might have expressly created the situation for the purpose of providing the possibility for us to manifest the virtues required to enable us to be a complete receiver of what the hand of God has given us. This latter case commonly happens for the purpose of bringing the realization to the receiver that the receiver must change the way the receiver makes judgements so that the the receiver might learn how to be more correct in interpreting the spiritual essence of what has been given.
Our first step to completely receive the bad is to accept the hurt and move on to take action which brings out the sparks of Godliness concealed within the bad, i.e. to act as the tzaddik. When we do this, something very interesting happens. Because we begin to engage in an action to reveal Godliness, the hurt goes away. It dissolves.
Initially it is the ego within us that yells: hurt! hurt! hurt! Return hurt to that which has hurt us! Withdraw from, isolate, conquer or destroy that which has hurt us! But as soon as we engage in an action to reveal Godliness, the ego becomes occupied as the coordinator of the activity we engage in to bring out and reveal the spark of Godliness. The ego which had been yelling hurt no longer is in existence.
With respect to the giver of the wrong, there is more. For the giver has not become a complete giver. To facilitate the giver becoming a complete giver the receiver must try, in a proper way, to make sure that all the facts are known by the giver. For perhaps if the giver more fully understands what actually happened, the giver would have acted differently. Doing this properly means that the receiver must fully understand the giver’s assumptions, perspectives, and framework of operation, so that the receiver can engage a dialog with the giver and do so from the giver’s point of view. This kind of dialog can straighten out mistakes made by the giver at the level of vessel or mistakes by the giver at the level of spiritual essence of what is given, or mistakes made by the receiver relative to the interpretation of the spiritual essence of what has been given.
If this level of action does not work, the receiver may initiate actions which catalyze social pressure to be put on the giver to right the wrong. Or the receiver may take legal action. Or the receiver may take no further action and just drop the situation. But for the receiver, the essence of what the receiver does is to help facilatate the giver to become a complete giver and for the receiver to become a complete receiver.
Now let us consider the situation from the point of view of the giver. How does the giver completely give in this situation in which the giver has just given a bad to the receiver. First the giver has to come to a recognition that a bad had been given. When the giver recognizes that the giver has made a mistake, the giver must immediately stop any other activities that involve making the same mistake and resolve not to make similar mistakes in the future. Then the giver must right all the similar past wrongs that the giver committed. This level is the level of nullifying the bad vessel of what had been given. The amount overcharged the receiver must be returned to the receiver. The giver must explain to the receiver that the giver made a mistake and that the giver will not make the mistake again. The insult must be taken back. The giver must go to the receiver and explain to the receiver of the insult that the giver no longer feels about or judges the receiver in such an insulting way.
Finally, the giver tells the receiver that the giver is sorry for having made the mistake. This is important because it is the action which undoes the giver’s intent of giving the bad to the receiver and/or undoes the receiver’s judgement that the giver had intended to give the bad to the receiver. This level is the level of nullifying the bad spiritual essence of what had been initially given.
The receiver completely receives the giver’s taking back of the giver’s mistake and completely receives the giver’s regrets by telling the giver that the receiver has forgiven the giver. Everything now is all right. All is forgiven. The giver receives or acknowledges the receiver’s acceptance of the giver’s taking back of the giver’s bad by telling the receiver “thankyou for understanding.” This level is the level of unification that completes the nullifying of the bad spiritual essence of what had been initially given.
This process of recognizing the mistake, stopping all other such mistakes that may be in process, resolving not to make such future mistakes, righting all the wrongs, and telling the receiver of the mistake that the giver is sorry constitute the process of return. The bad, both the vessel and its spiritual essence, which had been brought into existence is completely taken out of existence. It is returned to non-existence. We call this process Teshuvah, whose literal meaning is reply, answer, response, rejoinder, return, or repentance. It is related to the root שוב and associated with the passage:
And you shall return unto the Lord your God and hearken to His voice according to all that I command you this day, you and your children, with all your heart and with all your soul.{Deuteronomy 30:2.}
When we have made an error by incompletely giving or incompletely receiving, Teshuvah is our response, our reply, our answer, to the repair which must be done. It is the way we can recover from a mistake and continue on the mission of completely receiving and giving that we are called upon to do. Completing this mission is our return to a greater nearness to God, to a greater God-consciousness. Completely receiving and giving is how we unify God’s name.
Israel ben Moses Najara (c. 1555, Damascus – c. 1625, Gaza) (Heb.ישראל בן משה נאג’ארהYisrael ben Moshe Najarah) was a Jewish liturgical poet, preacher, Biblical commentator, kabbalist, and rabbi of Gaza.
According to Franco (Histoire des Israélites de l’Empire Ottoman,
p. 79, Paris, 1897), there is another account which declares that
Najara was born about 1530 and that he lived for some years at Adrianople. From his secular poems, which he wrote in the meters of various Turkish, Spanish, and modern Greek songs, it is evident that he knew well several foreign languages. He travelled extensively in the Near East, had lived in Safed, where he came under the extensive influence of LurianicKabbalah and served as a rabbi at the Jewish community of Gaza.
As may be seen from his works, he was a versatile scholar, and he corresponded with many contemporary rabbis, among others with Bezaleel Ashkenazi, Yom-Ṭob Ẓahalon, Moses Hamon, and Menahem Ḥefeẓ. His poetic effusions were exceptionally numerous, and many of them were translated into Persian. While still young he composed many religious hymns, to Arabic and Turkish tunes, with the intention, as he says in the preface to his Zemirot Yisrael, of turning the Jewish youth from profane songs. He wrote piyyuṭim, pizmonim, seliḥot, widduyim, and dirges for all the week-days and for Sabbaths, holy days, and occasional ceremonies, these piyyuṭim being collected in his Zemirot Yisrael. Many of the piyyuṭim are in Aramaic.
For his hymns on the marriage of God and Israel, Najara was severely blamed by Menahem Lonzano (Shete Yadot, p. 142) when the latter was at Damascus. The Shibḥe Ḥayyim Wiṭal (p. 7b) contains a violent attack by Ḥayyim Vital upon a poet whose name is not mentioned, but who some take to be Israel Najara. Nevertheless, Isaac Luria, Vital’s teacher, declared that Najara’s hymns were listened to with delight in heaven. His piyyuṭim were praised also by Leon of Modena, who composed a song in his honor, which was printed at the beginning of the Olat Shabbat, the second part of the Zemirot Yisrael.
He is buried in the ancient Jewish cemetery in Gaza. His son, Moses Najara was also a poet, who succeeded his father as the chief rabbi of Gaza.
For
we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We
are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and
non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from
every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of
civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger
and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall
someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the
world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that
America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.
To
the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest
and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow
conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West — know that your
people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To
those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing
of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we
will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.
To
the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make
your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies
and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy
relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to
suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world’s resources
without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change
with it.