Mishpatim: God near or far, and the Art of Love

On Saturday, it will be Valentine’s Day.

To be honest, it doesn’t mean much to me,. While I am familiar with these secular holidays of the culture I happened to be born into—as the descendant of Semites from the Middle East, exiled from their land a few millennia ago—they don’t touch so much my heart. My time is Jewish.

My New Years are Rosh Hashanah, which marks the beginning of fall in Israel, and Tu BiShvat, the fifteenth of the month of Shvat, in the heart of winter. My Valentine’s Day is Tu B’Av, the fifteenth of the month of Av, at the peak of summer.

But still.

As the scholar Benjamin Harshav coined it, I come from a people whose culture is irrevocably “polyphonic.”

And so it made me smile that this Shabbat happens to be Valentine’s Day.

It made me smile because this Shabbat, we will read Parashat Mishpatim, and the commentary of the Kedushat Levi, in a way, speaks precisely about that: love.

What makes love alive?

This is how I read his commentary, as he is really speaking about our relationship with the Divine.

It all starts with this strange, mythical scene, coming right at the end of what is nonetheless the most pragmatic parashah ever—Mishpatim basically reads like a civil code, a long list of ordinances of justice.

Yet at the end, returning to Bnei Israel still camping in front of Mount Sinai, we read that Moshe, Aharon, and seventy elders are called to—literally—ascend and “see the Divine.”

But first, they receive the following instruction (Shemot 24:1):

וְאֶל־מֹשֶׁה אָמַר עֲלֵה אֶל־יְהֹוָה אַתָּה וְאַהֲרֹן נָדָב וַאֲבִיהוּא וְשִׁבְעִים מִזִּקְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְהִשְׁתַּחֲוִיתֶם מֵרָחֹק׃

“And He said to Moses: ‘Come up to the LORD—you, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel—and you shall bow down from afar.’”

Picking up on the term rachok, “far,” the Kedushat Levi reminds us that there are two aspects of the Divine: b’chinát rachok, the aspect of distance, and b’chinát karov, the aspect of closeness.

One points to the Ein Sof, the Infinite, which, he says, is far from us in the sense that it is ungraspable by the mind.The second points to the omnipresence of the Divine among us, whose glory “fills the whole world.” This is the Shekhinah, the Divine presence.

So, is God transcendent or immanent?

Are we dealing with the Infinite, or with close presence?

The Jewish answer is: both.

At the same time.

And for the Kedushat Levi, when we bow down—when we surrender to life—suddenly we bridge the gap.

We make ourselves much closer to life.

We stop resisting it. We stop trying to control it. We give ourselves to it.And when we do, it becomes deeply intimate.

This type of teaching can be found in non-dual traditions across cultures.

When we humble ourselves before the mystery, we make the Infinite infinitely close.

So it should be in human love, one of my rebbes reminds us—psychologist Esther Perel.

In every human relationship, there is a tension between the erotic pull of mystery and our search for intimacy.

When we are able to hold both aspects—the near and the far of the Other—our love stays alive. I made it one of my main practices in my relationship: I consciously do my best, each day, to bown down low, literally and in my heart, to the one I love. Whether he inspires me or not to do so.

Because it is a practice. I bow down low to the mystery of otherness and to the miracle of intimacy. And so do I want to bow down low to the world, to Life and to God, everyday.

As we prepare to celebrate Shabbat Mevarechim, the Shabbat on which we bless the upcoming month of Adar, may we bow down low to life, to love, and to those we love—with respect, humility, and devotion.

In the Buddhist tradition, this is contained in the greeting “namaste.” We bow down to the enlightened part in each of us.

Imagine if the whole world were doing this with one another right now.

How about it starts with me?