Re'eh. Shabbat Mevare'him Ellul. Gardener of my heart, gardener of the world

Chasidut is precious to me because it invites me to open my eyes and go beyond the pshat (literal level of reading of the text.)

The Jewish Mystical tradition reminds me that when the torah speaks about wars and the exodus from Egypt, it is talking about my own inner battles and breakthroughs. That when it introduces me to difficult characters such pharaoh and Amalek, these “bad others” are none other than parts of me.

Yes the biblical narrative is a beautiful tapestry of meaning, made of stories woven from colorful and sometimes violent, beautiful and sometimes disturbing, moving and always full of meaning parabolas that point the way right back in, to inner work.

So too when it comes to this commandment we read towards the opening of parashat Re’eh :

“You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations whom you are dispossessing served their gods.”(Devarim 12.2)

אַבֵּ֣ד תְּאַבְּד֠וּן אֶת־כָּל־הַמְּקֹמ֞וֹת אֲשֶׁ֧ר עָֽבְדוּ־שָׁ֣ם הַגּוֹיִ֗ם אֲשֶׁ֥ר אַתֶּ֛ם יֹֽרְשִׁ֥ים אֹתָ֖ם 

The language is quite radical: on the pshat of it, Bnei Israel are to ‘eradicate’ -literally to uproot - all traces of idolatry from the promised land.But if we translate this verse in the language of  inner work, it reads like this: 

The promised land is our potential -what we can become if we keep walking through the desert of our growth, and “cross over” our present limitations.

It is to such an inner reading that Reb Yehuda Arieh Leib Alter m’Gur,  the Sfat Emet it is taking us.

To him, the instruction here speaks about spiritual work: the traces of idolatry if have to eradicate applies to my own. And we are talking about my heart.

The Sfat Emet builds his commentary upon Rashi’s comment on the opening expression of the verse 

אַבֵּ֣ד תְּאַבְּד֠וּן

“Abed Ta’abdun”: 

“destroy, you shall destroy.”

To Rashi, the expression means we are not just to destroy idolatry, but to eradicate it.

To “eradicate”, from the latin word ‘radicus”, roots, points to a form of utter, definitive destruction: 

it speaks not just of cutting off something, but also about going all the way down to the roots so that nothing can regrow.

Going right down to the root of things is necessary at times. 

So it goes in surgery, with deeply ingrained physical illnesses.

And so it goes with our character traits.

I remember two of my teachers, a long time ago, speaking of the necessity of doing more than superficial work of dusting our hearts, but the call to go deeper, to go all the way down to the root of our negative character traits.Yes if we really wanted to cleanse our whole selves, we have to go into what the system of sefirot calls the midah of “gevurah”- strength, boundary settings, severity.

My two teachers of the time, Vietnamese Zen Buddhist Monk and Non Dual American teacher Adyashanti were both offering the metaphor of gardening.

Here is what they were teaching:

If we cut the bad weeds, we will have temporary relief, and a temporarily looking good garden. But they will regrow.

If we truly want to cleanse the garden of our heart, we have to be patient and go deeper. The work will be more arduous.

We’ll to dig deep and wide in order to go all the way down until we grasp all the roots, and then uproot the qualities of heart that are not skillful: the ones that create suffering for ourselves and others.We all have them, and we each have more or less of each. 

They are called: comparison, envy, anger, self-centeredness, ungratefulness, impatience, impulsivity….

You know yours.

At least I hope. I know mine.

My inner work started in the world of Buddhism, many years ago.

This may be why I was so moved when I discovered the same teaching from the Sfat Emet.For sure here the metaphor here is slightly different.

We are not talking about garden, but the promised land, and the bad weeds are idolatry. But the movement is just the same.

Here is how the Sfat Emet understands the passuk’s instruction in the light of consciousness work

והוא כלל לכל עקרית מדה ותאוה רעה. 

And this is a general principle for every root of negative trait or desire:

This is what the metaphor of “idolatry” points to, for the Sfat Emet, in this context: my dark side.

לבד הביטול במעשה. 

It is not enough merely to nullify it  through action

צריכין לעקור כל רשימה רעה בלב. 

We must also uproot every trace of it from the heart.

And just like that, we are back to the garden of my heart.

I need to go deeper.

It is good to hold myself from shouting when I am angry.

But it is not enough.

I need to go deeper.

I need to go right down under the surface of my skin, into the earth of my unconscious patterns and emotional conditioning. I need to touch the anger and the impulsivity, the judgment and the self-centeredness.

I need to meet my dark side if I want to cleanse it.

This shabbat will be shabbat mevarechim, the shabbat in which we will bless the upcoming month.

We have arrived to Ellul:  the month of Teshuvah, in which we are invited to "return to our true nature."

About the month of Ellul, the Sefer Yetsirah teaches us that it corresponds to the Left Kidney- an organ which, according to the talmud, corresponds to our dark side.

What perfect timing.

American Psychologist Carl Rogers famously wrote: “the curious paradox is that only when I accept myself as I am, then I can change.”

Indeed. I cannot change anything if I constantly deny my shadow side. 

This may be why Ellul is the month of the dark side: this is the time, not just to meet the king in the field, but to dig under the grass, into the dark earth of my being, and to be a gardener of my heart.

I owe it to myself. I owe it to the world, too.

Have you noticed?

Left and right, literally, the whole world is acting out right now. 

And yes if you read me you know: I always come back to this place.

According to the kabbalistic worldview, each of us has a responsibility to help fix this world.

 I cannot, in the blink of an eye, change the state of the world, put an end to war, and open the eyes and hearts of political leaders.

But I can change the state of me, put an end to my own war against myself- and interestingly, then I am less at war with others, and open the eyes of my heart.That I can do. It might be nothing.It is better than nothing.We are all one big garden. We all have impact each other.

This shabbat, as we bless the upcoming month of Ellul, may we become the gardeners not just of our own hearts, but of our common humanity.