discussing Joseph
Dec. 20th, 2004 03:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
awhyzipInteresting discussion at the Torah study group last Saturday, as always. Reading the part of the Joseph story where he reveals his identity to his brothers after Judah challenges him. We got onto themes that I would *not* have previously thought connected to the story.
I took from the discussion the idea that the story can be understood in the framework of illusion. There are illusions, and worldviews, and false stories. Illusion is also a conceptual key for thinking about "exile". That's in this story too, metaphorically and actually. One of the most significant aftershocks of revealing a truth from behind an illusion is the realization that there are *other illusions that you cannot see past yet*. Sometimes you might be aware that there is an illusion or a block in some area, but most of them are fully invisible beforehand, right?
When you possess a veiling illusion but you know that there's something beyond your limitation, somthing that others are aware of, I would call that state beyond a "Mystery." Yes, the kind with a capital "M" but no levity in the tone-of-voice. And no matter how much you are told about it or read or whatever or think on it, you cannot understand the Mystery with your illusion in place. You can know a lot, but there is a level of understanding at which you are not operating.
I was not expecting the discussion to move to conception and the experience of birth. It did. The connections that interested and drew the other talkers to the subject weren't salient for me. I would never have taken the discussion in that direction, but it was clear that for several or most of the people in the group, the act and experience of birth were very connected to this story. I listened and I followed the lines of the conversation, but to me this was Mystery.
It used to be this way to me when our havurah or books or poems would discuss personal spirituality. Connection to God, or to other sources beyond yourself. I knew there was such a thing as a spiritual life, and I could say words to talk about it, but I knew I didn't understand it. This was a source of sorrow to me until Valerie Gorbulov taught me yearing for spirituality is also a stage of spiritual awareness. You recognize a lack. Or in other terms, you are aware of the presence of an exiling illusion.
I've been reaching past this spiritual illusion, and making this connection more and more this year. More fulfillment from rituals. Thinking of ways to bring that to more practices. Overwhelming images that come to me occasionally when I pray. Often, a sense that someone/thing is there when I direct words to God. The many names of God in my siddur (Kol Haneshamah) no longer seem silly.
I'm just beginning, but at last I know that I'm not merely a-spiritual.
Another example of an illusion/Mystery is sexuality. I've been past that veil for much longer, but I remember, from before, a time of a-sexuality. Developing spirituality from aspirituality reminds me of developing sexuality from asexuality. Someday I imagine I will develop whatever aspect connects life & birth & deliverance to the Joseph story for the other men and women in the torah study.
The E. Ch. community is deeper than I yet am. I greatly value what I can learn from being a part of that.
I took from the discussion the idea that the story can be understood in the framework of illusion. There are illusions, and worldviews, and false stories. Illusion is also a conceptual key for thinking about "exile". That's in this story too, metaphorically and actually. One of the most significant aftershocks of revealing a truth from behind an illusion is the realization that there are *other illusions that you cannot see past yet*. Sometimes you might be aware that there is an illusion or a block in some area, but most of them are fully invisible beforehand, right?
When you possess a veiling illusion but you know that there's something beyond your limitation, somthing that others are aware of, I would call that state beyond a "Mystery." Yes, the kind with a capital "M" but no levity in the tone-of-voice. And no matter how much you are told about it or read or whatever or think on it, you cannot understand the Mystery with your illusion in place. You can know a lot, but there is a level of understanding at which you are not operating.
I was not expecting the discussion to move to conception and the experience of birth. It did. The connections that interested and drew the other talkers to the subject weren't salient for me. I would never have taken the discussion in that direction, but it was clear that for several or most of the people in the group, the act and experience of birth were very connected to this story. I listened and I followed the lines of the conversation, but to me this was Mystery.
It used to be this way to me when our havurah or books or poems would discuss personal spirituality. Connection to God, or to other sources beyond yourself. I knew there was such a thing as a spiritual life, and I could say words to talk about it, but I knew I didn't understand it. This was a source of sorrow to me until Valerie Gorbulov taught me yearing for spirituality is also a stage of spiritual awareness. You recognize a lack. Or in other terms, you are aware of the presence of an exiling illusion.
I've been reaching past this spiritual illusion, and making this connection more and more this year. More fulfillment from rituals. Thinking of ways to bring that to more practices. Overwhelming images that come to me occasionally when I pray. Often, a sense that someone/thing is there when I direct words to God. The many names of God in my siddur (Kol Haneshamah) no longer seem silly.
I'm just beginning, but at last I know that I'm not merely a-spiritual.
Another example of an illusion/Mystery is sexuality. I've been past that veil for much longer, but I remember, from before, a time of a-sexuality. Developing spirituality from aspirituality reminds me of developing sexuality from asexuality. Someday I imagine I will develop whatever aspect connects life & birth & deliverance to the Joseph story for the other men and women in the torah study.
The E. Ch. community is deeper than I yet am. I greatly value what I can learn from being a part of that.
