Sixth Meeting - 02/26/08

The Baal Shem Tov is one of the most beloved spiritual teachers of the Jewish tradition. He emphasized sincere prayer, joy, and a fervent personal search for Truth in religious worship, over scholastic understanding, in a way reminiscent of more Zen Masters than rabbis. The reading we chose to begin this session with was a brief summary of Baal Shem Tov's world-view as expressed by Heschel in his book, "A Passion for Truth". Joanna related that she finds herself often on this ladder between heaven and earth, but is usually looking down rather than behind her. This is interesting because one of the most salient teachings of the Baal Shem Tov was the falling away of the distinction between mundane and divine things. Of course, this teaching can be easily dangerously misinterpreted and lead to complacency and mindlessness. If we are all princes and children of God, why do we need to try to become better people at all? Why try to wake up from delusions we notice ourselves to be in, delusions like the tendency to rationalize, to self-deceive, to live half-heartedly despite our desire for a full and authentic being? The Baal Shem believed that our true selves love the truth and love God, and if we only let go of falsehood, we will naturally turn towards a way that leads beyond our usual sense of self and towards a union with everything, with God. How to let go of falsehoods cannot really be explained, though we all know that it is done within us and is in our power, so the discussion on that topic ended there where it should have.