For the first time in a long time I sat next to an Orthodox Jew on a flight to Israel. He was busy working on a text in Hebrew and I was reading first a spiritual book in English and then a text in French (of a friend who is in the process of publishing a book) that just happened to be about something religious.
He asked me "what I did" as he noticed that I was reading about religious things, or something to that effect. I explained, or tried to explain in brief, what I do and that the spiritual stuff is something I don't "do" but is something I am interested in...
We started a long and, to me, very interesting discussion on religious issues that apparently he was working on and thinking about. It was a long discussion and I will not even try to relate all of it here, but at one point I suggested that all religions, and especially all mysticism's of the various religions, as well as most spiritual studies, all boiled down to the Golden Rule, Love thy neighbor as thyself.
He smiled to himself and told me a story, which is often told, about a non-Jew who wanted to convert to Judaism. He went to see several Rabbis and asked them to tell him in one sentence what Judaism is about. Most of them scoffed and angrily sent him away. And then he met Hillel who told him (something like) the Torah teaches us 'Love thy neighbor as thyself', and all the rest is commentary, but what commentary.
We talked a bit more about this and other things and then he handed me a paper he was reading and working on which was all about Leviticus 19:18 in which the Golden Rule is mentioned. In Hebrew the golden rule can be transliterated as "and you loved the other as thyself" (phonetically veahavta re-echa camocha, with the ch pronounce like the Spanish jota).
The article was very interesting and long, so once again, I must try and condense for brevity's sake, so here are key ideas I recall: the other, any other, is another small piece of God's glory, the other is our brother since we are all God's children, to love another is to show our love for God, having a significant other brings us closer to knowing the love of God, consider your love for God as you do any other love - with thoughts and actions... Of course, there was much more but it wasn't always directly related to the subject and it digressed occasionally into discussions of whether we should or could compare human love to love for God, was it right, recommended or, on the contrary, necessary, etc.
A text of biblical commentary that was quite interesting. It was interesting to see commentary (Gmara) on the Torah, and to see that it was not that esoteric. I haven't read much of it in general, but I was under the impression it was more difficult to understand.
I asked him about the book of Job, since it is one of the books that fascinates me the most (Job was not Jewish, he challenges God, he challenges the devil, and it is the last book in the Old Testament in which we hear from God, so he also manages to shut him up for eternity...). The Rabbi smiled and said, he could explain it to me but he would have to explain so much of the Tanach (the five books of the Torah, the Prophets and the 'ctuvim' which I don't know how to translate (the Written histories)) that it would take a long time... So he didn't even try.
We discusses a lot and it was interesting to discuss things with the Rabbi. It turns out that my Great Uncle, who was Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem at one point, ordained the Rabbi sitting next to me. This Rabbi was extremely kind and gracious, soft spoken, intelligently, had smart, active and kind eyes and was definitely a positive example of the wisdom some people may attain from years of religious studies.
I asked him about politics and he admitted that he was not interested in things like politics but was worried, like I was, about the loss of values in Israeli society, but for different reasons and from a different perspective. He could not understand why Israelis want Israel to be the Jewish state while turning their backs on the wealth of wisdom in Judaism. Why secular Israelis have so much hate for the Orthodox.
We talked of love, and he told me that the love most people understand as love is not really love but lust. Something that I hope to share with you one day in this blog is a text by Eva Pierrakos on Love, called Love, Eros and Sexuality, which says just that. He reminded me that in the marriage vows in Judaism, the husband makes three promises to his bride - to ensure her living (money), her nourishment (food) and her sexual satisfaction ("ona"). Nowhere does it say that his libido must be satisfied, only hers. If a man does not take care of all three, he is not satisfying his wedding vows...
It was wonderful and strange to speak about love, sex, passion, lust, manhood, true love, etc. with a Rabbi, but we were speaking the same language and it was an intriguing exchange.
I asked him for his e-mail address and he apologetically explained that they don't do e-mail ("too many temptations") but instead he gave me his cell phone number.
It was a special conversation and a true meeting of the other...
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