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Those who know my recent books, and this column, will know that my teaching, which I call the "Wisdom Tradition," often seeks inspiration from the spiritual ideas of many cultures. Recently, I have tended towards concepts and images from Jewish mysticism (though not exclusively-see, for example, last month's column, inspired partly by the Celtic holyday, Beltane, or the column several months ago for Ramadan). There are two reasons for this. One is my personal involvement with Judaism (I sometimes describe myself as a Goddess-loving radical Jew with a Taoist temperament!). The other is the study and thought that went into my book, The Kabbalah Tree, published just this month by the wonderful people at Llewellyn. Originally Jewish mysticism, Kabbalah became the basis of much of the Western esoteric world, especially the Tarot. As a Jew, I have found it natural to combine Tarot with Jewish ideas, mystical and traditional.
Every October, a holiday called Simchat Torah-celebration of the Torah (the scroll of the five books of Moses, often shown in the lap of the Tarot card, The High Priestess) marks the end of one yearlong cycle of reading the scroll and the start of a new one. People dance in joyous procession, with ecstatic chanting. Some congregations, including the Woodstock Jewish Congregation where I have gone for twelve years, unroll the entire scroll, all around the room, with everyone holding up a panel of parchment. Each person then points to a sentence, which she or he may choose to see as a personal message to ponder for the year, a little like a Zen koan. Torah scrolls are written in archaic Hebrew, in ornate calligraphy, with a special quill pen and a particular mix of black ink. All this means that most people will have no idea what "their" passage means until someone comes along and translates it for them. This unknown choice gives the practice the distinct quality of an oracle.
I have made it my personal tradition to give a public interpretation of whatever sentence I happen to receive, usually on the weekend that the sentence turns up in the order of readings. And as part of my own exploration I usually create a Tarot spread around the issues suggested in the passage.
This year I received a sentence of great significance, the opening of one of the most important of the weekly portions. This portion, titled "Holiness" contains the famous statement "Love your neighbor as yourself," as well as the most repeated commandment in the entire Torah (it occurs something like thirty-seven times), "Love the stranger." The actual opening sentence-my personal koan for this year-appears as verse one of chapter nineteen of Leviticus. "The Infinite said to Moses, "Tell all the people of Israel, Make yourselves holy, for the Infinite your God is holy." (I prefer the term "Infinite" to the more common "Lord" for God's most profound name, the four letter "Tetragrammaton" that Kabbalists consider beyond human consciousness).
What does it mean to "make yourself holy?" What does it mean to describe the divine as holy? How do the two "holinesses" meet each other? These are the questions I've looked at in the past seven months. And as part of that questioning I asked the cards.
When we do what I call Wisdom readings we take the cards, and ourselves, beyond the realm of simple information, beyond prediction or even self-awareness and personal growth, to a place of discovery. There are no good or bad cards, no right or wrong answers, just the world of images, stories, and mysteries. Wisdom readings usually do not address personal issues, the usual jobs and relationship questions of typical Tarot readings. Instead, they take us beyond our immediate concerns to look at our deepest question through the eyes of the cards. And yet, we also can make them personal by changing the questions to insert ourselves. Instead of "What is holiness for humans?' we can ask "What is holiness for me?" or "How do I find holiness in daily life?"
A couple of the questions below involve "rules." When I read what follows the original statement to "make yourselves holy," I found that part of it seemed to involve what I call the "Do-this-don't-do-that," or as many of us learned in Sunday school (and boring sermons), "Thou shalt/Thou shalt not." The Hebrew word for commandment is mitzvah, a word that also connotes "blessing" and "opportunity," for ideally, the mitzvoth (plural) give us opportunities to actually do something to get closer to the divine. And certainly some of them -"Love your neighbor," and "Love the stranger"-speak of what we usually think of as ways to "make ourselves holy."
But what of rules that we not only do not follow, but would never follow, as a matter of principle? For example, one rule forbids the consultation of oracles or omens. Now, this is not as clear-cut as it sounds (and some fundamentalists would have us believe). The Torah actually contains instructions for divination, though it restricts this to the priests. And Jewish practice, especially in Kabbalist tradition, has always included astrology. But still, this "don't-do," especially set alongside "Love your neighbor," shows the complexity of the issue.
Every religion has rules, codes of conduct, taboos. Buddhists follow dharma. Witches follow the Law of Three, and many never touch iron. They consider these practical rules, but they are rules nonetheless. So how should we look at the "rules" of holiness? What should we think of them? And what kind of relationship can we have with them?
As with most of the Wisdom readings in this column, I have used the Shining Tribe Tarot, designed and drawn by myself, and available from Llewellyn.
What is holiness?
Gift of Stones.
This picture, somewhat equivalent to the Queen of Pentacles, shows the outline of two temples in the country of Malta. Some archeologists describe the one on the left, known to the local people as Gigantija, or "lady giant," as the oldest building in the world, some six thousand years old. Because this is the suit of Earth, it suggests that holiness is a gift of the physical world, the rocks and the dirt. But the picture also shows everything doubled, two temples (I think of them as the Mother and Daughter), two stick figures in ritual at the bottom, two spirals, etc. Holiness lies in union, the joining of human and divine, or body and spirit.
How is the Infinite holy?
Magician.
The shaman in this card acts as a channel for divine force to enter the world. He raises a stick to heaven and draws down energy for the flower to bloom in a desert. That energy gives life to the world. So here we find the radical idea that God is not holy through remaining separate from humans and the physical world, but through engagement, that joining together shown in the first image. Divine holiness lies in giving life to the universe. Here we see the idea that "Love your neighbor" and "Love the stranger" apply to God as well as to humans. And doesn't the original statement, "Make yourself holy for God is holy" imply that God must follow the same principles as humans?
How do we make ourselves holy?
Knower of Trees.
This card shows a woman opening her arms to embrace the world so fully that she becomes the world. Stars fill her face, a river runs through her body. The card shows paradox, for leaves fall as if in autumn, yet we see the flower in bloom, as if summer. This too is part of holiness, to embrace what seems impossible, contradictory. Notice that this flower resembles the one on the previous card, hinting at another link between divine and human holiness. In the Knower of Trees, the woman's arms reach beyond the border of the card. While some consider holiness to lie within boundaries, and obedience to strict codes, the picture implies we ultimately find holiness by reaching beyond our limitations.
What are rules?
Gift of Trees.
This is the card that follows the Knower (Queen of Wands following the Knight of Wands). Since it describes rules as a gift, and it comes after the image of reaching beyond borders, it implies that we discover divine rules when we go outside the lines of obedience. That is, to reach beyond obedience, to take a chance by embracing paradox and the unknown, does not result in chaos or destruction, but a sense of what rules really matter. The image hints at two sources, the caduceus, with two snakes wound around a stick, and the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden Of Eden, where a single snake lures Eve to break the rules by eating the fruit. The caduceus, carried by Hermes, is a symbol of healing and divine knowledge. I call this tree, with its two snakes, the Tree of Wisdom of the Heart. Not mind knowledge unattached to feeling, but genuine wisdom. The snakes hold a gold nugget between their jaws. This is the alchemical stone of transformation. All these ideas come to us as the image of rules.
How do we respond to rules?
Three of Trees.
These images evoke objects called manitokanac, creations of the Salteaux Ojibway Indians in Canada. A manitokan is like a scarecrow, a human-like figure created out of a small tree or branch. Where farmers make scarecrows for utility, to confuse birds who might eat the seeds, the Salteaux put together the manitokanac to invoke a spirit guardian who will protect the home. If we apply this to the question we get the idea that we respond to divine rules by real actions rather than vague attempts, but also with a genuine intention and consciousness that our behavior will in fact connect us to the Infinite, an image we saw in the first card.
What is it to love your neighbor?
Four of Trees.
Since the previous card, for rules, was the Three of Trees, we can say that loving your neighbor follows naturally from opening yourself to genuine rules of holiness. We see a house made from two living trees, with two larger trees framing and protecting them. When we love the people close to us, our "neighbors," we create a living structure in our lives. The Sun shines over a red door, symbol of passion (the element for Trees is Fire). This really is a card of love.
What is it to love ourselves?
Five of Rivers.
Like the traditional Five of Cups, this card suggests loss and sadness. It also shows acceptance, for the fish follow the bends of the river downwards, until the river actually turns into the neck of a bird, whose head symbolizes consciousness. We may think of self-love as easy, and love of others difficult. But in fact, most of us look at ourselves more harshly than anyone. We may find it difficult to forgive ourselves for mistakes, or the losses we face in life. But if we really give love to ourselves, and accept what we have done and what has happened in our lives, we can find wisdom.
What is it to love God?
The Place of Trees.
This picture comes from a Cretan seal, about three thousand years old. It shows two women together in a garden with two trees, where they worship the Goddess through her symbol of the double-headed axe, or labrys. The two trees suggest the Garden of Eden, a place set apart for divine experience. The Place of Trees (Page of Wands) precedes the Knower of Trees, the card to make ourselves holy. By loving God we enter a joyous place, a garden, where we can learn to open our arms to life and so make ourselves holy. And this is not a private thing that we do, this loving the Infinite divine. We do it in the community, with others, those neighbors and strangers, for our love for them allows us to open ourselves to the paradoxes of existence and discover the transformative and healing power of the "rules" of the Tree of Wisdom.
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