Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

Dreams have  fascinated nearly  every  culture  throughout    history. The ancient peoples treated their dreams with the utmost of seriousness.  During the Golden Age of Greece ca. 300 B.C.E.,  the  ancient  Greek  physician Asclepius, whose cult rivaled the growth of the Early Christian Church, created a following that endeared his teachings to millions of devotees. His followers had built more than 300 temples, where supplicants would travel long distances to these temples and undergo a series  of  sacred rituals in order to  receive  a useful dream in an effort to find psychological and spiritual healing.

In the  Orient,  dream incubation centers  were  typically constructed  in serene places in order to positively affect one’s dreams.  Native American Indian tribes also regarded dreams as a source for godlike inspiration. For primal peoples, the dream world was considered more ontologically “real” than the phenomenal world we consciously inhabit.

Recently some congregants started discussing the significance of their dreams and wanted to know what Judaism had to say about such an interesting topic. Enclosed are some old thoughts I had written on this subject, written over 18 years ago.  I plan to revise the material at a later date.

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In scientific terms, dreams up to the time of Freud were not treated very seriously. For centuries not a single scientist of note wrote anything significant on the subject. When Freud came out with his famous work, “The Interpretation of Dreams,” which he wrote in 1901, scholars heaped generous portions of scorn and criticism upon him, much in the same way scholars treated Darwin’s famous theories over a century before him in his classic, “The Origin of the Species.” Why are people so reluctant to entertain new ideas? Freud’s greatest disciple and prodigal son, C.G. Jung, calls this unreasoning fear and hatred of new ideas,  “misoneism” fear of the unknown. Prior to the 20th century, rationalistic and scientific minds treated the existence of the unconscious and its epiphanies with great skepticism.

Psychologist Eric Fromm describes dreams as the one truly universal language which the human race has developed. Decades before Fromm, Jung too makes a similar point and illustrates how certain archetypal patterns reoccur throughout all cultures and ages. Images of the hero, the Shadow, or the mother, and numerous other images are indeed universal motifs found in dreams.

In dreams, time and are not the ruling categories that they are in outer life. Dreams are pictorial and symbolic.  Jung argues that modern  man tends to divide  the rational Self from its  instinctual side. Jung further observed that the instinctual dimension of man is capable of producing great havoc in the psyche until its shadowy reality is recognized by the individual. Paradoxically, despite his lack of modernity, primal man was much more in touch with his instinctual.

Freud, Jung, and Fromm’s observations still hold true today for the unconscious continues to remain a terra incognita. Jung describes a conversation he had  with  a theologian about Ezekiel’s famous visions in the beginning of Ezekiel 1-2. The theologian believed those images were nothing more than morbid symptoms,  and that,  when Moses and  the  other  prophets  heard similar voices speaking to  them, they  suffering from hallucinations.  You can imagine the panic he experienced when  something  of  this kind “spontaneously” happened to him! (C.G. Jung and Anelia Jaffe, “Memories, Dreams and Reflections,” 45).

Freud, was the  first  to scientifically pioneer the  unconscious background  of consciousness. Freud and Jung worked on the general assumption that  dreams are  not  a matter of chance, but are associated with  conscious thoughts  and  problems. The dreams serves as a mirror of the conscious thoughts and problems we have during the course of the day. It has only been recent that various different scholars have been turning to the different religious systems of the world to  find out  what  the  great faiths have to say on this  very  important topic.

There is an abundance of literature on the significance of dreams  and   how  to  determine their  interpretation  in  the   Jewish tradition.  Biblical literature is replete with dream imagery; such examples include the narratives of Jacob, Joseph,  Pharaoh,  Daniel,   and  Nebuchadnezzar.

One  might ask:  What  precisely  is  the  Talmud’s viewpoint  regarding dreams?  Does a Talmudic approach come closer  to a  Freudian or a Jungian viewpoint?  Needless to say, there is no uniform Talmudic view; like any great work of literature, there are a myriad of perspectives that one needs to take into consideration. However, with that point in mind, there are three basic views found with respect to the characteristics of dreams according to the rabbis.

1) That dreams are meaningless.

2) Even normal dreams have a certain amount of “prophecy” that is always relevant to achieving a better self-understanding.

3) That dreams sometimes contain a profound lesson, but sometimes they can be  meaningless. This viewpoint represents a middle ground.

Rabbi Meir assumes that  dreams really are neither positive or negative. The second point of view is that of R. Hannina b.  Issac who would for instance treat the incident  of  being excommunicated in a dream with the utmost  of seriousness.  The last viewpoint can be expressed by Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai (ca. 3rd century) who said “there is no dream, which doesn’t have a certain amount of meaningless matter.” As a proof text, R. Shimon cites from the biblical story of Joseph. Joseph dreams that he sees that the sun, the moon and the 11 stars will all bow down to him.  The symbolism of  the  sun and stars are obvious references to Jacob and his  sons. But what does the moon symbolize?  Joseph thought it must be his mother,  but  his mother already died!  From this  the  statement  that there  is  no  dream that doesn’t have a certain  amount  of  meaningless matter aroused (see Rashi’s commentary).

The  concept  of “meaningless matter” need  not  be  interpreted literally.  It could very well allude to the ambiguous nature of dreams that may not be obvious at the time a dreamer experiences his unconscious imagery. In fact, Rashi notes that the  symbolism  of Joseph’s initial dream about the sun and moon bowing down to him, did not pertain at all to Rachel, but to Bilhah—Joseph’s  stepmother–who raised him like a mother after Rachel died! Yes, the Talmud argues that dreams contain 1/60th  of    prophecy.

The  Talmud  would agree partially with Freud’s  concept  of  the dream as an example of wish fulfillment. For instance: a good person may sometimes experience  bad dreams; a “bad” person, may experience “good dreams.” The  dream  reflexes the suppressed desires and wishes of the individual.  In psychoanalytical terms, a good person thus suppresses his dark side and experiences a subconsciously a desire to actualize a forbidden action or desire. The reverse is also true: sometimes a bad person may envision himself performing a noble and good deed, thus reflecting uplifting behavior he yearns to fulfill but suppresses.

Talmudists of the early medieval era would certainly agree with  the Jungian notion that  to  maintain  a  proper  balance between the conscious and the  unconscious, one must  pay attention to dreams–as a type of diagnostic tool for better understanding the soul. Similarly the Talmud says,  “That anyone who sleeps one week without dreaming are called, “evil.” This too could easily be  simply another way of speaking about a person’s state of dysfunction or repressed thoughts.

Among medieval Jewish thinkers,  Maimonides and Gersonides (like the 1st century Jewish philosopher, Philo of Alexandria before them) viewed Jacob’s wrestling with the angel as a drama that occurred in Jacob’s psyche through the vehicle of the dream. Moreover, all three thinkers insist that biblical dreams are prophetic in nature; furthermore—God speaks to people primarily through their dreams (Guide 2:41 45).

Continue Reading

Every year, I peer into my soul and await a revelation on what to speak about for the Jewish New Year known as Rosh HaShanah. Images and ideas create a pathway that I follow. Before being able to speak before a large community, I try to first speak to myself. Every drasha is in a sense, an autobiography of the writer. Here are some ruminations that some of you might be able to relate to, for the road that we have yet to travel.

Rosh HaShanah celebrates the birthday of one person.

Talmudic and Midrashic wisdom teaches us about the worth of a single person; he who saves one human being, saves an entire world.” The impact of one person, though arithmetically small, is capable of moving and changing human history. Rosh Hashanah celebrates the birth of one man, who justifies the existence of an entire cosmos—Adam.

Maimonides wrote in his Hilchot Teshuva, a most remarkable idea that underscores this significant point.

 Each person should regard himself throughout the year as though he were half-innocent and half-guilty and should regard the rest of humankind as half-innocent and half-guilty. If one sins, he endangers the fate of the entire world; if he acts virtuously, he brings salvation and deliverance to the entire planet. One person can save a world.

 We have often heard how powerless one person is to shape and direct the course of human history. Today many of us look at the events around the world and feel utterly helpless. Many of us ask the questions: What difference can I make? What can I do to make a difference? Perhaps more precisely: does our existence in this world really matter at all? Could Shakespeare be correct when uses Macbeth to express:

 Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

 Macbeth Act 5, scene 5, 19–28

 The feeling of powerlessness and futility is often seen around election time.  The real reason why thousands of people never bother to vote is because they resign themselves to the belief that their vote will never make a difference. Most of us can recall how in one presidential election, Bush, as we know, lost the popular election, only to win the Electoral College by just a handful of votes. If Gore wins the election, there is no Iraqi War; history certainly would have followed a different trajectory.

 Maimonides adds a flip side to his equation. Just as one person can save the world, so too can one person threaten to destroy it. Was Maimonides simply using hyperbole to illustrate his point? I believe he was being quite literal—in ways that he could scarcely imagine.

 On November 8, 1923, the leaders of the insignificant Nazi party met in a Munich tavern and elected Adolf Hitler as their leader by a margin of one vote. What disastrous world war might have been averted if that group had elected a different man!

 Human history has often been determined by individuals who used their power either constructively, or destructively. When the Mongolian army of Genghis Khan went through all of Asia and Russia, no army could hope to stand up to the vastly superior Mongolian armies, who fought a modern-style war in a medieval age. The Russians, Poles, Hungarians all fell before the Mongolian hoards; Genghis Khan slaughtered every inhabitant he encountered.

 If Genghis Khan enters Rome, the Roman Catholic Church would have been destroyed; if he enters Paris, the intellectual capital of Europe would have been completely decimated; had Rome fallen to the Mongols, the artistic and classical legacies to the ancient past would have disappeared forever. Without the classical artworks of the past to inspire them, would Dante, Michelangelo, or Leonardo have done? A Mongolian destruction would have prevented the age of the Renaissance; human civilization would have come to a dramatic end as we now know it; nor would there have been a Reformation or Scientific Revolution.

 Yet, none of these probable scenarios ever came to past. Why? You see, as the Mongolians were about to pass through the heart of Western civilization in Vienna, the death of Genghis Khan’s father had suddenly died. Mongolian custom demanded that all Mongolians return to the homeland and choose a new khan (leader). Fortunately for the West, the Mongolians remained where they were and intermingled with the Chinese and disappeared from history.

 One man’s death changes history. From this example, we can see just how great the power of one person can irrevocably alter human history.

 BUT CAN WE REALLY CHANGE HISTORY?

 You could argue: That’s fine and good if you happen to be the head of a State; but what about the ordinary person? What difference can the man in the street possibly make?

 Actually, it’s all about the power of belief. If you believe you are important and significant, if you believe that your existence is not some cosmic accident, if you believe that you have a purpose and a destiny, then you can indeed make that decision to not only better yourself, but also the community around you. 

 HILLEL’S ANTIDOTE TO THE “GRASSHOPPER COMPLEX”

About 2000 years ago, Hillel’s stressed that each person makes a difference in the entire world. Hillel’s famous dictum, “If I am not for myself, then who will be for me?” “If I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?” stresses this eternal truth. We exist in the here and now, and God calls upon us to make a positive contribution in bettering ourselves and our communities.

 A good illustration from the Torah captures this timeless truth. In the Book of Numbers, when Moses sent the spies to inspect the land of Israel, they spoke of their inability to conquer the land. They felt powerless against the inhabitants and wished to go back to Egypt where they would spend the rest of their lives as slaves.

The people we saw there were of enormous size. We saw giants there too ( . . . We felt like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to in their eyes.”

There is a metaphor that best describes the spies attitude is known as akridosis.  In modern English, that is the grasshopper syndrome, and the term stems from the Greek akris (grasshopper or locust). It is a classic Yiddishe disease. If you see yourself as a grasshopper, why shouldn’t others see you the same also?

In biblical times, the prophet Isaiah refers to the pagan King Cyrus of Persia, as “My Messiah,” for he would restore the Jewish people back to their ancestral homeland, after the Babylonians had expelled them over a century earlier. We may deduce that if a pagan monarch can serve as a Messiah, in terms of his redemptive role, we can all play a similar “messianic role” in bettering our families and communities.

Really, when you think about it, the entire Bible is about singular individuals who believed they could make a difference in the world around them. Whether it be a Abraham, an Isaac, or Jacob, or Joseph, or a Miriam and Moses, each of these individuals made a commitment, never realizing that a single soul would ever be aware of what they were doing or how they would be remembered by posterity.

 This is not just true of biblical personalities; it is no less with modern heroes and heroines of the human spirit, e.g., those pious Christians like Oscar Schindler, who made the moral choice to save Jewish lives during the Holocaust—even if it meant certain death for defying Nazi orders.

 The same may be said of another man’s vision—Theodore Herzl inspires a new generation of Jews to realize a dream that Jews for centuries had long given up—a return to their ancestral homeland. When we stand together as a community, united and strong—there was nothing they couldn’t achieve. The founding fathers and mothers of Israel demonstrated how a united people could indeed triumph over the Many. The ability to see themselves as powerful and capable is precisely what enabled the State of Israel to out-survive all the negative prognosticators, who believed that the fledgling state would never survive its first year.

Israelis survived because they understood the Power of One.

Our own community may yet serve as another example; although we are a small congregation, as I mentioned this past Shabbat, the greatness of a person is never in its physical size, but in its heart and soul. Earlier we mentioned how Maimonides pointed out earlier, every person is capable of bettering the world; but the process of change must really begin first with ourselves. Rosh Hashanah affords us the opportunity to recalibrate our souls. .  .

 Before we start tackling the real problems of our world, during this season we need to focus more inwardly instead. In what is perhaps his most famous aphorism, Rabbi Salanter wrote about the challenges of change: Continue Reading

Names in the mythic imagination of humankind has always conveyed something symbolic–even mystical–about the human drama. In the Garden of Eden, Adam is unique among the entities–both physical and spiritual–in his ability to name the animal kingdom (Gen. 2:19). Even the angels are said to be jealous of this power.

To be human, is to possess a name, be named, which serves as our bridge to the external world around us. When somebody forgets our name, we instinctively feel marginalized and unimportant. Yes, the name is our passport to interpersonal recognition. Throughout history, people died to preserve their names in history. In Babel (Gen. 10), humankind went to extreme measures to preserve their name, so they would not disappear from memory.

Many of us will even write a book or a diary on the hope that some ethereal part of ourselves will remain despite our mortality.  Memorial funds operate also on the same principle. Most people are pretty conscious about preserving a sacred memory of a loved one.

In all human communities there is thought to be a close relationship between the name of a person or other phenomenon and its character, status, and very being.

Because of their mysterious nature, names serve to define the external world we live in. They help to navigate the stream of consciousness and even conscience. In the Nazi death-camps, the German henchmen did their best to strip the Jewish prisoners of their names by giving them a number instead. To have a name means that someone will have to deal with you as a concrete person. We name even our pets, much for the same reason.

Since there is power in names, they both participate both in the reality named and give definition and identity to that reality. Both the named and the name exist share an ontological mutuality.

In both Jewish and Christian tradition, the infant child who dies, cannot be buried without first receiving a name. The name defines status; in conversion ceremonies, they symbolize the birth of a new person, in a manner of speaking.

Even in primal societies where female infants are considered expendable,  as we see with the Eskimo communities, once the infant has received a name, she must be dealt with as a living being.

In many faiths, naming an infant in honor of a deceased relative is a way of preserving identity in a transcendental way. Continue Reading

There is nothing in the Torah, or in the Talmud and Midrash, or Kabbalah that would suggest that there is a supremely evil being that is determined to make war against God.

As a verb, שָׂטַן (śāṭan), means to “be hostile,” or “accuse,” deriving from the root śṭn, whose basic meaning can be rendered “to be hostile to, oppose.” Generally, it implies someone who verbally accuses another. [1] Only in Job 1-2; Zechariah 3:2; and 1 Chronicles 21:1 the same term is translated as a proper name and designates the angel that acts as the  “Public Prosecutor.”  It is interesting to note that the passage in 1 Chronicles 21:1  is based upon the parallel story in 2 Samuel 24:1, but it is God who entices David to count his people and not Satan! The Satanic angel who serves as Public Prosecutor is not an apostate nor is it a fallen being, an idea that is nowhere suggested in the Hebrew Bible.

On the other hand, early Judaic writings in the apocryphal books of the Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls describes  Satan  as Beliyal (“the Baseless One”), i.e., the preeminent Adversary of God. [2] It is plain and clear that the apocryphal literature later influenced the early Christian Bible.  In John (16:1) for instance, Satan appears with a capital “S.” Matthew, Mark, and Luke clearly accept and teach a doctrine of a personal Satan and called the Satanic agents “fallen angels” or “demons” (Mark 3:22).  Sometimes referred to as Lucifer, Christian legends teach that Satan vaingloriously sought to overturn the regime in heaven and waged war against God’s loyalists.

Defeated by the Archangel Michael, the angel who had ambition to be God was cast into his inferno, to brood in the darkness, “hatching vain empires.” Satan did not go unescorted, along with him went about a third of the heavenly host, a horde of fallen angels. According to Christian doctrine, angels were created separately and were given free will, just as humans were. Their fallenness had to do with a denial and distortion of angelic life just as human fallenness has to do with the denial and distortion of goodness and truth.

In contrast, Judaism teaches that only humanity was  endowed with freedom of choice. Angles are often described as omdim (beings who occupy a stationary position cf. Isaiah 6:2, Eze. 1:21-25, 10:3-6) while human beings are described as mehalchim (movers) for only human beings are capable of transcending their baser natures. Angels are sometimes compared to animals (cf. Eze.1:5) because the character of angels is instinctive much like an animals’ instinct. Angels cannot help but be what God intended for them to be.

For poets like John Milton, Satan was the archetypal antihero, the rebel waging  eternal guerrilla warfare against his Creator. He is best known for his statement, “ “To reign is worth  ambition though in hell: “Better to reign in hell than serve in heav’n” (Paradise Lost, Book 1:263).

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Notes:

[1] This is especially the case with respect to the Psalms, cf. Psa. 38:21; 71:13; 109:4, 20, 29.

[2] See Helmer Ringgren, The Faith of Qumram — Theology of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Fortress Press, N.Y., 1963, later reprinted by Crossroad in 1995).

This past week, the subject of UFOs and the Bible came up in conversation. The recent British declassification of its UFO archives in 2008 marks one of the more important events in the history of British journalism.The U.S. government’s reluctance to release these files for Americans might suggest a conspiracy to cover up the case studies.

I have often wondered whether the US government’s silence might in part be due to the fear and shock this disclosure would have in virtually every area of American social life–especially in the faith community. It is easy to imagine scenarios resulting in widespread psychological disintegration and social chaos. On the other hand, it would prove to be the greatest discovery of human history.

Have There Been Past UFO Encounters in Antiquity?

One must wonder: Let us assume (1) the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life is real  and (2) the presence of UFOs does have a scientific basis in fact, then two questions arise: Have such visitations occurred in the past? If they have occurred, then is there any literary or physical evidence that UFOs have  been here long before?

When Erich von Däniken wrote a best-selling book, “Chariots of the Gods,” in 1968, he tried to argue that many of the ancient mythologies of the world contain primitive records of extraterrestrial visitations from space travelers who were welcomed as gods. Historians and scientists have pointed out the numerous weaknesses of the book, but Hollywood’s Stargate SG1 and Marvel Comic’s “The Eternals,” carry out the modern mythologizations of von Däniken. X-Files and Fringe are two more popular cinematic shows that explore this kind of question. Even Carl Sagan, in one of his most memorable books, “Contact,” makes the argument that it is nearly impossible for other intelligent life not to exist in the universe.

Did Ezekiel Have a Close Encounter?

Among von Däniken’s more novel theories is the idea that Ezekiel had a close encounter with an alien spaceship. Yes, the story is quite interesting from a modern perspective. Of course, altered states of consciousness such as visionary experiences, dreams, and so on, cannot be logically ruled out–especially since prophecy in general is usually related to dream-like trances and experiences (Maimonides).  Nevertheless, Ezekiel 1 is fascinating and invites speculation. On the surface, this theory would seem to have some merit, or at the very least, it could generate some interesting conversations about the biblical text that could last for hours.

Just imagine how an ancient Israelite would have viewed a modern day space ship. How would he describe it? In the beginning of Ezekiel’s prophecy, he has what could be described as a “close encounter” with a spacecraft. Though this too is not the simple meaning of the text, it is nevertheless an intriguing interpretation ‑‑especially if we were to imagine how an ancient person might write about a visitation with an extraterrestrial space ship. Here is a partial description from Ezekiel 1:

“As I looked, a stormy wind came from the North, a huge cloud with flashing fire (enveloped in brightness), from the midst of which (the midst of the fire) something gleamed like electrum. Within it were figures resembling four living creatures that looked like this: their form was human,  but each had four faces and four wings. . . . . In among the living creatures something like burning coals of fire could be seen; they seemed like torches, moving to and fro among the living creatures. The fire gleamed, and from it came forth flashes of lightning. As I looked at the living creatures, I saw wheels on the ground, one beside each of the four living creatures. The wheels had the sparkling appearance of chrysolite, and all four of them looked the same: they were constructed as though one wheel were within another. They could move in any of the four directions they faced, without veering as they moved.  The four of them had rims, and I saw that their rims were full of eyes all around. When the living creatures moved, the wheels moved with them; and when the living creatures were raised from the ground, the wheels also were raised. Wherever the spirit wished to go, there the wheels went, and they were raised together with the living creatures; for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels . . . .” Continue Reading

The Scarab’s Tale of  Death and Renewal

Here is the story how Jung arrived at this original concept. One of Jung’s patients had a strong rationalistic bent to her personality. Indeed, she challenged and may have even frustrated Jung on many different levels. Jung describes her rationalistic temperament:

My example concerns a young woman patient who, in spite of efforts made on both sides, proved to be psychologically inaccessible. The difficulty lay in the fact that she always knew better about everything. Her excellent education had provided her with a weapon ideally suited to this purpose, namely a highly polished Cartesian rationalism with an impeccably ‘geometrical’ idea of reality.

After several fruitless attempts to sweeten her rationalism with a somewhat more human understanding, I had to confine myself to the hope that something unexpected and irrational would turn up, something that would burst the intellectual retort into which she had sealed herself.

Well, I was sitting opposite her one day, with my back to the window, listening to her flow of rhetoric. She had had an impressive dream the night before, in which someone had given her a golden scarab – a costly piece of jewelery.

While she was still telling me this dream, I heard something behind me gently tapping on the window. I turned round and saw that it was a fairly large flying insect that was knocking against the window-pane in the obvious effort to get into the dark room.

This seemed to me very strange. I opened the window immediately and caught the insect in the air as it flew in. It was a scarabaeid beetle, or common rose-chafer (Cetonia aurata), whose gold-green color most nearly resembles that of a golden scarab.

I handed the beetle to my patient with the words, ‘Here is your scarab.’ This experience punctured the desired hole in her rationalism and broke the ice of her intellectual resistance. The treatment could now be continued with satisfactory results. [1]

Why was Jung so effective in dealing with this type of individual? Maybe because  Jung recognized that modern people have an ontological hunger  for mythic meaning in their lives. Freud would have considered such thinking as an illusion, but Jung believed that the archetypal patterns and symbols reconstellate themselves within the psyche in the form of myths and dreams.

Archetypal Reverberations

The scarab is a good case in point.  In archetypal symbolism, the ancient Egyptians believed that the scarab  symbolized the self-renewal of the sun’s rays upon the earth and also resurrection. Re, then, characterizes the powerful and bright noonday sun, while Atum symbolizes the old and worn-out evening sun. The Egyptian word for this beetle was kheper, a homonym for their word meaning “to come to be” or “to happen,” and the word also became the name of the early-morning sun deity. Continue Reading

A Bridge Across Time?

You have probably heard of  this  story before.  Every time I come across this citation, it makes me pause and wonder. American presidents Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy were both tragically assassinated during their terms in office. Despite the difference in time, both of these men share a number of unusual circumstances–or more precisely, coincidences. Consider the following.

- Lincoln’s name has 7 letters
- Kennedy’s name has 7 letters

- In Lincoln’s & Kennedy’s names the vowels & consonants fall in exactly the same place, in the order of c, v, c, c, v, c, c

- Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846
- Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946

- Lincoln was elected president in 1860
- Kennedy was elected president in 1960

- Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln
- Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy

- War was thrust upon Lincoln almost immediately after inauguration
- War was thrust upon Kennedy almost immediately after inauguration

- Lincoln gave Afro-Americans freedom and legalized equality
- Kennedy enforced equality for Afro-Americans

- Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863
- Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963

- Lincoln was loved by the common people and hated by the establishment
- Kennedy was loved by the common people and hated by the establishment

- Lincoln was succeeded, after assassination, by vice-president Johnson
- Kennedy was succeeded, after assassination, by vice-president Johnson

- John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln, was born in 1839.
- Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939.

- Both assassins were known by their three names.
- Both names are composed of fifteen letters.

- Lincoln was shot at the theater named ‘Ford.’
- Kennedy was shot in a car called ‘Lincoln’ made by ‘Ford.’

- Lincoln was shot in a theater and his assassin ran and hid in a warehouse.
- Kennedy was shot from a warehouse and his assassin ran and hid in a theater.

And the lists goes on and on . . . .It definitely sounds like Fringe or X-Files type material.

Are these parallels just an urban legend, which break down upon deeper and more sober analysis? The skeptic in me would probably answer that question in the affirmative. On the other hand, I am fascinated by the psychology that seeks to discover anomalous parallels.

Faces in the Clouds?

While our minds are hardwired to look for patterns and order in the universe,  sometimes our minds sees things of its own fabrication and invention. It’s a little bit like the stories one reads in the National Inquirer about people in Mexico seeing the face of Satan in the clouds, or like pious Christians who see the face of Jesus etched in the snow. The mind can play tricks on itself–as we know all too well. Just ask David Copperfield, the illusionist extraordinaire. Continue Reading

Byline: March 5th, 2010 — 5:45 PM

Life’s Unexpected Upheavals

With all the economic upheaval and uncertainty we face these days, it is important to not lose faith in the possibilities of today’s momentous hour. Nobody can afford the luxury of a negative thought—whether we like it or not, we are on a journey. Where exactly the road is taking us, is anyone’s guess, but the boundaries that have for decades been intact are in a state of movement. When I think about the earthquakes that have devastated Chili, Haiti, and other places in recent times, it reminds me of the economic, psychological and spiritual earthquakes that are forcing us to reinvent ourselves anew.

So far, this has been one real unusual year. It is amazing that life brings us on the threshold of new experiences whether we are ready for it or not.

Shift Happens

A professor once lectured how the borders of the various European nations were all in a state of shift after the cold war was over. The borders of the Czechs, the Hungarians, Russians were changing and so on; all changed. One fellow, with a wry sense of humor, offered the following double entendre: “I hear that even the Poles were shifting (e.g., the North and Southern Pole),” to which the professor quipped, “So what does all of this prove? It proves that “Shift happens.”

Attitude and Change

Indeed it does. Shift happens, whether we like it or not, one must learn to embrace the changes, because if there is any one constant in the universe, it is that change is—and  will forever be—inevitable–except when it comes  from pay phones and vending machines. The evangelical scholar Charles Swindol once said something I can actually agree with, “The remarkable thing we have is a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past… We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.”

The Eternal Flux of Creation

My favorite modern Sufi thinker, Hazrat Inayat Khan, wrote about the ontological nature of change–from the macro–to the micro:

“Life is full of inconstancy, at least so much of life as we can see. It is constant changing activity. A mystic calls life motion. It is constant motion in every aspect, both fine and gross, and in all its planes. Where there is motion there must be change and diversity. If there was no motion there would not have been creation and without change, there could not be diversity. The first two aspects of nature are male and female and the significance of them we can notice by keen observation in all objects and even plants, so that we may see the outcome of motion and diversity in life. Colors and sounds are due to rays of light and the changes of vibrations. The diversity of sounds come from uneven and invisible vibrations, while those of colors are even and visible. So that all that is visible and perceptible in form is constantly changing. It is nature which makes them intelligible and we recognize them as life  . . .”

Our attitude colors the way we experience change. A negative attitude can cripple us, a healthy and buoyant attitude can make all the difference in the world.

Yes, change is inevitable. The boundaries of our lives are always in a state of shift and change. Sometimes we have to touch the nothingness and void in order to experience the miracle of resurrection and renewal. All of this is doable, provided we have but the courage to embrace the impossible, and She [the Shekhinah] will do the rest.

The Three Princes of Serendip

Let me share with you a caveat.

In the medieval period there was a legend about the “Three Princes of Serendip”  (the ancient name for Ceylon). Three young noblemen take off to discover the hidden treasures of the world before them. Rarely did they find the treasures they were actually looking for. But as Providence would have it, these three princes constantly found themselves discovering other treasures that were equally great or even greater which they were not seeking.  In looking for one thing, they found something else.

It dawned on them, that this was one of life’s clever and wonderful tricks. When they realized this, they developed a whole new slant on life, and every day resulted in a new and thrilling experience. Continue Reading

Children have an unusual ability when it comes to confronting our spiritual hypocrisy as parents and as adults; very often they get to the essence of the problem as they perceive things. Frequently, as parents we often fail to hear the questions our young people ask of us; often we overreact whenever we feel that our beliefs and values are being questioned or attacked.

Rather than listening with an inner ear, as parents, we often react with harshness and anger. Sometimes we wish our children were more respectful and compliant, or at least, “mind their place” at the Seder table and not misbehave or draw undue attention to themselves. As any Woody Allen fan certainly knows, passionate family discussions have always been a part of Jewish life since ancient times. Unanimity has never been the goal of any kind of discussion wherever you have two or more Jews together engaged in dialogue. Passover is no exception to this rule.

During Passover, this thought finds expression in the question of the “Rasha ” (better known to most of us as the “Wicked Child”). Without his presence and participation, the entire Seder would be a dull experience. Here is a literal translation of the controversial passage we read in the Passover Hagadah:

The wicked child, what does that he say? “What is this service to you?” Note what the Torah says, “To you,” but not to him. Because he has excluded himself from the community, he has denied a basic teaching of the faith. Therefore you shall smack his teeth and tell him, It is because of this that God wrought for me in my going out of Egypt (Exod. 13:8) “For me,” but not him. Had he been there, he would not have been redeemed.

The above translation poses two obvious problems:

(1) As a parent, I have often wondered how anyone could call their child “Wicked”? The glaring meaning of “Rasha” is arguably offensive. Obviously, some modern translations prefer to sugarcoat their translation by giving the “Rasha” a less offensive epithet, e.g., “deviant,” or “troublesome.” I am unsure whether the “Deviant Son” is much of an improvement over the “Wicked Son” for both translations are clearly judgmental and pejorative. If we are to choose a less offensive title, let us describe him or her as a “Wayward Child,” or perhaps more accurately a “Rebellious Child.” At any rate, our Rasha is a person who is a young person who stands perilously close to the edge of his/her Judaism; without a proper pedagogical response, the “Rasha” may grow up to disaffiliate as a Jew.

(2) Now, to add injury to the insult of being labeled a “Rasha,” the rabbinic framers of the Hagadah recommend that the father ought to give his child a “patch in panim” a smack in the mouth for asking such impudent questions. Unfortunately, not all the rabbis of the Talmudic era were skilled educators. Continue Reading

In the beginning of Exodus 30:12-13, God commands Moses not conduct a head count of the Israelites before they go into battle against future adversaries:

“When you take a census of the Israelites who are to be registered, each one, as he is enrolled, shall give the LORD a forfeit for his life, so that no plague may come upon them for being registered. Everyone who enters the registered group must pay a half-shekel, according to the standard of the sanctuary shekel, twenty gerahs to the shekel. This payment of a half-shekel is a contribution to the LORD . . . ”

Interesting passage, isn’t it? Why not conduct an actual head count? The biblical writer may also  indirectly be alluding to a census that King David carried out toward the end of his reign, which produced disastrous consequences (2 Sam 24ff.).

The answer to this question has a lot to do with the ancient’s fascination with numbers and the process of counting. Here’s the background information: Numbers play a very important part in our everyday lives. Life constantly demands that we measure and count. Numbers have always played a role in all civilizations from mathematics to astrology. Numbers also play an important symbolic role in much of the Bible, e.g.,  one, two, three, four, five, seven, twelve, forty, fifty, seventy, hundred and thousand. This is not the place to examine the significance of each of these numbers, but they often have symbolic and rhetorical significance.

The famous anthropologist Sr. James Frazer notes that certain African tribes were afraid to count children for fear that the evil spirits might hear. They also believed that cattle should not be counted because it might impede the increase of the herd. [1]  In Denmark, there was a tradition not to count hatched chickens lest some be lost. In German cultures it is believed that the more you count your money, the more likely you will decrease it. [2] Continue Reading