Enlarging the Canon—and
the Soul
By REBECCA PHILLIPS
WRAPPED IN A HOLY FLAME
Teachings and Tales of the Hasidic Masters.
By Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi.
Edited by Nathaniel M. Miles-Yepez.
334 pages. Wiley. $27.95.
THE RECEIVING
Reclaiming Jewish Women’s Wisdom.
By Rabbi Tirzah Firestone.
280 pages. HarperSanFrancisco. $24.95.
One way to
look at a text, writes Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi, is to ask, "Does it
make my soul bigger rather than smaller?" For his new book, Wrapped in a Holy Flame, he has collected
texts that he believes can inspire new understandings of Judaism and the world.
This book, like a recent work by Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, argues that one way to
enlarge the soul is to expand the canon. Both Wrapped in a Holy Flame and Firestone's The Receiving demonstrate how widening our breadth of Jewish
knowledge and history can improve our spiritual lives.
Wrapped in a Holy Flame summarizes and explores the
teachings of the major Hasidic masters, beginning with the Baal Shem Tov and
the origins of the Hasidic movement, and continuing through modern leaders like
the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson and Schacter-Shalomi's
personal friend, the Hasidic folksinger Reb Shlomo Carlebach. Schacter-Shalomi,
the unconventional father of Jewish Renewal, ably explains the important themes
and legacies of each of these Hasidic giants, and categorizes the teachings of
the Hasids in a way that makes them easy to follow and digest. Known for
dabbling in other religious traditions, Schacter-Shalomi weaves the Hasidic
lessons with teachings from other faiths, including Hinduism, Sufism, and
Catholicism. He pairs the teachings of Reb Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the author
of the Tanya, with those of Sri Ramakrishna; he compares the Hasidic concept of
the soul coming down to the Tibetan notion of the bardo, the intermediate state
between death and rebirth. The author provides solid introductions to the lives
of many masters, while peppering his thoughts on them and analysis of their
teachings with his personal experiences and short vignettes on topics ranging
from sex to tzaddiks.
Schacter-Shalomi
wants his somewhat encyclopedic book to provide, for his readers, an encounter
with God rather than just with the texts. He suggests that his readers speak
the book's lessons aloud, and sing niggunim (Hasidic melodies) before reading. These
suggestions demonstrate his Jewish Renewal approach; Jewish Renewal is the
expansion of each individual's spiritual canon to include the modern
experience, more creativity, and even other faiths. Jewish Renewal rabbis and
leaders describe the core of their approach as understanding Judaism—and life,
for that matter—as a series of new encounters with the divine. Each teaching
and tale in Wrapped in a Holy Flame
can be understood as one of these new encounters.
While
Schacter-Shalomi's book consists of detailed textual analysis and owes much to
the works of his fellow neo-Hasids like Abraham Joshua Heschel and Martin Buber,
Tirzah Firestone's The Receiving is
more akin to self-help literature. Her book, an exploration of seven important
and largely unknown Jewish women from the past, is as much about empowering
contemporary Jewish women as it is about reclaiming ancient wisdom. Firestone’s
interpretation of the life of Malkah of Belz, for example, encourages modern
women to use this late 18th-century wife of the Belzer Rebbe's teachings about
the Tree of Life to "reconcile and heal life's polarities," embrace
"practical spirituality," and bring one's life into balance.
Similarly, Firestone suggests that Beruriah, the legendary second-century
female Talmudic scholar who committed suicide after she was discovered to have succumbed
to sexual temptation, can be viewed as a way for contemporary women to reclaim
sexuality in their lives. Firestone’s book intermittently resembles the works
of Marianne Williamson, Caroline Myss, or other New Age gurus, but her concepts
are firmly rooted in kabbalistic teachings, and, like Schacter-Shalomi's book,
a Jewish Renewal framework.
For
Firestone, whose book With Roots in
Heaven describes how she left the Orthodox world in which she was raised
and eventually returned to Judaism, reclaiming women's place in the canon has
allowed her to be comfortable enough in her tradition to reenter it and to
disseminate its teachings. Her book is powerful because of its sense of urgency—without
these lessons, she would not have found her place in Judaism, and she wants
other women to understand these lessons so they can embrace Judaism on a
similar, equal footing.
Both these
books can be read and appreciated by a wide audience, but they are especially
important contributions to the expanding genre of Jewish Renewal literature.
Jewish Renewal emerged from "neo-Hasidism," becoming a movement
(though its leaders hesitate to term it a "movement") to create a
more creative, participatory, feminist Jewish spirituality. The approach to
Judaism originated in the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s, and it continues to grow.
ALEPH: The Alliance for Jewish Renewal boasts a wide network of Jewish Renewal
communities under its umbrella and a rabbinic ordination program. As Rabbi
Arthur Waskow, a leading proponent of Jewish Renewal and head of Philadelphia's
Shalom Center, one of its earliest outposts, has written, "At the heart of
Jewish Renewal is a renewal encounter between God and the Jewish people, and an
understanding of Jewish history as a series of renewed encounters with
God." Jewish Renewal communities, he has written, are "intimate,
participatory, and egalitarian," and "create a 'field of rebbetude'—shared
openness to spiritual experience."
These
major themes of Jewish Renewal are evident throughout both Schacter-Shalomi's
and Firestone's books. With these works, the authors turn to the past to try to
help us evolve religiously in the present, and for the future. While not likely
to become Jewish Renewal classics like Judith Plaskow's feminist exploration of
Judaism, Standing Again at Sinai, or
Waskow's Godwrestling Round 2, these
books are important contributions to this expanding Jewish world. Both authors
show, through the examples of great Hasidic masters and both legendary and
obscure Jewish women, that each person encounters God in their own new,
personal way. Through reading the stories and teachings of the individuals in
these books, so can we.