The Hidden Treasure
People have always sought the mysterious and the mystical. We climb mountains, open new frontiers and explore outer space, constantly in search of other worlds “out there.” Our inner space beckons us, too. That’s why books on New Age spirituality and science fiction top the best seller’s lists and why respectable people spend money on psychics, look for UFOs and join organizations devoted to the paranormal.
We are never content with what we have and what we know. What is it about the unknown that intrigues us?
According to Jewish mysticism, our preoccupation with the unknown stems from the unmet needs of the soul. The soul is a part of G-d. Before the soul descends to the physical world, it enjoys a totally spiritual existence beyond our comprehension. When the soul enters the body, it cannot fully express itself and enjoy the spiritual fulfillment it knew before. The soul feels like it’s in prison. Most of us are not sophisticated enough - in the spiritual sense - to appreciate what the soul really wants. So when the soul has an urge, the body is unable to respond appropriately. The body just feels that something is missing.
The soul essentially lacks two things: freedom and spiritual pleasure.
We want to be free because the soul wants to be free. Freedom is consequently one of the most cherished of human aspirations; many people would even die for it. But because we are unable to grasp the kind of freedom the soul desires, when this yearning filters from the soul into our consciousness, we feel like breaking out of whatever conventions appear to be limiting us, even if they are there for our own good.
This helps explain the phenomenon of the rebellious movements of the 1960s. Whether the youth of the ’60s were involved in radical protest, drug experimentation, the sexual “revolution,” religious cults, communes, social movements or a thousand other activities, their souls were on fire. Their souls wanted to break out of the barriers of material existence. Their souls wanted to bust open the shackles of their bodies’ egocentric existence. But because they were never exposed to a body of knowledge that properly explained the soul’s mission in a physical world, they expressed their soul’s desire to break through its limitations by joining these counterculture movements.
Just as the soul yearns to break free from the material constraints of this world, it thirsts for the spiritual nourishment it received in the world it came from. The body, unable to appreciate the type of pleasure that will satisfy the soul’s yearning, craves material pleasure instead. When our only reference is the realm outside of the soul’s, we will inevitably try anything that will enhance our pleasure in a vain attempt to mollify our soul, the ultimate end being hedonism or, at the least, the need to be perpetually entertained.
So, ironically, the more the 1960s revolutionaries tried to find substitutes that would satisfy the soul’s need to break out of the barriers imposed by material existence and to find delight in the spiritual, the further away they were from realizing their souls’ needs and desires. Although the revolutionary climate of the ’60s is behind us, its impetus did not die. Instead of seeking pleasure in radical forms, “Generation X” and the Millennials finds their fulfillment in entertainment. The obsessive need for entertainment appears to be a less destructive means of satisfying the craving of the soul, but it is no less unsettling.
The difference between the ’60s and the ’90s and beyond is like the difference between clean heroin and dirty heroin. Dirty heroin will kill you right away, while the sanitized version will do it slowly. As we inundate our souls with more and more entertainment, the soul becomes desensitized to spiritually. This is not what the soul wants.
The Princess Wants to Go Home
There is a beautiful parable that illustrates our point.
A princess falls in love with the King’s gardener, a mere peasant. When the king discovers this romance he tells his daughter in no uncertain terms that he will never allow her to marry a peasant. But she feels that love conquers all, and so she elopes with the gardener.
For several weeks the ardor lifts her off her feet, but as these romantic feelings dissipate with the passage of time, she begins to experience feelings of discontent and yearns to be back with her father the King in the royal palace.
At the dinner table one evening, the princess inadvertently lets out a sigh. Her sensitive husband realizes that something is wrong and asks his beloved wife what is troubling her. Not wanting to bother her husband, she says that everything is fine. However, the sensitive husband knows better and concludes that it is the short supply of potatoes in the house that is causing her misery. So he goes out to the garden, digs up all of the potatoes and presents them to his wife.
“Here, my love, this is what you were lacking …”
The same scene repeats itself night after night: the princess sighs, her husband inquires as to her well-being, she says nothing is wrong, and to make her happy he presents her carrots, onions, turnips and parsnips until he has dug up his entire garden. When all of this does not satisfy his wife, he exclaims in exasperation: “What is it that you want, my love? What is it that you lack? What more can I give you that will allay your pain?”
The princess answers wistfully, “The problem is that what I want and what I need you cannot even understand …”
Our soul has certain needs that cannot possibly be comprehended by the body. Until the needs are satisfied, the soul cannot grow. Political movements, cults, drugs, sex and entertainment cannot alleviate the soul’s aching for spiritual pleasure and freedom.
The Treasure Is In Your Own Back Yard
Back in the ’70s, when young people were becoming involved in Eastern cults, a concerned Jewish student approached me to help get his friend out of one such cult. As we discussed the tragedy that had befallen the student’s friend, I expressed consternation that this young man felt he had to join a cult to get spiritual satisfaction when Judaism had so much to offer.
I was stunned by the student’s matter-of-fact reply: “Judaism has nothing to offer.”
A generation has been raised in a spiritual vacuum. For many, bodily pleasures and pleasure-giving distractions are sufficient to quiet the soul’s discontent, as they were for the student who told me he felt Judaism had no value. His friend’s soul, on the other hand, was getting its message across loud and clear. It was crying: “I am unhappy! Do something!” Unfortunately, he chose membership in a cult to satisfy the yearnings of his soul. Actually, the student who was trying to help his friend out of the cult was in even greater trouble. His soul was so submerged in materialism that its cries were completely stifled.
What both students did not know, because nobody ever told them, was that their own religion offers all the riches imaginable. A story called “Reb Yekel and the Hidden Treasure” illustrates this point.
Reb Yekel, the pauper of Krakow, dreams of a treasure buried beneath the earth near the bridge leading into Prague. Yekel sets out on a long trek until he arrives in Prague. He surveys the area, trying to determine where to start digging. Suddenly he is seized by the local militia and charged with espionage.
“No, I am innocent!” he protests. “I was just searching for a treasure that I dreamed I would find here.”
The guard breaks into derisive laughter.
“Are you really so crazy that you would travel for days because of dream about a treasure that doesn’t exist? Why, if I would be as foolish as you, I would have followed my dream: Last night I dreamt that I would find a treasure underneath the oven in the house of a certain Jew from Krakow named Yekel. Am I going to be crazy and travel to Krakow to find the treasure? Ha, ha, ha …!”
Thereupon, Reb Yekel returns home, digs underneath his oven and finds a treasure that makes him rich …
Jewish mysticism is the hidden treasure that we have in our own back yards. To be sure, all of Judaism is a treasure, but the ultimate expression of the soul-satisfying dimension of Judaism is in the mystical tradition, which, when accessed properly, is the means to reach the higher dimensions of existence where the soul wants to be. Jewish mysticism is the safe way to facilitate the soul’s quest. We will explore how and why this is so in the coming chapters.
There is, alas, a harmful side to Jewish mysticism, too. When not accessed properly, Jewish mysticism can be deleterious to our physical and spiritual well-being. We’ll leave that discussion for the next chapter.
From the book Safe Kabbalah, Part One: Opening the Gates by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.
