Doing and Understanding

Over the weekend I was listening to a lecture called “Introduction to Jewish Mysticism” by Rabbi Ari Kahn. I’ll have to listen to it many more times to absorb all the information, but there was one phrase that really resonated with me.

He was talking about how Judaism is not an “all or nothing” religion, and how it is important to proceed carefully when you’re on the path back towards traditional Judaism. The theme of different people reactions along this path came up. His response was that “Some things you have to understand before you can do it, other things you have to do before you can understand it.”

Many of the laws of Judaism, you need to study and understand before you can do it. But some laws, like Shabbas, you need to do before you can understand.

There is much more going on with Shabbas than you can possibly understand from reading about it in the Mishna. The joy of Shabbas is more than the sum of the actions (or inactions), there is a spiritual side than can only be understood by doing it.

An outsider would look at an observant Jew and conclude that Judaism is full of rituals. If one wants to become religious, you need to understand the rituals so that you can perform them.

However, to the observant Jew, what they are doing should not be rituals. It’s only a ritual if it doesn’t have any meaning to you. To the observant Jew, they are participating in a profound act that elevates your soul… that’s hardly ritualistic. But, until you do the ‘ritual’ (many times), you can not possibly understand that aspect of it.

I’m going to have to play this around in my mind for a while before I fully grasp the profoundness of it… maybe if I put it into practice, I’ll understand it better.