God Was in This Place and I, I Did Not Know: Finding Self, Spirituality and Ultimate Meaning (The Kushner series)
by Lawrence Kushner
This is one of my all-time favorites of applied Bible study.
Amazon.com Review
God Was in This Place & I, I Did Not Know is about seven
different ways to read the Bible verse quoted in its title (Genesis
28:16). The titular verse is Jacob's exclamation upon awakening from his
vision of angels ascending and descending a ladder to heaven. For
centuries, readers have tried to imagine what the angels were trying to
tell Jacob; Rabbi Lawrence Kushner has now surveyed some of the most
illuminating reflections on that question. The book's sources range from
Shmuel bar Nachmnani in third-century Palestine, to Hannah Rachel
Werbermacher of Ludomir, who lived in 18th-century Poland. Kushner
blends these rabbinic interpretations with his own reflections on
Jacob's vision in a strong, impassioned style.
God Was in This Place is not only about the Jacob story, however; it is, most importantly, a
brilliant book about the way that Scripture offers meaning: "Biblical
words shatter and rearrange themselves before our sustained gaze,"
Kushner writes. "As we read in Jeremiah, 'My word is like fire, says the
Lord, and like a hammer that shatters the rock.'"
--Michael Joseph Gross
From Publishers Weekly
The interpretations of the Genesis (28:16) account of Jacob's dream of
a ladder with ascending and descending angels by seven historical
rabbis--one, Hannah Rachel Werbermacher, who lived in Poland 200 years
ago--are gathered here in an arresting interplay of ideas and
backgrounds. According to Massachusetts rabbi Kushner ( The Book of
Letters ), this collection of views is "actually one long midrash, that
is, fiction concealed beneath the apparent text of the biblical
narrative." This imaginative volume is filled with reverence for the
Hebrew word and the tradition that transmits as well the identity of its
great teachers through the centuries. With considerable flexibility in
blending ancient wisdom with contemporary illuminations, Kushner makes
accessible to readers the richness and attractions of mystical inquiry.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Poetic and Intelligent, April 7, 2006
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J. Miller (LA, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
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This review is from: God Was in This Place and I, I Did Not Know: Finding Self, Spirituality and Ultimate Meaning (The Kushner series) (Paperback)
Kushner walks us through the exegetical vantage points of seven
different rabbis, each looking at the same text. Jacob awakes from a
dream about a ladder (Gen 28:16), and declares that he has experienced
God. Kushner then poetically imagines the seven rabbis ascending and
descending the ladder to teach us how to read the text. What results is
a beautifully poetic look at the biblical text itself, a clever mode of
teaching us Jewish history and midrash, and a fully postmodern system
of acknowledging the existence of multiple perspectives. As with
Kushner's other works (cf. Jewish Spirituality) it evolves into a
mystical climax in which the reader and text are equated.
The seven are:
1. Rashi (Rabbi Shelomo ben Yitzhaki, @1050). He calls us to focus
on the literal text without distraction, without background noise. He
says that the real miracle of the burning bush required Moses to pay
attention for more than a minute to realize that it was not burning (p.
24).
2. Kotzk (Menachem Mendl of Kotzk, 1787-1859). He said that we
needed to destroy our egos and should begin by calling ourselves liars
(p. 38, 54). We should do this through gemilut hasidim, acts of
selflessness (p. 51). Kotzk later in life condemned himself to
solitude, only occasionally stepping onto his balcony to yell into the
crowd, "You are all liars!"
3. Ludomir (Hannah Rachel Werbermacher, 1805-1892). The only woman
on the list, she called us to see that God was there even in the midst
of evil. Teaching men through a half open door (p. 58), she taught them
that God does not intervene in human affairs without human agency (p.
62). In fact, we are to assume that the fall in the garden was an act
of God. God was present with Jacob in the angel that wrestled with him.
4. Mezritch (Dov baer of Mezritch, d. 1772). He says that the
goal of the religious life is devekut, cleaving to God (p. 84). Forced
to follow a monk whose job it is to wash dishes (p. 87), he discovers
that the purpose of life is to escape self-reflection to throw one's
self whole-heartedly into one's role. Otherwise, as in a game of
racquetball (p. 89), the self is always distracted when it focuses on
anything other than its purpose. The self then becomes fragmented, with
one part looking back at the rest to analyze its existence. "Too much
concentration can be worse than none at all" (p. 90). We should be like
the husband whose quest it is to find the right food for the pregnant
wife in the middle of the night (p. 103). The "I did not know" of the
Genesis text really refers to not paying attention to the "I."
5. Nachmani (Samuel bar Nachmani, late 3rd c.). He sees in the
story the issue of Jacob needing to become part of history, to take hold
of history and enter into it.
6. De Leon (Moses be Shem Tov de Leon, 1240-1305). De Leon wrote
out a book called the Zohar (p. 130), and though he attributed it to a
long-dead rabbi, he seems to have produced it himself. He says that the
we are to accept who we are and put aside the veil of deceptive
pseudo-identities. God's primary activity is to free us from the
slavery to those self-deceptions. If God had a business card, the
subline would read, "Frees slaves," and then "Call anytime" (p. 144).
God is the sense of self, the "I," the Anochi, which is free.
7. Ostropol (Shimson ben Pesach Ostropoler, d. 1648). He would say
that it should be read, "God was in this place and I did not know it
was i." We are somehow an indispensable part of God (p. 173). To look
at your own hands is to look at the hands of God (p. 174). Somehow
Abraham's father Terah was redeemed by the activities of Abraham
himself. There is an old legend of Abraham smashing Terah's idols, and
the conclusion is that the idolatries are redeemed by the son who is a
part of him.
The conclusion is that the text can be read legitimately through
multiple lenses, and as we do so, our eyes are increasingly opened by
and to the text. God may speak in any number of ways through our
interaction with the text.
It's a brilliant book, unlike most, both poetic and intelligent.
