Soul Ancestor

The Tree and the Rock

Dear friends, 

As the world jumps up and down, throwing my heart around, grabbing at my attention with all its sparkling might,  I have been finding great comfort in returning to the unchanging, steady truth found in a 1000-year-old book. It was written in Arabic in the south of Spain by a person we know very little about. We’re not even sure how to pronounce his name, בחיי, which could be read Bahyey, Bahya, Behayai to name a few options. We know his family name was Ibn Paquda, the son of Paquda, and from an acrostic poem he left we know also that his father’s name was Yosef. We know he was a rabbi, and a Dayan, a judge in courts of Jewish law. And then we have his book, The Duties of the Heart, which is beloved canonical book that reveals to us more about his true self than any external details could reveal. It opens for us the gates to this beautiful man’s mind, heart and soul. 

The central premise of the book is that our precious time on earth should be divided between two types of duties: those of the limbs, which we complete with our bodies, and the duties of the heart. Yes, he says, there are 613 commandments in the Torah, which have been expounded and expanded in the Talmud into thousands of Jewish laws. But the constant calls of our conscience and heart, which remain unseen and hidden to others, the revealed laws of the tradition are just a small fraction of our purpose.  

The period in Jewish history when Ibn Paquda lived, when for a few hundred years in the Middle Ages the Jews were living in relative peace in Spain, was arguably the greatest time to be a Jew. The most important Jewish books of philosophy, theology, mysticism and poetry all come from there. You can feel in the writing the influences of the great Muslim thinkers, as well as the centrality of Plato and other Greek thinkers, of Andalusian music and spirit.  

Ibn Paquda’s book is an overflow of his time period. It is a socio-theological treatise of philosophical inquiry, whose surprising poetry combines mystical leanings with scientific knowledge. It offers the reader ten gates to walk through, in order to connect with and bring harmony to your soul; a guide to the neshamah to make good use of its time in life. 

Occasionally Ibn Paquda address the reader: אחי, he calls us, “my brother.” He offers us - his soul-siblings - loving encouragement on the path through the ten gates. The presence of the true self, this part of us that transcends time and place, is what gives you the sense that you know, really and truly, this generous ancestor whose heart stopped beating 904 years ago. 

After he completes his journey through the ten gates, (some of which I hope to write about in the coming weeks) ending, naturally, with love, he leaves us with several pages of Hebrew poetry. Two of these final pages are addressed directly to the soul. Here a few lines, hastily translated from the rhyming poem he addresses to his soul: 

נפשי. עוז תדרכי. וצורך ברכי. וחין לפניו תערכי. ושיחה לנגדו שפכי. והתעוררי משנתכי. והתבונני מקומכי. אי מזה באת ואנה תלכי: 

My soul,  
Find the courage to be strong, and bless your Rock.  
Direct yourself toward grace, and 
Pour your heart out.  
Wake up from your slumber 
and look around, 
Notice: you are here!  
Where have you come from?  
Where will you go? 

והחיים והמות אחים. שבתם יחד איש באחיו ידבקו. יתלכדו ולא יתפרדו. אחוזים בשתי קצות גשר רעוע. וכל ברואי תבל עוברים עליו. החיים מובאו והמות מוצאו. החיים בונה והמות סותר. החיים זורע והמות קוצר. החיים נוטע והמות עוקר. החיים מחביר והמות מפריד. החיים מחריז והמות מפזר. 

Life and death are brothers.  
They sit together, clinging to one another.  
Each of them holds an end of  
that rickety bridge  
which all creations walk over: its origin, life, its end, death.  
Life builds; death undoes. 
Life sows; death reaps. 
Life plants; death uproots.  
Life connects; death separates. 
Life rhymes; death scatters. 

בקשי צדק בקשי ענוה. אולי תסתרי ביום אף יי. וביום חרון אפו. ותזהירי כזהר הרקיע וכצאת השמש בגבורתו. ותזריח עליך שמש צדקה ומרפא בכנפיה. ועתה קומי לכי והתחנני לאדוניך. ושאי זמרה לאלהיך. 

Seek justice, seek humility,  
So you have a chance of surviving those days of wrath,  
So the gentle sun will shine its healing rays upon you.  
Now 
Stand up,  
Start walking.  
Make yourself a vessel of graciousness,  
and lift a song up  
Toward your god.  

Shabbat shalom, 
Rabbi Misha