Interrupting the Copulation of the Gods
Dear friends,
Before I start, just a quick note to say that tickets for our Kumah Festival, coming up in just over two weeks are selling quick. It’s going to be an event the likes of which we have never produced at The New Shul, an all-night explosion of music from around the world, protest art, ritual, powerful speakers and teachers. I’ll be there til sunrise, but you can come for as long or as little as you like.
This morning a disagreement broke out in the little minyan where I daven on Friday mornings. We had just finished the Amidah and the cantor called out: “Page 62!” One person called out: “No Tachanun today!”
Tachanun, or Supplication, is a short segment of prayers of repentance and sadness said most days of the year, in which we beg for a better world despite not necessarily deserving it. It is one of the few prayers which begins with the body, and only then goes into words. We lean over, hanging our forehead on our hand, in order to come into the space of exhaustion, humility and sadness that these sad prayers demand.
A third person chimed in: “Is there no tachanun on Lag Ba’omer? It's not quite Shabbes!” Lag Ba’omer, the minor holiday we celebrate today is considered a happy day in the midst of the dangerous stretch of fifty days between Passover and Shavuot, called the Omer. But is it happy enough to warrant not saying Tachanun? Is it as sweet a day as Shabbat, on which all such prayers are omitted?
“We need way more Tachanun these days,” chimed in a third voice. True though that may be, the argument was decided by the prayer book. “It says right here,” said a woman to my left, pointing at her siddur, “Tachanun is not said on Lag Ba’omer.”
“Page 78 then!” The cantor moved us along, with no Tachanun.
In its discussion of this week’s parashah, the Zohar, which is attributed to Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, the main figure of Lag Ba’omer, picks up the question of sadness on days of joy.
“It’s like this: A king throws a big party for his son’s wedding, and decrees that everyone in the kingdom should rejoice. On the day of the wedding, everyone in the world is happy, other than one person who is sad, so they grab him and tie him in chains. When the king arrives at the party, he sees that everyone is happy as he had decreed. Then he raises his eyes and sees the sad person in chains, and is saddened. ‘What is this,’ he demands. ‘The whole world is rejoicing in my son’s wedding, and this one is tied up in chains?!’ He immediately orders the chained man released.”
The story implies that the argument we had at shul was appropriate. God (the king) would certainly not want anyone singled out or punished in any way for not feeling happy on a holiday. The release from the chains is a release from the judgement of the community, which in itself might allow this person to come to peace. On the other hand, a day dedicated to joy and relaxation will be happy and relaxed for all only if there is a collective agreement that is be such a day. There is an argument for allowing Tachanun, as well as for disallowing it.
What is clear from the story is that God notices those who allow themselves to remain in sadness on days of joy.
On Shabbat the masculine and feminine sides of the divine unite. When someone is not at peace, however, the divine coming together is interrupted: “Who is it, the Holy One, Blessed be He and the Shechinah ask, who wants to separate our copulation?”
Even in the midst of it, the divine is troubled by our sadness, which sounds kind of scary – to interrupt the copulation of God! But ultimately the rabbis empathy takes over, and they know that a sadness deep enough to not be healed by Shabbat is one that the divine not only forgives, but heals:
“When the eternal one appears on this day, the prayer of the person in sadness rises and stands before Her. And then all the bad decrees that were made over this person are torn up, even those that were decided by the heavenly court. Because when the eternal one appears, all types of freedom and all kinds of joy are present.”
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha