People of faith desire a life filled with awareness of God. They do not just want to feel God's presence when they are in synagogue, church or mosque, but wherever they go. We wish to have open hearts and mindful souls in all that we do — not just when we are in study or prayer, but also when we are washing dishes, balancing a checkbook, or playing with our children.

The problem, of course, is that this is not so easy. We are all apt to lose our spiritual center in the midst of everyday activities. We are prone to falling back into habits born out of anxiety, fear and desire, rather than those nurtured from our highest hopes and aspirations. It's hard to be godly 24/7. 

And then, there is this: It is not clear that we would want to live with constant "God consciousness," even if we could. There are limits to how much we can take of God's presence in our lives. In order to function in this imperfect world, there are times when we have to allow ourselves to experience fear and stress, to give in to some of our cravings, and to play out our anxieties. We can try to do this in a mindful way — noticing what we are doing while we are doing it — but, ultimately, we need to be human. We are not angels.

There is a language for talking about this balance in Jewish tradition. The rabbis of the Talmud talk about the "Or Ganuz," the Hidden Light that is the remnant of the light of the first day of creation. This is not the ordinary light shed by the sun and moon. (Remember, they were not created until the fourth day). Rather, this is the light of ultimate wisdom and of God's presence in the world. According to the rabbis, this is the light by which one could see from one end of creation to the other. This is the light that God "wears like a garment" (Psalms 104:2). This is the light that God had to hide from the world when human beings entered creation.

Why? Because we are not ready for it. Because we would be blinded by it. Because we could not function in this reality if we were constantly in the midst of such light. The Or Ganuz is the Jewish metaphor for the way that God is hidden and revealed at the same time, with just the right amount peaking around the corners of our lives when we are able to see it. 

In his great work, Kedushat Levi, the Chasidic master Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev wrote about this hidden, supernal light in connection to this week's Torah portion (Bo). In the story of the Exodus, the ninth plague that God brought down on Egypt was a plague of darkness — darkness so thick that it could be touched. Yet, throughout the three days of darkness, the Israelites continued to "enjoy light in their dwellings" (Exodus 10:21-23). According to Levi Yitzchak, the palpable darkness that the Egyptians experienced was the screen that God brings into the world to prevent the Hidden Light from blinding us. 

God, says Levi Yitzchak, allows us to see exactly as much of the Hidden Light as we are capable of perceiving. Most of the creatures of the world, he says, have a set and unchanging amount of the Or Ganuz that they merit to see. Yet, for Israel, Torah and mitzvot are a path that allow us to grow in the amount of God's light available to us. As we grow in our capacity for compassion, our awe for the miracles that surround us, and our drive to make the world a better place, our light grows. 

This is why the Torah says that "all the Israelites enjoyed light in their dwellings," rather than saying "for all the Israelites, there was no darkness." The latter phrase, expressed in the negative, would have been parallel to the earlier declaration that, "not a head of the livestock of Israel had died," in the fifth plague (Exodus 9:7), or, "where the Israelites lived, there was no hail," in the seventh plague (Exodus 9:26). By stating positively that the Israelites enjoyed light while the Egyptians suffered darkness, according to Levi Yitchak, the Torah emphasizes that the Israelites took the positive action of performing mitzvot to lift themselves to higher and higher levels of light.

The Egyptians, on the other hand, who were unrepentant of oppressing the Israelites even after the first eight plagues, had nothing to lift them out of this darkness. For them, the screen that hid God's light from them was the only reality. 

Modern readers of the Torah may see Levi Yitzchak's reading as overreach. The concept of the Or Ganuz, the Hidden Light of the first day of creation, is a rabbinic interpretation. There is no reason to believe that the original readers of the Torah would have connected the light of Creation to the lights that the Israelites enjoyed during the eighth plague. Yet, Levi Yitzchak's reading does make spiritual sense, if not literary or historical sense. We do find that our ability to perceive God's presence in the world is connected to our devotion to doing the things that connect us to God. 

When I use my time and energies to comfort people who are in pain, I feel like I am rewarded by being able to peer more deeply into the recesses of life's hidden meaning. When I celebrate joyously with others in their holy moments, I feel a little bit of the light shining on me. We expand our world and the world of life's truest treasures when we engage in acts of holiness. 

Such light comes to us in small increments. We human beings may be too fragile creatures to experience more than a glimpse of the divine light, and there are parts of us that need to be shaded from it if we are to survive this material existence. But we still yearn for the light that burns. We take comfort in knowing that, through our actions and intentions, we can grow from strength to strength, and merit the opportunity to live more fully in the light.


Other Posts on This Topic:
The Blind and the Light
Havdalah

In his study, Libet showed that impulses to initiate some body movements are sent by the brain fractions of a second before we become consciously aware of them. The study suggests that our conscious awareness is the last part of us to find out what we are actually doing. 

Our subconscious, our nerves and muscles all have decided what we will do before our consciousness ever finds out. The conscious mind comes up with the explanations, or the rationalizations, for our behaviors only after the fact. Libet concluded that the whole idea of free will may be an illusion.
 
Libet's study raises serious philosophical, moral and religious questions. It even has implications for criminal justice. If our bodies decide to do things without the involvement of the thinking, reflecting, considering parts of our brains, how can people be held responsible for their actions? If we do not choose to do things with the part of us that is capable of making moral decisions, is morality meaningful?

These are questions that were considered by the ancient rabbis long before Libet's study. In this week's Torah portion (Bo), God tells Moses, "Go to Pharaoh for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his servants so that my signs may be displayed in his midst" (Exodus 10:1). A classical midrash (Bereishit Rabbah 13:3) asks whether God denied Pharaoh the ability to freely choose his actions by hardening his heart. It troubles the rabbis that God eventually punished Pharaoh for actions he may not have been free to choose.

Rabbi Yochanan said, "Does the 'hardening of Pharaoh's heart' provide heretics with grounds to claim that Pharaoh had no way to repent?" Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish answered, "Let the mouths of the heretics be stopped up… When God warns a person once, twice, and even a third time, and he still does not repent, then God's heart closes against repentance… Thus it was with wicked Pharaoh. Since God sent five times to him and he took no notice, God said, 'You have stiffened your neck and hardened your heart, so I will add to your uncleanness.'"

Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish says that when people freely and repeatedly choose a path that goes against God, they close themselves from divine compassion. As they harden themselves, God responds by hardening against them. 

From a psychological perspective, this could be understood as a natural consequence of indulging in behavior that is willfully ruthless and cruel. The more people become used to behaving in uncaring ways, the more they become deaf to any call toward compassion. God does not deny free will to Pharaoh, Rabbi Shimon may be arguing. Rather, Pharaoh's own choices remove him from the ability to be moved by ethical concerns.

How shall we reconcile this with what modern science teaches us about free will? Benjamin Libet's research suggests that our behavioral choices are more on the instinctual level than on the conscious level. Acting ethically may be more of a habit than a conscious decision. Through repetition, we inure ourselves to behaving well or behaving poorly. Morality may be more about subconscious patterns of behavior than we had imagined, but it is still something human beings can nurture within themselves, even on a Pavlovian level.

That is also, in a curious way, what the midrash suggests. Pharaoh did not lose his free will because of a divine thunderbolt. Through his own behavior and choices, Pharaoh trained himself toward the kind of hardhearted behaviors that stripped him of the ability to do otherwise. That is why God says that Pharaoh's heat was hardened; it was the consequence of his own choices.

And what does that teach us about ourselves? Be very careful about the choices you make in life. Every time you choose to respond to another person with care and compassion, you are setting an unconscious pattern that will be repeated. Every time you choose to be indifferent or unresponsive to the needs of others, you train yourself to be as stubborn and unmovable as Pharaoh.


Other Posts on This Topic:
Bo: Hitting Rock Bottom
You are What You Choose to Be
Bechukotai: Being Commanded, Choosing Joy