Honey from the Rock: An Easy Introduction to Jewish Mysticism

By Rabbi Lawrence Kushner

Quite simply, the easiest introduction to Jewish mysticism you can read.

An insightful and absorbing introduction to the ten gates of Jewish mysticism and how they apply to daily life.

"There is a place that is as far from here as breathing out is from breathing in. For the word is very near to you. Where life forever holds gentle sway over death, where people are human with the same grace that a willow is a willow, where the struggle and the yearning between male and female is at last resolved.... It is to begin with, all inside us."
—from the Introduction

"In the past decade I’ve read Honey from the Rock at least half a dozen times. Every time I read it I wonder if I have ever read it before. Either it keeps changing, or I do. Maybe it’s both.... As someone told me: 'Lawrence Kushner is a mystic. He gives you flashes of insight.'”
—from the Publisher’s Preface to the Anniversary Edition

• Language: English
• Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
• Release date: Jun 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9781580234733

Rabbi Lawrence Kushner

Rabbi Lawrence Kushner is one of the most widely read authors by people of all faiths on Jewish spiritual life. He is the best-selling author of such books as Invisible Lines of Connection: Sacred Stories of the Ordinary; God Was in This Place & I, i Did Not Know: Finding Self, Spirituality and Ultimate Meaning; Honey from the Rock: An Introduction to Jewish Mysticism; The Book of Letters: A Mystical Hebrew Alphabet; The Book of Miracles: A Young Person's Guide to Jewish Spiritual Awareness; The Book of Words: Talking Spiritual Life, Living Spiritual Talk; Eyes Remade for Wonder: A Lawrence Kushner Reader; I'm God, You're Not: Observations on Organized Religion and other Disguises of the Ego; Jewish Spirituality: A Brief Introduction for Christians; The River of Light: Jewish Mystical Awareness; The Way Into Jewish Mystical Tradition; and co-author of Because Nothing Looks Like God; How Does God Make Things Happen?; Where Is God?; What Does God Look Like?; and In God's Hands. He is the Emanu-El Scholar at San Francisco's Congregation Emanu-El and an adjunct professor of Jewish mysticism and spirituality at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion. Rabbi Lawrence Kushner is available to speak on the following topics: • Jewish Mystical Imagination • Rymanover's Silent Aleph: What Really Happened on Sinai • Zohar on Romance and Revelation • What Makes Kabbalah Kabbalah • Sacred Stories of the Ordinary: When God Makes a Surprise Appearance in Everyday Life Click here to contact the author.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Dei ono 30:.

There is a place that is as far from here as breathing out is from breathing in. For the word is very near to you, . (Deuteronomy 30: 14) Where life forever holds gentle sway over death, where people are human with the same grace that a willow is a willow, where the struggle and the yearning between male and female is at last resolved.

It is to begin with, all inside us. But because we are all miniature versions of the universe, it is also found far beyond. And because we are all biologically and spiritually part of the first man, the place preceded us. And because we all carry within us the genotype and vision of the last man, the place is foretold in us.

There is no surprise in any of this. We have all known it all since before we were conceived by our most recent mother and father. So do not be confused if sometimes the place seems as real as your house or as illusory as your happiness. Only know in advance and instead that ordinary words will not be vessels or stores for some kinds of knowing.

There is a legend that tells that the first Torah which the Holy One showed Moses, our teacher, was written in black fire on white fire . (Tanhuma Bereshet 1) And that in each letter and each line and each crownlet of each letter are entrances to worlds of awareness.

There is not a word or even so much as a letter of what the Holy One has given that does not contain precious mysteries.

(Zohar III 174b)

And that furthermore and at the same time there is a whole other Torah written in white letters in what we sometimes think are the spaces between the black letters. (Gershom Scholem, On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism, Schocken, 1965, p. 82)

Psychologists teach us that the mind is capable of perceiving either the relief or the background but we cannot perceive both at one time. We can literally see either two faces or a grecian urn at one time. We cannot see both simultaneously. Everything we know says that one thing cannot be two things at the same time. And yet we know that two things are one thing at one and the very same time.

Or here is a drawing of two Alefs. Not one but two.

But sometimes we refuse to believe our eyes. There is a kind of awareness that defies logic and is seduced by the mystery of paradox; it stubbornly returns time and time again to the utterly impossible task of bringing back with it convincing souvenirs of that place which is certainly our cradle and our goal. And probably eternal life if there be such a thing. Which is as far from here as breathing out is from breathing in.

Near the end of Deuteronomy there is a long and ancient poem. Moses reminds the children of Jacob about their history and destiny: That though they wander the wilderness yet even there in that unlikely place they will find nourishment.

Remember the days of old …

He found him in the wilderness land …

He set him upon the high places of the earth

That he might eat the yield of the land

That he might suckle honey from the rock

         Deuteronomy 32:7,10,13

For us too the everyday world seems strewn with rocks. We fear that we have been led out into this wilderness to perish. That our yearning for holiness will be forever unfulfilled. And then at that moment, from something as mundane as a rock, there glistens a drop of that eternal baby food, honey. Even here there is spiritual nourishment. And so we eat a little and are satisfied and go on our way. Unable to tell others in words or remind ourselves about how the Holy One feeds us with honey from rocks. Nevertheless we try to remember. Remember the days of old.

There is a way of knowing that is only awareness. And because what was experienced was not experienced in words, it cannot be remembered or told or even reexperienced in words. There is a dim, awesome yearning sensation some people have at the back of their jaws which doctors suspect is a recollection of a suckling infant who obviously had but one way to recall a mother’s breast. A land flowing with milk and honey.

Exodus 3:8

Sometimes even religions become ossified. The holy encounters that they carry seem hopelessly encrusted by centuries of mindless repetition. But we must nevertheless never forget that spiritual light cannot be extinguished. Only buried. And that for this reason every spiritual discovery is but a rediscovery. Nothing in this book is new. It has all been told before. This will be perhaps only another way to tell of the spiritual encounters that fill our lives.

Every religious revival seems to be accompanied by a rebirth of the narrative as a vehicle for religious truth. The stories tell you from where you have come. Your father was this and not that. And in doing so they foretell your