Haredi Leaders Take a Health Gamble
From the original source:Masses of Ultra-Orthodox Jews courted COVID infection in synagogues over Yom Kippur
Through the eyes of What Really Is:
I read the article and each sentence deepens in me the feeling of division and despair. Not from the ultra-Orthodox, not from the Corona deniers, nor from those who come to point to injustices they presume. My despair is from the relentless grip onto opinions. Mounds of opinions upon opinions – historical, religious, ideological, and also (and perhaps especially) ones that perceive themselves as enlightened, considerate, up-to-date and seemingly transparent. How can there be a true conversation? With whom? With what layer of ideas that cover up the real? What can be said? And to whom?
The easiest, when reading such an article, is to look for the corner through which I am currently looking at things, to identify with it (whether I am on the side of the one reporting the events or on the side of the ones being reported). To hold steadfastly onto it, and then – all that is left is to argue, to dig myself deeper and deeper into an opinion that is not the truth.
The split then deepens, no real encounter can take place, and we all lose because of it. We literally lose the learning that can happen, when we truly listen to what wants to be revealed.
And this is what happens most of the time.
Thomas Kuhn in his book ‘The Structure of Scientific Revolutions’ describes a concept that has been engraved in me since I read it – incommensurability. A long and complicated word that describes the inability of scientific theories that are part of different paradigms (worldviews) to communicate between them. Between different paradigms there is no agreement on the basic, primordial assumptions, on the most basic things – like what life is and our place within it. And if there is no similar vision there – there is no ability to compare, to conduct a dialogue and a fruitful discussion about new theories or ideas that rise in different paradigms.
I stopped reading and watching news many, many years ago. Because of this understanding. Out of this despair.
Today, thanks to the coaching, thanks to my request to see what really is, I bring myself back to taking an interest, to know again what goes on in the world, and to feel what comes up in me through it. I do not want to stop where I used to.
So, if I remember we are one, what exactly is pluralism?
It is not a product of a particular belief, it is not an expression of a thought that says ‘life is complex, dangerous and frightening’, and I, who am inherently lacking, need to know how to conduct myself in them? From here I create worldviews, ideas, religions – that guide my behavior and promise me that I will stay on the safe and good side of life. These are in fact conscious structures of domination and conditioning.
And what if I remember that I am light? A whole and abundant light that nothing can harm? Will I still need opinions and worldviews to mediate reality for me?
Destabilizing– There is nothing like the corona to destabilize any form of thinking. This is perhaps the most complicated and complex period in terms of our ability to identify truth and adhere to a particular narrative.
Not all of us understand this, so we insist on holding onto collapsing narratives or counter-narratives, which only amplifies what we deeply want to keep away.
To destabilize means to do the complete opposite of what the mind offers.
Mind insists on control
It strives for certainty
It relies on inventions and imaginings to justify a particular narrative. But always, in the back there is a murmur of a doubt – because we know we have invented it. We know that the truth is simple.
To destabilize means to stop holding onto my opinions. For one moment, to really agree to not know. Really say – maybe I am wrong. Maybe I did not understand anything. Then – to avoid immediately running and constructing a new worldview.
Stay there.
The mind will try all its tricks to take us out of there. It will say it’s dangerous.
It will say it is not a responsible behavior. It will say people will laugh at me, or worse- that very bad things will happen to me.
But if we go through this smoke screen and simply stay there, we’ll start seeing something that has always been there. That is always there. But it can look new, simply because it is so different from the way we are used to seeing and understanding.
If I allow myself to destabilize and not know, Maybe I will find myself praying inside a crowded synagogue, perhaps I will experience exhilarating beauty, perhaps I will be infected and infect others with a disease that can be dangerous for some.
I may simply meet a person, with an open and loving heart, say to him – “you know, the fact that you pray together in a large crowd scares me”. Maybe, thanks to the fact that I am truly open and loving, he will be able to hear me. And maybe his set of ideas and interpretations will not allow my words to touch him.
I do not know how I will act and behave.
I do not need to know.
I can only be attentive to the life force that gives life to me and everything, and witness how it moves through me.
That does not mean I will stop making plans,
This is not to say that my intellect will lose its function,
It will simply return to its original role, which is to serve the beauty and grace of life.