Psycho-halakhah

I'm working on looking at how I keep Shabbat. As a family, we all light the candles together and eat, and we always do a little Havdalah service on Saturday night. But, 'How do *I* keep Shabbat,' has been my question.

I looked to an article by Reb. Zalman Schacter-Shlomi about what he calls "Psychohalachah". Now, this can be strange territory. It's not enough to construct your own set of rules based on what's easy (Judaism Lite). You have to make rules that are entirely based on the principles that have come before, that don't violate the community's sense of propriety, and that strengthen the Shekinah.

First, let's look at our first point. The principle of the mezuzah is based on a commandment from Devarim 6:9 which says "And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates."

R. Zalman says, "I’ve been saying to kids way back at Ramah, when I was doing the Ramah thing, write out your mezuzah on a 3x5 card; and make sure that it will be on your door because the Torah says u’kh’tavtam; The Torah doesn’t say it should be on qlaf; qlaf is the technology of the past. So in the past we had to have that technology."

We uphold the principle and thereby do a Tikkun of sorts on the meaning of the Halakhah to ourselves. One thing I'd like to emphasize here is that I'm not advocating this as better than Halakah, but rather better for those like me who want the meaning spelled out for them. So I spell out the meaning and learn the paradigm that way.

The second point is that you shouldn't violate your community's sense of propriety. Now this is hard. Sometimes you will encounter people who want things done traditionally. How do you deal with that? Well, there aren't any hard and fast rules. There are priorities to keep in mind though.

1) Does this issue divide the tzibbur (local community) or Klal Yisrael? (in which case, it needs to be dealt with)

2) Will this cause me (or another person) to be alienated from the tzibbur or Klal Yisrael? (in which case, it may be necessary to let it lie)

3) Will this strengthen the Shekinah, or increase holiness? (if so, it should definitely be pursued)

In many cases it seems that these questions push only towards more restriction. However, I can look at my own community and say without a doubt that having women read from the Torah and lead our Kabbalat Shabbat services has absolutely increased the holiness of our service, not by cutting off or making separate, but by repairing something in those individuals that are able to participate. In another community the resistance might be so great that it wouldn't work, and in that case it might not be a tikkun, since it would be dividing the community. But in this case it's bringing the community together and increasing k'vod hatzibbur. So these questions are really kind of checks and balances to each other.

You may have noticed that I slipped my last point into the middle of the second one. This is because my three points are just as interconnected as the three questions I mentioned earlier. How can we be sure that we are strengthening the Shekinah? You can watch participation and gauge kavannah. Really! People tend to think that more participation leads to more observance, but I think it can lead to more intense observance also. When you've performed a certain practice enough times, you find that there's a hollow space in your mind where you used to worry about doing it right but now you need some sort of meaning to fill it. But that's not always apparent at the time: practicing the mitzvot may just feel empty or hollow. If the person who feels this can fill that void with kavannah, then that person will experience a surge, in which that kavannah is returned to them ten times over. This is the sod behind tithing: you give your 10% and Hashem returns it to you as 100%. You'll probably see this reflected in a person's participation, and you can judge whether or not your congregation's paradigm shift is working for them or hindering them.

So this is what I've been doing - deciding how to walk (holekh -> halakhah [wink]). I don't drive to other cities during Shabbat, just to synagogue and local familiar places. I try to avoid places like the mall, or other loud and noisy places - I want to keep Shabbat as peaceful as possible. I don't post to my journals, because that feels like work, but I do comment on other people's journals, because that's more like chatting. It's a lifetime-long process in which I'm going to try and learn as much about the principles of the Torah as possible - not just to follow the rules, but to understand them also.