Part 16 (1/2)

The intended target was David Radin, the ros.h.i.+, or head, of the Zen Center in Ithaca.

”We had what he called a dharma war. We walked up and down this country road asking each other questions. I wanted him to come to a yes.h.i.+va and showed him there was quite high stuff in Judaism, very much on the level of Zen. He in turn showed me that Zen was very, very high. He also showed that through meditation one could attain these experiences.

”He started coming up with things. His father was a rabbi, and he'd studied kabbalah before he'd gotten into Zen. He said, 'I don't usually think about Torah, but since you've been coming here giving me all these Torah ideas, in the middle of my meditation I thought, on the verse Shema yisrael adonai elohenu adonai ekhod Shema yisrael adonai elohenu adonai ekhod-why does it say adonai adonai twice, you know?' Then he said, 'Because it's the lower level and the upper level....' twice, you know?' Then he said, 'Because it's the lower level and the upper level....'

”I said, 'I just read that in Schneur Zalman's work written in 1812. Did you learn that?' He said, 'No, I never learned that. I wasn't aware that in Judaism they had such stuff. If I were aware, maybe I never would have left.' So I said, 'Well, it's in Judaism, Schneur Zalman, 1812.'

”The next day, he brought me the pusek pusek that says: On that day the Lord shall be One and His name shall be One. 'What does it mean- that says: On that day the Lord shall be One and His name shall be One. 'What does it mean-ushmo ekhod-His name is One? He's one, his name is one, what does it mean?' And he gave his drash drash on it. on it.

”I said, 'I think Azusha was reported as having said something similar in the 1700s. Have you read these works?' 'No, again,' he said, 'I wasn't aware of there being anything like this in Judaism.'

”'Well, you should,' I said, 'Azusha wrote them in 1799.'

”This was the last time we had together. So finally I said to him, 'You see-it's all in Judaism. You can find it there. Doesn't it make sense for you to come and learn what else is in Judaism?' Which I thought was a terrific argument. But he wiped me out by saying, 'I'm getting it from my Zen meditation. I really haven't studied these works; I'm getting these insights from meditation alone.'”

Radin challenged David Blank to study Zen, saying, ”Doesn't it make sense for you, who know what Azusha and Schneur Zalman and all these guys say say, to come and learn how to get this out of your own experience? That's how I'm getting it. You're just reporting this from other people.”

That's how the roper-in was roped in himself. David Blank told me that his marriage broke up at about the same time that he declared himself a Zen Buddhist. He had grown disenchanted with the atmosphere in Crown Heights, the emphasis on spreading the word to large numbers of people. ”I needed intensity of spirituality. I saw it in Zen.”

”I went to sit in the Zen Center in meditation for a year. And it got progressively more and more serious.” A j.a.panese teacher was brought in. But Blank encountered a reservation.

”I didn't want to sit in the temple because they have a Buddha they all bow to and I thought it was pretty primitive. I told the ros.h.i.+ that and he said, 'Come with me,' and we went into the Zendo.

”He said, 'Do you think we really bow to this thing?'

”'Well,' I told him, 'It looks bad. How do I know you don't?' He took it by the head, turned it upside down, and opened the storage room, and flung it, very disrespectfully, bounced it into the wood storage room and slammed the door. He said, 'If we were going to bow to it, do you think I would do that?'

”People came in and saw there was no Buddha and they bowed to the emptiness. So I had no trouble after that, sitting in the Zendo where the Zen teacher could do that.”

But after a year, ”I started pulling away from it, asking questions: When did this idea come up? At what age did these ideas develop? The ros.h.i.+ said, 'Those are very rabbinic questions. Before you know it you'll be a scholar, that is not what Zen is about.' My intellect was starting up again because my heart was dropping out.

”So my Zen teacher said, 'It would probably be more of a Zen thing for you to leave the temple and hitchhike around America because you are hiding here like you were in the yes.h.i.+va because they taught you the goyim are going to kill you with pitchforks as soon as you expose yourself to them. So I suggest that perhaps you go hitchhiking around America, preferably don't take any money with you, throw yourself on the mercy of the are going to kill you with pitchforks as soon as you expose yourself to them. So I suggest that perhaps you go hitchhiking around America, preferably don't take any money with you, throw yourself on the mercy of the goyim goyim and see what happens. If you die, you die.' and see what happens. If you die, you die.'

”And I did quite well. The goyim goyim were very nice to me, and it was a big change. I hitchhiked out to California eventually. I walked into a Shavuous done by the Aquarian Minyan, they were very warm, light, loving, and affectionate. They were influenced by Zalman Schachter. It was a way of reconnecting to Judaism with tai chi in it and meditation and expanded consciousness. I thought I could bring the Zen and the Hasidism together-they were both accepted in this place.” were very nice to me, and it was a big change. I hitchhiked out to California eventually. I walked into a Shavuous done by the Aquarian Minyan, they were very warm, light, loving, and affectionate. They were influenced by Zalman Schachter. It was a way of reconnecting to Judaism with tai chi in it and meditation and expanded consciousness. I thought I could bring the Zen and the Hasidism together-they were both accepted in this place.”

Such stories make Nathan Katz's notion of previous contact between Judaism and Buddhism far more plausible to the imagination. They suggest how such exchanges might have occurred on the personal level. There have always been Sarmads and Ram Da.s.ses, Alex Berzins and Chodrons, Marc Liebermans and David Blanks, pa.s.sing through other traditions and sometimes coming back. A Jewish student with a Buddhist teacher, a Buddhist student with a Jewish teacher, a Jewish Buddhist, a Buddhist Jew-it could have happened in the ancient world as it is happening today. We know that in the third century B.C. B.C., the Indian emperor Ashoka, a committed Buddhist, made a determined missionary effort. He sent emissaries to Syria and Egypt to teach dharma. Is it possible that these Buddhist teachers brought with them the whole idea of monasticism? The monastic idea never gained a strong foothold in Judaism, but it did flourish beginning in the second century B.C.E. B.C.E. in both Israel and Egypt among the Essenes and the Therapeutae. Where did the pattern come from? It's conceivable that Jewish and Christian monasteries owe their origin to Buddhism. in both Israel and Egypt among the Essenes and the Therapeutae. Where did the pattern come from? It's conceivable that Jewish and Christian monasteries owe their origin to Buddhism.

Other scholars have speculated that Buddhist concepts infiltrated Jewish Gnostic circles in the first century. Alexandria is a possible locale for such interactions. This highly cosmopolitan port had separate quarters for Greeks, Jews, Egyptians, and a settlement of resident Hindus. There was a constant stream of merchants from western India-and Buddhists were merchants par excellence. Moreover, the city was full of philosophers who wrote books and lectured in lecture halls. It is not hard to imagine Buddhist and Jewish merchants, sitting around a table in cosmopolitan first-century Alexandria, at the time of Philo, exchanging merchandise, but also ideas and religious concepts, such as rebirth. Jewish Gnosticism is one acknowledged source for the later developments of kabbalah.

All of this is highly speculative, but thanks to the dialogue, I have a vivid sense of how it might have been. For instance, one afternoon at Kashmir Cottage I noticed Chodron and Jonathan Omer-Man sitting quietly together. ”Jonathan had asked someone to come and teach him meditation,” Chodron told me. ”So I met with him on a few occasions, not as teacher and student, but as spiritual friends.

”I started explaining breathing meditation and he was saying he does that same thing, saying the name of G.o.d as you breathe in and out, trying to calm the mind down. It was very similar to what we do in Buddhism.”

Jonathan learned from the experience that ”the Buddhist approach to meditation is much more disciplined and structured than ours is. Nevertheless, there is a wonderful parallel, and even almost identical techniques. She gave me a very powerful meditation, a moment of wonderful joy and recognition and laughter.”

Marc Lieberman offered a biological metaphor for such exchanges. ”I don't know how Judaism a.s.similated stuff from other cultures, how, for instance, Aristotelian thought so thoroughly infiltrated the Jewish mind in the Middle Ages that rabbis since then have been obsessed with logic. Or how the gnostic experience in the Second Temple era was so profound that Judaism could no longer be a sacrificial religion, because Jews realized there were universal principles of cosmic wisdom. I don't know how the interface of Judaism and the world around it works. But it's like a cell wall. It's not simple diffusion. There are active pumps deciding whether this stuff is toxic or not.

”Some part of me says that this interface with Buddhism, dharma, meditation, maybe there's some very profound osmotic gradient, reminding lots of Jewish people that our picture of Judaism is just that, one picture in time. There are other materials to work with if we are spiritually hungry, the warehouse is a lot bigger than the room we are playing in.”

Similarly, to Rabbi David Blank ”Judaism is like a big archaeological heap of shofars and Torahs and good ideas. It's up to us to forge a coherency in the spiritual path so it does speak in one voice to us at the layer that we are on and we can choose whatever we want from the heap of treasures and half broken things that we don't understand.

”It's important for us to do that, and I don't think the work has been done yet. We need a coherent spiritual path in Judaism. There is none. We are in between right now. We need a great teacher to come to show us a new way to do it.”

For now, there are only hints of what this coherent spiritual path would look like. Certainly Zalman Schachter and the tiny Jewish renewal movement represent part of the change. But whether they will be able to significantly influence the mainstream of Judaism remains to be seen. The cell wall of Judaism that Dr. Lieberman describes can get quite rigid when it comes to a.s.similating new ideas. Indeed, some in Jewish renewal, such as Rabbi Omer-Man, retain a certain caution. He explained, ”One can find a commonality with other traditions and the commonality is extremely valuable. Yet in every esoteric tradition that I know of, there is an insistence that you must come through the exoteric, Sufis through Islam, Christians through Christianity, Jews through Judaism, to reach the esoteric.”

Still, the common ground we discovered between the Jewish and Buddhist esoteric left me fascinated. At the 1991 P'nai Or Kallah, I asked Zalman Schachter what he felt when we saw so many points of likeness with Buddhism, such as doctrines of rebirth and systems of meditation.

”That's what I see as the no frills stuff,” he answered. ”It's the generic religion behind the whole business. You know...”-he closed his eyes to come up with the phrase, and a big smile lit up his face-”those are the ACTIVE INGREDIENTS ACTIVE INGREDIENTS. The rest of it is food coloring, packaging. The active ingredients is what works, you know?”

I knew. I had felt what works in Judaism many times during our trip to India, and never more so than during our last moments together in Judah Hyam Synagogue. Certainly, as I remember Ram Da.s.s there, and Marc Lieberman behind him, and Joy and Blu and Yitz davening, and Isaac Malecar and his daughter, it seems that for a moment, all the elements of our journey had come together in one place, and all the Jewish secrets of survival we'd brought to the Dalai Lama were represented. Ironically, while Rabbi Greenberg felt obliged to stand apart when Joy Levitt led the davening in Dharamsala, in Delhi he had an Orthodox minyan minyan, with Ram Da.s.s the tenth Jew. That was something to contemplate. My midrash: to be complete, Jews need to be more inclusive.

That evening in Delhi, a Jewish Hindu and a Hindu Jew joined the entire circle of those who have stayed within Judaism, and all those who might return if, as Rabbi David Blank put it, the right teacher-and the coherent teaching-can be found.

We were one already, at least in voice. Even after the formal service, we kept singing, really into the spirit of the thing, knowing these were our last moments together, not wanting to let go. As we sang ”Etz Chayim,” a tree of life, Paul Mendes-Flohr filled gla.s.ses of wine on a silver tray.

Then with Isaac Malecar's coaching, his daughter launched into a very hearty ”Shalom Aleikhem,” the traditional welcome to the angels who accompany wors.h.i.+pers home to the Shabbat table. I remembered again the Angel of Tibet and the Angel of the Jews.

Isaac asked his daughter to sing one more song. I couldn't help but think of my own daughters, to hear the familiar melody so far away from home, quavering in the air, tenuous and fragile, like Jewish survival, which always rests, as Blu had told the Dalai Lama, with our children.

”Lekha Dodi” was one last secret of Jewish survival. I heard in the song her father's pride and his efforts to sustain the last notes of a tradition in India that goes back thousands of years. I heard tradition and joy, family and the feminine, the lore of the Shekhinah and a hint of the esoteric, the legacy of Safed. Was I hearing the voice of an angel? I listened as a young girl welcomed the Shabbat Bride to the last shul in Delhi.

23.

In a Pool of Nectar.

Two years later, one effect of Jewish dialogue with the Dalai Lama has become clear. He now consistently describes the Tibetan tragedy as ”cultural genocide” and a ”Buddhist Holocaust.”

Affirming his connection to Jewish history, on Yom Hashoah Yom Hashoah 1993, Holocaust Memorial Day (April 26), he became the first official visitor to the Holocaust Museum in Was.h.i.+ngton, entering it moments before the doors were thrown open to the general public. According to one account, he moved through three floors of exhibits, ”his monk's robes lightly touching the floor, his head occasionally shaking in what appeared to be dismay. In the Hall of Remembrance, a chamber reserved for solace, he stood for four minutes in silence, his hands clasped to his chin in meditation.” I wonder if he recalled there Rabbi Greenberg's lesson, ”Always remind.” In Dharamsala, Rabbi Greenberg had urged him to combine Buddhism with a more ”this-worldly” consciousness. And at a tribute to Tibet that followed his visit to the Holocaust Museum, Elie Wiesel-his fellow n.o.bel Peace Prize winner-was even more blunt than Yitz had been. Wiesel said he respected Tibet as a place that ”believes in prayer. But now Tibetans better learn the facts of life that the twentieth century has taught us: Prayers alone are not sufficient.” 1993, Holocaust Memorial Day (April 26), he became the first official visitor to the Holocaust Museum in Was.h.i.+ngton, entering it moments before the doors were thrown open to the general public. According to one account, he moved through three floors of exhibits, ”his monk's robes lightly touching the floor, his head occasionally shaking in what appeared to be dismay. In the Hall of Remembrance, a chamber reserved for solace, he stood for four minutes in silence, his hands clasped to his chin in meditation.” I wonder if he recalled there Rabbi Greenberg's lesson, ”Always remind.” In Dharamsala, Rabbi Greenberg had urged him to combine Buddhism with a more ”this-worldly” consciousness. And at a tribute to Tibet that followed his visit to the Holocaust Museum, Elie Wiesel-his fellow n.o.bel Peace Prize winner-was even more blunt than Yitz had been. Wiesel said he respected Tibet as a place that ”believes in prayer. But now Tibetans better learn the facts of life that the twentieth century has taught us: Prayers alone are not sufficient.”

There is evidence that this very vigorous Jewish message has struck home. This is a real change. In Dharamsala, the religious leaders.h.i.+p distinguished saving Tibet from saving Buddhism. Karma Gelek told us, ”Because of the success of establis.h.i.+ng monasteries, we don't worry about the disappearance of our culture from the surface of the earth.”

Today the Dalai Lama does worry about it. This is clear from his statement to American Buddhists at the Tibetan Buddhist Learning Center later distributed in the spring of 1993. Although he noted with satisfaction the present spread of Tibetan Buddhism in the West, with ”some one thousand centers around the world with over two hundred fifty in the United States alone,” he argued against a ”fatalism” among Western Buddhists ”about the history and problem of Tibet; 'Well, it had to happen that way-otherwise Tibetans would not have come out of isolation into the world.'”

Instead, ”in the midst of what can accurately be called 'the Buddhist holocaust' of the twentieth century,” the Dalai Lama suggested that ”as Buddhist pract.i.tioners, you should understand the necessity of preserving Tibetan Buddhism. For this the land, the physical country of Tibet, is crucial. It is very unlikely that [the sacred land of Tibet] can survive as a cultural and spiritual ent.i.ty if its physical reality is smothered under Chinese occupation. Clearly, in this light, active support for the Tibetan cause is not just a matter of politics. It is the work of dharma.” He seems to have become a dharma Zionist-with Tibet as the spiritual homeland of dharma.

Some other practical results followed our dialogue. Several major Jewish organizations have now gone on record in support of the Tibetan people in their struggle for freedom. In the summer of 1992, a promise was kept when Blu Greenberg arranged for two princ.i.p.als from Tibetan schools in India, Phuntsok Namgyal and Tenzin Sangpo, to visit Jewish day camps in the Catskills, Berks.h.i.+res, and Dutchess County.

The Jewish-Buddhist dialogue also continues at the religious level. In the summer of 1992, the Naropa Inst.i.tute sponsored a course taught by a rabbi and a JUBU Zen Buddhist abbot, Bernard Gla.s.sman. (Gla.s.sman had observed the first Jewish-Buddhist dialogue in New Jersey.) Elat Chayim, a Jewish spiritual camp affiliated with Zalman Schachter's group, P'nai Or, held a session on Torah dharma with Ram Da.s.s. Later that fall, the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies sponsored a weekend retreat on Jewish Buddhist issues, led by Joseph Goldstein, with partic.i.p.ation by Marc Lieberman and Moshe Waldoks. In the summer of 1993, similar programs were offered at Elat Chayim and once again at Naropa.

Rabbi Omer-Man's school of Jewish meditation in Los Angeles has taken the name Metivta. It has proven remarkably popular and has already served more than six hundred students. Marc Lieberman and Nancy Garfield are working on establis.h.i.+ng a Buddhist vihara in San Francisco, and in fall 1992 Marc's son was bar mitzvahed. Blu Greenberg has been rallying women's groups in support of Tibetan women who are being sterilized by the Chinese. Rabbi Greenberg was roundly criticized by the Orthodox rabbinical a.s.sembly and almost expelled, but he continues his tireless efforts on behalf of clal yisrael clal yisrael, the community of Israel. Nathan Katz has edited an issue of the Tibet Journal Tibet Journal on TibetanJewish dialogue and published a book on Jews in India. Rabbi Zalman Schachter's group, P'nai Or, has reorganized itself as ALEPH, an alliance for Jewish renewal with a network of groups across the country. He also continues dialogue and teaching with a number of Buddhists, both Tibetans and Westerners. on TibetanJewish dialogue and published a book on Jews in India. Rabbi Zalman Schachter's group, P'nai Or, has reorganized itself as ALEPH, an alliance for Jewish renewal with a network of groups across the country. He also continues dialogue and teaching with a number of Buddhists, both Tibetans and Westerners.

Every partic.i.p.ant from the Jewish side felt transformed by the dialogue experience. Rabbi Omer-Man, for instance, described the encounter with Tibetan Buddhism as the most important spiritual experience of his life, one that has empowered him in his Jewish work ever since.

My image of the encounter goes back to the moment we first saw the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, at Tsuglakhang, the main temple. We were sitting in a row on metal folding chairs. I overheard Richard Gere explaining to Zalman Schachter some of the many thangkas thangkas hung about the temple, painted on silk in the bright primary colors Tibetans delight in. One behind the Dalai Lama depicted a layer cake of Buddhas, rising up in rows. hung about the temple, painted on silk in the bright primary colors Tibetans delight in. One behind the Dalai Lama depicted a layer cake of Buddhas, rising up in rows.

Zalman asked about the pool of water where they meditated. ”Actually,” Richard Gere said, ”that pool of water is really a pool of nectar.”