[Jewish] [Mindful Torah] Psalm for Monday: Psalm 48, Verse 2

[Rabbi Steven Nathan]

Great is the Eternal, and most worthy of praise, in the city of our
God, God's holy mountain.
Here the pslamist is praising God in the city of "our God, God's holy
mountain." The city referred to here is Jerusalem. The mountain, it
would seem, is Mount Zion/Mount Moriah, in the "center" of ancient
Jerusalem where Abraham is said to have bound Isaac and where the
Temple was built by Solomon.
I would like to look at this psalm as referring not to the physical
Jerusalem, over which wars have been fought for generations up until
this very day. Rather, I see it as referring to the "heavenly
Jerusalem." According to an ancient tradition, expounded upon in the
Kabbalah/ mystical tradition, there is a heavenly Jerusalem that is
linked to the earthly Jerusalem. In certain Kabbalistic texts, the
heavenly Jerusalem is seen as the dwelling place of the Shekhinah, or
indwelling Divine presence. The Shekhinah is also viewed as the
feminine aspect of God and the aspect of God with which human beings
have the most direct and intimate contact (sorry for the
oversimplification here, but this is meant to be a brief blog and this
is a complex topic).
The heavenly Jerusalem is devoid of politics. It is not a geographical
location. It is simply the place where the Shekhinah dwells. In that
place it is easy to praise God's greatness, because it is beyond the
turmoil and confusion of the physical world. In that realm, God is
truly "our God". Not the God of the Jews, but the God of all humanity.
Looking at it through this lense, the psalm says to me that wherever
one is at any given moment moment, if we are truly present and seeking
connection with the Divine, then we connect ourselves on spiritual
level with the Jerusalem above. Our actual geographical location is of
no matter. We can attach ourselves to the place where God is everyone's
God, the Heavenly Jerusalem, anywhere. When we do this we are
transported to a spiritual realm of eternal peace and no politics, no
divisions between human beings. When we are able to connect with God
that way, then we can truly sing the praise of God and be aware of the
greatness of the Divine. The greatness that flows through and connects
all of us and all of the universe. Then our task is to take this
spiritual experience and bring it back with us into the everyday
physical world.

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Posted By Rabbi Steven Nathan to Mindful Torah at 5/03/2010 08:27:00 AM
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