Good & Evil
Personal Question: If we are G-d's psyche having a Divine experience, what is G-d's need for all this pain and suffering? What does He get from all of this insane hurting of one another?
Is this not the existential question the child (and adult) asks of G-d. How to keep my faith when surrounded by such dark forces?
I was fifteen years old when I was raped. I was walking home one day, when a group of young guys dragged me into a shed and abused me, both sexually and emotionally. It was a terrible experience, but yet, in that awesome place of helplessness and terror, there was a gift.
This is my story.
There was a point at which I could not longer fight, and had to just submit to survive. At that point, it was like I had left my body, though not completely, because I could still feel, and hear everything that was happening. There was a part of me that was watching, and another that was – how can I say – enjoying it. Even feeding off the energy of the situation – as bizarre as that may seem.
I realised then, and have confirmed since, that many, many people suffer from the – the only word I can use here is juicy – feeling that arises from extreme experiences. For they often provide the juice that powers us for many years after. It is like a feeling of something being nourished. This is where the essential existential issue around sexual activity arises. The assumption/belief is that that which is being nourished is evil, or bad,
Is it evil? It is one of, if not the primal, source of life (and its experience).
Perhaps one needs to journey to that place, and speak to it?
and thus needs to be repressed...
It is an energy. Modern man can think of electricity, primitive man can think of fire, and some can see it in water. But, like all energy it needs to be constrained to be useful, else it will become overwhelming. Repressed energy will eventually erupt violently. Energy must also be moderated so that the recipient can handle it, and does not "fuse", or get burnt to ashes, or drown in the tsunami. In fact, it has to be carefully modulated so that it feeds the appropriate amount in the right sequence at the correct time to the receiver. That is called synergy Tipheret, which is the experience of harmony and balance.
and all this is based on religious doctrine. This is where my experience turned me, or turned some light on, and I could see something I never saw before. There are religious truths, which are based on a narrative to explain the world we live in, and try and forge ways of living in it in community. And there are spiritual truths, which are based on something far more dynamic – Truth.
For example, my story is based on the fact that I was brutally raped at 15.. and then my subsequent life was built around this seminal fact - upon which my particular story is based. That is the "religious/cultural" context. It was terrible. I was bruised and sore for weeks after. The emotional scars were deep and affected my relationships for the rest of my life. What did I do to deserve it? I was an innocent girl, and suddenly the evil wolves jumped from between the buildings and attacked me. What G-d, may His Name be raised high, would create this, I have asked, over and over, again? I know many have had similar terrible experiences, some even far worse than what happened to me. But this was my experience, my particular event. I have to own it in some way.
A basic assumption of human existence is that my life began when I was born. This is unholy. Because it ignores the incredible confluence of events that had to gel to make your birth possible. That my awareness of my own life begins when I was born, ignores all the lines that came together to produce this particular event in the microcosm of your particular – not taking even into consideration all those from the macrocosm of creation.
Because we have a limited view of the totality, I can only see through the window that is availabe to me. If I see trees through the window, I might assume that there are trees everywhere, so naturally you see trees when you look through your window. And not only do you see trees, but the natural egoistical assumption is that you see the same trees as I. But from your tower, the landscape might be different.
This is a meditation on Netzach & Hod
It would be easy to hide behind a denial - and say well G-d, the all-merciful, the all-seeing un-seen, does not exist. Throw the baby out with the bathwater. But there were elements that were present in that event that were filled with awesome – what? Things that occurred that were not of this world, but felt like they occurred in another... dimension? Could that be? I wanted to say another realm – but that is not accurate. It was a realm that is attached to, is of, this realm, but yet not of it. My body was experiencing the reality of what was happening to it, and I was feeling it, like I was there – but yet, here I was, watching it happen too.
Christians base their religion on the fact that Jesus, the Son of G-d, blessed be His Name, lived and died for our sins. Moslems base it on the fact that Mohammed, Blessing on the Prophet, is a prophet of G-d, may His Name be blessed, Much of the rest is to contextualise the narrative. Jews base their religion on the fact that G-d, may His Name be on my lips for evermore, gave the Jews the Torah.
At some point someone told a story, and enough people believed his story – and a religion is born. Jews claim that theirs was a communal revelation. The Eastern faiths seems to have permeated more subtly into the people's mind. But, not being an expert in neither their cultural history nor their faiths, I hesitate to speak to much of them in this context.
Through the years, I have realised that there are many others of us who have had a seminal event (or a series thereof) that has shaped their lives. It is like we are born a blob, like a piece of clay, that is then shaped by the hand of G-d, may I never forget Your Name, or for some Nature, or Chance, or "Some Thing Else". But it was not any of us, collectively or separately, that we know! So whatever put me together, before I was raped, is not of this that I know, whatever name I might give it, or not.
Perhaps the DNA is that map, just as every seed contains the map for its particular type of tree. Then the elements and environment shape it according to the particular set of events that it experiences.
This horrible event shaped me in the same way. I have seen these twist people into really ugly shapes and I pity them. But I cannot truly judge them. I can only make sure that it has not twisted me into a pretzel version of myself.