Shabbat HaGadol — 5769

There are moments in our lives that we would characterize as spiritual highs. Experiencing a birth for the first time. Seeing the Grand Canyon. Being on top of a tall mountain. The day of our wedding. The experience of the sea.

We can experience and even re-experience a special kinship with God. Spirituality in Judaism is described as an elevation. Maalin Bakodesh. We rise in holiness.

There is a favorite story of mine in the Torah that has always puzzled me. It is the story of Jacob and the ladder. In that story, Jacob has a dream about a ladder reaching up into the heaven. The Torah does not say that Jacob climbs the ladder only that he looks up the ladder and sees angels on the ladder and knows that the presence of God is on top of the ladder. Why doesn’t he climb the ladder? If Judaism is about rising up in holiness, why doesn’t Jacob as other prophets do like Moses or Isaiah, why doesn’t he go up the ladder to be with God?

I think Jacob is an archetype for a special type of religious personality. It is the person who desires spirituality in his or her life, knows how to get it, looks at the rungs of the ladder and does not make it up to the pinnacle of the spirituality he or she aspires to. It is a spirituality that is applied in stages – what the philosopher Franz Rosenzweig described as a “not yet” spirituality. “I know intellectually where I want to be – to be greatful for my life, to adopt spiritual practices, prayer, yoga, good deeds, whatever… but I can only do it step by step.”

And perhaps if we applied a number to those steps, we could might even choose the number fifteen. Fifteen steps.

Fifteen is a number that is associated with Pesach. Pesach falls on the 15th of Nissan. There are 15 parts of the seder from Kadesh u’rchatz to Nirtza. If you look at the Torah scroll, on the part that describes the splitting of the red sea, the words of the poem are arranged as an illustration that shows a ladder with rungs from top to bottom, 15 rungs to be exact.

There are other number 15’s. There are 15 psalms that begin Shir Hamaalot. Songs of elevation. There were 15 steps ascending the Southern side of the Temple. I imagine that each of the 15 psalms were said by pilgrims who went up to Jerusalem at fifteen different stations along the way. Once they climbed the fifteen steps to the Temple, the priests gave them a blessing also recorded in our Torah –yverech’cha adonai-- of 15 words! Maalin bakodesh!

So we have to think – why the number fifteen? Actually, it is interesting: concerning the 15th of Nissan, the start of Pesach which begins this week on Wednesday night. The Bible actually describes three different celebrations – one at the beginning of the month, one on the tenth of the month, and one on the fifteen of the month. We ultimately choose to focus on the day when the moon is full to be the central celebration – seder leil pesach. Another example of maalin bakodesh. When the moon waxes and is at its fullest, this is the climax of Passover. We are told in the Torah that we should eat the roasted lamb crouched over with our belts on, sandals on our feet, staff in our hand… in a state of readiness which the Torah describes as b’hipazon, in haste. We don’t practice this today. Most people understand this to mean that the Israelites ate quickly because they feared that the Egyptians or Pharoah would come to attack them or that the angel of death would come and seek them. I understand b’hipazon to be that state of spiritual readiness, like Jacob looking at the ladder, an anxiety about knowing where one wants to go, but not really being sure how to get there or what comes next.

Today we celebrate that historic night in the fifteen steps of the Seder. It is a spiritual practice that ends with nitza, asking God to accept our service, our effort, or symbolic climbing of the steps to get a spiritual high and to be closer to God.

The song “Dayenu” (which by the way has 15 verses) says it all, I think. Kamah Maalot Tovot, it begins. How many levels of goodness did God bring us to in getting out of Egypt. Had God just brought us our of Egypt, Had God just brought us across the sea, Had God just brought us to dry land… you know how it goes. And what do we say? Dayenu! That would have been enough! But if you think about it, it wouldn’t been enough because all those 15 steps or levels or stages, if completed, would have brought us to the Temple. But you see, that is not where we are all… spiritually. Some of us are still at the sea. Some of us are still at dry land. Some of us are still at the Torah. And dayenu. That is enough. There is an acceptance – Nirtzah.

The message of Pesach is acknowledging that at some level each of us has reached a spiritual plateau and that is alright. And there are fifteen plateaus on our climb up the mountain to be precise. Coming to the day when the moon is full – the evening of the 15th of Nissan. And of course, the holiday continues without much fanfare all the way until the 21st of Nissan. Twenty one days of rising in holiness.

I heard an amazing statistic the other day. It is a common psychological fact that it takes 21 days to form a habit. So perhaps that is where the 15 comes in. Two weeks and day and then three weeks. Nissan I believe beckons us to form a spiritual practice a habit – suggested by refraining from bread—and bringing our newly adopted spiritual practice to a higher and higher relationship with God.

We come back to Jacob. We look at Jacob looking up the ladder and ask ourselves: where are we on the ladder of holiness, what will do this year to elevate ourselves to greater spiritual highs? Let this be in our thoughts during the holy days ahead.

Amen.