Collecting your days

Mystical Zohar suggests every single day brings specific spiritual opportunity

Rabbi Mordechai Gafni|Published: 11.25.05 , 00:22

I heard on the news, like we all did, that Ariel Sharon was going to leave Likud and form a new political party. Even though I do not agree with his political position I was proud of him. To be able – in one's old age – to change old habits- to respond in a fresh and creative manner to the new realities that life invites us to engage, is a sign of spiritual depth and greatness. As I read the newspaper I could not help thinking of this week's parasha.

There is a phrase in this week Torah reading phrase used to describe Abraham in his old age. “Abraham was old – and came with his days.” All the interpreters are troubled by this phrase. What could it mean? "Came with his days”?

The mystical Zohar, illuminating this phrase, suggests that every single day brings a spiritual opportunity radically specific to it alone. Dramatically the Zohar teaches that there are not extra days. Every single day brings with it a unique revelation to the individual that no other day before it or after will ever bring.

There is soul print revelation anew in every day, if we can accept the invitation to encounter it. Sadly some people live the same day every singly day of the year.

Collecting only 14 happy days

The Hassidic master, Mordechai Lainer of Izbical writes that even if one fulfills all of the laws in the Shulchan Aruch, if one does not respond to the unique divine invitation in every new day then it is possible for one to live their entire life without ever fulfilling the infinite divine will. I never quite understood this idea until a soul print encounter I had with Israeli avant garde writer Pinchas Sadeh.

I went to visit Sadeh when he was an old man dying of cancer in Jerusalem. He was in a particularly nostalgic mood that night and spun story after story of his life. I sat there wrapped in the wonder of his memories. As I was leaving, I thanked him for sharing with me from the wealth of his days. His smile turned serious as he looked into my eyes and replied, ‘When I was young, like you, I read Goethe but did not understand him.'

To take our days with us is a spiritual art form

You see, Goethe had written that he was able to collect from his life 14 days of happiness. How could it be, I asked myself, that Goethe, who was so successful in his own lifetime, whose wife was so beautiful, whose fame so widespread, who was surrounded by friends - how could it be that he was able to collect only 14 happy days? Was he so unappreciative; so insensitive and senile, that he could not remember more?

“Now at the end of my life I finally understand Goethe. But I more than understand. I am amazed by the man - that he was able to collect so many days of joy! I have tried to collect my days and have come up with a meager handful. Pieces and fragments come to me, snatches like the stories you heard tonight. But I am not sure what was real and what fantasy, imagination, or dream. A very few days remain entire and whole in my memories. The ones that do sit like gems in my hand. But they are so few. Imagine the wealth of fourteen full days of joy!”’ I had a copy of the Zohar with me. I read him the passage that I am citing here. We understood.

The days that you are able to take with you are days when you felt fully present, when you responded to your unique calling or fully lived your story. It is even more then that however. That Abraham was able to “take his days with him” meant first that he was able to collect his days; his soul print unfolded daily, becoming richer, more colorful, and textured all the time.

It also meant that Abraham’s days built on each other, each one giving birth to the next in a way that made aging a great joy. If you can understand your life as the process of unfolding your soul print, then the passage of time into old age can bring, not only some measure of pain but great joy as well.

Dear Reader, You can give yourself the same challenge as Goethe and Sadeh. Try to gather 14 days from the last year. Describe as much of each day as you can remember the feelings it engendered, the joys, the pleasures and pains, and the lessons learned.

You will probably find that it will not be an easy task at all. To take our days with us is a spiritual art of the highest form. It is to be - in the language of the Talmud - a spiritual student of Abraham our Father."

Rabbi Mordechai Gafni - Teacher and student of Torah; Leader of Bayit Chadash Spiritual Community and Movement; Chair of Integral Kabbalah at Integral Institute of Ken Wilber