By Albert Kohn
Nachshon programming has been very upbeat and energizing; we have met with inspiring leaders, felt the energy pulsating through the contemporary start-up scene and danced with Breslov Hasids. Yet, Saturday night on our Tzfat trip was, well, different. Descending from the bus, we found ourselves in the pits of shadowy valley staring up at the stars. Instead of being there to commune with nature though, we were there to visit the grave of the somewhat obscure Talmudic figure named Yonatan ben Uzziel whose burial site is said to provide aid to its pleading visitors. As each of us approached the velvet covered tomb in our own way and did seven traditional circumambulations of the roof, one could sense the discomfort. Should one really turn to the dead to find assistance in challenging times? Is this rationally defensible? Is it even Jewish?
It is the fact that saints and pilgrimage to their graves are a cornerstone of medieval Christian history that makes this last question regarding the Jewish character of our late-night trip so poignant. Why would us, aspiring Jewish leaders, deviate so harshly from the character of our history? Well, even though this question was on everyone’s mind, a little bit of research shows that there is little reason for concern. Though out of vogue—especially in progressive American denominations—communing with the dead by visiting their burial places is a religious practice rooted in our history and culture. Going as far back as the Bible, we find King Saul bringing back to the spirit of Samuel to garner advice from the deceased prophet. More recently, Rabbi Isaac Luria—an important 16th century thinker we discussed frequently in our tour—describes how one can commune with the dead by “stretching yourself out on the Tzaddik’s actual grave. . . [whereupon] he comes ‘alive’ and his bones become like a body to the soul that is stretched out and spread out within them” (translation by Lawrence Fine in Physician of the Soul, Healer of the Cosmos, page 266 ). In this rather eccentric instruction, the Arizal encourages his followers to literally embrace the dead by spreading themselves out, face first, on these holy gravesites which are so abundant in and around Tzfat. So much for a lack of Jewish foundations.
Yet, even though the knowledge that we are following in the footsteps of the Holy Arizal pacified me as we marched around the tomb of Yonatan ben Uzziel, it was only while staring out the window on the ride home that I realized that, when it really comes down to it, communing with the dead is what Nachshon is all about. This is not to suggest that Rabbis Zeff and Cohen are training us for a bright future in the occult, but instead that Judaism is built upon a desire to commune with ancient traditions so to find meaning and guidance in our modern world. One need only look at the fact that the name Nachshon hearkens back to our ancestor to see that our whole project is about bringing into modernity that which long ago passed on. Just as the Arizal and his followers would place their faces in the sacred dirt covering the deceased looking for solutions to the questions tugging at their souls, Jewish practice—and especially Jewish leadership—demands that we fully submerge ourselves in this sanctified pile of traditions which we have been bequeathed and embrace it looking for guidance and advice on how to organize our lives. As we acculturate Jewish ideas and traditions into our modern lives, we are simultaneously communing with and resurrecting those who have walked this path before us.
In the words of the Arizal’s most important student, Haim Vital:
Once the Arizal went to prostrate himself upon the grave of Shemaya and Avtalyon for the purpose of inquiring of them the true secrets of the Torah, for such was his custom. Whenever he desired to speak with a prophet or a certain Talmudic sage, he would travel to his grave and lay himself down upon it with outstretched arms and feet . . . He would bind the aspects of his own soul to those of the Righteous ones and bring about supernal unification. By means of this practice, the soul of the Righteous ones would be invested with a new light greater than that which he had previously [during his life]. In this way, the dry bones that lie in the grave are revived: the aspects of the Righteous one’s soul descended into the Arizal’s bones, bringing the Righteous One to actual life and speaking with the Arizal as a man speaks to his neighbor, revealing to him all the secrets of the Torah concerning which he asks of him.
