When a person’s ox injures a neighbor’s ox and it dies, they shall sell the live ox and divide its price; they shall also divide the dead animal. If, however, it is known that the ox was in the habit of goring, and its owner has failed to guard it, that person must restore ox for ox, and [the neighbor] shall keep the dead animal. [Exod. 21:35-36]

These verses follow the chapter containing the Revelation at Sinai and are part of what the rabbis call the Book of the Covenant, detailing the first rules derived from the Ten Commandments. Though taken at the literal level, these rules might appear antiquated and no longer relevant to our post-modern lives (who among us owns an ox anymore?); they are, at a deeper level, far more than simple rules and legislations.

Take our first verse, for example, and transpose it into 21st century concepts: When a corporation (call it BP for argument sake) injures/pollutes a neighboring ecosystem by accident, the corporation shall compensate that country financially by paying out half the cleaning up costs. Going further with the second verse: If it is know that the said corporation was in the habit of polluting (our rabbis call for 2 prior instances) and its owners had failed to take appropriate action to prevent another accident, that corporation must pay all the cleanup costs to restore the polluted area back to its pristine state.

The same goes for peoples’ behavior.

When an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned… but the owner of the ox is not to be punished. If, however, that ox has been in the habit of goring, and its owner, though warned, has failed to guard it, and it kills a man or a woman-the ox shall be stoned and its owner too, shall be put to death. [Exod. 21:28-29]

To bring up a recent example: When a university coach abuses a neighbor’s son, the coach shall be punished to the full extent of the law, but his superior is not to be punished. If, however, that coach had been in the habit of abusing young boys for many years, and his superior, though aware, had failed to restrain him, the coach is to be punished to the full extent of the law and so is his superior. Our headlines seem to bring us more examples of the “ox that gores” story everyday; in the public sphere and in our neighborhoods, in our schools, our work places and our spaces of worship. Yet we fail, time and again, to uphold the basic Torah principles that we have known for 3,000 years. Why is that?

Perhaps because we have come to see Torah as the repository of cruel laws from a vengeful God, we are no longer able to appreciate the depth of its universal message. Here, however, the Torah is inviting us to combat such destructive human behavior by creating a healthy moral climate based on universal spiritual principles, wherein such actions would not be tolerated. Being openhearted, forgiving and accepting does not mean that we forgo holding people accountable, or that we shy away from taking a stand. The opposite is true. It means that we stand firm on principles of justice, fairness, and personal responsibility. The Book of the Covenant highlights those spiritual principals that support our creating the kind of world that would mirror the Divine attributes of Justice (Din), and Compassion (Chesed), rooted in a clear understanding of the fundamental universal laws that govern creation. These verses, speak of how we are to live in each other’s company from an ethical, just, respectful and inclusive place, in a society that would embody our highest spiritual aspirations.

Taught by Andrea Cohen

The Sh’ma calls us to a deeper listening; a listening that reaches beyond our words to the One Silence that is at the source of Being. The V’ahavta invites us to love; to love with our whole self the One Who manifests as all that is. Our tradition teaches us that the two are intimately connected. Listening is an act of intimacy; a place where we are able to open ourselves to the other’s truth non-judgmentally, and stand in the other’s presence with greater compassion and understanding. Listening is, indeed, the key that unlocks the gates of love.

Compassionate Listening is a practice that seeks to fling these gates wide open for us. Its powerful tools help transform the energy of conflict into opportunities for understanding, intimacy, and healthy relationships in families, the workplace and in our community. It is a practice that provides a road-map to cultivating the wisdom of the heart as the key to real peace “from the inside out.”

Explore the some of the Core Practices of Compassionate Listening, of deep Sh’ma-ing, and learn the skills necessary to bring them into your daily life:

• Holding Compassion for Oneself and Others
• Suspending Judgment
• Maintaining Balance in the Heat of Conflict
• Listening with the Heart
• Speaking from the Heart

Andrea Cohen, M.A., M.S.W., is a Certified Compassionate Listening Facilitator and Senior Trainer. She is author of Practicing the Art of Compassionate Listening and a former Bet Alef member.

Please contact Shellie if you are interested in the Tuesday series beginning in April–or the possibility of a one or two day workshop. Location will be determined based upon participants.

Now Moses went up to God. The Eternal One called to him from the mountain, saying, “Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob and declare to the children of Israel: ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Me. Now then, if you hear, deeply hear My voice, and keep My covenant, you will be to Me a special treasure among all peoples, for all the earth is Mine. You shall be a kingdom of priests, a holy nation’. These are the words that you shall speak to the children of Israel.” [Exod. 19:3-6]

Thus begins chapter 19 in the book of Exodus, the chapter leading up to the Ten Commandments and Revelation at Sinai. Moving beyond the literal level, I read this chapter as a transmission of a spiritual encounter couched in the literary form of myth. Though the words of Revelation meet us in the next chapter, chapter 19 describes the moment of awakening.

These early verses might, therefore, detail the initial meditation from which the unfolding chaotic, awesome and terrifying vision unfolds. “Moses,” the “house of Jacob,” as well as “the children of Israel,” represent different layers of consciousness being addressed here. Our inner Moses, the always already enlightened part of self, is the one to ascend and channel this transmission. The “house of Jacob” represents the level of ego consciousness, while the “children of Israel” the more spiritually inclined aspects of consciousness.[1]

To the ego consciousness God says: “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians;” because the ego needs to see in order to believe. To the “children of Israel” God says: “I bore you on eagles’ wings” because, the kabbalists remind us, the eagle is one of the four animals Ezekiel describes in his vision of the celestial chariot, and is associated with the Cosmic Spiritual World. In this meditation, therefore, God carries the “children of Israel” part of self, up to cosmic consciousness. In so doing God “brought” us to Him–a Hebrew expression used in the context of marriage or union. It is this union with the Divine, becoming one with the One, which this meditation describes. For our mystics the transmission expressed in these verses unfolds at the cosmic level of consciousness and depicts the union of the individual human soul with the Godhead.

Now, then, having reached this state of union, we can hear God’s voice which is our voice. Now, then, we can know that “all the earth” is God’s; and echo the words of the Chasidic masters: “God fills all worlds and surrounds all worlds.” Now, then, we can know ourselves to be a “kingdom of priests“–which Martin Buber translated as “Royal retinue”–one with the One, serving the Holy One of all Being by bearing witness to, and acting as the conduits of Its Presence in our world, of Its Holiness in our lives. Now, then, we can truly hear the first word of the Ten Commandments; “Anochi – I Am,” not as an affirmation from an entity outside of our Self, but as the “I Am” that I am, the “I Am” that you are, one with the One as we forever are.

[1] In Genesis, Jacob sheds his ego-identity through a night of God-wresting & awakens to a higher self named Israel.

Our Torah portion opens with liberation: “Now when Pharaoh let the people go…” [Exod. 13:17] As we approach biblical stories as myth, we no longer read the text literally; but see it, instead, as the expression of a universal spiritual unfolding. To us, therefore, our text speaks here of our inner Pharaoh-the voice of fear and exclusion within. This inner Pharaoh is finally releasing the grip that perpetuated the illusion of our separate sense of identity. In this first step on the spiritual journey, a spark of light enters into our consciousness that illuminates for us the darkness in which we had forgotten we live, having become numbingly habituated to it. Once the spark is perceived, once the tiniest flash of light has come through, there is no turning back, try as we may.

In the biblical myth, we learn, two paths are laid in front of us; a direct path to the Promised Land of enlightenment and a more circuitous path: “God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although it was nearer; for God said, ‘The people may have a change of heart when they see war, and return to Egypt.’ So God led the people round about, by way of the wilderness at the Sea of Reeds.” [Exod. 13:17-18] Our mystics teach, arguably, that in the early stages of one’s spiritual journey, the direct path might not be the preferred one for it is fraught with inner “battles” that could overwhelm one who is unprepared, causing him/her to abandon the journey altogether. Alternatively, this have been a warning directed at those who, even in biblical days, might have been tempted to shortcut the journey by using mind-altering substances, and ran the risk of not only hurting themselves physically, but also psychologically ill-equipped as one might be to face the inner demons one might awaken in the process.

The way of the wilderness is the one preferred here. The Hebrew for “wilderness” is “midbar,” whose three letter root also makes up the word “medaber” which means “speaking.” Perhaps the wilderness in question refers to this silent place in consciousness where one is able to hear that which is being spoken, to open up to the still small voice of one’s inner Divine spiritual guide. As the Israelites begin their journey we learn that they first encamped “at the edge of the wilderness. The Eternal went before them in a pillar of cloud by day, to guide them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light that they might journey day and night.” [Exod. 13:20-21]

It is interesting to notice the image of the two pillars that the authors adopted to represent the guiding Divine force through the spiritual journey. Why have a pillar of cloud during the day and one of fire at night? Why not just one pillar of fire for both day and night? The answer I find in the last few words of our verse: “that they might journey day and night.” For those of us who believe that the spiritual journey is solely a journey of increasing light, this stands as a stark warning. The spiritual path includes both moments of great light and those of great darkness. Our inner guide will remind us that in those moments of great darkness there is a pillar of light to illuminate the way; and that in moments of great light there always lies the shadow, eager to reclaim its hold.

And so we begin this remarkable process of self-transformation, of self-liberation, taking the circuitous road less traveled. Each of us is invited to partake in the journey. It is a journey which might take us 40 years, as it did for the Israelites in our story. Or one that might take us 40 days, as it did for Moses at Sinai. None of us knows how long our individual journey will be. But one thing is absolutely certain, we will surely never find out if we remain at the edge of the wilderness and never take our first step.

Our Torah portion opens, this week, with the last four plagues to befall Egypt. “Then the Eternal One said to Moses, ‘Go to Pharaoh. For I have hardened his heart… so that I may display My signs among them, and that you may recount… how I made a mockery of the Egyptians and how I displayed My signs among them–in order that you may know that I am the Eternal’.” [Exod. 10:1-2] The Hebrew doesn’t actually speak of plagues but of signs, wonders, miracles or signals. These signs are out-of-the-ordinary events in nature that are meant to trigger a reaction of awe in the hearts of the Israelites. Awe was what God intended for us to feel in the great display of God’s might; for us to know the Divine Presence in our world in unmistakable ways.

Last week–at least for those of us living in Western Washington–we, too, were faced with an “out-of-the-ordinary” event in nature: snow. Though some experienced this record-setting snowfall as a plague, many saw it as a wondrous occasion. Because it is so rare, snow has a great power in our region: it quiets things down. Snow slows everything down to a quasi standstill. Snow does on the outside what meditation does on the inside. When it snows in Seattle, there is nowhere to go and nothing to do. We retreat inward, we Shabbat. We cozy up on the couch with a hot beverage, we grab a good book, dust off a few board games. Suddenly we have time for a few minutes of meditation. We hit the reset button. We reflect on what is most meaningful in our lives. We look out the window in awe of the beauty of our natural world; we look at the people in our lives in awe of the love we share. Snow does for us what Moses was trying to do with Pharaoh: open his heart.

Though our text says that God is the One Who hardens Pharaoh’s heart, I suspect that, mythologically, Pharaoh stands as the symbol for the hardening of our heart. Pharaoh is the energy in us that closes us down, that causes us to fear, and consequently reject, exclude, deny, or repress; the energy that might see snow as a plague. The root of the word “Pharaoh” in Hebrew are the three letters peh, resh, and ayin. Peh means mouth or voice. Resh and ayin put together make the word Ra, which means “bad,” or “negative.” Pharaoh can be said to represent the Peh Ra, the “negative voice” within us. On the opposite side of it, we have Moses. Moses is the voice of love in us that is urging us to let go, to release, to relax. Moses is the inner power that is able to peel off the layers of what the kabbalists call the klippot, the shells around our heart. He does so with wonder, with amazement, with awe-inspiring snowstorms that drive us inward.

For our mystics, the process of spiritual awakening is an ongoing process of peeling off the layers of ego that have obstructed the Light Being that we are. It is an ongoing process of letting go of our concepts and rigid certainties, of the strictness of our worldview, of the relative truth we mistake to be absolute. Ultimately it is about letting go of our separate sense of self, of our ego-bound identity, and to open ourselves to the Greater I AM that we are, the ego-less Being-ness that we are. In other words, it is a journey of self-transformation from Pharaoh to Moses. In Gematria, the letters of the word, Pharaoh, add up to 355; Moses to 345. One subtracts 10 from the former to attain the latter: 10 layers of shells around the heart to be peeled off through 10 Divine signs, 10 experiences of breathtaking awe, 10 concentric circles of the kabbalistic Tree of Life to be transcended, from the outermost gross physical circle of self-identity, to the innermost circle of Pure Is-ness. Let’s not wait until the next snowstorm to begin practicing awe, for awe is to be found in every day, in every moment, in every breath.

Every year, as I meet the text narrating the plagues of Egypt, I am confronted with the same paradox. God commends Moses to ask Pharaoh to free the Hebrews. Pharaoh refuses. God brings down a plague. Pharaoh yields to Moses’ demands. Then, inexplicably, God hardens Pharaoh’s heart and the latter, consequently, reverses his edict and keeps the Israelites enslaved. Why is God playing both sides? And why does God need to replay this scene ten times? One can take this questioning further and ask why God sets up the whole thing in the first place? Why, already in the time of Abraham, had God determined that the Hebrews would descend into Egypt, be enslaved there for four hundred years, only to then be liberated and brought to the Promised Land? Why did we have to get there via Egypt?

We find the answer to our questions in the early verses of this week’s Torah portion. In the first verse Moses is described as stepping into the Truth of his being, into the True I Am-ness that he is: not the illusion of the separate sense of self, of the ego; rather YHVH Itself, the transcendent aspect of Being. “I am YHVH” says the Torah [Exod. 6:2]. This I Am-ness, that Moses embodies, is now aware of the parts of the conditioned self still oppressed and in bondage, under the tight lid of the narrow consciousness that is Moses’ inner Mitzrayim, his inner Egypt. As our text has it: “I have now heard the moaning of the Israelites because the Egyptians are holding them in bondage.” [Exod. 6:5] These are the parts of self he is to free from the illusion of separateness: “I am YHVH; I will free you from the burdens of Egypt.” [Exod. 6:6] Because God, is a force that liberates. God is defined as an energy that frees us from our addiction to power, to control; from the exclusive narrow-mindedness of ego; a force that leads us into a land of inclusiveness, compassion, serenity, awe and humility. Why? So that “you shall know that I Am YHVH” [Exod. 6:7], so that our separate sense of self may dissolve in our knowing the Greater “I Am” that we are. Because in that knowing of our Greater Identity, there is no more need for control or power, and we can relax, breathe deeply and let go, as the little “i” is seen through and through for the emptiness that it is.

The journey in and out of Egypt that God sets up is, therefore, part of the process of spiritual awakening. The plagues themselves are necessary. We might mistakenly think that they are directed at the Egyptians, but I would venture to say that they are for the ultimate benefit of the Israelites, instead. Because “when Moses told this to the Israelites, they would not listen to Moses, out of shortness of spirit.” [Exod.6:9] The reality of our conditioned self is that it can’t hear our inner Moses, no matter how powerful the Truth. It needs the plagues. It needs the pain of the spiritual practice that results from time to time in a little glimpse into that Truth, knowing full well that after each such opening experience, our heart closes off and hardens again, and we fall back into thinking ourselves to be the separate ego. Perhaps our text is telling us that liberation comes after ten of these experiences, after ten awesome displays of God’s Presence. And so there might be no other way to get to the Promised Land but via Egypt. Without Egypt we might never be able to even recognize the Promised Land or even know that it exists. In order for us to know the Light of the One we are, we first need to recognize the bondage that keeps us in darkness. We need to know that we are enslaved in order to awaken to the possibility of liberation.

This week marks the beginning of the Exodus story with Moses as its central character. At its core, this story is one of liberation. And beneath its literal level, it is about the inner spiritual journey of liberation told through a character named Moses; a stand-in for all our spiritual journeys.

Moses is raised as an Egyptian in Pharaoh’s court. His privileged elitist upbringing reflects an egocentric narrow level of consciousness — the Hebrew word for Egypt being understood here to mean “narrow” or “constricted”. Many midrashic stories paint Moses as a deeply spiritual and exceedingly bright youth, growing up in a place that was too constricting for his soaring spirit. As he matures, he begins to wrestle with his inner egotistic Egyptian taskmaster that keeps his spiritual being in shackles, brutalizing it and beating it into submission. But as Torah relates, one day, “Moses saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsmen,” [Exod. 2:11] and killed him. The rabbis of the Midrash tell us that Moses kills the Egyptian by pronouncing God’s Name. In a first brief flash of awakening, and through Divine Grace, Moses temporarily transcends his ego (though the biblical image is that of killing). But the inner voices of fear soon take over again, and though Moses is now aware that–after such an experience–he will never be able to go back to Pharaoh’s court, he is also afraid of facing the consequences of his awakening; so he flees in an attempt to hide away from his uncovered higher Self.

Now you can run, but you can’t hide. When fear drives him to run away, Torah describes Moses ending up in the land of Midian (when Midian means “striving” in Hebrew) and sitting down by a well: the life-giving inner Source. In Midian he meets Jethro (whose name means “Preeminent One,”) a priest who fathered seven daughters. Kabbalists understand Jethro to represent the Divine Masculine transcendent principle, and his seven lower Sefirot (stages of Divine emanation as the manifest universe) as representing the Divine feminine principles. And so Moses begins a time of spiritual initiation, striving to uncover the deeper Truth of his being, while shepherding the inner flock of the Preeminent One; his mentor.

And this leads up to the story of the burning bush. On that day, Moses comes to the mountain of God called Horeb, which can be understood to mean “solitude,” and describes the state of consciousness one reaches prior to experiencing revelation. There, Moses is startled by a great Light awakening within him that transcends human rational understanding. He realizes that the burning Light that calls his name is the Light that he is, and he exclaims “Hineni! – Here, I am!” this blazing Light of Being! In that moment Moses awakens to the nondual Light that is all, the “I AM” that is Is-ness itself yet transcends it at the same time. The very next verse, however, God tells him to go back and free the parts of self that are still stuck in his Egypt, to liberate those shadow parts of his being still repressed, still denied; for enlightenment doesn’t deal with healing the conditioned self. But Moses resists. He argues with God that he doesn’t want to go back to Egypt; that he won’t be able to free those parts of self forever enslaved to fear and to the entrenched patterns of ego. Why not stay in this blissful state of consciousness instead? The spiritual path, however, does not end with enlightenment. In a way, it begins there. But now, with the Light of Nondual Understanding one is called to do the work that will illuminate the darkest corners of one’s psyche. And as we will see, it will take Moses the rest of his life, after having taken himself out of Egypt, to take Egypt out of himself.

Last week as I studied the Torah portion, after reading numerous rabbinic commentaries, an image emerged of Jacob’s soul-to soul connection to his son, Benjamin. Upon reading this week’s portion and many more commentaries later, another, less complimentary side of Jacob’s personality was brought forth. I love that our tradition allows this–models human complexity, imperfection and contradiction.

This week’s Torah portion opens: “Jacob lived in the land of Egypt for seventeen years. Jacob’s days–the years of his life–were seven years and forty years and one hundred years.” [Gen: 47:28]

In his commentary, Rabbi Yaakov Ben Asher (13th c. Germany) notes the peculiar way Jacob’s lifetime is accounted for in this verse. Contrary to that of our other two forefathers, this account mentions the lesser numbers first, while the Torah records Abraham, for example, to have lived “a hundred and seventy years and five years” [Gen. 25:7]. Rabbi Ben Asher resolves this contradiction by teaching that the smaller number, seven years, is mentioned here first because, at Jacob’s own admission, “Few and bad have been the days of the years of my life” [Gen. 47:9]. But this is not the only aspect of the text that bothers R. Ben Asher. Next, he brings our attention to the first word of the portion: “Vayechi – lived.” Why does Torah choose this specific word? Why not use “settled” or “spent” instead, which are more commonly found in Torah? He tells us that here, in contradistinction to Jacob’s negative self-report, he seems to have truly “lived,” to have been fully alive and happy during these seventeen years in Egypt. How come? He reminds us that we encountered the number “seventeen” just a few chapters earlier, when we first meet Jacob’s favorite son Joseph, and he is seventeen. From there, Rabbi Ben Asher draws a parallel between the last seventeen years of Jacob’s life and the first seventeen years of Joseph’s life, before the latter is sold by his brothers into slavery and Jacob is led to believe that he was killed by a wild beast. The answer comes to him through the Gematria [1] of the word “Vayechi – lived,” which adds up to thirty four. And this, he concludes, “teaches that Jacob did not have any good years without suffering except for thirty four [of them], that is, seventeen years from Joseph’s birth until he was sold and seventeen years in Egypt [during which he and Joseph were together again].”

Unwittingly perhaps, R. Ben Asher helps us uncover a darker side of Jacob. Jacob’s myopia–his choice to link the “good years” exclusively with this one son–so severely limits his vision, that he, de facto, cuts himself off from experiencing the fullness of the rest of his life. He fails to relate to the unique blessings of each of his wives, of each of his children. He fails to take responsibility for the disfunction in his family that will continue to manifest itself for centuries in the rivalry between the Israelite tribes. Then again, the Torah does not paint portraits of perfect heroes, but helps us see our own flaws reflected in theirs. Who among us can claim that they do not suffer, at times, from the same myopia as Jacob? Who hasn’t failed to recognize the unique blessings of people who walked in and then out of our lives? How often do we make our happiness contingent on a single issue or a single person, and drive ourselves and others around us miserable because of it?

And so perhaps we can learn to become more aware of the ways we surrender our intrinsic power to be happy to something outside of ourselves: the objects of our unending desires, or the opinion of others. Perhaps we can open ourselves to the possibility that happiness might be a state of being, not a hope of becoming; an opening now to the blessings right in front of us, not a postponing of that realization conditioned on a different yesterday or a better tomorrow. Because Jacob’s happiness was conditional to a fault, he was miserable for a hundred and thirteen years of his life. And that’s a mighty long time to waste!

[1] Gematria: The Kabbalistic system assigning a numerical value to each Hebrew letter.

This week’s Torah portion opens in Pharaoh’s quarters where Joseph, who has yet to reveal himself to his brothers, is receiving them after a “stolen” goblet (planted by Joseph) was discovered in Benjamin’s sack. Judah steps up, understanding that Benjamin (Jacob and Rachel’s only other son and Joseph’s brother) was sure to become a slave to Pharaoh, and begs Joseph to spare his step brother. He pleads:

… we said to my lord, “We have an old father and a young child of [his] old age; his [full] brother is dead. He alone is left from his mother, and his father loves him”… We said to my lord, “The youth cannot leave his father, for should he leave his father, he will die… And now, if I come to your servant my father and the youth is not with us–since his soul is bound up with his soul–it will happen that when he sees the youth is missing he will die… [Gen. 44:20-31]

Judah is describing here a beautiful father-son connection between Jacob and Benjamin. The words he uses, claiming that “his soul is bound with his soul – naf’sho k’shurah b’naf’sho,” are truly powerful. Benjamin came late in Jacob’s life and was the fruit of his love for Rachel who died giving birth to him. He, also, was their only surviving son, as Jacob believed Rachel’s firstborn, Joseph, had been killed by a wild beast. After that, Jacob’s raison d’être became inextricably connected to Benjamin’s life; Jacob lived for his surviving son, “his life was bound with his life.”

The fact that Torah used the word nefesh in this case, points to something deeper than the filial bond, however extraordinary, between a father and a son. Nefesh is the one of the five levels of soul described by Kabbalah, and defined as the energy animating our physical self, the essential vitality of sentient beings, the dualistic level of soul. What Torah is hinting at here, is that the nefesh-to-nefesh connection linking Jacob to Benjamin transcended the apparent separation between them. There was no longer a father on one side loving a son separate from him on the other side; rather, they experienced the very energy, the very vibration of their being as One. How is that possible?

We find a rabbinic commentary that points to the root of this connection the two share. Rabbi Yaakov Ben Asher (born in Germany c. 1269 CE,) notes that our verse “He alone is left – vayevater hu levado” appears just one other time in the entire Torah, a few chapters earlier, when “Jacob was left alone – vayevater Yaacov levado” on the night of his wrestling with an angel (see Gen: 32:25). This suggests that a deep sense of spiritual aloneness was their common bond. This kind of aloneness is not synonymous with isolation or separation. One can be physically connected to an extended family–as is the case here–yet have reached the spiritual level of aloneness, of complete non-attachment Torah is alluding to. To be alone is to recognize the conditioning that keeps us attached to memories, emotions, people, worldviews and ideologies; and to deeply know that we are not this conditioning. This dissolving of one’s conditioning is the spiritual aloneness that Jacob and Benjamin share; the knowing of the ultimate Truth of their Being. And it is this depth of knowing that allowed them to experience this connection nefesh-to-nefesh, soul-to-soul.