May 25, 2011: Wilderness

This Shabbat, we enter a new book in the cycle of weekly Torah readings, entitled Bemidbar, literally “In the Wilderness” (in English, the Book of Numbers). Although the Bible generally considers the wilderness as a purgatory, and the forty years that the Children of Israel wandered in the desert as a period of purgation, occasionally the Bible presents a countervailing view of wilderness as a refuge: “He (God) found him (Israel) in a desert region, in an empty, howling wasteland; He surrounded him, watched over him, guarded him, like the pupil of His eye. Like an eagle who rouses his nestlings, gliding down to his young, He spread His wings and took him, and bore him aloft on His pinions.” (Deuteronomy 32:9-10; cf. also Hosea 2:16)

For me, wilderness is a blessing. I spent one day last week—Monday, to be exact—exploring Silver Creek, a dry tributary of the Escalante River in the desert of Southern Utah. I walked for hours up the dry riverbed under soaring red sandstone cliffs. I crossed paths with no one; the only evidence of humanity was a carved inscription by a Mormon pioneer, G. L. Hobbs, dated 1882. The breeze howled through the empty canyon (“empty, howling wasteland…”); the occasionally cry of ravens circling overhead produced the only other sound (“like an eagle… gliding down…”). I said to myself with a smile: maybe they’re eyeing me for dinner? A shiver ran up my spine, but I was not afraid. In fact, I felt completely at home.

Rabbi Jamie Korngold, the self-proclaimed “Adventure Rabbi,” esteems Nature as a spiritual haven. In her book God in the Wilderness, she compares an excursion into the Grand Canyon to an encounter with one’s true self: “Geologists tell us that the inner gorge of black schist is the oldest exposed rock in the world… With each switchback of the trail, you descend through… the sequential layers of limestone, sandstone, and shale, now red, yellow, and purple, toward the very beginning of time. Those of us who love wilderness know that hiking also exposes the layers of the soul… With each mile of distance from civilization, we look progressively inward to what is essential in our lives, we reawaken to the core of our being.” (pp. 3-4)

The Sages ask: “Why was Torah given in the wilderness? Because just as wilderness is ownerless, so you must make yourself ownerless, like the wilderness, in order to be able to acquire the Torah’s wisdom.” (Bemidbar Rabbah 1:7) What does it mean “to make oneself ownerless?” For me, it means stripping away all the psychological barriers and social defenses that normally keep me distracted and confused, so that God’s wisdom can shine through directly. Some clear their heads with strenuous physical exercise. Others center themselves through prayer and meditation. I engage in these activities, as well. However, of all methods I have ever tried, I find it easiest to get in touch with the core of my being, to enable the still, small voice of God to speak to me, bamidbar, in the wilderness.