“What a difficult journey you’ve set for us!” the Professor,
the General, the Billionaire and the Actress told the Beggar.
“According to the struggle,” the Beggar replied, “so is the
reward.[i] But you, not I, have determined the
path. I just guard the gates. This one, your third, marks the road of
riches. Only the truly wealthy will make
it to the fourth.”
“Here,” said the Beggar, handing the companions eighteen
gold coins, “these may be of use along your way. Now go, for, dawn is coming and you must gain
ground before you stop to rest by day.
If you prove worthy of riches, I shall meet you again at the final gate.” Then he disappeared into the orchard.
The Companions[ii] entrusted
the Billionaire with the gold pieces. “In
this test of wealth,” said the Professor and the Actress, “surely it is your
turn to guide us.”
And so the Billionaire led them. As they walked, the surrounding trees and
brush grew denser and denser until they formed high, impenetrable walls on
either side of the ever-narrowing trail.
When the sun rose, the Companions found themselves ensconced in an
elaborate labyrinth, with paths forking off in all directions.[iv] As if that were not disorienting enough, each
of those paths was paved with marble so sleek it rippled like flowing water,
leaving them with the discomforting illusion of solid ground falling away
beneath their feet.[v]
Shortly after daybreak, the travelers slept. When they resumed their journey at nightfall,
they were completely discombobulated.
They decided to turn left at every fork—and eventually found themselves
back where they started.[vi] Next they turned only right—and again wound
up where they’d begun. Once more around,
they alternated left and right turns, starting with a left—same result. On their fourth attempt, they alternated
again, but this time commenced with a right.
And yet again, they came full circle.
But this time they were not alone. A weather-beaten boy rode up on a donkey
laden with saddlebags. [vii]
“Hello!” hailed the Companions. “Who are you—and how do we get out of here?”
“And to you,” said
the boy, “I offer greetings
For this, the first of
all our meetings.
Circling paths that
lead the right ways—
I’m the Master of the
Maze.[viii]
Turn and turn and turn
about—
You must find your own
way out.
But precious goods
I’ll sell to you
If my riddle you
answer true:
Prince or pauper—which
is which?
Tell me, who is truly
rich?”
“You’re just a child,” said the Professor. “What are you doing out here?”
“Near is far and far
is near
And things are not as
they appear.
All that glitters
isn’t gold
And what looks young
is very old.”
“All right,” said the Professor. “I’ll try the riddle. If wealth is measured by loyal friends and
good health, then I am very rich, indeed, for I am graced with dear companions
and strength enough for our shared journey.”
“Well done,” replied the Merchant. “You are rich enough to buy my goods. What would you like to purchase?”
The Philosopher turned to the Billionaire: “You’re leading
this round. Choose for us.”
He looked through the Merchant’s saddlebags and pulled out a
large sack overflowing with melons, cucumbers, leeks, onions and garlic.[ix] Addressing both the Merchant and the other
Companions, he said: “We’ve eaten nothing but these damn honey cakes for
weeks. We need some variety in our
diet. I’ll take the produce.”
“Very well, then, that will cost six gold pieces,” the
Merchant replied. Then, eyeing the
Billionaire directly, he added a warning: “ All
that you choose, you’re free to share, but on the road, it’s the buyer’s to
bear.” He collected his payment, mounted his
donkey, and mysteriously vanished.
Dawn was
breaking, so the Companions set up camp, feasted on their bounty, and then
slept soundly. When they resumed their
journey after sundown, the Billionaire followed the Merchant’s instructions and
stuffed the remaining fruits and vegetables into his pack, which added
considerable weight. Still, bolstered by
the fresh food, he led, at first, with newfound confidence. But who knows how many wrong turns later, at
the end of a long and wearying night, the party wound up, yet again, right
where they had started.
The Merchant of
the Maze awaited them.
“Five times now you’ve gone around
Clueless where the trail is bound.
I’ve got more to sell to you
If another answers true.
Serf or sultan—which is which?
Tell me, who is truly rich?”
This time the
General stepped up: “On this journey, I’ve discovered that real wealth lies in
the legacy we leave for future generations: our children and grandchildren,
students and disciples. I only pray I haven’t learned this too late.”
“We shall see,”
said the Merchant. “But for now, you,
too, have proven rich enough to sample my wares.”
Again, the
Companions deferred to the Billionaire who offered another six gold pieces in
exchange for a bulky clay pot of quail preserved in olive oil and a bulging
pouch of salted fish.[x] “I’ve been craving meat since leaving home,”
he said to the others, adding, “and it will give us all strength for this
interminable trail.” Again, the Merchant
and his donkey immediately disappeared.
The following
night, when the Companions returned to the trail, the Billionaire’s pack was
even heavier. The others offered to
carry some of the food, but he insisted that, as the Merchant had instructed,
the load was his alone to shoulder. Groaning
under the heft of the extra supplies, he walked aimlessly with the other three
behind him; this time it was still dark when they all ended back at the dreaded
intersection where the Merchant and his donkey stood waiting.
“Circle, circle—that makes six.
When will the maze reveal its tricks?
I’ve still more to offer you
If the next one answers true:
Baron or beggar, which is which?
Actress—tell me, “Who is rich?”
Answering the
call, the Actress said, “Nothing is more precious than each passing hour. Since I have ample time to make this
pilgrimage, I am a wealthy woman.”
“Excellent,”
replied the Merchant. “You, too, have
earned your riches.” He turned to the Billionaire: “How would you spend the
group’s last gold coins?”
“On wine,” said
the Billionaire, reaching for a cask and strapping it to his pack, “for wine
gladdens the heart, and my heart is heavy with hopelessness and defeat. [xi]
“Wait!” chimed
the Professor and the Actress. “You’ve
spent twelve gold pieces on luxury foods that won’t help get us out of this
maze; in fact they’re already dragging you down. Why would you give the precious little we
have left for a reckless extravagance like wine?”
“I respect his
choice,” replied the General, “even if I would choose otherwise, for we have
trusted him to be our guide.”
The Professor and
the Actress reluctantly nodded their assent and the Billionaire handed the
merchant the coins. After the Merchant
vanished, the Billionaire poured a glass for each of the Companions. They toasted l’chaim, then made their way, once more, through the maze.
Their progress
was excruciatingly slow, for the Billionaire’s body throbbed with pain at every
step, yet he insisted on bearing his laden pack alone. Imagine, then, the desperation and despair
as, just before sunrise, they rounded a turn that brought them back, for the
seventh time, to the beginning—and the waiting Merchant.
Overcome by
frustration and fatigue, the Billionaire slipped on the slick marble path and
landed flat on his back, helplessly pinned to the ground by his own possessions
like an overturned turtle.
When the General
offered him a hand up, he refused, out of pride and embarrassment. But as the Billionaire lay there, looking up
at the half moon and the bright morning star sparkling against the rosy dawn,
he felt his infinitesimal smallness against the world’s enormous beauty. Slowly, his shame gave way to awe, then
gratitude.[xii]
He was still on
his back, in a sort of reverie, when the Merchant came over and addressed him: “Down is up and up is down. Now who wears the rich man’s crown?”
The Billionaire
laughed and said: “For almost my entire adult life, I’ve gotten whatever I
wanted—and gained nothing.[xiii] For my Companions were right. I’ve burdened us with foolish things when,
together, we’ve had all that we require from the start. Keep our gold, I paid it in good faith, but
please, take back the food and wine and give them to someone truly in
need. Who is rich? Those who can
see their own blessings, who rejoice in what they have and share with those who
have not.”
As soon as he
finished speaking, the walls of the labyrinth instantly fell away and the
Companions found themselves at the foot of a high mountain, beneath another
stone archway. In place of the Merchant
of the Maze, the Beggar greeted them.
“The seventh
circuit proves the charm—and testifies to your wealth and worthiness. Welcome to the fourth gate, the entry to your
last trial, the path of honor. Only the
truly honored will complete this journey.
If you show yourselves worthy, I will meet you for the final passage to
Ben Zoma’s tomb, which lies beyond the mountain.”
The Beggar
disappeared behind the stone arch, leaving the Companions to plot a course for
after dark. The entire morning they
searched, high and low, but failed to find even a trace of a trail. All the while, the towering peak loomed over
them, snow-capped and daunting; they realized they had to blaze a route to the
other side but had no clue where or how to cross over. Finally, the General spoke up: “We’re going
to face an arduous ascent this evening, so we’d best call it a day and get some
rest. Perhaps when we wake, at dusk, the
night will offer us a sign to indicate the way.” The first chill of autumn filled the air, so
the travelers slept huddled together on a bed of freshly-fallen cypress
leaves.
They woke just as
the sun sank in the western sky, opposite the mountain. Its last rays bathed the peak in brilliant
alpenglow. The Actress looked up and
gasped, for there, on the crest, stood a perfect vision of the Oscar statuette,
the Academy award that had so painfully eluded her in recent years. The glinting gold knight beckoned her upward,
to the summit.
“What is it?”
asked the others.
“Don’t you see
it?” she cried. “There—on the
mountaintop!”
“What?” replied
the Billionaire, “the sunset? Yes, it’s
beautiful.”
“No!” exclaimed
the Actress, “the Oscar statuette! The
honor I’ve been chasing my whole career.
It’s perched right up there, almost within my grasp!”
“We don’t see
it,” said the Companions[xiv]. “But we believe that you do, and are meant to. It seems the final turn to guide falls to
you. Lead on.”
So they climbed,
for two straight nights, beneath the waxing gibbous moon. Despite the absence of a defined path, at
first they gained steady ground and altitude; the closer they came to the
summit, the more passionately the Actress drove them, her eyes afire in pursuit
of her long-sought honor. But the second
night, their efforts stalled at the foot of a steep moraine, littered with ice
and scree. Any hard-earned headway they
gained was invariably wiped away when one or more of the Companions would slip
and tumble back to the base. Luckily no
one was seriously hurt.
“It’s up there—we
can reach it!” pressed the Actress, urging them on. And for her sake, they tried,
repeatedly. But without ropes, crampons
and axes, forward progress was impossible.
Weary beyond
words, they stopped to catch their breath.
Firmly but supportively, the General spoke: “My friends, we can’t make
it this way. There must be another
option.” He paused to consider, then
continued: “Sometimes, in order to ascend, one must first descend. [xv]
I’ve seen this in battle. To storm a
difficult hill, first you secure the valley.
It’s time to head down, to try a different approach from below.”
“But we’re so
close!” lamented the Actress. “How can
we turn back now?”
The Professor put
her arm around her shoulder and whispered kindly: “We’ll get you there. Hold fast to your vision. It’s just that sometimes, what appears to be the
shortest road proves impassable, while the seemingly long route provides the
only passage.[xvi]”
The Actress
reluctantly agreed, though it pained her grievously to turn her back on the
mountaintop and the honor that awaited her there. They descended together, along the mountain’s
flank, entering into a deep, wooded valley filled with strangely beautiful
flowers that glowed silver, like finest moonlight, even though the moon itself
had set hours ago. They walked and
walked, through this dream-like landscape until they came, at last to a
meadow. And then, at the meadow’s edge,
they spied a spectacular old Moorish building, rising like a dream, its
crenellated arches ablaze with light.
The eager
Companions ran up and as they got closer, realized it was a synagogue. The door was locked, so they knocked.
No answer.
They knocked
again.
This time, an
elderly woman opened and asked, “What brings you here at this hour?”
“We seek the path
of honor, which lies beyond the mountaintop.
Can you show us the way?”
“Perhaps I can
help,” she said, “but only one of your company may enter and confer with me.
Choose who you would send, then let the others wait outside.”
The Professor,
the General and the Billionaire motioned the Actress to step forward.
She embraced them
all, then approached the Old Woman, who invited her in, handed her a cruse of
pure olive oil, then closed and barred the door behind them.
Outside, the
three Companions rested in the meadow.
With the luminous silver flowers shining all around them, they marveled
at this magical place. Then, just as the
first blue glow of dawn rose in the sky, a gazelle leapt in front of them and
started to prance back and forth with utmost grace, pivoting and soaring on her
powerful hind legs like a ballerina.
Her movements seemed to call forth other forest creatures, who gathered
around her in an expanding circle that took in the astounded Companions.
The small ones
came first—mice and moles, rabbits and rock badgers, then hedgehogs, foxes and
porcupines. The larger ones followed:
sheep and goats and wild asses, ibex and oxen and antelope. All gazed, spellbound, at the gazelle, who,
as she danced, drew near, in turns, to each of the other creatures.
As they took in
this miraculous display, the Companions realized the gazelle was actually
feeding the other animals as she frolicked about. All night, she had foraged for each of their
favorite foods, to present them, joyously, come dawn. Inspired by her endless generosity, the
Companions pulled out their remaining honey cakes and offered them to the gazelle,
who graciously accepted their gifts and invited them to join the dance.[xvii]
Meanwhile, back at
the synagogue, the Old Woman ushered the Actress into the sanctuary. It was a cavernous room, and in place of the
usual pews and prayer books, thousands of oil lamps filled every nook and
cranny. Some blazed brilliantly, some simmered,
and others seemed on the verge of flickering out.
“What is this?”
asked the Actress, feeling for the cruse of oil in her pocket.
“Each lamp
represents a different soul living in the world,” replied the Old Woman. “And each burns in accordance with the honor
its appointed soul has accrued. Those
whose lamps flare brightly possess honor in abundance; the dimmest ones
represent those who have frittered their honor away.”
The Actress
gulped. With great trepidation she
asked, “So. . . where is my lamp?”
The Old Woman led
her to the gilded ark at the front of the sanctuary and drew back its jeweled
curtain. Inside, where one would have
expected to find Torah scrolls, it was empty—save for a set of four lamps, all
guttering, having exhausted the last measure of their oil. Beneath those lamps were inscribed the names
of the four Companions.[xviii]
Deeply shaken,
the Actress looked out the window to her left.
By the light of the breaking dawn, she could clearly see the gold
statuette glittering on the mountaintop.
Seized by covetous craving, she opened her cruse of oil and prepared to
feed the dying fire of her lamp, to fuel her honor and secure the prize she’d
desired for so very long.
But as she moved
toward the ark, she glimpsed the scene outside the other window, on her right:
the frolicking gazelle feeding the forest creatures, and her Companions
offering up their honey cakes as they joined in the dance. She watched for a long while, in contemplative
silence, then drew back and turned to the Old Woman.
“For years, I
have chased recognition and renown, at the cost of almost everything else. I’ve bolstered my own ego by putting others
down, and acted as if honor was a scarce commodity, rationed out so that
whatever others receive must come at my expense. I’ve lived life as a competition, and despite
my success, always fell short, for in that game, there’s no satisfying the
craving, no matter how much you achieve.
But now I see: the harder I pursue honor, the more it eludes me. To hoard it is to lose it. Because with what matters most in this
life—kindness, compassion, and love—all that we ever really have is what we share.”[xix]
The Old Woman
smiled and escorted the Actress back up to the ark, where she poured the oil
from her cruse into the lamps of the other three Companions.
Their flames shot
up, together with her own—and so did the sun, at just that moment, ascending
over the mountaintop and filling the sanctuary with golden light. Then the ground roared and rumbled beneath
their feet, and started rising toward the heavens. Outside, too, the entire meadow was rapidly
moving upward, even as the opposing mountain fell away. When the tremors stopped, leaving the former
valley now as highest ground, the gazelle leapt away toward the climbing
sun. The Actress stepped out of the
synagogue and, weeping with awe and joy, embraced the other Companions.
And so the Beggar
met them all. “Well done, my friends,”
he said. “Walk with me, by daylight this
time, the final passage to Ben Zoma’s tomb.
They strolled like this, together, all day, laughing and singing beneath
the warming sun. At dusk they arrived at
the place they all immediately recognized from their shared dream: the
white-domed burial cave, nestled in an orchard, beside a pristine river, at the
foot of a majestic mountain.
“Do you know what
day it is?” asked the Beggar.
“No,” said the
Companions, who had lost all track of time.
“You have
journeyed for forty days. You departed
on the first of Elul. Tonight marks the
tenth of Tishrei—Yom Kippur. Take the
white cloaks from your packs, robe yourselves, then fast and meditate here for
the next twenty-four hours. Now, I must
go. But I will return to you at the time
of the closing of the gates.”
[i]
Avot 5:26, in the words of Ben Hei Hei
[ii]
Having come this far in the narrative, I now refer to my band of travelers
honorifically as the Companions. The
word is the usual English translation of the Aramaic chevraya from the Zohar,
where it refers to the mystical disciples of the great master of that text,
Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai.
[iii]
Ruth 1:16
[iv]
In Jewish tradition, the motif of the labyrinth is typically connected to the
biblical story of the city of Jericho.
In the book of Joshua, the Israelites circle Jericho seven times,
blowing their horns, before its walls fall down. In medieval Jewish iconography, the path
around the city is commonly depicted as a labyrinth. See Daniel Stein Kokin’s article, “The
Jericho Labyrinth: The Rise and Fall of a Jewish Visual Trope”. In an article in Reform Judaism magazine, Rabbi Geoffrey Dennis elaborates on this
symbol: “Jericho stands for all the miksholim
(meaning ‘stumbling blocks’ or ‘obstacles’)—the challenges we have to face
if we are to go forward in
life. . . . The way past our obstacles is rarely ‘straightforward.’ Often we find ourselves going in circles, or
having to make detours. As often as not,
the best way to our goals is not the shortest way. . . . Thus our ancestors
grasped in the story of Jericho the metaphor that life is full of reversals:
that sometimes the way toward your goal may actually take you further away from
it for a while, as a labyrinth does.”
[v]
See the famous story of the four rabbis who entered the Pardes—the grove of esoteric, mystical teachings—in Babylonian
Talmud, Hagigah 14b: Rabbi Akiva said to them: “When you come to the
place of pure marble stones, do not say, 'Water! Water!' for it is said, 'He
who speaks untruths shall not stand before My eyes' (Psalms 101:7)".
[vi]
Turning left at every possibility is a traditional solution to the problem of
the labyrinth. The modern master of
fictional labyrinths, Jorge Luis Borges, speaks of this in his tale, “The
Garden of Forking Paths”.
[vii] Surprise
“guests” appear regularly throughout the Zohar
and usually turn out to be quite different from what they appear. As Nathan Wolski notes in A Journey into the Zohar: “The
companions will come across a wanderer—an old man, donkey driver, hermit,
merchant, child—and they surprise by showing themselves the masters. . . The spiritual world of the Zohar is always
generated by encounters—between two or more people. Mystical experience and insight are always
the patrimony of an encounter with an other.”
[viii]
“Circling paths that lead the right ways” is a translation of ma-aglei tzedek in Psalm 23. The more common translation is “right paths”
but this one, from Rabbi Harold Kushner, captures the sense of the Hebrew more
accurately.
[ix]
See Numbers 11:5-6, in which the people remember eating these foods in
Egypt. Note that all of these foods,
symbolic of slavery, grow on or under the ground.
[x]
Again, Numbers 11: “The Israelites wept and said, ‘If only we had meat to
eat! We remember the fish that we used
to eat free in Egypt. . .’”
[xi]
Psalm 104:15
[xii]
This is the quintessential wilderness experience. As Lawrence Kushner notes in Honey from the Rock: “The wilderness is
not just a desert through which we wandered for forty years. It is a way of being. In the wilderness your possessions cannot
surround you. Your preconceptions cannot
protect you. Your logic cannot promise
you the future. You are left alone each
day with an immediacy that astonishes and chastens. You see the world as if for the first time.”
[xiii]
See Ecclesiastes 2: “I searched with my mind how to cheer my body with wine. .
. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings. . . .
Whatever my eyes desire, I did not keep from them. . . . Then I considered all
that my hands had done and the toil I had spent in doing it, and again, all was
vanity and a chasing after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the
sun.”
[xiv]
In Midrash Genesis Rabbah, as Abraham
and Isaac approach Mount Moriah, where God has instructed Abraham to sacrifice
his son, Abraham turns to his servants and asks: “Do you see anything in the
distance?” They stared and shook their
heads: “No, we see nothing special.”
Then Abraham addresses the very same question to Isaac. “Yes,” he responds, “I see a mountain,
majestic and beautiful, and a cloud of glory hovers above it.” At this point, Abraham directs his servants
to remain behind while he and Isaac continue on their mission alone.
[xv]
Rebbe Nachman of Breslov taught: “All ascent requires descent.”
[xvi] Babylonian Talmud Eruvin 53b:
Rabbi Yehoshua ben
Chananiah taught: "Once a child got the better of me. I was traveling, and
I met with a child at a crossroads. I asked him, 'which way to the city?' and
he answered: 'This way is short and long, and this way is long and short.'
"I took the 'short and long'
way. I soon reached the city but found my approach obstructed by gardens and
orchards. So I retraced my steps and said to the child: 'My son, did you not
tell me that this is the short way?' Answered the child: 'Did I not tell you
that it is also long?'”
[xvii]
See the Zohar 3:249a-b as quoted in
Nathan Wolski, A Journey into the Zohar:
“The gazelle of
the dawn (Psalm 22:1). What is the
gazelle of the dawn? It is a particular
animal, a merciful one, of whom ther is none more merciful among the animals of
the world; for when time presses, and she needs food for both herself and for
all the animals, she goes far away on a distant journey and comes back ringing
food. . . When she returns all the other animals assemble near her, and she
stands in the middle and distributes to each one of them. . . When does she
distribute to them? When the morning is
about to dawn. . . . when the morning shines forth they are all sated with her
food. . . She goes in the day and is revealed at night and makes her
distribution in the morning, and she is therefore called the gazelle of the
dawn.”
As Wolski emphasizes, in the kabbalistic imagery of the
Zohar, the gazelle represents the Shechinah, the feminine divine presence
that ascends to the upper regions of the divine being—the higher sefirot that are not accessible to human
beings—in order to draw down the divine bounty for those below.
Note that the Hebrew ayelet ha-shachar, the “gazelle of the dawn” is also the name of
the morning star.
[xviii]
I have adapted the story of the oil lamps from a common folktale, in which the
oil represents not honor but longevity.
For one version, see “The Cottage of Candles” in Howard Schwartz’s
collection, The Day the Rabbi
Disappeared.
[xix]
Jerusalem Talmud, Hagigah 2:1: “Those
who endeavor to gain honor at the price of another person being degraded have
no portion in the world to come.”
In Honey from the
Rock, Rabbi Lawrence Kushner notes: “Is this not the great childhood
problem—and therefore the great human problem: To learn that it is good for you
when other people love other people beside you.
That I have a stake in their love.
That I get more when others give to others.
That if I hoard it, I lose it.
That if I give it away, I get it back.”
