J-Quotes: On Justice as Cosmic Process
Uncategorized March 18th, 2007
I picked up G-D Is a Verb by Rabbi David A. Cooper last night. I don’t mean picked up as in purchased but rather as in, picked up off of my bookshelf for the first time in quite a while.
It’s a really great book although I seem to only be able to read it piecemeal but I know it’s a great book because my copy is littered with highlighting and margin notes throughout every section I’ve read thus far.
Anyhow this morning I picked up the book again and flew to a random page where I stumbled upon this quote.
Justice, it should be noted, in kabbalistic terminology, is compared to what other traditions call karma. That is to say, cosmic justice is the spiritual law that every action, Word, or thought reverberates throughout the universe.
This quote although it’s not the first time I’ve read it still resonates with me in a deep way. I’ve never been able to except the notion of some sort of creator father figure overseeing and judging every one of my actions as either good or bad. I’ve always viewed creation and spirituality as both being intrinsically organic processes and Rabbi Cooper’s quote captures that sentiment very well.
Only a man-made form of justice can be superimposed on a situation in a way that places a good or bad value judgment upon it and therefore can never be a true form of Spiritual Justice. Spiritual justice on the other hand is part of an organic and natural process which begins with the energy that radiates out from our thoughts and deeds in the same way that ripples do when a pebble is thrown into calm water. It is devoid of any superficial value judgments and instead simultaneously influences and is influenced by the creation of a vast and intricate web of interdependent cause-and-effects, stretching out through all of creation.
Anyhow it was an interesting quote and not an angle that I often see presented from a Jewish spiritual point of view, so I thought it was worth sharing with others.
Happy Sunday
Technorati tags: Rabbi David Cooper, Justice, Karma, Spirituality, Jewish Mysticism, J-Quotes, Integral Judaism
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March 19th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
just testing 1234567890
March 19th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Absolutely. It’s a great quote. I agree wholeheartedly with what you say in the paragraph immediately after the quotation (well, and the rest of the post, too, but especially that passage!)
(Another book to add to my reading list…)
[Third attempt to post this]
March 19th, 2007 at 8:43 pm
Well, it worked.
Now instead of being asked to add 1 and 1 (for example, the security is showing a “security word.” Maybe that change freed up something that was not working on the former system–for me, at least.
(And it is a lot easier to read than those blogspot words, such as the rare commenter at my blog must endure.)
March 20th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
Hey Zed, glad you like the quote and my take on it.
Its a good book but not a top ten IMO, however some of his other stuff is for sure.