Lend an Ear

ESSAY: Lend an Ear
Which form of worship is superior: divinely mandated or personally inspired?

INSIGHTS:
Heaven and Earth
The synonymy and the difference
Cause and Effect
A cosmic mirror, hybrid farming, and the spiritual borders of time

Lend and Ear
by Chaya Shuchat

The Torah portion of Vayakhel describes the enthusiastic response of the Jewish people to the call to donate material to build a sanctuary for G-d.  They eagerly brought their gold, silver, copper and other precious materials to serve this sacred purpose.  So great was their desire that they actually exceeded the necessary quota--to the extent that Moses had to plead with the people to stop bringing.

The Tabernacle is actually a prototype for the sanctuary that every family creates within its own home.  Just as the Tabernacle served as a dwelling for G-d, so do our private homes become a haven for G-d when they are permeated with love, devotion and concern.  The Jewish people in the desert set the tone for all of us to indicate how to build our homes to be a G-dly sanctuary.

 Although men, women and children alike shared in the contribution, the women displayed particular alacrity and devotion in bringing gifts for the sanctuary.  They dedicated not only their most precious jewelry and possessions, but also their time, talent and energies. Just as in the time of the desert, Jewish women throughout history have placed themselves at the forefront of the sacred task of building the sanctuary for G-d within every home. Although both parents share in this tremendous undertaking, the women set the tone for the household with their inherent divine gifts. They eagerly donate their particular “jewelry”--their insights, talents and creativity--to tune in to the needs of their children and families.

There were four types of jewelry donated for the Tabernacle:  earrings, nose rings, finger rings, and arm bands.  The previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, in an address to Jewish women, elaborates on the symbolic meaning of each type of ornament.

Tune in when your children speak.  Let them know that you are really there for them.  Listen up, too, when they are speaking with each other.  Their talk will reflect what they are picking up from the people around them. Also be receptive to good, sound parenting advice and guidance.  The more guidance you are willing to accept from others, the more your children will be willing to accept from you.

Be alert to subtle signs of unhappiness or rebellion in your child.  Be aware of with whom your children are spending their time, and what they are doing together.  Wholesome friends and productive activities will mold a healthy personality.

Observation alone (via “ears” and “nose”) is insufficient to raise a healthy, secure child. Use your finger to clarify things for your child, and to give guidance and direction.  Show the children that your advice is based on concern for their welfare, and that you are aware of their issues and needs.  Don’t simply give orders; your children will be far more receptive to your words if you explain things on their level.

The arm-band symbolizes the forcefulness and strength necessary for bringing up children.  A parent must be pro-active.  Don’t just step in after the child has already misbehaved.  A parent should be striving to stay ahead of the game, to anticipate trouble spots and to thoroughly know the child’s character.  There is also the inner discipline that is demanded of a parent.  Before you discipline your child, discipline yourself.  Children respond to the example that the adults around them set.  Put as much energy as you can into parenting; this will yield children with character and vitality, who will eagerly embrace a meaningful way of life.

Remember, above all, that the gifts you give to your home and children are your personal, voluntary donation. Never let parenting become a ritual obligation or cumbersome duty. Give gladly, generously, and with a full heart.  Your personal sanctuary will blossom under the caring touch that only you can provide.

Based an address of the Rebbe[1]

Heaven and Earth

The 79,976 words and the 304,805 letters of the Chumash (the “Five Books of Moses”) encapsulate the entirety of Torah. Everything is here: all of Halachah (Torah law), the stories of the Midrash, the vast homiletic sea of the Aggadah, the innumerable insights of the mystical, philosophical and ethical Torah works of all generations. Indeed, there is nary a superfluous word or letter in the Chumash: if a verse is lyrically repetitive, if two words are used where one would suffice or a longer word when a shorter word would, there is a message here--a new concept, another law. Rabbi Akiva, the Talmud tells us, would derive “mounds upon mounds of laws from the serif of a letter” in Torah.[2]

Yet there are two sections in Torah, Vayak’hel (Exodus 35:1-38:20) and Pekudei (Exodus 38:21-40:38), that consist, almost in their entirety, of a seemingly needless repetition. In the previous sections of Terumah and Tetzaveh (Exodus 25-30), the Torah gives a detailed account of G-d’s instructions to Moses regarding the construction of the Sanctuary, its furnishings, and the priestly garments worn by those who would perform the service in it. Then, in Vayak’hel and Pekudei, it tells how the Jewish people carried out these instructions. Again we are informed of the construction of the Sanctuary in exacting detail, down to the dimensions of every pillar, wall-panel and tapestry, the materials in every garment, and the decorative forms sculpted in the gold of the menorah (twenty-two goblets, eleven spheres and nine flowers). A single sentence, on the order of “The children of Israel made the Sanctuary exactly as G-d had commanded Moses,” would have “saved” the Torah more than a thousand words!

Actually, there were two Sanctuaries: a heavenly model and a terrestrial edifice. In His instructions to Moses, G-d refers to “the form that you are being shown on the mountain.”[3] On the summit of Mount Sinai, Moses was shown an image of the home in which G-d desired to dwell; at the foot of Mount Sinai, the people of Israel translated this spiritual vision into a structure of physical cedar and gold.

Never in history had a translator been challenged by two more diverse “languages.” Spirit is nebulous, matter is concrete. Spirit is infinite, matter is defined by time and space. Most importantly, spirit is naturally subservient, readily bespeaking a higher truth, while matter recognizes nothing save its own immanence. Yet it was a physical abode that G-d desired. It was in the earthly Sanctuary that the divine presence came to reside, not in the spiritual Sanctuary atop Mount Sinai.

Yes, the material universe is the lowliest of G-d’s creations--lowliest in the sense that it is least aware of its innate nullity before G-d, least expressive of its divine source and purpose. But it is precisely because of their “lowliness” that G-d wanted that physical substances should be made into a Sanctuary to house Him. G-d desired that the material world, with all its limitations and imperfections, should be sanctified and elevated by being made to serve a G-dly end.[4]

Therein lies the lesson of the two Sanctuaries: Do not be discouraged by the tremendous gap between spirit and matter, between theory and practice, between the ideal and the real. True, it is virtually impossible to duplicate the perfection of the spirit on mundane earth, but it is not a duplication that G-d wants. He wants an earthly sanctuary, a sanctuary constructed of the finite materials of physical life.

To emphasize this point, the Torah expends close to two hundred “extra” verses in its account of the earthly construction of the Sanctuary. Every wall-panel, every tent-peg and every tassel made by the children of Israel resembled, in every detail, the spiritual model described several chapters earlier; but it was a different item, a different Sanctuary.

Yes, earth must be made to mirror the heavens, to reflect, in every detail, the divine blueprint for life. But it remains earthly in nature and substance--a physical home for G-d, employing the unique characteristics of the physical to express the divine truth.

Based on an address by the Rebbe, Shabbat Parashat Vayak’hel-Pekudei, 5718 (March 15, 1958)[5]

On the first of Adar, the announcements go out regarding shekalim and kilayim.

Talmud, Shekalim 1:1

On the first day of the month of Adar, the bet-din (court of Torah law) would dispatch messengers to every Jewish community regarding two mitzvot pertinent to that time of the year: shekalim, the half-shekel that each Jew contributed annually toward the communal offerings in the Beit HaMikdash (Holy Temple), and kilayim, the anti-hybridization laws which prohibit the cross-breeding and mixed planting of different species.

Every morning and afternoon, a collective offering by the entire community of Israel was offered in the Beit HaMikdash. The Torah instructs that each Jew should give exactly half a shekel (“the rich man should give no more, the pauper no less”[6]) annually, so that all should be equal partners in these offerings. Also, the Torah specifically instructs that each year’s offerings should come from that year’s half-shekels, the year to be reckoned from the first of Nissan to the first of Nissan.[7] Thus, the bet-din sent out messengers one month before this date, on the first of Adar, so that the coins could be collected in time for the new round of offerings. To this day, we commemorate the event by reading from the Torah the section that speaks of these half-shekels (Exodus 30:11-16) on the Shabbat that falls on or before the first of Adar.

The second mission dispatched by the bet-din on the first of Adar concerned the laws of kilayim. The Torah commands a series of laws prohibiting the intermixing of various elements and species. These include laws against cross-breeding two species of animals, mixing wool and linen in the making of a garment, cooking meat with milk,[8] and sowing or planting together certain species of plants. It is regarding this last category that messengers of the court were dispatched on the first of Adar, this being the season when the winter sowing begins to make its appearance in the fields; these messengers issued warnings to cleanse the fields of all hybrid growth, and then took the necessary steps against those who failed to do so.

Nothing in Torah is incidental. The fact that these two proclamations were issued on the same day implies an intrinsic connection between them. Indeed, they represent the respective spiritual and physical expressions of the same concept.

The laws of kilayim express the idea that the boundaries of creation are to be respected and safeguarded.[9] Wheat and grapes, or wool and linen, or meat and milk, are each “kosher” elements, which the Jew is permitted and encouraged to make use of toward positive and G-dly ends; but they must be kept separate and distinct. As soon as they are sown, spun or cooked together, they constitute a corruption of the order that that G-d established in His world. They are now assur (“forbidden” and “imprisoned”), and can no longer serve man in his sanctification of the physical creation.[10]

What is true of the physical world also applies to the spiritual reality: here, too, are boundaries and distinctions that must not be violated. A case in point is the spiritual essence of time: each hour, day, week, month and year has its spiritual quality, unique to it alone; in the words of the Talmud, “Once its time has passed, its offering is no longer valid.”[11] Thus there are mitzvot that can be observed only during the day, and mitzvot regulated to the night; mitzvot pertaining to certain hours of the day, or certain days of the week, month or year. There is also the delineation between years, expressed by the law that one year’s shekalim should not be used for another year’s offerings. For though each year seems but a repetition of the cycle of months and dates of its predecessor, each, in truth, possesses a distinct quality and spiritual essence. As Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi writes in his Tanya, “Each year there descends [from On High] a new and renewed light that has never yet shone, which illuminates ... all worlds, supernal and terrestrial, that derive their vitality from it.”[12]

This also explains the order in which the above-quoted mishnah lists the two missions that went out on the first of Adar. From a purely technical standpoint, it would seem that the announcement regarding the kilayim was the more urgent one: after all, there remained a full month to the Nissan deadline for the shekalim, while every additional moment that a kilayim-growth remains in a field constitutes a grave violation of Torah law. Furthermore, the shekalim that arrived at the Beit HaMikdash after the first of Nissan could still be included, retroactively, in all offerings of the year: as the Talmud relates, the offerings of the new year were “credited” to all who, for whatever reason, failed to send their half-shekel in time and would do so in the course of the year.[13]

Nevertheless, the Talmud puts shekalim before kilayim, implying that the spiritual delineation of boundaries represented by the shekalim precedes the physical differentiations of kilayim. For while the spiritual and physical realms mirror each other, one must never forget which follows from which--which is the cause and which is its effect. In all matters, the spiritual must precede and determine the material, not vice versa, G-d forbid.

Thus the Torah says: “Tithe, so that you shall prosper.”[14] For the fruitfulness of the earth and its generous supply of its inhabitants with all that sustains life derives from its spiritual counterpart--the generosity of man to man. When man observes the mitzvah of charity, this creates the spiritual conduit through which all earthly blessings might flow.

Based on a letter by the Rebbe to a free loan society, Adar 1, 5724 (February 14, 1964)[15]

Adapted from the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe by Yanki Tauber