July 20th, 2015
There are four types of contributors to charity. One who wants to give but does not want others to give—is begrudging of others. One who wants that others should give but does not want to give—begrudges himself. One who wants to give and wants that others should give—is a chassid (pious individual). One who wants neither himself nor others to give—is a rasha (wicked individual).
There are four types among those who attend the study hall. One who goes but does nothing—has gained the rewards of going. One who does [study] but does not go to the study hall—has gained the rewards of doing. One who goes and does—is a chassid. One who neither goes nor does—is a rasha.
Ethics of the Fathers, 5:13-14
A close reading of the above two mishnayot leads to the amazing conclusion that one who neither gives nor allows others to give is one of the four types of “contributors to charity,” and that one who neither goes to a center of Torah study nor does any studying on his own is counted among “those who attend the study hall”!
In truth, however, even the least practicing Jew is, in essence, a contributor to charity and a student of Torah. In the words of Maimonides, every Jew “wishes to be of Israel and wishes to observe all of the commandments and to avoid all of the transgressions of the Torah. It is only that his evil inclination has overpowered him.”[32]
The four types of contributors to charity differ only in their behavior—in the extent to which their quintessential will is realized in their daily lives. The four classes of Torah students differ only in the extent to which their intrinsic knowledge and commitment is reflected in their conscious pursuit of the divine wisdom. At the core of his soul, however, the “wicked” individual is as caring of his fellow man and as aware of his bond with G-d as the chassid, the pious man who gives and causes others to give, attends the study hall and studies the Torah.
The reverse is also true: there is a sense in which the pious chassid is synonymous with the callous and ignorant rasha. Just as the rasha is one who has yet to bring to light his quintessential desire and knowledge, so, too, is the most accomplished philanthropist and scholar. For no matter how much a person has done to aid his fellow man, no matter what heights he has attained in his understanding of Torah, he has not begun to actualize his true potential. The soul of man is a “spark of G-dliness,” and its capacity to better the world in which it lives and to comprehend the divine is infinite. Thus, the chassid and the rasha are equally distant from their ultimate goal—a self and world that reflect the infinite perfection of their Creator.
Based on an address by the Rebbe Av 20, 5747 (August 15, 1987)
Adapted from the teachings of the Rebbe by Yanki Tauber
[32]. Mishneh Torah, Laws of Divorce, 2:20.
Tags: commitment, internalize, knowledge, potential, behavior, divine sparks, elevating the world, Torah study, charity, Jew, soul
Posted in Weekly Parsha, Months & Holidays, Pirkei Avos, Bamidbar, Ethics of Our Fathers, Chukat, Spiritual, Torah, Nisan | No Comments »
July 20th, 2015
When a mind conceives and comprehends a concept… the mind grasps the concept and encompasses it. At the same time, the mind is enveloped by the concept, even as it grasps it and holds it within itself…
Thus, when a person knows and grasps in his mind a ruling of halacha from the Talmud or latter halachic works, he thereby grasps and holds and encompasses with his mind the Divine wisdom and will… while his mind is simultaneously enveloped within them. This makes for a wonderful union, like which there is none other, and which has no parallel anywhere in the material world—they [the mind and the concept] attain a complete oneness and unity, from every side and angle.
Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, Tanya, ch. V
One of the keenest minds in the history of Jewish learning was Rabbi Shabbtai HaKohen (“The Shach,” 1622-1663), author of the Siftei Kohen commentary on The Code of Jewish Law.
It is said of Rabbi Shabbtai that when he would immerse himself in the profundities of talmudic law, the world would cease to exist. Late at night he would be seen strolling the rooftops of Cracow, oblivious to all but the arguments and counter-arguments coursing through his mighty mind. Once, he was seen to walk off the edge of a roof, across several yards of moonlit air, and on to the neighboring rooftop—without noticing a thing.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe, shlita, in relating this incident at a chassidic gathering, remarked:
“Do you think that this was a miracle? Not at all. There was nothing supernatural about the Shach’s mid-air walk. Rabbi Shabbtai thought not only with his brain, but with every fiber of his being; when he engaged his intellect, he was intellect. And intellect, of course, is not subject to earth’s gravitational pull.”
Adapted from the teachings of the Rebbe by Yanki Tauber
Tags: Intellect, unity, Jewish law, mind, Jewish leaders, nature
Posted in Weekly Parsha, Bamidbar, Chukat, Torah | No Comments »
July 20th, 2015
Summer is here, and parents all over are readying their children for overnight camps. Suitcases are lovingly being packed with sufficient clothing and accessories to last through the summer, not to mention backpacks filled to the brim with assorted goodies and drinks. No parent would think of sending off their child without attending to all these details, ensuring the child’s health, comfort and safety.
For forty years, the Jewish people wandered in the desert, yet suffered no lack of food or comfort. The Manna fell daily, satisfying all their nutritional needs. They had sufficient to drink, thanks to a rock that traveled with them, which flowed with fresh, sweet water. Additionally, the camp was surrounded on six sides by clouds of glory, to assure their physical safety in the treacherous wilderness.
Immediately following the death of Miriam, Moshe’s sister, the rock suddenly stopped providing water, so that there was nothing for the people to drink[1]. Rashi infers from this that for forty years, the well flowed in honor of Miriam[2], and in fact, it is referred to by the sages as “Miriam’s Well[3]“. Similarly, the clouds of glory vanished after the death of Aharon, leading to the conclusion that during his lifetime, the clouds appeared thanks to him[4]. By the same token, the Manna fell in honor of Moshe, and ceased after his death[5].
After Miriam’s death, the well was restored in the merit of Moshe, as detailed at length in the Torah portion of Chukat[6]. Yet there is no evidence in the Torah that the clouds of glory returned after the death of Aharon. Furthermore, the Jewish people complained vociferously about the lack of water[7], yet there is no mention of any disturbance on account of the missing clouds. Why were they not equally distraught over the loss of their source of protection and comfort in the desert?
One answer to this dilemma could be that after Aharon’s passing, they no longer needed the protection of the clouds. The clouds that surrounded the camp actually fulfilled a four-fold purpose: 1) to protect the Jewish people from the searing desert sun[8]; 2) to keep their clothing fresh and free of wrinkles[9]; 3) to lead the way through the desert[10]; 4) to assure a safe and comfortable journey, by flattening mountains and raising up valleys, and killing serpents and scorpions in their path[11].
At the time of Aharon’s death, the Jewish people were nearly at the end of their wanderings in the desert. Thus, many of the objectives served by the clouds were no longer necessary. Aharon’s soul ascended to heaven on Hor Hahor, a mountain on the outskirts of the desert, on the border of the land of Edom[12]. The heat of the desert was less intense at its outer perimeter, close to occupied land. Also, Aharon passed away on the first of Av[13]. The power of the sun peaks on the 15th of Av, and from that point on the weather grows progressively cooler[14]. Since they had enjoyed the cloud’s protection up until Aharon’s passing on the first of Av, it is possible that the air retained its coolness, and they no longer needed the weather regulation provided by the clouds.
As they approached inhabited territory, the Jewish people also had less need for the “laundering service” provided by the clouds. They could have easily purchased new garments from any of the established settlements. Also, they no longer needed the clouds as guides to show the way, as they already were in a settled area with carved roads and pathways. Finally, the snakes and scorpions that posed such a grave danger in the heart of the desert were far less of a threat on its outer edges.
However, in truth it is difficult to argue that the clouds were no longer needed after Aharon’s passing, for a number of reasons. The clouds lead the way not merely to prevent the Jewish people from getting lost in the desert. The purpose, rather, was to point out the direction that G-d wished them to take at each particular juncture[15]. Since they took quite a number of journeys after the death of Aharon, it is obvious that they still needed the guidance of the clouds of glory. The clouds, in addition to pointing out the direction, also indicated when and for how long the Jewish people would camp at any given location. When the clouds stopped, the people would stop and set up camp in that place, and remain there until the clouds would again signal that it was time to move on[16]. The Jewish people would rely on this instruction until they entered the land of Israel.
Rashi states explicitly that after Aharon’s death, the Jewish people traveled seven journeys in reverse – deeper into the desert[17]. Thus, it is obvious that the advantages of being on the outskirts of the desert, in terms of less severe weather and safer roads, did not necessarily apply.
The clouds also protected the Jews from wars with hostile nations. When the Amalekites instigated a war against the Jews, they were commanded to “Go out and wage war with Amalek[18]“. Rashi comments: “Go out from the clouds to fight them”. As long as the Jews were enveloped in the protection of the clouds of glory, it was impossible for any nation to attack them. The clouds absorbed any missiles or arrows lobbed by enemies from outside[19]. The need for this protection did not abate noticeably after the death of Aharon.
A final, and most compelling proof that the clouds did, indeed, return after Aharon’s death is a verse in the Torah itself. After Aharon’s passing, there was an incident in which some Jews sinned by cohabiting with Midianite women. The sinners were identified when the cloud covering the camp peeled itself back over their heads, and the sun scorched them[20]. Thus the Torah indicates that the cloud cover reappeared after the death of Aharon.
We are therefore left with the original question: Why is there no mention in the Torah about the clouds of glory reappearing, and why did their disappearance not engender any protest by the Jews?
A close analysis of the references to the clouds in Rashi’s commentary reveals a slight inconsistency: In certain contexts, he refers to “clouds of glory”[21], while in other contexts, he refers to them simply as “clouds”[22]. In the Midrash, too, the clouds are at times referred to as “clouds of glory”[23] and other times only as “clouds”[24].
We can therefore explain that there actually were two types of clouds that accompanied the Jewish people on their travels through the desert. There were certain clouds whose purpose was solely for the glory of the Jewish people. The presence of these clouds was a testimony to the distinguished stature of the Jews people, and their cherished status in the eyes of G-d. These clouds did not serve any of the utilitarian functions described previously. Other, “ordinary” clouds carried out the services that were necessary for the survival of the Jewish people in the desert. Indeed, in all the places where Rashi refers to the functions of the clouds, the simple term “cloud” is used[25].
One place where Rashi uses the term “Clouds of Glory” is in reference to clothing[26]: “The Clouds of Glory would wash their clothes and iron them; also, the clothes of the children grew along with them.” It would seem, then, that the term “Clouds of Glory” was used by Rashi to refer to the more pragmatic functions of the clouds. However, this service was not an essential one for their survival; the Jews could have easily washed their own clothes or replaced their worn out garments, using wool from the sheep that they took with them from Egypt. The fact that the Clouds of Glory kept their clothes fresh is an indication of special honor; not a requirement for existence, but an extra, additional mark of divine favor.
After Aharon’s death, the “Clouds of Glory” went away, and did not return. The other clouds, which the Jewish people depended on for survival, remained with them for the duration of their journeys through the desert.
When the well ceased flowing after Miriam’s death, it was restored in honor of Moshe. Why, then, did the Clouds of Glory not return in the merit of Moshe? To answer this question, it is important to understand the distinction between the roles of Aharon and Miriam, and the role of Moshe.
Aharon and Miriam were distinguished and beloved role models and teachers of the Jewish people. They were such outstanding individuals, that G-d graced the Jewish people with special favors in their merit. Moshe, on the other hand, was the “faithful shepherd” of the nation. He looked after the needs of his people just like a loving parent sending a child off on a journey. To him, it was not important in whose merit the Manna, the well and the clouds were granted. These were his people’s survival needs, and it was his job to guarantee that they be provided. He made sure that his people would be taken care of even after his death. Even after Moshe’s passing, the Jewish people suffered no lack of food or comfort[27]. The Clouds of Glory were not an essential survival need, and thus it was not necessary for Moshe to ensure their return.
In every generation, the Jewish people have been graced with leaders who demonstrated Moshe’s absolute and unceasing devotion. Even after their passing, the “shepherd does not desert his flock[28]“, and their influence and care continue to be felt. These leaders do not merely cast a benign eye from above, and use their supernal influence on behalf of their people. Rather, even in the earthly realm, we continue to appreciate their profound love and concern, through the ongoing effects of the deeds and activities that they initiated in their lifetime.
A scintillating example of a “faithful shepherd” in our era is the Previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Joseph I. Schneersohn. He demonstrated extreme self-sacrifice to keep Judaism alive in the Soviet Union, in the throes of the communistic regime. He displayed great heroism, and kept the chain of Jewish tradition from being sundered. Today, three generations later, we are reaping the fruits of his efforts, as Russian Jewry experiences an unimaginable renaissance and rejuvenation.
Note: Although the Rebbe concluded his talk, in 1979[29], with a reference to the Previous Rebbe, his father-in-law[30], the prescience and inescapable relevance of his words are impossible to miss. It is now seven years since the 3rd of Tammuz, 5754, when physically, the Rebbe’s presence was hidden from our eyes. Yet despite the loss, the heartbreak and the yearning, it grows more obvious with each passing day that the Rebbe has not left us. The shepherd has not left his flock; his influence continues to guide us, and his radiance continues to shine over all our endeavors. The Rebbe’s sole mission and purpose, as he expressed it, was to prepare the entire world for the coming of Moshiach. He has infused us with his strength of purpose, and he continues to guide us, to implore and exhort from every one of us, to do our part. No need of ours is as overwhelming and pressing as our need for Moshiach; and our faithful shepherd would not let this need go unfulfilled.
Based on addresses of the Rebbe, Motzei Shabbat Matot-Masei, Parshat Dvarim, and 15 Av, 5739 (1979)[31]
Adapted from the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe by Chaya Shuchat.
[4] ibid, Mechilta Bshalach 16:35
[6] Chukat 20:2 and further
[8] Shulchan Aruch Harav, Orach Chaim Ch. 625, Yeshaya 4:6
[11] Rashi Behaalotecha 10:34
[12] Chukat 20:23, Massei 33:37
[16] Behaalotecha 9:17 and further, Pekudai 40:36 and further
[21] Emor 23,43, Chukat 20:29, 21:1, Pinchas 26:13, Masei 33:40, Ekev 8:4, 10:6
[22] Bshalach 17:9, Chukat 25:4, Behaalotecha 10:34 and other places
[23] Tanchuma, Bshalach 3, Bamidbar 12, Tosefta Sota 4:1, and more.
[24] Mechilta Bshalach 13:21, “there were seven clouds”. Sifri Behaalotecha 10:34, Tanchuma Bamidbar 2, Zohar III, 302
[25] see footnotes above.
[27] Although the well no longer flowed, they were already at the banks of the Jordan River, which kept them well supplied with water. The Manna also stopped falling, but they had sufficient Manna in reserves to keep them supplied for another fourteen years, until the land was fully settled.
[28] The words of the Previous Rebbe, in reference to his father, Rabbi Sholom Dovber, the 5th Lubavitcher Rebbe, in a letter marking the first anniversary of his father’s passing. Published in Sefer Chachmei Yisroel, NY 5684 (1924), 33:1
[29] Note that this was over ten years before the fall of communism and the subsequent rebirth of active Judaism in the USSR.
[30] On the 12th of Tammuz, we celebrate the birthday of the Previous Rebbe. It also marks the anniversary of his liberation from communist imprisonment.
[31] Likuttei Sichot XVIII, pp 253-261
Tags: Jewish nation, manna, desert, Aaron, journey, Moshiach, divine benevolence, cloud, the twelve tribes, garment, comfort, shepherd, Rebbe, Jewish leaders, Moses, survival, food, miracles, Frierdiker Rebbe, safety, water, Soviet Union
Posted in Weekly Parsha, Bamidbar, Chukat, Torah | No Comments »
July 19th, 2015
From the straits I call G-d; He answers me with the expanse of the Divine
Psalms 118:5[14]
“Between the strictures”[15] is the prophet Jeremiah’s description of the period between the 17th of Tammuz, the day the walls of Jerusalem were breached, and the 9th of Av, when the Holy Temple was destroyed and the exile of Israel commenced. To date, these two days are observed as days of fasting, and the three-week “strait” between them as a period of mourning and repentance.
The narrow strait, however, is not a roadblock; on the contrary, it is a mechanism for increased productivity. Hydraulic power plants, rockets and garden hoses employ it to squeeze a greater degree of power and velocity from the element they constrain. The shofar, sounded to waken man to repentance, is also such a device, its narrow mouth pinching the stream of air expelled from the blower’s lungs into the piercing note that emerges from its wide, upward-sweeping end.
The same is true of the strictures of Tammuz 17 and Av 9 and the two thousand years of physical exile and spiritual darkness they mourn. Twenty centuries of suppression have wrenched the Jewish soul through the funnel of galut,[16] revealing its deepest convictions and provoking its highest potentials. From these terrible straits we have never ceased to seek G-d, and it is this seeking that will yield the “divine expanse” of ultimate Redemption and the perfect world of the Messianic Age.
“On that day,” proclaims the prophet, “the great shofar will be sounded. And they will come, those lost in the land of Assyria and those forsaken in the land of Egypt,[17] and bow before G-d on the Holy mountain, Jerusalem.”[18]
On that day, the goodness and perfection of G-d’s creation will burst through the straits of concealment and blossom into unconstrained realization.
Adapted from the teachings of the Rebbe by Yanki Tauber
[14] Recited before the sounding of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah.
[15] Lamentations 1:3; see Midrash Rabbah on verse.
[16] Exile and spiritual displacement.
[17] The Hebrew Eretz Mitzrayim (Land of Egypt) literally translates as “the land of the strictures.”
Tags: fasting, mourning, repentance, Moshiach, prophecy, Holy Temple, Three Weeks, exile, galut, shofar
Posted in Weekly Parsha, Bamidbar, Chukat, Torah | No Comments »
July 19th, 2015
And Bilaam said to Balak: “…Come, let me advise you what this people shall do to your people in the end of days…. I see it, but not now; I behold it, but it is not near. A star shall go forth from Jacob, and a scepter shall arise from Israel; he will conquer the ends of Moab, and rule all the children of Seth…. And Israel shall be valiant…
Numbers 24:12-17
The prophets of Israel describe a future in which a great leader shall arise in Israel, awaken his people to return to G-d, restore them to their homeland, rebuild the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, and bring about an age of universal enlightenment, harmony and perfection. As Maimonides describes it, “In those days there will be no hunger or war, no jealousy or rivalry; for… the sole occupation of the entire world will be to know G-d.”[8]
The coming of Moshiach is also referred to, though less explicitly, in the Torah proper-the Five Books of Moses. Thus Maimonides writes: “Whoever does not believe in him, or does not anticipate his coming, not only denies the other prophets – he also denies the Torah and Moses our Teacher.”[9]Maimonides goes on to cite three instances in which the Torah itself speaks of the Messianic Redemption:
a) Deuteronomy 30:1-10:
“And the L-rd your G-d … will return and gather you from all the nations amongst whom [He] has scattered you. If your dispersed be at the ends of the heavens, from there will the L-rd your G-d gather you, from there He will take you. [He] will bring you into the Land which your fathers have possessed and you will possess it, and he will do you good and multiply you, more than your fathers. [He] will circumcise your heart and the heart of your children, to love the L-rd your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul…. G-d will again rejoice over you as He rejoiced over your fathers, for you shall hearken to the voice of the L-rd your G-d, to keep His commandments and statutes which are written in this book of the Torah.”
b) Numbers 24:17-19:
“I see him, but not now; I behold him, but he is not near. A star shall come forth from Jacob, and a ruler shall arise from Israel; he will conquer the ends of Moab, and rule all the children of Seth…. And Israel shall be valiant…”
c) In Deuteronomy 19, the Torah commands to set aside “cities of refuge” to serve as a place of exile for “one who shall unintentionally kill his fellow.” Then the Torah adds:
“And when G-d shall broaden your borders … and give you the entire land that He promised to give to your forefathers – for you shall keep all these commandments which I am commanding you today, to love the L-rd your G-d and walk in His ways forever-then you shall add another three cities….” Maimonides notes that, “This never yet came to pass, and G-d did not command it in vain” – so that here we have a further reference in the Torah to the Messianic Era, when “the entire land that He promised to give to your forefathers”[10] shall be given to the Jewish people.
A Personal Redeemer
These three “proofs” are all necessary, for they establish three principles that are fundamental to the Jewish concept of Moshiach: the redemption of Israel, the person of Moshiach, and the integrity of Torah.
The first citation, from the 30th chapter of Deuteronomy, contains the most explicit reference to the final Redemption in the Five Books of Moses. However, there is no mention there of the person of Moshiach as the divine agent of its realization. From these verses alone we can only infer that there will be a redemption (Israel’s return to G-d, their restoration to their homeland, etc.), but not that a human leader will bring it about.
Yet the Jew’s belief in Moshiach is not in some abstract “historical process” by which the world progresses to perfection, but that
“There will arise a king from the house of David, who studies the Torah and fulfills its precepts as David his ancestor … and he will prevail upon all of Israel to follow it and repair its breaches, wage the battle of G-d … build the Holy Temple on its site, gather the dispersed of Israel … [and] rectify the entire world to serve G-d together.”[11]
While many of the prophets speak explicitly of the person of Moshiach, Maimonides wishes to show that this principle is also contained in the Torah itself. It is for this purpose that he cites his second proof, from Numbers 24.
Moshiach and the Mitzvot
Moshiach achieves many great things: he liberates the people of Israel and restores their true independence and sovereignty; he teaches the divine wisdom of Torah, illuminating the intricacies of the human soul and the divine essence of all reality; he is a prophet of the highest order, communicating the word of G-d to man. But the most important thing that Moshiach does is to bring about the perfect and absolute implementation of the entire body of mitzvot, the divine commandments of the Torah, in the world.
Today, we are capable of achieving only a very limited actualization of the divine program for life. More than half of the Torah’s commandments (343 out of a total of 613) can be observed only when the Holy Temple is standing in Jerusalem and/or when the entire community of Israel resides in the Holy Land. And even the mitzvot that we can observe in our current state of galut (exile) are but pale “models” of the real thing, for the divine commandments can be optimally fulfilled only in a post-redemption Land of Israel.[12]
Furthermore, while we might do everything in our power to fulfill the mitzvot that are available to us today, we are daily confronted with a world that is still at odds with the will of its Creator. The Torah commands, “Do not kill,” yet people are killing each other all over the world; the Torah commands, “Love your fellow as yourself” “Honor your father and your mother,” “Remember the day of Shabbat to sanctify it,” and “Do not cook a kid in its mother’s milk,” yet a great portion of those to whom these commands are addressed are indifferent to, or even ignorant of them.
In our present-day reality, the Torah seems more like a “religion” or an “ideal,” than the cardinal law of reality. So the coming of Moshiach, the man who brings about the universal commitment to the divine law, is not just another event predicted by the Torah or another of its concepts and principles; it is the validation of the very essence of Torah as the divine blueprint for life – as the ultimate description of what the world can, ought to, and inevitably will, be.
This is the significance of Maimonides’ third source for Moshiach in the Torah. When the Torah commands us to add three “cities of refuge” upon establishing Jewish sovereignty over the entirety of the Promised Land, it is not only predicting the future Redemption, but also stating that the advent of Moshiach is required for the implementation of a divine command. Here is an example of a mitzvah, commanded by G-d at Sinai, whose conditions for fulfillment have never existed, and will exist only upon the arrival of Moshiach.
These verses establish the third principle that is fundamental to the Jew’s belief in Moshiach: that the Torah’s commandments are the ultimate blueprint for life on earth, and that there will come a day when the divine plan for creation will be fully realized in our world. For certainly, as Maimonides puts it, “G-d did not command it in vain.”
Based on talks by the Rebbe in the summers of 5738 (1978) and 5746 (1986) and on Shavuot of 5751 (1991)[13]
Adapted from the teachings of the Rebbe by Yanki Tauber
[8] Mishneh Torah, Laws of Kings, 12:5.
[10] In the covenant He made with Abraham, G-d promised: “To your descendants I shall give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates.” These borders include lands never conquered or settled by the people of Israel throughout their history.
[11] Mishneh Torah, ibid., 11:4.
[12] The Midrash goes so far as to consider the mitzvot observed in galutas mere “reminders” for the true mitzvot, those observed in the Holy Land. Quoting the prophet Jeremiah, “Set for yourself markers” (Jeremiah 31:20), it says: “Also after you are exiled, be distinguished with mitzvot-put on tefillin, make mezuzot, so that these should not be new to you when you return” (Sifri, quoted by Rashi on Deuteronomy 11:18. See also Nachmanides on Deuteronomy 4:4).
[13] Likkutei Sichot, vol. 34, Shoftim (5749); Sefer HaSichot 5751, pp. 574-576.
Tags: Torah, sovereignty, Divine will, redemption, Israel, reality, galut, mitzvot, Moshiach, prophecy, Holy Temple
Posted in Weekly Parsha, Beliefs & Concepts, Bamidbar, Chukat, Moshiach & Redemption, Torah | No Comments »
July 19th, 2015
And G-d spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: This is the decree (chok) of the Torah …. If a person should die in a tent, all that enter the tent and all that is in the tent shall be tamei (ritually impure) for seven days…. And for the contaminated person they shall take from the ashes [of the Red Heifer]…
Numbers 19:1-2, 14-17
The law of the “Red Heifer,” which instructs how to purify a person from the ritual impurity caused by contact with a dead body, is often cited as the ultimately supra-rational divine decree. King Solomon, the “wisest of men,”[1] said of this mitzvah:
“All [of the Torah’s commandments] I have comprehended. But the chapter of the Red Heifer, though I have examined it, questioned it and searched it out-I thought to be wise to it, but it is distant from me.”[2]
There are, indeed, many aspects to the law of the Red Heifer which defy rationalization. In the first place, the very phenomenon of “ritual purity” is a mystical, supra-rational concept. The purification process, which is achieved by sprinkling the ashes of a Red Heifer upon the contaminated person, follows no logic we can see. And then there are the internal inconsistencies in the law, such as the fact that while the sprinkling of the ashes purifies the contaminated person, it renders impure the one who did the sprinkling.
But there are other laws in the Torah which are no less elusive to human reason. In fact, there exists an entire category of mitzvot, called chukim (“decrees”), whose defining criteria is that they cannot be comprehended by the mortal mind. What is it about the law of the Red Heifer that makes it the archetypal “decree,” the mitzvah of which G-d says: “This is the chok of the Torah”?
Moses Turned Pale
The Midrash tells us that Moses was the only human being who was granted an understanding of the law of the Red Heifer. “To you,” G-d said to Moses, “I shall reveal the meaning of the Heifer; to everyone else it is a chok.”[3] Yet Moses, too, experienced great difficulty in accepting this law, as we see from the following Midrashic account:
In everything that G-d taught Moses, He would tell him both the manner of contamination and the manner of purification. When G-d came to the laws concerning one who comes in contact with a dead body, Moses said to Him: “Master of the universe! If one is thus contaminated, how may he be purified?!” G-d did not answer him. At that moment, the face of Moses turned pale.
When G-d came to the section of the “Red Heifer,” He said to Moses: “This is its manner of purification.” Said Moses to G-d: “Master of the universe! This is a purification?” Said G-d: “Moses, it is a chok, a decree that I have decreed, and no creature can fully comprehend My decrees.”[4]
The Mystery of Death
The departure of the soul from the body is incomprehensible to us. Not rationally – rationally, death makes perfect sense. We understand the fragility of life, the dissolutive nature of everything physical. But in our heart of hearts, we refuse to accept it. Regardless of all “evidence” to the contrary, we persist in seeing life as eternal; regardless of what the mind explains, we reject the very concept of death.
Even more difficult to accept is that there can be some process, some formula, that can possibly deal with, let alone heal, the terrible void of life departed. What possible antidote can there be to the anguish, the emptiness, the utter futility that death brings to the human heart?
This was why Moses turned pale upon hearing about the ritual laws of death. It was not for the lack of rational understanding of how the spiritual stain of death can be cleansed; indeed, Moses was the one human being to whom “the meaning of the Heifer” was revealed. Still he cried: “Master of the universe! Is this a purification?” You have explained to me how the ashes of the Red Heifer “work.” My mind is satisfied, but this does little to still the turmoil of my heart. My heart cannot comprehend how the evil of death can possibly be mitigated.
And G-d replied: “Moses, it is a chok, a decree that I have decreed.” Certain things are so overwhelming to My creations that they can only be overcome by submitting to an absolute command from an absolute authority. I have therefore commanded laws to instruct you what to do when your lives are touched by death. These are supra-rational, even irrational laws, for only such laws can facilitate your recovery. It is only by force of an utterly incomprehensible divine decree that you can recover from death.
The Laws of Mourning
Today, we do not have the ashes of the Red Heifer. But we do have laws and rituals to deal with death. Torah law instructs us to mourn the death of a loved one – and then regulates our mourning. The very concept of “laws of mourning” is incomprehensible. Can a person be instructed to mourn? Can he, conversely, be instructed to reduce or cease his mourning?
Yet this is precisely what the Torah does. There are specific laws that govern the intensity of the mourning in the hours from the death to the burial (a period called onanut), specific laws for the first three days following the burial, for the first seven days (shivah), for the first thirty days (sheloshim), and for the first year following a death. At each of these junctures, it is demanded of us to cross over into a new phase of mourning – a phase in which the intensity of our anguish and sense of loss is further mitigated and sublimated.
We resist these milestones with every fiber of our being. The mind understands the difference between the shivah and the sheloshim and between the sheloshim and the first year, but the heart does not accept it. One need not be disheartened by this internal resistance: the Torah tells us that Moses himself could not prevail upon his heart to accept what his mind had been given to understand. Even after G-d explained to Moses how the “Red Heifer” sublimates an encounter with death, it remained a chok – distant from the greatest of minds and utterly incomprehensible to every heart. Yet G-d commands us to make these transitions, and empowers us to fulfill His command.
It is the power of the divine decree that enables us to go on – both in our own lives, and in our work on behalf of others (for surely those who are dependent upon us cannot be made to wait until our minds and hearts have fully integrated what we know is expected of us). And the power of the divine decree is such that we can ultimately prevail upon ourselves to sublimate the negativities of death.
May we soon merit the day that such sublimation will no longer be necessary-the day when the Almighty will “remove the spirit of impurity from the earth”[5] so that “death shall cease forever and G-d shall erase the tear from every face”[6] and “those who dwell in the dust shall waken and rejoice.”[7]
Based on two addresses delivered by the Rebbe on Adar 21, 5748 (March 10, 1988), upon the conclusion of the sheloshim of his wife, Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka Schneerson, of blessed memory.
Adapted from the teachings of the Rebbe by Yanki Tauber
[2] Midrash Rabbah, Bamidbar 19:3, after Ecclesiastes 7:23.
[4] Midrash Rabbah, Kohelet 8:5.
Tags: mitzvot, mourning, loss, mind, heart, transition, ritual purity, death, Divine will, Moses, face, Jewish law, understanding, red heifer
Posted in Weekly Parsha, Personal Life, Bamidbar, Spiritual, Chukat, Torah | No Comments »
July 19th, 2015
And Moses ascended to G-d. And G-d called to him from the mountain, saying: “So you shall relate to the house of Jacob, and pronounce to the children of Israel…”
Exodus 19:3
“The house of Jacob” are the women; “the children of Israel” are the men…. Relate the general principles [of Torah] to the women, and pronounce [its] exacting particulars to the men.
Mechilta, ibid.
As physical beings, we are subject to the rule of time, that faceless force that drives us from a receding past, through a fleeting present, to an ever-elusive future.
As Jews, we attain a more intimate experience of time. With a series of time-related mitzvot, the Torah empowers us to delve beyond time’s homogeneous expanse to behold a terrain of great diversity: a terrain marked by workdays and a weekly Shabbat; annual landmarks of shofar,sukkah, and matzah; weeks designated for the counting of sefirat ha’omer, days for putting on tefillin, hours for reciting the Shema; and a host of other time-specific observances. As Jews, the very entity “time” becomes another object of our life’s mission of developing G-d’s creation, as we reach within its featureless flow to uncover its multi-faceted nature and actualize its particular potentials.
And yet, fully half of us are exempted from this aspect of Jewish life: according to Torah law, the Jewish woman is absolved from virtually all time-specific mitzvot.[1] To be sure, a woman can (and many do) observe these mitzvot,[2] but the very fact that she is not obligated to do so implies that they are not intrinsic to her mission in life. Why, indeed, does the Torah de-emphasize the Jewish woman’s role in its program for the development of time?
Separated At Birth
Our sages tell us that when G-d sent Moses to tell the Jewish people to ready themselves to receive the Torah, He sent him to the women first, and then to the men.
The entire community of Israel was given the same Torah. But the fact that this was preceded by two separate communications, one to the women and another to the men, implies a basic distinction between the women’s reception of Torah and the men’s. In other words, men and women differ not only biologically and psychologically, but also spiritually, having been charged and empowered by their Creator with two distinct roles in mankind’s overall mission in life. Hence there are mitzvot commanded only to men, and mitzvot specific to women.
This is not to say that each of us relates to only half a Torah. Indeed, if man and woman were two separate species, such would be the case. But man and woman are two dimensions of a single soul, separated at birth and reunited through marriage. So each individual soul is charged with the implementation of the entire Torah–its masculine element, acting through a male body, to carry out the Torah’s masculine commandments; and its feminine element, vested in a female body, to realize the Torah’s feminine goals. In the words of master Kabbalist Rabbi Isaac Luria,[3] “When the male performs a mitzvah [commanded specifically to men], there is no need for the woman to do it on her own, since she is included in his performance of the mitzvah.… This is the deeper significance of what our sages have said, ‘A[4] person’s wife is as his own body.’”[5]
Particular Man
What exactly does this “division of roles” entail? Man and woman are both multifaceted and complex creatures, and no single sentence or thesis can possibly summarize the many ways in which they complement and fulfill each other. Ultimately, we can only say that G-d, who created the human soul and halved it into two separate bodies and lives, has ordained for each a program for life–delineated by the Torah– that is consistent with its strengths and potentials. The Torah, however, does provide a number of clues that illuminate certain aspects of the “male” and “female” roles.
One such insight into the distinction between these roles is expressed in the Midrash quoted at the beginning of this essay. As the Mechilta derives from Exodus 19:3, G-d told Moses to relate the “general principles” of the Torah to the women, and its “exacting particulars” to the men. The woman relates to the essence, the all-inclusive, in Torah; the man relates to the detail, the specific law, the particular application.
[This distinction is also seen in the role of the father and mother in determining the identity of their child. According to Torah law, it is the mother who determines the Jewishness of the child: if the mother is Jewish, so too, is the child; if the mother is not, neither is the child, no matter how much “Jewish blood” there is in his parentage. On the other hand, regarding the particulars of his Jewishness–his tribal identity,[6] or his classification as a “Kohen,” “Levite,” or “Israelite”–the child takes wholly after his father.]
Thus the man is the one with the more “intellectual” relationship with Torah–it is to him that the commandment “study it day and night”[7] is directed. The woman, on the other hand, imbibes the Torah at its supra-rational root with her female faith and receptiveness. She is one with the truth of G-d, without the need to dissect it and analyze it–a process that is crucial for the particular-minded man, but which cannot but deflect its force and refract the intensity of its light. [8]
Women First
This also explains why Moses was sent to the women first. The Torah’s revelation to mankind unfolded from the general to the particular, from the supra-spatial point of concept to the breadth and depth of thought and law. Originally, we received the Torah from G-d in the form of a single divine utterance, which encapsulated all Ten Commandments.[9] Then, we heard the two basic precepts of the Torah, “I Am the L-rd your G-d,” which embodies all the positive commandments (mitzvot assei), and “You shall have no other gods,” from which all prohibitions (mitzvot lo taasseh) derive.[10] These were followed by the communication, through Moses, of the other eight Commandments and G-d’s inscription of the Ten Commandments on the Two Tablets. For the next forty years, Moses taught the people of Israel the particulars of Torah, which he transcribed, by divine dictation, in the Written Torah (the Five Books of Moses ); but the Written Torah, with its 613 mitzvot, is only a detailing of the principles embodied in the “Engraved Torah” of the Ten Commandments.[11] Nor did the extrapolation of Torah end with Moses: thirty-five generations of interpretation and application produced the Mishnah, and a further 300 years of analyzing the Mishnah gave us the Talmud. Indeed, it is a process that continues to this very day, as the many streams of Torah–Halachah, Aggadah, Kabbalah, Chakirah, Mussar and Chassidut–continued to flow from the wellspring of Sinai, an ever-expanding mass of wisdom and law, every word of which is encapsulated in the single utterance of the original divine communication.[12]
So when G-d sent Moses to prepare the Jewish people to receive the Torah, He sent him first to the women. First, the Torah must be received as is, free of Talmudic pilpul, free of philosophical theorizing, free of mystical experience–free of everything save the unequivocal identification with its truth. Go first to the Jewess, said G-d to Moses, for she is the prime conduit of this first step in the communication of My truth to humanity. Then, go to the men and instruct them of the details; it is they who shall play the pivotal role in the second stage–the application of Torah to the particulars of man’s external experience of his world.
Trees and the Forest
Now we can understand the different emphases that the Torah places on men and women’s respective roles in the sanctification of time.
The detail-oriented spiritual life of the male is a process–a sequential string of particulars in which each item is dealt with on its own terms and fitted into context with the others. In time, his is the domain of the year, the month, the week, the day and the hour. So it is he whom the Torah charges to imbue these time-particulars with holiness, to develop their individual natures and potential.
But while man is of the hour, woman is time incarnate.[13] She relates to the essence of time, to the pure potential of change and flux as it transcends the particulars of quantified time. So the mitzvot assigned to her are primarily “time-neutral,” relating to the whole of life rather than the specific slices of it defined by calendar and clock.
Based on the Rebbe’s talks, Shabbat Yitro 5745 (February 9, 1985) and on other occasions[14]
Adapted from the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe by Yanki Tauber
[1]. The exemption of woman from time-specific mitzvot applies only to themitzvot assei, or “positive commandments,” not to the mitzvot lo taasseh, or “prohibitions.” Thus, a woman is equally obligated to observe time-specific mitzvot that entail a mitzvat lo taasseh, such as resting on Shabbat or fasting on Yom Kippur. In addition, there are certain positive commandments to which the Torah specifically obligates the Jewish woman, such as the active observances of Shabbat (kiddush, etc.) and eating matzah on the first night of Passover. For a full treatment of the woman’s obligations under Torah law, see Encyclopedia Talmudit, vol. II, pp. 242-257.
[2]. With the few notable exceptions (e.g., putting on tefillin) proscribed by law or custom (see ibid., pp. 250-251).
[3]. The “Holy Ari,” 1534-1572.
[4]. Talmud, Menachot 93a.
[5]. The Ari’s Likkutei Torah, Bereishit 15a. Cf. Zohar, part I, 91b; ibid., part III, 7b, 109b and 296a; Genesis 1:27 and Midrash Rabbah, ibid.; Talmud, Sotah 2a (“Forty days before the formation of the fetus it is announced in heaven: ‘The daughter of so-and-so [shall marry] so-and-so’ ”). See Cloven To Cleave, WIR, vol. VI, no. 5.
[6]. The Jewish people comprise twelve shevatim, or “tribes,” descendent from the twelve sons of Jacob. A Jew’s tribal identity determines his share in the Holy Land as well as his role in Jewish life.
[7]. Joshua 1:8. See Talmud, Kiddushin 29b; Shulchan Aruch, part II, 246:6.
[8]. Another related distinction that the Torah points to is that the male has been equipped with the nature and inclinations of a “conqueror” (Genesis 1:28, as per Talmud, Yevamot 65b.) while the woman is basically a cultivator and nurturer. Thus, man has the more “extroverted” role–it is he who battles a world hostile to G-dliness, struggling to wrest a civilization of holiness from the wilderness of a material and egocentric world. The woman, on the other hand, is entrusted with the mission of cultivating the G-dly: it is she who brings children into the world and plays the major part in forging their personalities; it is she who is the “homemaker” in the ultimate, spiritual sense, setting the tone of the sanctum of divinity that is the family. Man fights to transform mundanity into holiness; woman recognizes and safeguards the holiness implicit in G-d’s creation. Man does; woman is.
As with all human traits, a person’s “masculinity” or “femininity” can be properly channeled, or abused. The man’s conquering nature can be applied to its divinely intended aim, or corrupted into the aggressive and brutish behavior that typifies the “insensitive male.” On her part, the woman can develop her nurturing potential, or allow her “femininity” to fester into a fatalistic docility. The human being having been granted freedom of choice, he or she can even choose to attempt to assume the role of the opposite sex. Usually this results in an emulation of a negative application of masculinity or femininity. But even when a man pursues a positive feminine ideal, or vice versa, this constitutes a tragic denial and suppression of one’s own highest potentials.
[9]. Mechilta on Exodus 20:1.
[10]. Talmud, Makot 24a; Tanya, ch. 20. See Yes and No, WIR, vol. VII, no. 8.
[11]. Rashi, Exodus 24:12.
[12]. Jerusalem Talmud, Pe’ah 2:4.
[13]. In the language of Kabbalah, woman is malchut (“sovereignty”), which is the source of time and space (see Ohr HaTorah, Pinchas, pp. 1191-1203).
[14]. Likkutei Sichot, vol. XXXI, pp. 93-98.
Tags: mitzvot, commandments, women, men, gender roles, time
Posted in Weekly Parsha, Shmot, Social, Women & Men, Yitro | No Comments »
July 19th, 2015
And Jethro, the priest of Midian … heard of all that G-d had done for Moses and for His people Israel…. And Jethro … came to Moses, to the desert, where he was encamped at the mount of G-d….
And Jethro said: “Now I know that G-d is greater than all gods…”
Exodus 18:1-11
It is a principle of Torah law that “hearing is not comparable to seeing.”[18] This means that even if a person has been fully informed about something and has absolute trust in the information, it is still not comparable to actually seeing it with his own eyes. This is not to say that a person cannot be fully convinced with second-hand information; a court of law, for example, will decide on life-and-death issues based on testimony presented to it. But there is a level of conviction that can only be attained through sight.
One example of this principle is to be found in the above-quoted verses describing Jethro’s recognition of the One G-d. The Torah tells us that “Jethro heard of all that G-d had done for Moses and for His people Israel”—heard about the Exodus, the splitting of the Red Sea, the miraculous victory in thewar against Amalek.[19] Nevertheless, it was only when he came to the Israelite camp at Mount Sinai and witnessed, firsthand, the special relationship they enjoyed with G-d, that he was able to say: “Now I know that G-d is greater than all gods.”
Earlier Sightings
There are other places in the Torah from which this principle can be deduced, including several that appear earlier in the Torah than the story of Jethro. For example, in the 45th chapter of Genesis we read how Jacob’s sons told him that Joseph, whom he had mourned as dead for twenty-two years, was alive in Egypt. At first, he did not believe them; but after they provided him with conclusive proof, telling him things that Joseph had told them that no one else could have known, “the spirit of Jacob was revived.”[20] Nevertheless, it was only when Jacob saw Joseph with his own eyes that he said, “Now I can die in peace, having seen your face, because you are alive.”[21] Jacob’s knowledge that Joseph was alive, though complete before he saw his face, was now on an entirely different level.
Another example is from Exodus 14:10: “And the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians are marching after them; and they were very much afraid; and the Children of Israel cried out to G-d.”
But G-d had already told them, “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue [you].”[22] So the Jewish people already knew what was to come. Nevertheless, actually seeing the pursuing Egyptians provoked a response in them that their prior knowledge did not.
A Man of Mind
Yet there is something unique about Jethro’s case. There is something about Jethro’s experience that gives us an appreciation of the rule “hearing is not comparable to seeing” which cannot be acquired from the earlier examples.
Our sages tell us that Jethro was a life-long seeker, a man who had studied and sampled every philosophy and theology on the face of earth before arriving at the truth of the one G-d.[23]
Jethro was a true scientist, one to whom the mind is the highest arbiter of truth. The true scientist completely distrusts his senses, relying instead on “hard data” and what the laws of logic deduce from them. If these conclusions contradict what his senses tell him, no matter; the logical deductions of his mind will always overrule what is sensed or felt to be true.
One would therefore think that when a man like Jethro deduces that something is true, there can be no greater validation for him than what his mind has proven to him. If he hears about the G-d of Israel, weighs the evidence in his mind and concludes that He is the true G-d, what can be added by seeing the divine presence in the Israelite camp?
Yet when Jethro arrived at the foot of Mount Sinai, he proclaimed: “Now I know.” If it were only a question of “proof,” then indeed, for a man like Jethro, seeing does not provide any greater proof than his hearing and his logical validation of what he heard. But proof is only about the thing, while seeing is a direct experience of the thing itself.
When we hear about something or deduce it from logical proofs, the mind collects the evidence piece by piece, detail by detail, and then assembles the pieces into a perception of the subject. But when we see something, we “take in” the totality of the thing itself even before we are aware of the details. Our eyes provide us with a link to the essence of the thing, with a vision of its very soul.
This is why G-d wanted us to see Him at Sinai,[24] and why the culmination of history is described as a time when “all flesh shall see.”[25]In giving us the gift of sight, our Creator has provided us with more than another data-gathering tool. He has granted us the capacity to penetrate the profusion of detail that clogs our neurological reality and relate to the quintessence of things—to the essence of a fellow human being, the essence of the world in which we live and, ultimately, the very essence of G-d.
Based on an address by the Rebbe, Shevat 29, 5740 (February 16, 1980)
Adapted from the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe by Yanki Tauber
[18]. Mechilta on Exodus 19:9; Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 26a.
[19]. Exodus 18:1; Rashi on verse.
[20]. Genesis 45:27; Rashi on verse.
[23]. Mechilta on Exodus 18:11; Zohar, part II, 69a.
[24]. Cf. Exodus 24:10; Deuteronomy 4:35; Mechilta on Exodus 19:9.
Tags: sight, Yanki Tauber, certainty, mind, knowledge
Posted in Biblical, Weekly Parsha, Shmot, Faith, Beliefs & Concepts, Torah Personalities, Yitro, Torah, Yitro | No Comments »
July 19th, 2015
In the third month of the Children of Israel’s exodus from the land of Egypt, on that day, they arrived in the Sinai desert… And Israel camped there, before the mountain
Exodus 19:1-2
“That day” was the first of Sivan in the year 2448 from creation (1313 bce), six weeks after the Exodus. Six days later, the entire nation of Israel stood at the foot of Mount Sinai as G-d revealed Himself to them and gave them the Torah. Ever since, we celebrate the festival of Shavuot as “The Time of the Giving of Our Torah.”
The 19th chapter of Exodus describes this final week of preparation for Sinai. By analyzing the Torah’s account, the Talmud[1] pieces together the following chronicle of events for these six days, the 1st through the 6th of Sivan:
Sivan 1, the day we arrived at Sinai: “Moses did not say anything at all to the Jewish people, since they were weary from the journey.”[2]
Sivan 2: At dawn, Moses ascends Mount Sinai. He brings back the following message from G-d: “You have seen what I have done to Egypt, and how I bore you upon the wings of eagles and brought you to Myself. Now, if you will obey My voice and keep My covenant, you shall be My chosen treasure from among all the nations, for all the earth is Mine. You shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”[3] With these words, G-d expressed His desire that we become His “chosen people.” The day is accordingly marked in our calendar as Yom HaMeyuchas, “The Day of Designation.”
Sivan 3: G-d commands Moses to fence in the mountain, marking the boundaries where everyone is to stand when G-d reveals Himself upon the mountain and gives them the Torah: Moses may approach closer than Aaron, who may approach closer than the kohanim (priests), who may approach closer than the rest of the people.[4]
Sivan 4: The Jewish people are told to purify and sanctify themselves in preparation for the giving of the Torah by suspending marital relations and immersing in a mikveh.[5]
Sivan 5: Moses builds an altar at the foot of the mountain and seals the covenant between G-d and Israel. The entire people proclaim, “All that G-d commands, we shall do and we shall hear (comprehend).”[6]
Sivan 6: The Giving of the Torah. “When morning came, there was thunder and lightning, and a thick cloud upon the mountain… The voice of the shofar sounded, growing stronger and stronger… G-d descended upon Mount Sinai … and spoke the following words, saying: ‘I Am G-d your G-d, who has taken you out of the land of Egypt..’”[7]
A Mysterious Blank
The revelation at Sinai marked the culmination and fulfillment of the Exodus. Many months earlier, also at Sinai, when G-d first appeared to Moses in the burning bush and commanded him to lead the Jewish people out of Egypt, He had said: “This is your sign that I have sent you: when you take this nation out of Egypt, you will serve G-d on this mountain.”[8]
From the moment that Moses brought them word of the promised redemption, the Jewish people awaited the revelation at Sinai. For Moses had promised them more than an escape from Egypt and their “hard labor in mortar and bricks.”[9] He had promised them the ultimate freedom: freedom from their own mortality, freedom from the finiteness and mundanity of a material-bound existence. He had promised them a vision of the divine reality and a mandate to incorporate its boundlessness and eternity into their lives. He had promised them G-d’s Torah.[10]
From the day they left Egypt, the Jews literally counted the days to the morning on which they would behold the reality of G-d and be granted the liberating truth of truths. (To this very day, we experience their 49-day count, from the day they left Egypt to the day they received the Torah, with our own “counting of the omer.” Every Passover, we re-experience our forefathers’ initial taste of freedom when they physically exited Egypt; for the next seven weeks, we undergo the yearning and preparation for the Torah which they pioneered in their forty-nine days of counting and self-refinement; finally, on the festival of Shavuot, we receive the ultimate gift of freedom, as we are granted our annual “revelation at Sinai” and “giving of the Torah.”[11])
In light of this, the events—or rather, the non-event—of the 1st of Sivan is most difficult to understand. This was the day on which “Moses did not say anything at all to the Jewish people, since they were weary from the journey.” But human nature is such that the closer one comes to an anticipated point in time, the stronger one’s yearning and desire becomes. Why, after six weeks of anticipation and preparation for the great day, would everything come to a halt merely because the Jewish people were “weary from the journey”? Why would they not do “anything at all” in preparation for their receiving of the Torah, on the very day on which they arrived at Mount Sinai?
The Silencing of the Jewish Mind
Let us take a closer look at what the Torah tells us about the doings of the Jewish people on the day in question, the first of Sivan: “In the third month of the Children of Israel’s exodus from the land of Egypt, on that day, they arrived in the Sinai desert. They journeyed from Rephidim and came to the Sinai desert, and camped in the desert; and Israel camped there, before the mountain.”[12]
In his commentary on these verses, Rashi addresses the grammatically unconventional use of the singular vayichan (“and he camped,” rather thanvayachanu, “and they camped”) in speaking of the entire Jewish people. Rashi explains that the Torah wishes to inform us that “They camped as a single man, with a single heart, unlike all other encampments, which were accompanied by dissent and dispute.”
Indeed, we find many instances of quarreling and even rebellion in the course of the Jewish People’s journeys in the desert. Still, was it really as bad as that? Were “all other encampments” (there were forty-two of them altogether, as enumerated in the 33rd chapter of Numbers) ridden with strife, and Sinai the only peaceful exception?
But the “dissent and dispute” which characterized the Jewish camp need not be understood only in the negative sense. Our sages tell us that G-d created man in such a way that “Just as no two are alike in their features, no two are alike in mind and character.”[13] Each individual’s distinct mindset and temperament leads him to apply the same truths in his own unique way. So differences of opinion do not necessarily stem from selfishness and animosity; they can also arise out of a sincere search for the truth and the desire to fully realize one’s potential as an individual. In fact, when untainted by self-interest, dissent and differences of opinion can prove positive and constructive.
Nevertheless, what was acceptable, even desirable, in the other forty-one encampments, was intolerable at the encampment at Sinai. For an important part of our preparations to receive the Torah was (and remains) the eradication of all differences in outlook and understanding.
The reason for this is best understood by examining the difference between pre and post-Sinaitic study of Torah. Also before Sinai, the Torah was studied and observed: Shem, the son of Noah, headed an academy for Torah study together with his great-grandson, Eber[14]; the Patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—established “yeshivot” for Torah study[15]; and throughout the Egyptian exile, the tribe of Levi (who were not enslaved) occupied themselves with the study of Torah.[16] So the “Giving of the Torah” at Sinai was not the unveiling of a hitherto undisclosed document. What, then, did happen at Sinai?
Prior to Sinai, the intellect was the tool with which to mine the depths of Torah. G-d had invested His wisdom in words and ideas comprehensible to the human mind, and the human mind labored to grasp and digest them—to the extent that it was capable. Since every mind is unique in both its strengths and its weaknesses, the scope and depth of each student’s understanding differed. Obviously, no mind was capable of apprehending the entirety of Torah, as the infinite wisdom of G-d could never be contained by the finite human mind.
But at Sinai, G-d gave us His Torah. All of it. He chose to impart the whole of His wisdom to us, regardless of the limits of our intellect. At this moment, Moses and the most simple of Jews were equal: equal in their inability to grasp the essence of G-d’s wisdom with their own brainpower, and equal in that G-d had granted them this understanding as a gift—that He “inserted” the infinity of His wisdom into the simplest of Torah’s verses in the mouth of the simplest of Jews.
To prepare for the giving of the Torah at Sinai, the Jewish people had to abnegate their individual talents and faculties. They had to make the transition from active apprehension of Torah to passive submission to a gift from above.
So the first of Sivan, the day on which the Jews arrived at the station at which they would receive the Torah, was far from an uneventful day. On the contrary, it was a day of intense preparation, involving an unprecedented activity: to establish a camp that was “as a single man with a single heart.” Not only to reach a consensus on a unified course of action (“as a single man”), but also to each surrender his or her individual approach, outlook and intuition to a singular egoless receptiveness (“a single heart”) that is the most important prerequisite to the divine granting of the Torah.
This was a most “wearying journey.” It was not the physical journey from Rephidim which so drained them, but the psychological transition from a six-week active preparation to utter passivity. On this day, “Moses did not say anything at all” to them, and his non-verbalization of the order of the day was its strongest articulation: to transcend one’s individual comprehension of Torah and make oneself an “empty vessel” to receive what G-d would bestow.
Return to Self
Following the great “non-event” of Sivan 1 came five days of active preparation for Sinai.
Initially, the definitiveness and individuality of the mind is an impediment to receiving the infinite, intangible essence of the divine wisdom. But after we open ourselves to receive G-d’s Torah, we must “reactivate” our individual faculties in order to absorb and assimilate what we have received.
Once again, differences will emerge. Moses, Aaron, the priests and the common folk—each will have his boundaries clearly marked. Each will take the very essence of Torah, which they all received equally, and apply it to his own life with the tools of his own cognition and experience.
Based on an address by the Rebbe, Sivan 2, 5743 (May 14, 1983)[17]
Adapted from the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe by Yanki Tauber
[1]. Talmud, Shabbat 86b; see also Rashi’s commentary on Exodus 19.
[4]. Ibid., v. 12 (see Rashi on v. 24).
[10]. See Freedom, WIR, vol. IX, no. 17.
[11]. See Seeking the Week, WIR, vol. VIII, no. 36.
[13]. Talmud, Berachot 58a.
[14]. Rashi on Genesis 26:5.
[16]. Rashi on Genesis 46:28; Chizkuni on Exodus 5:4.
[17]. Likkutei Sichot, vol. XXVIII, pp. 7-14.
Tags: Matan Torah, individuality, Sinai, work, unity, spiritual vessels
Posted in Weekly Parsha, Biblical, Shmot, Torah Personalities, Yitro, Torah, Moses | No Comments »
July 19th, 2015
Before his passing, Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov said to his disciples: “You must seek a new master and mentor, for soon I shall pass on from this world.”
“To whom shall we turn for guidance?” they asked.
“I shall give you a sign,” said Rabbi Israel. “He who knows the answer to the query, `How can one overcome the pride in one’s heart?’—he is the man who can guide you in your service of the Almighty.”
“And what is the answer? How does one vanquish pride?”
“The answer is that there is no way in which to vanquish pride. All `techniques’ to achieve humility are only additional causes for pride, as their practitioner revels in how humbly he is behaving. One must simply pray to the Almighty that He humble our hearts before Him.”
Adapted from the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe by Yanki Tauber
Tags: humility, pride, Yanki Tauber, Rebbe, Power of Prayer
Posted in Weekly Parsha, Baal Shem Tov, Shmot, Torah Personalities, Modern, Yitro, Torah | No Comments »
