July 19th, 2015
A Torah scholar (talmid chacham) whose inner self is not as his external self is no Torah scholar
Talmud, Yuma 72b
Said the chassid Rabbi Yehoshua Eliyahu of Harki:
Why does the Talmud say that one must make his “inner self as his external self” and not the other way around? Because to make your external self as your inner self is a relatively simple task: you need only behave in a manner that is in keeping with your present moral and spiritual state. The challenge is to act more righteously than you truly are, and then, so as not to be a hypocrite, G-d forbid, make your inner self consistent with your external behavior.
Adapted from the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe by Yanki Tauber
Tags: true self, scholar, self-development, hypocrisy, Yanki Tauber
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July 19th, 2015
Why was he called Yitro (“his addition”)? Because he added a chapter to the Torah—[the chapter] “And you should see [to choose] from the people…”
Midrash Rabbah, Shemot 27:7
The Torah was communicated to us through Moses; indeed, the prophet goes so far as to refer to the word of G-d as “Moses’ Torah.”[1] On several occasions, however, other individuals are given credit for the revelation of a particular section. Thus we are told that the section dealing with laws of the “Second Passover” (Numbers 9:6-14), which came as G-d’s response to a group of Jews who were ritually impure yet refused to reconcile themselves with the fact that they could not participate in the Passover offering, “ought to have been related by Moses, like the rest of the Torah, but these people merited that it be revealed by their initiative.”[2] The same is said regarding the laws of inheritance (Numbers 27:6-11) whose revelation was prompted by the daughters of Tzelafchad,[3] the penalty for desecrating Shabbat (Numbers 15:35-36) prompted by the “wood gatherer,”[4] etc.
Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, is also credited with a section of Torah. Indeed, his name (Yitro, in the Hebrew, meaning “his addition”) was given him “because he added a chapter to the Torah.” In this, the case of Jethro is unique. In all other instances, nothing was “added” to the Torah—these were laws that would have been included in the Torah in any case, for without them the Torah is not complete; it was only that instead of being communicated directly to Moses as was the rest of the Torah, certain individuals had the merit to be involved in the process of their revelation.[5] Only Jethro’s section is referred to as an “addition”—something that would not have been part of the Torah were it not for his initiative. In other words, the Torah was complete without this section, and Jethro added something to it.
What was Jethro’s addition? What did it contribute to our understanding of the divine wisdom?
Delegated Authority
When Jethro arrived in the Israelite camp, he was shocked to discover that Moses was serving as a one-man educational and judicial system for a community of several million souls.[6] “Why do you sit alone,” he asked his son-in-law, “and the entire people stand about you from morning till evening?”
Moses replied: “The people come to me to seek G-d. When they have a matter of dispute they come to me, and I judge between a man and his fellow. I teach them the laws of G-d and His instructions.”
Said Jethro:
“It is not good, this thing that you are doing. You will wither away, both you and this people who are with you… you cannot do this alone.”
Jethro went on to suggest that Moses select from among the people “able men, those that fear G-d, men of truth, who abhor profit” and appoint them as arbiters and judges. Moses would continue to teach the people “the laws and the instructions … the path they should follow and the deeds they should do.” But the application of these laws to the daily life of the camp, the resolution of questions and the settlement of disputes, should be delegated to these men. “They shall judge the people at all times: the great matters they shall present to you, and the minor things they shall arbitrate themselves.”
Moses accepted and implemented Jethro’s plan, appointing “captains of thousand, captains of hundred, captains of fifty and captains of ten.” The people were themselves entrusted with the application of the divine law to their daily lives, while Moses confined his role to teaching them the laws and deciding the most difficult issues. [7]
A Reluctant Mouthpiece
A similar thing had occurred four months earlier, when the people of Israel assembled at the foot of Mount Sinai to receive the Torah from G-d. [8]
The divine voice pronounced the first two of the Ten Commandments (“I am G-d…” and “You shall have no other gods…”). But the people felt that they were incapable of receiving a direct communication from G-d. “You approach,” they begged Moses, “and hear all that the L-rd our G-d will say. You tell us all that the L-rd our G-d will say to you, and we will listen and do.”
Moses was deeply disappointed to hear this: it was his desire that the people should receive the entire Torah directly from the mouth of G-d. But G-d said to him: “I have heard the words that the people have spoken to you; they have spoken well… Go say to them: ‘Return to your tents.’ And you remain here with Me, and I shall relate to you the commandment, the statutes and the laws which you shall teach them…”[9]
Moses was not only a great and holy man; he was also Israel’s leader—the greatest leader we have ever known. He was a “faithful shepherd”[10] to his people, feeding their bodies and nourishing their souls, sensitive to the individual needs of every member of his flock.[11] Moses did not “overestimate” his people when he desired that they receive the Torah directly from G-d; on the contrary—he perceived their true and ultimate potential, and as a true leader, he endeavored to actualize it. In Moses’ eyes, the people of Israel were capable of assimilating the highest revelations; under his leadership, they could actually have achieved this.
But the people did not want to relate to G-d on this level. They wanted to receive the Torah with their own, self-actualized, faculties, not with the sublime powers that Moses could summon forth from the depths of their souls. They wanted that their experience of Torah should be true to how they are to themselves, rather than how Moses sees them.
G-d agreed. After having been exposed to the divine essence of Torah (as contained within the first two commandments), they would receive the Torah not as a supernal “voice” from Heaven, but as ideas formulated in a human mind, as words articulated by a human mouth and put in writing by a human hand. They would receive the Torah via the mind, mouth and pen of Moses.
The Outsider
Having learned the divine laws from Moses, how were they to be implemented in their daily lives? How were they to be translated into guidance for raising a child, righting a troubled marriage or resolving a dispute between neighbors?
One might go to Moses. He received these laws from G-d; his knowledge and understanding of them is absolute. His application of them is certain to be the clearest, most unequivocal rendition of the divine law.
It is true that Moses is a million miles away from the petty neighbors’ dispute he is being troubled to resolve. But it is also true that the two litigants standing before him are certain to be elevated by the experience. In the presence of Moses, they, too, are capable of rising above the pettiness of their conflict. In the presence of Moses, they, too, are capable of relating to the pure principle being expounded, and of applying it to their relations back in their neighborhood.
This was how it was done until Jethro arrived in the Israelite camp.
Jethro was an outsider—a convert to Judaism who was not even present at the revelation at Mount Sinai.[12] Moses saw the people of Israel from the inside—in the light of their highest potentials, from the perspective of the inner core of their souls as they are one with his in the singular soul of Israel. Jethro saw them from the outside—their everyday selves, their petty cares and conflicts. He saw them as they are apart from Moses, while Moses saw them only as they are in the presence of Moses.
So he suggested to Moses that the people of Israel learn to govern themselves, to arbitrate their disputes, to apply the laws of Torah to their lives. Moses was to remain the sole source of these laws, but their implementation was to be achieved by a multi-tiered body of magistrates and counselors at every level of the community (“captains of ten, captains of hundred,” etc.). This way, the divine law would permeate their lives on every level, not only at the apogee of their being.
This is what Jethro “added” to the Torah. Without his addition, the Torah was complete. Indeed, there was no real need for Jethro’s system, for Moses could always be counted on to raise the lives of his people to the level on which he expounded the word of G-d. But their understanding and practice of Torah would have remained something that Moses had empowered them to attain, not something they had attained on their own. Jethro’s system made the Torah the personal achievement of every Jew.
More significantly, Jethro’s initiative was accepted and implemented by Moses, and written into the Torah. Were it not for Jethro, the Torah would have remained “Moses’ Torah”—a guide to life for Moseses and Moses-elevated Jews. After Moses’ passing, a system such as Jethro’s would have been established, to “bring down” Moses’ Torah to a lesser generation. But Jethro insisted that Moses delegate of his capacity to interpret the Torah to the sages of his generation, and by extension, to the sages of all generations. Because it was Moses who established this system, it was incorporated as a section in Torah, making it an integral part of the divine communication to man. Because of Jethro, the Jew who studies and lives Torah today is relating to the divine “original” rather than to a human interpretation.[13]
Based on an address by the Rebbe, Shevat 15, 5735 (January 27, 1975)[14]
Adapted from the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe by Yanki Tauber
[3]. Talmud, Bava Batra 119a.
[5]. See sources cited in notes 2 and 3.
[6]. A census taken several months later counted 603,550 males between the ages of 20 and 60, excluding the tribe of Levi.
[8]. Jethro’s arrival in the Israelite camp and his suggestion to Moses are related in the 18th chapter of Exodus, while the revelation at Sinai is recounted in chapters 19, 20 and 24. However, Jethro’s suggestion to Moses was made on the 11th of Tishrei (the day after the second tablets were given on Yom Kippur), more than four months after the revelation at Sinai on Sivan 6 of the previous year (according to one opinion, his arrival in the camp was also after the giving of the Torah.) This is in keeping with the rule that “the Torah does not necessarily follow chronological order” (Mechilta on Exodus 18:13; Rashi, ibid.; Talmud, Zevachim 116a; ibid., Pesachim 6b; see, however, Daat Zekeinim MiBaalei HaTosafot on Exodus 18:13).
[9]. Deuteronomy 5:20-28; Rashi, ibid., v. 24; cf. Exodus 20:16.
[10]. Raaya meheimna. Also translated “shepherd of faith,” in the sense that Moses is Israel’s conduit of faith, the one who inculcates them with their knowledge and recognition of G-d, as a shepherd who feeds his flocks their vital needs (see Tanya, ch. 42.)
[11]. See Midrash Rabbah, Shemot 2:2.
[12]. See sources cited in note 8 above.
[13]. Cf. Jerusalem Talmud, Pe’ah 2:4: “Everything that a qualified student of Torah is destined to originate was already given to Moses at Sinai.” The Talmud refers to the student’s achievement as original (a chiddush), yet says that it was already given to Moses! In other words, for an interpretation to be an authentic part of Torah, it must derive from the authority of Moses; yet Moses transmitted the Torah to us in such a way that enables our understanding of it to be our “own” achievement. See also Tanya, ch. 42.
[14]. Likkutei Sichot, vol. XVI, pp. 203-210.
Tags: self-government, integration, Yanki Tauber, Moses, personal growth
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July 19th, 2015
There is a fashion in language as in almost everything else. One of the “in” phrases today is “Be Realistic!” Whether used as an exhortation, admonition or as gentle chiding, it is usually prompted by exasperation that the person to whom the remark is directed refuses to “see reason.” “Reason” in this case being that he refuses to forgo time honored values and traditions that have stood the test of time in exchange for the transient modes and mores of the moment. He is “old fashioned” because he refuses to swim with the tide, or irrational to cling to ideas and ideals which were given long ago and do not conform with “modern” trends. Another aspect of this call for realism is the argument that even if might is not right one cannot buck the establishment or “fight City Hall.” So, for instance, Israel, which is so dependant on the USA and others, must temper its actions accordingly, even though it may not be in its best interests.
What is a realist? A wit once defined a realist as “an optimist with experience.” This description may not be as cynical as it at first seems.
A valuable lesson in realism may be learned from the events which led up to the Chassidic Festival of Yud Beis Tammuz which we celebrate this week. The facts are well documented, not least of all in the lucid account from the prolific pen of the Previous Rebbe himself. Briefly stated they are that in 1927 the Soviet authorities, keen to stamp out Judaism in the USSR, arrested the Previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, on trumped up charges of activities against the State, intending to sentence him to death. Paradoxically, those who arrested him paid the greatest testimony to his stature. Intent on promoting a G-dless society and destroying the paraphernalia of observance, they saw in the previous Rebbe, and the followers he led and inspired, the greatest threat to their designs. Remove the Rebbe, they reasoned, and the organized promotion and observance of Judaism would end. The mighty Soviet machine that had toppled the great Czarist regime was afraid of this one great Jew and the influence he wielded.
Incarcerated under unspeakable conditions, tortured physically and mentally, the Previous Rebbe had to face a final interrogation by a committee of three who would decide his sentence. Ushered into a long room at the end of which sat his inquisitors, the Rebbe, physically abused and suffering injuries from which he never fully recovered, walked slowly towards them. Unbowed, he initiated the conversation by saying:
“This is the first time that I recall entering a room without people standing up!” One of the interrogators jumped up, shouting remonstratively: “Quiet! Do you know where you are?” Still walking towards him, the Rebbe replied: “Yes! I am in a room which according to Jewish Law does not require a Mezuzah: a stable or a bathroom.”
The end of that chapter of the story was that the Rebbe was sentenced to death. Due to outcry by Governments abroad, the sentence was first commuted to exile, and, shortly afterwards, the Rebbe was freed.
Realistically, was the Previous Rebbe’s attitude not foolhardy? He knew that, on the face of it, these three men held his life in their hands. Would it not have been better to be more conciliatory? To, perhaps, compromise a little? Not to buck the establishment? To live to fight another day?
Now, over 70 years later, with 20/20 hindsight, one may evaluate and answer these questions.
The Previous Rebbe was a realist: an optimist with experience.
His optimism lay in his bitochen[7]. He had perfect faith. In his own words on a previous occasion, he had “but one G-d and two worlds [this and the world to come]” and could not be intimidated by those “who had many gods and but one world.” And his experience told him that one could not cede compromises or do deals with those who seek to eliminate you. By doing so one only helps fulfill their agenda: one becomes their agent in destroying what they seek to destroy. His experience also told him that in the preceding millennia, empires greater than the USSR had sought to wipe out the Jewish Nation and had failed: they had perished and the Jewish People had survived.
One chapter ended but the story continued. The Previous Rebbe left Soviet Russia soon after this, but his Chassidim, under pain of death, continued his work and kept the flame of Yiddishkeit there alight and alive. The Rebbe moved first to Riga and then to Warsaw where he experienced the horrors of the Nazi onslaught. Finally, he moved to the USA where he regrouped. He, and later his son-in-law and successor, enthused and inspired thousands of young men and women, many from secular and assimilated backgrounds, with their vision, purpose and leadership to help revitalize the Jewish condition throughout the world following the Second World War and the holocaust.
The USSR has disintegrated but the teaching and practice of Judaism there is once again thriving. On the foundations laid by his predecessor, the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, has built an empire that continues to grow, reaching out to tens of thousands of Jews worldwide. It is truly an “Empire on which the sun never sets”, an empire built not on fear and force but on love and enlightenment, not on compromise but on compassion.
In doing so, a new word has been added to the English language and to the lexicon of the world: Outreach. Translated into as many languages as exist, it connotes love, sacrifice of self, kindness and caring.
Unfortunately, though, even with perfect hindsight, there are those who still do not perceive the picture clearly. They are constantly looking over their shoulders to see what “the world” is saying. They are unable to discern the difference between what is real and what is ephemeral, fantasy or fad. Compare this with the Torah perspective, the Rebbe’s perspective: Look straight ahead, keep our eyes firmly on the road leading to the ultimate goal, never deviating to the left or right. Then, it is attainable and imminent. Which way is right? Examine the facts! Be realistic!
By: BenTzion Rader
[7] Bitochen is usually taken to mean a higher form of trust, belief, faith than that expressed by the word Emunah. In the words of the Rebbe, as explained once to the writer, “If confronted with a problem, one may haveemunah (faith, trust, etc.) that the Al-mighty will help one to overcome it. With Bitochen one does not even countenance that a problem exists; it is only a challenge.”
Tags: chabad, Jewish nation, Frierdiker Rebbe, BenTzion Rader, reality, Outreach, love, experience, Jewish history, compassion, language, perspective, Soviet Union
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July 19th, 2015
In the town of Mezeritch there lived a wealthy and scholarly young man. One day, he thought to himself: People come from far and wide to seek guidance from the famed Rabbi DovBer[30] who lives right here in Mezeritch, while I have yet to sample his wisdom. Ought I not go and see what this man is about?
The young man visited the Chassidic master and found a new world opened before him: a world of heightened awareness and deepened commitment, a world in which everything is imbued with purpose and significance. He soon became a devoted chassid of Rabbi DovBer’s.
But as his spiritual life richened, his material fortune plummeted. His business went from bad to worse; soon, he was a poor man. Finally, he mustered the courage to bring the matter up with Rabbi DovBer. “Rebbe,” he asked, “why is it that from the time I became your disciple I lost my wealth?”
“They say that you are something of a scholar,” replied Rabbi DovBer with a smile, “so I have a talmudic question for you. The Talmud says, ‘One who wishes to grow wise should orient himself southward; one who wishes to grow rich, should orient himself northward.’[31] But what if one desires to be both wise and rich? South and north are quite distant from each other…
“I see that you are silent,” continued Rabbi DovBer, “so I will answer my question myself. When a person humbles himself before G-d and man, and makes himself to naught, he ceases to take up space in this world. He now can he be south and north at the same time.”
Adapted from the teachings of the Rebbe by Yanki Tauber
[30] Rabbi DovBer, the “Maggid” of Mezeritch, leader of the Chassidic movement in the years 1761-1772.
Tags: money, Maggid of Mezerich, spiritual and material, wisdom, wealth, spiritual
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July 19th, 2015
A maid’s child once dirtied the royal palace. Said the king: “Let his mother come and clean up her child’s filth.” By the same token, G-d says: “Let the [red] heifer atone for the deed of the [golden] calf.”
Midrash Tanchuma, Chukat 8
The Torah defines “life” as attachment to G-d.[1] Thus, the righteous are considered to be alive even after their physical demise, while “transgressors [of the divine will], even in their lifetimes, are considered to be dead.”[2] A life disconnected from its source is a pseudo-life, a life devoid of its essence and raison d’être.
This explains the connection between the “red heifer,” which is the divinely-prescribed antidote to the ritual impurity caused by contact with death, and the sin of the golden calf.
Immediately upon his creation, Adam, the first man, acknowledged his commitment to G-d as the essence of his vitality.[3] But on that very day, a breach appeared in the link between creature and Creator. Man transgressed the divine will (by eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge); as a result, the phenomenon of death became part of the human experience.
Twenty-six generations later, death was vanquished once more. G-d descended upon Mount Sinai, restoring His original, intimate bond with His creation[4]; man committed himself unequivocally to the fulfillment of the divine will,[5] restoring his original, absolute connection to his source of life and liberating him from the clutches of the angel of death. [6]
But this time, too, the unadulterated flow of vitality from heaven to earth was short-lived. Forty days after the people of Israel stood at Sinai, they transgressed the divine decree “You shall have no other gods before Me”[7]by worshipping a calf of gold. The pestilence of death, introduced into the world by Adam’s sin and banished at Sinai, was re-introduced by the sin of the Golden Calf.[8]
Three Degrees of Relation
As the ultimate symptom of man’s disconnection from G-d, death is the “father of all fathers of impurity.”[9] Torah law delineates several forms of ritual impurity, but the most severe is that generated by a dead body.[10] While other forms of impurity are conducted by touching or moving the impure object, the impurity of death is unique in that it is conducted also via a “canopy”: if a person so much as finds himself for the briefest of moments under one roof with a dead body, he is rendered ritually impure until the ashes of the Red Heifer are sprinkled upon him.[11]
Chassidic teaching speaks of three general degrees of relation: internal, immediately encompassing, and distantly encompassing (penimi, makif hakarov and makif harachok). One example are the three basic material needs of man: food, clothing and shelter. Food is “internal,” entering into the body and becoming part of its very substance. Clothing is an “immediate encompasser,” enveloping the body from without but in direct relation to it (a larger person needs larger clothes while a smaller person requires smaller clothes). A home is “distantly encompassing” of the person, surrounding him in a way that bears no direct relation to him.
In the human psyche, these correspond to the intellect, will and desire. The intellect is the “food” of the soul: rational truths are ingested and digested by the person and incorporated by him as part of his mindset and thought-process. More “encompassing” is the will, which is essentially supra-rational, and thus “beyond” the person, imposing itself upon his internal self from without. Nevertheless, the will is an “immediate encompasser,” fitting the rational self like a garment fits a body (thus, a person will give rational explanations why he wants something; these “reasons” are not the true cause of his will, but the very fact that it can be explained means that the will is not completely removed from the rational self).[12] The “distant encompasser” is desire,[13] which is completely supra-rational and inexplicable, bearing no visible relation to the internal composition of the soul.[14]
Paradoxically, the more “distant” a thing is, the more integral it is to the person’s self-definition. Thus, a person’s sense of self is reflected more in his clothing than in what he eats, and his home is more integral to his identity than his clothes.[15] A person will sacrifice more for what he wants than for what he understands, and his supra-rational “desires” touch him even more deeply and are even more essential to him. In truth, however, this is no paradox: because the more “encompassing” elements of a person’s life are rooted so deeply in his essence, they are too profound to be assimilated by the finite faculties of his conscious self.
Therein lies the significance of the fact that the impurity spawned by death is conducted via a “canopy,” pervading the building which houses it and contaminating everything under its roof. Other impurities affect only the “internal” aspect of the person, or, at most, the “immediately encompassing” areas of his being; correspondingly, they are conducted by direct or second-hand contact. It is a mark of the primacy of the impurity of death that it infiltrates also the “distantly encompassing” aspect of the person, and correspondingly extends itself also via a “distant encompasser”—the house or “canopy” that shelters him.
The Antidote
To purify one who has been contaminated by contact with death, the Torah commands that a red heifer be slaughtered and burned, and its ashes mixed with “living water”—water from a spring issuing from the earth. These “waters of purification” are then sprinkled on the contaminated person on the third and seventh day of a seven-day purification period.
For if death is the symptom of disconnection from G-d, the mitzvah, or divine commandment, is the means by which we achieve connection and union with Him. And the law of the red heifer is the archetypal mitzvah—the commandment that embodies all 613 commandments of the Torah.
The law of the red heifer is a chok—an utterly supra-rational divine decree. It prompted King Solomon, the “wisest of men,”[16] to say:
“All these [Torah laws] I have comprehended. But the chapter of the red heifer—though I have examined it, questioned it, and delved into it—‘I[17] thought to be wise to it, but it eludes me.’”[18]
The Midrash relates that when G-d taught this law to Moses, the receiver of the Torah was incredulous.
“Master of the Universe!” he cried out. “This is a purification?” To which G-d replied: “Moses, it is a chok, a decree that I have decreed, and no creature can fully comprehend My decrees.”[19]
Yet the Torah introduces the law of the red heifer with the statement, “This is the decree of the Torah,”[20] implying that it is the prototype for all the Torah’s commandments. For in essence, every mitzvah—including such ultra-rational mitzvot as “Do not kill” and “Honor your father and your mother”—is a supra-rational decree of G-d. The various reasons and explanations that can be given for many a mitzvah are but a surface rationality that conceals its supra-rational depths.
But the law of the red heifer is more than an exemplar of the supra-rationality of the mitzvot. The details and particulars of this mitzvah embody the various forms and functions that the mitzvah assumes, making it a microcosm of the 613 commandments of the Torah.
The law of the red heifer is replete with contradictory themes and provisions. The ashes of the red heifer remove the most severe of all impurities; yet those involved in its preparation (those who slaughter the heifer, burn it, and collect its ashes) become ritually impure themselves.[21] The heifer itself is a paradox of the lowly and the lofty: it must be completely red—a color which has negative connotations in Torah and Torah law[22]; the Torah commands that it be slaughtered outside the holy city of Jerusalem (in contrast with other korbanot, which must be slaughtered in the courtyard of the Holy Temple)[23]; on the other hand, it must be “perfect, without blemish”[24]; it is slaughtered within the sight of the Holy Temple and its blood is sprinkled “toward the Holy of Holies”[25]; it is prepared by a kohen—according to one opinion, by the Kohen Gadol (High Priest), wearing the “white clothes” reserved for the Yom Kippur service in the Holy of Holies.[26] And the purifying mixture of ashes and water is a combination of two contradictory forces: fire, which represents the power of ascent, and water, which embodies the quality of “settling down” and saturation.
For this is the paradox of the mitzvah, by which G-d enjoins us to descend into the physical world in order to sanctify it, and at the same time remain aloof of its materiality and profanity. In general, this is the function of the two categories of mitzvot: the 365 “prohibitions,” by which we sanctify ourselves by spurning the corporeality of the physical state, and the 248 “positive commandments,” by which we interact with and develop the physical world as a vessel for G-dliness. In particular, each individual mitzvah is both a “positive” and “prohibitive” act: an act of rejection and acceptance, of transcendence and involvement, an amalgam of ascending fire and descending water. A mitzvah is man living a physical life, accepting the physical state as his means of connection with G-d, and at the same time remaining a spiritual being, refusing to allow the physical state to define his life and dictate his priorities.
How does one act upon the physical world without being absorbed by it? How does one ensure that one’s “water” element is not muddied by its descent? The answer lies in the Torah’s stipulation that the water mixed with the ashes of the red heifer must be “living water”—“water that has seeped through the veins of the earth… and is thus refined and rarefied.”[27]
“Earth” represents humility and self-abnegation (as in the prayer “May my soul be as dust to all”[28]). When a person’s involvement with the material is filtered via the earth of self-abnegation to G-d (i.e., the absence of all motives and aspirations save the fulfillment of His will), his water is “living water,” uncontaminable by the negative encumbrances of material life. Mixed with the fire of spiritual striving, it cleanses the world of the stain of death, of its separateness and disconnection from G-d, and restores the primordial harmony between Creator and creation.
Based on an entry in the Rebbe’s journal dated “Chukat, 5700 [1940], Vichy”[29]
Adapted from the teachings of the Rebbe by Yanki Tauber
[1]. Deuteronomy 4:4; ibid., 30:20; et al.
[2]. Talmud, Berachot 18a-b. Cf. Isaiah 59:2: “Your sins separate between you and your G-d”; Tanya, Iggeret HaTeshuvah, ch. 5.
[3]. “When Adam stood up on his feet, he saw that all creatures feared him and followed him as servants do their master. He then said to them: ‘You and I both, come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before G-d our maker’” (Zohar, part I, 221b).
[4]. Cf. Midrash Rabbah, Shir HaShirim 5:1: “I came to My home—to the place where My primary presence was at first… [for] Adam’s sin caused the divine presence to depart [from the physical world] … and then Moses came and brought it down to the earth.”
[5]. Exodus 19:8, 24:3 and 24:7.
[6]. Talmud, Shabbat 146a; Midrash Rabbah, Shemot 41:9.
[7]. Second of the Ten Commandments proclaimed at Sinai, Exodus 20:3.
[8]. Zohar, part I, 52b. See Tanya, ch. 36; Igrot Kodesh, vol. V, p. 310, note 6 and sources cited there.
[9]. See Encyclopedia Talmudit, vol. I, p. 50 (s.v. avi avot hatumah), and sources cited there.
[10]. Maimonides’ introduction to his Commentary on the Mishnah; cf. Midrash Rabbah, Kohelet 8:5.
[12]. There are, of course, wants and desires that stem not from the supra-rational self but from wholly rational motives and reasonings. These belong to the “internal” element of the psyche. “Will” (ratzon), in this context, is a term that applies exclusively to those aspirations that stem from the person’s supra-rational self—things that a person wants for no “reason” other than the fact that he wants them—and are only subsequently related to by the rational self, which often attributes rational reasons to them.
[13]. In English, the words “will” and “desire” are often interchangeable. Here, they are used as translations of the Hebrew terms ratzon and oneg. Chassidic teaching includes many and various definitions of ratzon andoneg, and discusses many sub-categories and definitions within each of them. A full discussion is beyond the scope of this essay. For the sake of our discussion, we will suffice with the simple distinction between “will,” which is rational in the sense that a person can explain it, and “desire,” which defies all attempts to make sense of it. In other words, “will” and “desire” are both encompassing faculties in that they derive from a place in the soul that is not accessible by reason, and thus cannot be “internalized” by the person; “will,” however, is “close” enough to reason to be relatable to by the rational self as an “immediate encompasser.”
[14]. Man’s relationship with G-d also includes internal, immediately encompassing, and distantly encompassing elements. Torah study is the “internal” component of the relationship: the human mind assimilates the divine wisdom, making it part of its own composition. The mitzvot are the “encompassing” element: essentially supra-rational, man fulfills them in obedience to the divine will, “imposing” upon himself a behavior that is beyond his understanding. Nevertheless, virtually all mitzvot relate to the rational self: many can be rationally explained (though their rationality is not the “reason” for their observance); many are endowed with a symbolism that we can analyze and relate to rationally; and even the most logic-defying of mitzvot can be “understood” in terms of the logical necessity that man submit to the divine will. But then there are those elements of our relationship with G-d that belong to the realm of “distant encompassers”—elements that are so far removed from our rational selves that we cannot relate to them in any way, or even be aware of their existence. A case in point is the mitzvah of shikchah (“forgetting” a bundle of grain in the field for the poor—Deuteronomy 24:19), which can only be fulfilled against a person’s conscious will.
[15]. Hence the adage, “A man without a home is not a man” (Talmud, Yevamot 63a; and Tosafot there).
[18]. Midrash Rabbah, Bamidbar 19:3.
[19]. Midrash Rabbah, Kohelet 8:5.
[21]. Ibid., vv. 7-10; Talmud, Parah 4:4.
[22]. Genesis 25:30 (see Reshimot #12, p. 19); Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De’ah 178:1.
[25]. Ibid. v. 4; Talmud, Parah 3:9 and 4:2.
[27]. Likkutei Torah, Chukat 62b.
[28]. End of Amidah prayer; Talmud, Berachot 17a.
Tags: Mt. Sinai, sacrifice, spiritual and material, ritual purity, Divine will, paradox, death, golden calf, fire, self expression, water, sin, red heifer, mitzvot
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July 17th, 2015
Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn (the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, 1880-1950), who was famed for his undiscriminating love and concern for all Jews, was once challenged: “Does not the Torah command one to ‘Rebuke your fellow’[20] when he is guilty of wrongdoing? Does not the Shulchan Aruch (Code of Jewish Law) classify certain types of sinners who are to be rejected outright? So why are you so tolerant of so many sinful people?”
Replied the Rebbe: “The Shulchan Aruch consists of four sections, each containing hundreds of chapters. The laws of which you speak of are contained in chapter 425 of Choshen Mishpat—one of the last chapters of the fourth section. The truth is that were you to set the Shulchan Aruch before an illiterate boor, he would soon come upon these laws. He would open it as he would any other book—from left to right. But as you surely know, in Hebrew we read from right to left.
“What I suggest to you,” concluded Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, “is that you open the Shulchan Aruch at the beginning. After you have studied the first three sections and the first 424 chapters of the fourth, and you have fully implemented them in your daily life, you may then take it upon yourself to sit in judgment of your fellow. Then you may decide if he is indeed to be counted among the utterly wicked defined in chapter 425.”
Told by the Rebbe on Tammuz 13, 5715 (July 3, 1955).
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[20]. Leviticus 19:17.
Tags: leadership, books, judgment, Jewish law, love your neighbor
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July 17th, 2015
Keep the month of aviv (spring), and observe [in it] a Passover to G-d
Deuteronomy 16:1
I will sow the house of Israel with the seed of man and the seed of beast
Jeremiah 2:26
The Jewish calendar is closely attuned to the agricultural seasons. Passover must coincide with the season of aviv, which is broadly defined as “spring” but specifically means the season of the ripening of barley. Shavuot is called “the reaping festival” and coincides with the reaping of the staple crop, wheat. Sukkot is the “harvest festival,” celebrated as the grain, which has been drying in the field all summer, is brought into storage. And then there is Tu B’Shvat, the “New Year for Trees,” observed as the first tree-blossoms emerge from the winter slumber. Indeed, our calendar goes to great lengths to reconcile its lunar-based months with the solar-based seasons.
Our forefathers, celebrating these festivals in the Holy Land thirty centuries ago, were primarily an agrarian people. Still, even then there was Levy, the tribe of priests, Shimon, a tribe of schoolteachers, the scholars of Issachar, and the seafaring merchants of Zebulun. Today, a very small percentage of us work the land. But Torah, G-d’s blueprint for creation, obviously transcends differences of time and cultural circumstance and is deeply relevant to all generations and all societies of history. So what does all this mean to those of us who never planted a seed or gathered a harvest?
But the very experience of life is agrarian. The soul’s descent into physical life, like the planting of a seed, is an investment—a precarious investment at that, given the fact that one’s capital erodes significantly before turning a profit. The farmer who sows his field knows that he is taking perfectly good grain–grain with which he could feed his family–and casting it into the soil, where it will soon disintegrate. But he also knows that the rotting seed will stimulate the earth to yield many times the grain he “squandered.”
The soul, too, is buried in earth—cast into a body of clay with material drives and desires. It is worse for the wear: its spiritual senses are dulled, its moral compass compromised. But the soul’s interment in earth and earthiness stimulates it, and the body and the physical environment in which it was invested, to yield their tremendous potential—a potential far greater than the soul itself could achieve.
The human “farm” includes many and varied crops. On Passover we celebrate the ripening of barley, a grain that serves primarily as animal feed. In human terms, this represents the development of the animalistic nature with which the soul has been saddled upon its descent into the physical state, but whose passion and intensity surpass anything the spiritual soul can muster for its own spiritual ideals. Properly cultivated and directed, the beast in man thus proves a priceless resource in the soul’s quest to deepen and intensify its bond with its Creator.
On Shavout, wheat, the staple of the human diet, is harvested. This represents the fruition of another dimension to the sowing of the soul: the development of the “human” element in man, the soul’s own spiritual potential. The challenge of converting the earth’s resources into nourishing grain provokes deep-seated powers of the soul which it would otherwise never have realized, just as a kernel of grain would never have been revealed to be more than a single kernel of grain had it not been sown in the earth.
And so it is with the other agricultural events on the Jewish calendar, such as the “internalization” of the harvest on Sukkot, or the element of “delight” in life represented by Tu B’Shvat’s fruit blossoms: each embodies another aspect of the soul’s journey as seed, tender shoot and glorious harvest.
Based on an address by the Rebbe, Shvat 15, 5731 (February 10, 1971)
Tags: purpose of life, Chassidic holidays, environment, Rebbe, soul
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July 17th, 2015
And the children of Israel walked on dry land within the sea.
Exodus 14:29
Everything that exists on land has its counterpart in the sea.
Talmud, Chullin 127a
Land and sea mirror each other, yet they are vastly different worlds. Both are life-supporting environments, providing sustenance and protection to a myriad of creatures. Both are complex ecosystems, complete with the great variety of minerals, vegetation and animals which form a “food chain” and multi-runged ladder of life. But despite their similarities, land and sea are different in many ways, particularly in the manner in which the creatures who populate them relate to their environment.
Our sages have said that “man is a miniature universe,”[1] a microcosm of the entire created existence. The human being thus includes both these worlds—man has both a terrestrial and an aquatic aspect to his life.
The Secret of the Deep
Creatures of the land are to be found upon the land. Some species burrow under for a certain part of the day or year, and there are even species which rarely, if ever, show themselves above ground; but on the whole, land creatures live their lives on the surface of the earth. In fact, there is nothing to prevent them from severing all direct contact with the land for extended periods of time (20th-century man has all but done so).
Not so the creatures of the sea: they live submerged within their environment. And for most sea-dwelling animals, this submersion is a matter of life and death—a fish out of water is not only a creature out of its element, but a creature who cannot survive more than a short while.
Of course, the creatures of the land are no less dependent upon the land than their sister creatures of the sea are dependent upon the sea—without the land and its resources a land animal could not live. The difference lies in how this truth is reflected in their day-to-day, hour-to-hour, and minute-to-minute existence. With the sea creature, this dependence is constant and obvious. The sea animal cannot separate itself from its sustaining environment; its life and its life-source are inexorably bound together.[2] The land creature, on the other hand, can receive its nourishment from the earth and then forget about it, even deny it. Conceivably, a land creature can live an entire lifetime without acknowledging, or in any way demonstrating, from where its sustenance is derived.
This is the significance of the “land” and “sea” personalities within man. There is a part of man that is disconnected from his purpose and source: a “land” self that is oblivious to the fact that his soul is a “spark of G-d above,”[3] that he is granted life anew, each and every moment of time, by his Creator, that his existence has meaning only in the context of its role in the divine purpose. A “land” self that defines its existence in the narrow terms of personal ego and its individual desires and aspirations.
But man also possesses a “sea” persona—a spiritual self which transcends ego and individuality to attune its every deed and thought to the higher goals for which he was created. When this self is manifest, nothing about the person is distinct from his connection to his source; like a fish in water, his every living moment is an attestation to his utter dependence upon, and devotion to, his source of nourishment and life.
The Kabbalistic masters tell us that there are tzaddikim (righteous individuals) who live their entire lives as “fishes of the sea,” wholly submerged within a perpetual awareness of and subjugation to the divine reality. Such an individual was Moses, whose name expresses the “aquatic” nature of his soul (“And she called his name Moses and said: Because I drew him from the water”[4]). Thus the Torah attests that “Moses was the most humble man on the face of the earth.”[5] Moses was certainly aware of his own greatness; certainly he knew that he was the single human being chosen by G-d to serve as the conveyor of His wisdom and will to man. Yet Moses did not view his qualities as his “own” attainments, for he had utterly nullified and submerged his self within the sea of the divine reality. His own life was merely the divine plan being realized through an egoless vehicle; his teachings, the “Divine presence speaking from his throat.”[6]
Land Fish
This is not to say that our “terrestrial” self—our sense of identity and individuality—is to be uprooted or suppressed. Selfhood is not, in and of itself, a negative trait; it is only that, left to its own devices, it is prone to develop some very negative attributes. If a person fails to develop an “aquatic” consciousness and behavior—if he loses sight of the source and goal of life—his self is sure to turn selfish, identity translating into self-centeredness and individuality becoming disconnectedness and rootlessness.
Only when we have submerged ourselves within the sea of the divine reality can we exploit our ego as the positive force it inherently is. Only then can we properly harness our unique worth as an individual to optimally realize our mission in life.
This is the ideal expressed in Jacob’s blessing to his grandchildren, Manasseh and Ephraim—
“They shall swarm as fish[7] in the midst of the land.”[8]
The ultimate challenge for man is not only to be a “fish,” but to be a fish “in the midst of the land.”
Therein lies the deeper significance of the splitting of the Red Sea seven days after our Exodus from Egypt. In recounting the miracle, the Torah describes the children of Israel as “walking on dry land within the sea.” Following our redemption—in both the physical and spiritual sense—from Egypt and its pagan culture, we were empowered to “walk on dry land” as distinct and unique beings, and at the same time walk “within the sea”—immerse ourselves within the sea of the all-embracing, all-pervading, universal truth of truths.
Our sages tell us that the splitting of the Red Sea was but the first step of a process that spans the whole of our history; that the song which Moses and Israel sang upon traversing the sea is but the first stanza of a song that culminates in the era of Moshiach, the end-goal of creation.[9] The splitting of the sea was the precedent that enables and directs our centuries-long quest for that perfect synthesis of land and sea which will be fully realized in the messianic age, when “The land shall be filled with the knowledge of G-d as the waters cover the sea.”[10]
Based on the Rebbe’s talks on Sukkot 5721 (1960), Shabbat Yitro 5725 (1965), and on other occasions[11].
Adapted from the teachings of the Rebbe by Yanki Tauber.
__________________________________________
[1]. Midrash Tanchuma, Pekudei 3.
[2]. A sea-creature’s utter identification with its environment is also reflected in a ruling of Torah law. When a person immerses in a mikvah to attain ritual purity, nothing must interpose between him and the mikvah’s waters; if the slightest particle of any substance adheres to his body, the immersion is invalid. Yet this rule does not apply to anything which grows in water; the body of a fish, for example, or any product thereof, is not considered an “interposition” (chatzitzah) but an integral part of the waters themselves.
[3]. Job 31:2; Tanya, ch. 2.
[4]. Exodus 2:10.
[5]. Numbers 12:3.
[6]. Zohar, part III, 232a.
[7]. Ve’yidgu, from the word dag, “fish.”
[8]. Genesis 48:16.
[9]. See Talmud, Sanhedrin 91b; Midrash Tanchuma, Beshalach 10.
[10]. Isaiah 11:9.
[11]. Likkutei Sichot, vol. XX, p. 172; vol. XI, p. 76. See Likkutei Torah, Tzav 14b ff.
Tags: purpose of life, animals, water, Exodus from Egypt, Tzaddik
Posted in Weekly Parsha, Soul & Mystical, Shmot, Beliefs & Concepts, Beshalach, Nature, Exile, Spiritual, Moshiach & Redemption, Torah | No Comments »
July 17th, 2015
They came to Marah. And they were unable to drink the waters of Marah, because they were bitter
Exodus 15:23
The simple meaning of this verse is that they, the people of Israel, were unable to drink the waters of Marah because they, the waters, were bitter. Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov offered another reading of the verse: The people of Israel were unable to drink the waters of Marah because they, the people of Israel, were bitter.
“Also the world He placed in their hearts,”[12] said the wisest of men. A bitter heart inhabits a bitter world.
Adapted from the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe by Yanki Tauber.
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[12]. Ecclesiastes 3:11.
Tags: positive thinking, inheritance, Yanki Tauber, attitude, Baal Shem Tov
Posted in Baal Shem Tov, Weekly Parsha, Shmot, Personal Life, Torah Personalities, Beshalach, Modern, Torah, Emotions & Psychology | 2 Comments »
July 17th, 2015
What is pleasure? We use the word in relation to so many and diverse things. What do a steak, a musical composition and an idea have in common? Yet “pleasure” is our word of choice in describing our experience of a meal, a concert, or an intellectual revelation. For as different as the sensations derived from these things may be, they share a common essence: the capacity to impart a sense of fulfillment to the human soul.
Indeed, all pleasures flow from the same font. The teachings of kabbalah describe the created reality in terms of a “chain of evolution” (seder hishtalshelut), whose uppermost link is G-d’s pleasure in His creation, which spawns the divine desire to create. This divine desire then passes through many stages and metamorphoses, evolving into “worlds” and realities of increased tactility. Every object, force or phenomenon is simply another form of the generic divine desire—the differences between them lie only in the manner and extent of their evolution. The higher a reality is in the “chain,” the greater its awareness of its source; it is thus more “spiritual”—more subservient to the divine will, less possessive of a sense of being and self. The further down it passes through the chain, the more “distant” it becomes from its source: the less aware and subservient, the more tactual and egocentric—the more physical.
Hence, the more spiritual a thing is, the more profound the pleasure it yields, for it is closer to the source of all pleasure. The ultimate pleasure lies in the experience of union with G-d through the fulfillment of His will—an experience that relates to the very first link in the chain, where pleasure resides in its most pristine, “unprocessed” form.
In its lowest reaches, the “chain of evolution” yields things that are unconducive—or even contrary—to what G-d wants. The capacity of these things to give pleasure is an existential paradox: all pleasure is but the embodiment of the divine pleasure in creation, while these “pleasures” are divine displeasures—things contrary to G-d’s will. Yet they, too, are products of the divine desire, since their capacity to give pleasure fills a certain function in G-d’s purpose in creation: G-d desired that we be confronted with a free choice between good and evil so that our deeds should be meaningful and significant. But G-d wants that these things should exist only in order that man should reject them as contrary to His will; so theirs is an existence whose inner essence—whose function and raison d’être—is not to exist.
Chassidic teaching employs the metaphor of “digestion” to explain this phenomenon. Digestion is the process by which food passes through the various organs which break it down and separate its finer elements from its coarser ones. At each phase of the process, this separation grows more and more defined; ultimately, the finer elements in the food evolve into body-building cells and energy, and its coarser elements are ejected by the body. Both the nutrients and the waste are “products” of the digestion process; but the former is generated to be used, while the latter is generated to be rejected and thereby enable the body’s absorption of the former.
By the same token, the “chain of evolution” is the cosmic digestive system in which the essence of creation is processed into the substance and energy of the universe that G-d desired. This process (like every process we know[1]) also generates waste—elements that must be separated and disposed of in order for the desirable product to properly develop. Of course, G-d could have evolved His world in such a manner that the good develops without any separation of “waste” (or, for that matter, He could have not “evolved” it at all), but He desired that the good in creation should be all the more sharply defined by its contrast with the rejected evil; that human life should be an exercise in refinement—in distinguishing between the calories of divine energy and the sludge of putrid waste in our own self and character, our environment and our world. Indeed, the very concept of “good,” as we know it, would be devoid of all meaning were it not for the challenge of rejecting the evil that vies for validation and indulgence.
Thus, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi explains the following incident related in the Talmud:
Rabban Gamliel, Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabbi Akiva were traveling, when they heard the sounds of the crowds of Rome from a distance of one hundred and twenty mil. They began to weep, but Rabbi Akiva laughed.
Said they to him: “Why are you laughing?”
Said he to them: “Why are you weeping?”
Said they to him: “These barbarians, who prostrate themselves before statues and sacrifice to idols, dwell happy and secure, while we—the footstool of our G-d[2] was consumed by fire. Shall we not weep?
Said he to them: “That is why I am laughing. If for those who transgress His will it is so, how much more so is it for those who do His will.”[3]
Rabbi Akiva is saying: if the “waste” produced by the divine desire in creation can yield such pleasure for the hedonist, imagine the pleasure to be derived through the fulfillment of His will, which is the source and essence of all pleasure.
In the Fortieth Year
Therein lies the deeper significance of the idolatry of Pe’or, to which the Jewish people succumbed on the eve of their entry into the Land of Israel, as related in the 25th chapter of Numbers. The worship of Pe’or was a particularly repulsive form of idolatry, in which the worshipper exposed himself to the idol and defecated before it.[4] In truth, however, this was but the physical enactment of what a person does each time he prefers a mundane pleasure over a spiritual-G-dly one: he is worshipping the offal of creation, venerating something whose only significance is its need to be rejected in favor of the energies that were extracted from it.
This is why Israel’s vulnerability to Pe’or came about at the close of their forty-year sojourn in the desert as they camped on the eastern bank of the Jordan River poised to enter and settle the Land of Canaan. For forty years, the people of Israel had enjoyed a wholly spiritual existence. Manna from the heavens—spiritual food that yielded no waste[5]—sustained them; the miraculous “well of Miriam” sated their thirst; “clouds of glory” sheltered them from the harsh realities of the material world. Thus insulated, they were free to pursue the divine wisdom of Torah without distraction or interference. They inhabited a spiritual idyll, in which the “waste” of creation was unknown.
But now they stood at the threshold of a new era: they were to settle the land, till its soil, engage in commerce and politics—i.e., to live a physical life sustained by physical means. For the first time in their history as a nation, they were to be in direct contact with the nether levels of the “chain of evolution”—with that part of the cosmic digestive tract which separates the waste from the body of creation. For the first time, they were called upon to differentiate between vital matter—matter that nourishes a spiritual end—and mundane matter—matter as an end in itself.
Not all were equal to the challenge. There was an outbreak of Pe’or worship in the Israelite camp, as many were enticed by the pseudo-pleasures to found in the undesirable by-product of creation. Until one man—Pinchas—came, and with his selfless commitment, unclouded vision and decisive action, put a halt to the plague of Pe’or.
Based on an address by the Rebbe, Shabbat Parshat Balak, 5723 (July 6, 1963)[6]
Adapted from the teachings of the Rebbe by Yanki Tauber
[1]. This is not to say that because, in our experience, the processing of a substance produces waste, this is how it had to be with G-d’s “processing” of creation. On the contrary: because G-d so chose to create the world, our reality reflects the dynamics of His creation.
[2]. The Holy Temple in Jerusalem.
[3]. Talmud, Makkot 24a-b.
[4]. Rashi, Numbers 25:3.
[6]. Likkutei Sichot, vol. IV, pp. 1327-1328. See Torah Ohr, 81a-b.
Tags: idol worship, pleasure, Physicality, creation, worlds, connection, zealotry, selflessness, spiritual evolution, free choice, materialism, peace, good and evil, good deeds, soul, Pinchas, Alter Rebbe, Divine will
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