Diamonds and Chicken Fat

July 7th, 2015

A poor man in Odessa heard about a distant land where the streets were paved with diamonds; the precious stones were as commonplace as the dust of the earth. Despairing of his financial future at home, unable to provide for his family, he decides to try his luck.

After an arduous journey, he berths at this exotic island. Lo and behold, the rumors are true! The streets are literally littered with jewels. With a burst of adrenaline he begins to quickly pack his suitcases with the gems, stuffing them to capacity. Now, he’s very tired. It’s been a long trip – and packing all those precious stones wasn’t easy either. With a newfound sense of bravado, our exhausted friend checks into the finest hotel in town – reserving the most luxurious room in the house.

After ensuring that his room and belongings are secure, he makes his way into the restaurant and orders a meal fit for a king. Satiated, he glances at the bill for his feast and offers the waiter an exquisite sapphire, saying, “Keep the change!”

With a look of contempt, the waiter asks, “What do you expect me to do with that rock?”

“It’s a valuable diamond,” our friend protests.

“These diamonds have no value in our land,” retorts the waiter, “they are mere rubble. Because of our low supply of livestock, we place great value on chicken fat. That’s our treasured commodity.”

The man goes cold as he learns the law of supply and demand – the hard way. How is he going to pay for his extravagant meal? The hotel management promised that they would not charge him criminally, if he paid off his debt by washing dishes. A hard worker, he does so, and does so well. The hotel offers him a steady job, and he begins to acclimate to life on the island. Before long he manages to save some cold chicken fat for himself.

As time went on our entrepreneur prospers and becomes a wealthy man. He remembers the family he’d left behind in Odessa, and decides to return home in triumph – as a successful businessman.

Notified that he was coming home, his family is waiting at Odessa’s dock. As our friend’s yacht approaches the shore, the stench horrifies the waiting crowd.

“It smells like chicken fat,” they cry.

“Yes, that’s right,” our entrepreneur proudly acknowledges. “The yacht is filled with chicken fat. We are rich!”

“But where are the diamonds?” asks his confused wife, “the gems you went looking for?”

“What value are diamonds?” scoffs her husband. “They are as common as dust. Only chicken fat has value.”

The wise wife then understands.  “You seem to have forgotten the purpose of your trip. You were supposed to collect diamonds – not chicken fat. Do you perhaps have one little diamond, a souvenir from your years of hard labor in that strange land?”

The allegory describes the soul’s descent into the physical body. Before a soul enters the world it is told: Perform Mitzvot, for they are as precious as diamonds. Collect them and cherish them. Garner as many as you can during your brief sojourn.

But we often lose sight of our mission, thinking that the world’s mundane pursuits – the chicken fat – is what has lasting value. When the soul returns from its journey, when it re-enters the spiritual dimension, it is gently asked, “Don’t you have a few diamonds to show for your journey?” A prayer here, some tzedaka there – and the soul begins to search her life for gems, morsels of meaning.

This is the most difficult, but most important, aspect of human life: Keeping focused on the priorities.

Tags: spiritual and material, story, body and soul, purpose of life, diamonds
Posted in Weekly Parsha, Shmot, Va'eira, Personal Life, Torah, Emotions & Psychology | No Comments »

Of Snakes and Sticks

July 7th, 2015

Moses and Aaron came before Pharaoh, and they did as G-d had commanded: Aaron threw his staff before Pharaoh and before his servants, and it turned into a serpent. Pharaoh summoned also [his] wise men and sorcerers… each cast his staff, and they turned into serpents; but Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs.

Exodus 7:10-12

The Torah emphasizes that it was Aaron’s staff that consumed the serpent-staffs of the Egyptian sorcerers. Our sages explain that since it is natural that a snake swallow another snake, G-d made that Aaron’s staff should swallow the others after it had reverted to its original, inanimate form, thereby demonstrating the impotence of Egypt’s idols in a manifestly miraculous way.[1]

But the miracle of the swallowing stick is more than a sign and warning to Pharaoh; there is also a lesson here, to each and every one of us, on how to confront the various “Pharaohs” we must deal with in the course of our lives. The Torah’s “ways are ways of pleasantness, and all its paths are peace”[2]—our mission is to create light, not to battle darkness. Nevertheless, there are times when we are forced to resort to battle, when we must vanquish those who seek to vanquish us. Thus Moses, the gentle shepherd of Israel,[3] and Aaron, the epitomic  man of peace,[4] found themselves in the role of “judge and chastiser of Pharaoh”[5] and the Egyptians, crushing their might and obliterating, one after another, their icons and myths.

But even when he wages war, the Jew is not a warrior. Even when he consumes the serpents of the enemy, he is not a serpent himself, spewing poison and hate. His instrument of vengeance is as devoid of vengeful feeling as the stoic staff, as cold to the rage of war as a lifeless stick.

Based on an address by the Rebbe, Shabbat Va’era 5742 (January 23, 1982)[6]

Count Me In

Pharaoh said: I will let you go. Sacrifice to G-d your G-d in the wilderness, but don’t go too far. Pray for me.

Exodus 8:24

A chassid remarked: The animal soul of man, which embodies his selfish and material desires, knows that it is futile to try to dissuade a Jew from serving his Creator. So when a Jew wants to pray, it doesn’t try to stop him; instead, it seeks to transform his service into just another selfish endeavor. Go ahead, says the “Pharaoh” within, serve your G-d. But don’t go off too far, don’t lose sight of the world you live in. Pray for me as well—don’t forget about my needs…[7]

Shards or Sparks?

Quoting the verse, “Behold, My words are as fire, and as a hammer that shatters a rock,”[8] the Talmud expounds: “Just as a hammer divides into many sparks, so does a single verse of Torah yield many meanings.”[9]

This saying itself is no exception: it, too, spawns several interpretations by the sages. These include:

a) Rashi[10] reads the metaphor, “Just as a hammer divides the rock into many sparks…” According to this, the “sparks” the Talmud speaks of are the rock-fragments of the shattered stone. This interpretation is in keeping with the wording of the verse, which likens the word of G-d to “a hammer that shatters a rock.”

b) Others[11] understand the word “sparks” in the literal sense—i.e. the sparks that are generated by the hammer when it strikes a rock. According to this interpretation, the word “shatters” is to be understood in the sense of “lets fly” or “scatters.”[12]

Often, a student of Torah might be inclined to favor one mode of Torah study over the others. A certain type of mind might tend to a “literal” approach, interested only in “What actually happened?” and “What is the Torah saying on the most basic, pragmatic level?,” while regarding the homiletic, philosophical and mystical interpretations of Torah as only of secondary significance. Another might adapt an exclusively “talmudic” stance, with an eye only to the legal dimension of Torah. A third is perhaps drawn most strongly by the philosophical implications of G-d’s word, while a fourth is “turned on” only by the mysticism of its kabbalistic interpretation.

Indeed, G-d’s word is as a hammer that shatters a rock, breaking it into fragments of diverse sizes and shapes. Each soul can thus find the particular fragment that most appeals to it, the one that best fits the form and texture of its own nature and aptitude. However, one must always remember that G-d’s word is also as a hammer that lets fly sparks—a spray of unquantifiable pinpoints of energy.

Yes, when the hammer of divine wisdom strikes the rock of reality, the sparks fly off in all directions. Some ascend to the esoteric heights, others cascade down to pragmatic ground; still others meander off to philosophical, psychological, inspirational, and countless other points of the cosmic compass. But can one measure sparks against each other? Can one say that any one spark is greater, brighter, more relevant than its fellows?

Based on the Rebbe’s talks, Tevet-Shevat 5741 (January 1981)[13]

The Meteorology of the Soul

For the land which you are entering to inherit is not like the land of Egypt from which you are coming… it is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water of the rain of the heavens

Deuteronomy 11:10

The land of Egypt does not drink rainwater; rather, the Nile rises and waters it

Rashi, Genesis 47:10

And G-d rained hail upon the land of Egypt. And there was hail, and fire burning within the hail…

Exodus 9:23-24

Rain represents the reciprocal relationship between heaven and earth. “A vapor rises from the earth”[14] to the heavens, and the heavens return it as rain which “quenches the face of the land.”[15] This represents the spiritual truth that “an arousal from below evokes an arousal from above”[16]—that G-d responds to the efforts of man, reciprocating our prayers, yearnings and deeds with nurture from Above.

But rain alone does not suffice to make the land flourish and give fruit. The soil must be plowed—broken up and softened—before it can receive the seed and absorb the rain. Spiritually, this means that it is not enough to send up “vapors” of lofty feelings and virtuous works; one must first “plow” his ego, crush the clods of coarseness and arrogance in his personality, to make his life receptive to the flow of divine nurture from Above.

This is the doctrine of the rain-watered land. But in Egypt things were different. Egypt was nourished not by descending rain but by the overflow of the Nile, which would periodically flood the land. Nor was it necessary to plow its soil: the floodwaters of the Nile would leave behind a layer of extremely fertile silt which required no breaking up prior to planting.

The spiritual Egyptian is one who does not recognize the Heavenly source of the blessings of life. He believes that all is generated from below—that everything he has and has achieved is of his own making. Nor does he see the need for any “plowing” of his personality—he is fine as he is, clods and all.

Fire and Ice

When rain falls in Egypt, it falls as hail. Hail that is ice without and fire within.

We often speak of “warm” and “cold” personalities. A “warm” person is a passionate, loving, outgoing individual, always ready to extend a hand and a smile to a fellow. A “cold” person is reserved, self-centered, indifferent to the fate of others. But the cold individual is also aflame—fired with self-love, ablaze with egotistical passions. Indeed, it is his excess of inner heat that is the cause of his icy exterior.

When rain falls in Egypt, it falls as a hail of ice-enclosed fire. In this unplowed land, where the heavenly source of its water is unseen and unrecognized, the nurture that descends from Above is perverted as a source of increased love of self and greater alienation between man and his fellow.

Based on an entry in the Rebbe’s journal dated “Va’eira 5702” (1942)[17].

Adapted from the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe by Yanki Tauber.

Tags: Aaron, miracles, raising the sparks, weather events, Egypt
Posted in Weekly Parsha, Soul & Mystical, Shmot, Va'eira, Nature, Spiritual, Torah | 1 Comment »

The Blow

July 7th, 2015

And then, in the wee hours of a sleepless night, Eli thought of the Rebbe. Both he and Sharon were raised in non-observant homes, but in recent years they had found themselves becoming more involved in Torah learning and practice. It all began at a lecture they had attended at the Chabad House in their Paris neighborhood, where they had first been exposed to the Rebbe’s teachings. For the first time in their lives, the faith of their fathers was presented to them as a vibrant guide to a life of meaning and fulfillment. While Eli and Sharon would scarcely describe themselves as “religious,” much less as “Chassidim,” they developed a deep respect for the Rebbe and began keeping several basic mitzvot such as Shabbat, kashrut, and tefillin.

Eli had heard the stories of those who had been helped by the Rebbe’s blessing. Now he grasped at the idea of writing to the Rebbe as his only hope in a sea of despair. If only the Rebbe would promise a speedy recovery for Menasheh!

A few days later, the telephone rang in Eli’s home. It was Rabbi Groner, the Rebbe’s secretary, who reported that the Rebbe’s reply to their note was, “I will mention it at the gravesite.”

“What does that mean?” asked Eli.

“It means that the Rebbe will pray for you at the gravesite of his father-in-law, the Previous Rebbe, where he prays for all of those who send in requests for a blessing.”

“But I wanted the Rebbe’s blessing… I wanted him to tell us that Menasheh will recover…”

“But the Rebbe has given you his blessing. This is his standard reply to such requests. Chassidim regard a promise from the Rebbe to pray for them as a guarantee that everything will be all right.”

Eli replaced the receiver somewhat reassured. Still, he had expected something more definitive, more committal. But if the Rebbe’s secretary says that he has received the Rebbe’s blessing…

Meanwhile, Menasheh’s condition continued to deteriorate. The treatments brought much pain and little relief. Soon he had to be hospitalized. Helplessly, the parents watched the life drain out of their child.

Eli called Rabbi Groner. “Look, I know that we already received the Rebbe’s blessing, but it doesn’t seem to be helping. Menasheh has gone from bad to worse. The doctors say that every day is a miracle… Perhaps we can ask again? Maybe the Rebbe can say something more definite…” Rabbi Groner agreed to send in a note.

The reply came within an hour, but it was the same reply as before—“I will mention it at the gravesite.” And the doctors had nothing good to report.

The following evening, Eli entered his darkened apartment for two hours of fitful rest. Sharon was at the hospital. Soon he would replace her, so that she could catch some sleep. He sank into the sofa, kicked off his shoes, and scanned the disordered room. Medical papers on the table, clothes strewn about, half-finished meals. Then his eyes lighted on the Rebbe’s picture, hanging above the mantelpiece. The Rebbe was smiling.

A great tide of rage rose in him. Menasheh lies dying in the hospital, and you’re smiling! Unthinkingly, Eli reached for one of the shoes on the floor. There was a crash, a spray of shattering glass, and the picture tumbled to the floor…

Two years later, on a Sunday morning in Brooklyn, a father and son stood in line together with thousands of others who were waiting to see the Rebbe. As the long line snaked past the Rebbe, the Rebbe handed each a dollar bill to give in his name to charity, uttered a few words of blessing, and turned to the next in line. In this manner, the Rebbe devoted a second or two to each of the tens of thousands who came from all over the world to meet him.

The Rebbe gave the father a dollar, and then turned to the child. “So this is Menasheh,” he said with a smile. “How is he?” It took Eli several seconds to respond. How does the Rebbe know them? This was their first time in New York, and except for those two brief letters back then… “He is fine, thank G-d,” Eli finally managed, “a complete recovery. The doctors said it was a miracle. Thanks to the Rebbe’s blessing.”

“Thank G-d, thank G-d,” said the Rebbe, and then, quietly: “But I still feel the blow…”

Tags: miracles, medicine, children, Rebbe, suffering
Posted in Weekly Parsha, Shmot, Va'eira, Faith, Soul & Mystical, Beliefs & Concepts, Miracles, Religion, Personal Life, Torah Personalities, Modern, Social, Spiritual, Torah, Rebbe, Pain & Suffering, Personal Stories, Medicine | 2 Comments »

A Refreshing Death

July 7th, 2015

Every day, some 43,200,000,000 man-hours are slept down the drain.

That’s 6 billion individuals, each sleeping an average of 7.2 hours every calendar day. One might argue that slumbered time is our most wasted resource.

Indeed, why spend 25 to 30 percent of our lives doing nothing? Why sleep?

To many of the planet’s sleepers, this may seem a pointless question. Why sleep? Because our body demands it of us. Because that is how we are physiologically constructed—that we require so many hours of rest each day in order to function. But to the Jew, there are no pointless questions. If G-d created us a certain way, there is a reason. He could just as easily have created us without the need for sleep, so that every moment of our lives could be put to constructive use. If our active hours must always be preceded by the minor death of sleep, there is a lesson here, a truth that is fundamental to the nature of human achievement.

Growing By Leaps

Another intrinsic fact of life is growth. In the first two decades of life, our growth is at its most real and tangible. We daily gain knowledge and experience. We can even gage our growth by inches of height gained per year or by the steady maturing of our bodies. But growth is a lifetime endeavor. Indeed, it can be said that there is no stasis in life: that the mind that ceases to learn, forgets what it has learned in the past; that the heart that ceases to develop new feelings, atrophies emotionally. That in every area of life, one who ceases to progress, regresses.

However, there are two types of growing. One growth is a progressional growth, a growth in which each gain is based upon, and is proportional to, our past achievements. Here the past develops into the future, improving and perfecting itself in the process.

But there also exists another type of growth–a growth that is a complete departure from the past. A growth that is a leap upward for something that is beyond relation to all that has been previously achieved. For we have the capacity to not only improve but also transcend ourselves. To open a new chapter in life that is neither predicted nor enabled by what we did and were up until now. To free ourselves of yesterday’s constraints and build a new, recreated self.

This is what the void of sleep contributes to our lives. If we didn’t sleep, there would be no tomorrow–life would be a single, seamless “today.” If we didn’t sleep, our every thought and deed would be an outgrowth of all our previous thoughts and deeds. There would be no new beginnings in our lives, for the very concept of a “new beginning” would be utterly alien to us. If we did not experience the obliterating passivity of sleep, we could not possibly conceive of a break from the past.

Because we sleep, we are accorded what is perhaps the greatest gift of life: morning.

Based on an address by the Rebbe, Av 6, 5750 (July 28, 1990. Sefer Hasichot pp. 596-599) and on other ocassions.

Tags: sleeping, rebirth, renewal, boundaries, awakenings
Posted in Weekly Parsha, Soul & Mystical, Shmot, Va'eira, Death, Grief, & Mourning, Personal Life, Daily Life, Spiritual, Life Cycles, Torah | No Comments »

Historical Fact

July 7th, 2015

Dear Editor

I greatly enjoy your publication, and avidly read it whenever I come across it (I am not a subscriber, but my sister is). I am impressed that the Rebbe’s philosophy is both intellectually stimulating and spiritual at the same time. My question to you is as follows: everything the Rebbe says can be predicated on a single fact: that the Torah is the word of G-d, communicated to the people of Israel at Mount Sinai more than three thousand years ago. I understand that to every believing Jew this is a matter of faith, and that for the believer it makes no difference that there are many others who believe different or even opposite things. My question is: Is there any objective way that this can be proven as a historical fact? Has the Rebbe ever addressed the issue in such terms?

James Schechter
LA, California

Dear James

“Proving” the revelation at Sinai, or any of the other fundamentals of the Jewish faith, is not an issue in the Rebbe’s philosophy and teaching, or in chassidic teaching as a whole. Never did the Rebbe deliver an address or write an essay the objective of which is to prove G-d’s existence, the divinity of the Torah, the coming of Moshiach, etc. These are givens, as real and as absolute (indeed, more real and absolute) than the fact that “I am alive,” “I love my children,” “winter will end and spring will come,” and the countless other facts we never even consider the need to prove. Rather, chassidic teaching comes to illuminate these givens and integrate them into our lives. G-d exists; what can we understand of the nature of His existence and His relationship with His creation? G-d gave us the Torah; what is the nature of this “gift” and how do we receive it? Every word of Torah is the revealed wisdom and will of G-d; what is the deeper significance of this particular biblical verse or talmudic saying, and what is its relevance to our daily lives?

However, the Rebbe did address such questions on several occasions, in direct response to individual queries in writing or in person. In these cases, the Rebbe’s answer was usually based on the traditional Torah works that deal with these issues (R. Saadiah Gaon’s Emunot v’De’ot, Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed, Rabbi Judah ha-Levi’s Kuzari, etc.), punctuated, of course, with his unique style and approach. What follows is based on four letters [1] the Rebbe wrote in response to the question you raise: is there any way to “prove” the revelation at Sinai?

The first thing that must be established is what constitutes “proof.” Often, people requiring that something be proven to them (especially if it is something they would rather not accept) employ a double-standard: the degree of proof on which they rely in their daily lives, including their most crucial decisions, is suddenly insufficient.For example, people often say: “I don’t rely on what others tell me; I insist on seeing something with my own eyes before I’ll accept it as true.” But is this, in fact the case? Say you needed to fly from L.A. to London. You walk into a travel agency, pay several hundred dollars, and walk out with a slip of paper in return. How do you know that this slip of paper will get you a seat on the plane? This is the first time you’ve used this agency, but a friend has told you that it is reliable; furthermore, the travel agency has an established office in the center of town, and every day, many people rely on its credibility. Without even thinking twice about it, you have relied on the “hearsay” of a few hundred people, most of whom you have never met and probably never will. This was “proof” enough for you to part with a full week’s salary.

What’s more, you get on the plane! Did you check the engine, the fuel tanks, and the landing gear? Did you test the pilot’s ability, or even ask to see his certification? But this is a well-known airline, which flies thousands of people safely every day. You’re therefore convinced that there’s a qualified team of mechanics somewhere who have checked whatever there needs to be checked, that the pilot is properly trained, etc., etc. On the basis of the fifth or sixth-hand testimony of people you’ve never met, you put your very life on the line.

And what is “history” if not eyewitness accounts by anonymous individuals, passed by word of mouth and eventually set down in writing? A few hundred people saw George Washington crossing the Delaware River on the night of December 25, 1776, and the event’s repercussions were directly experienced by a few thousand others,  and two hundred years later no one “in his right mind” would contest that the event indeed took place. But we don’t even require that much evidence: it is enough that an archeologist unearths a tablet describing a battle purported to have occurred thousands of years ago, and that the said battle fits in with other similarly substantiated information we have about that period, for the event to be considered “highly probable”; if another tablet is unearthed in another part of the world in which another eyewitness describes the same battle in the same (or similar) way, it becomes historical fact.

To summarize: In both our daily lives and our knowledge of the past, we rely on the testimony of other people. The greater the number of witnesses, and the greater the consensus among them, the greater the certainty. A historian will devote years of his life to research a certain event, and an airline passenger will allow himself to be lifted 30,000 feet into the air, based on such “proof.”

Now consider the following event: six hundred thousand men between the ages of twenty and sixty, plus an equivalent number of women, plus at least that many children and elders, witnessed, firsthand, [2] the revelation of G-d at Mount Sinai and heard Him proclaim “I am G-d your G-d…” These included people from all walks of life—simple folk and scholars, rich and poor. They all saw and heard the same thing, and gave a detailed account of the event to their children, who, in turn, related it to their children, and so on to this very day. In the 3,308 years since then, there was never a single moment in which less than several hundred thousand individuals attested to a unanimous version of this event, including many who had been without contact with each other for centuries.

It can therefore be unequivocally stated that there exists not a single event in the whole of human history that is as thoroughly proven and corroborated as the divine revelation at Mount Sinai. [3]

Yanki Tauber

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Tags: Mt. Sinai, revelation, Jewish history, truth, Yanki Tauber, questions, history
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A Jew in Madagascar

July 7th, 2015

The following is a freely-translated excerpt from a letter the Rebbe wrote in the fall of 1961 to a Jewish woman living in Madagascar:

…It was with pleasure that I received regards from you and your husband, through Rabbi Joseph Weinberg, upon the latter’s return from his visit in your community. It was a double pleasure to hear from him about your and your husband’s warm and willing response to the task of unifying the Jewish families in your area and bringing them closer to the practice of Judaism; especially that your husband has taken it upon himself to teach the children, which is of increased importance in our times, for today it is the children who influence their parents.

Certainly you and your husband are aware of the principle of “specific divine providence”—a principle that is a mainstay of our faith in general, and of the teachings of Chassidism in particular. “Specific divine providence” means that every event, great or small, that occurs in the world, whether involving an inanimate object, a growing thing, an animal or a human being, in its every detail and sub-detail, does not occur by chance, G-d forbid, but is specifically ordained by G-d as part of His intentions and purpose in His management of the world.

Therefore, it goes without saying that when a Jew finds himself in a distant corner of the world, far from his homeland, far from any established Jewish community, this is certainly not by chance. This Jew should see himself as an emissary of the Omnipresent through whom G-d’s word may reach also this corner of the world, bringing about an increase of justice and righteousness among all its inhabitants, and spreading the teachings and observances of Judaism among its Jews.

In such a case, one should not look upon the number of individuals that one has the opportunity to influence. Our sages have said, “Whoever upholds a single Jewish soul, it is as if he has upheld an entire world.”[19] If this is true at all times, how much more so does it apply to our generation, after the destruction, Heaven forfend, of such a significant portion of our people. Today, every surviving Jew is a “brand salvaged from the fire”[20] who must not only fulfill his own role, but also take the place of those who perished in sanctification of G-d’s name…[21]

Adapted from the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe by Yanki Tauber.

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Tags: divine providence, exile, purpose of life, education, Rebbe
Posted in Weekly Parsha, Shmot, Shmot, Beliefs & Concepts, Torah Personalities, Free Choice, Modern, Exile, Torah, Rebbe | No Comments »

The Extended Arm

July 7th, 2015

The Torah relates that “Pharaoh’s daughter … saw the basket among the rushes; and she dispatched her maid (ammatah) and took it.”[14]

Another interpretation of this verse renders the Hebrew word ammatah as “her arm” rather than “her maid.” Accordingly, the verse reads, “…she dispatched her arm and took it.” What does it mean that Pharaoh’s daughter “dispatched her arm”? Our sages explain that the basket holding the infant Moses lay far beyond her reach. Nevertheless, she extended her hand toward it. A miracle occurred and “her arm was extended for many arm-lengths,” enabling her to take the child and save him from her father’s decree.[15]

There is a profound lesson here for each and every one of us. Often, we are confronted with a situation that is beyond our capacity to rectify. Someone or something is crying out for our help, but there is nothing we can do: by all natural criteria, the matter is simply beyond our reach. So we resign ourselves to inactivity, reasoning that the little we can do won’t change matters anyway.

But Pharaoh’s daughter heard a child’s cry and extended her arm. An unbridgeable distance lay between her and the basket containing the weeping infant, making her action seem utterly pointless. But because she did the maximum of which she was capable, because her hand did not hang idle while a fellow human being needed her help, she achieved the impossible. Because she extended her arm, G-d extended its reach, enabling her to save a life and raise the greatest human being ever to walk the face of the earth.

 The Cosmic Editor

What is the difference between a good piece of writing and a poorly-written one? What, for that matter, is the difference between a book that brings joy and enlightenment to its readers and a work that espouses prejudice and hate? Both are comprised of the very same letters and punctuation marks. It is only their configuration that is different.

The same characters that, lined up one way, make a work of art, are a boorish scribble when arranged differently. The same words might form a celebration of goodness or a diatribe of utter virulence, depending on the sequence in which they are placed.

With this analogy, the Kabbalah explains the mystery of evil. If everything comes from G-d, and G-d is the essence of good, where does evil come from? But evil is a nonentity, explain the Kabbalists, devoid of any reality or substance. What we know as “evil” is merely a corruption of good—the same letters differently configured.

This explains how we have the power to “transform darkness into light and bitterness into sweetness.”[16] When confronted with the enormity of evil in our world, we should remember that evil is not itself evil—it is goodness in the form of evil. We need not vanquish the darkness and generate light in its place; we need not eradicate the bitterness and manufacture the sweetness to replace it; we need only rearrange the letters. All the world needs is a good editing.

The Age of Electronic Writing

For thousands of years, the writer who did not “get it right” the first time had to start all over again.

Whether engraving in clay or stone, inscribing on papyrus or parchment, or banging away at a typewriter, the writer’s first efforts usually ended up being discarded. He or she could erase, apply white-out fluid, cross out words and insert others between the lines or in the margins—up to a point. In the end, a fresh, new sheet would invariably be rolled into the typewriter for a “clean” (and hopefully) final copy.

Then came the computer and, with it, the word processor. Now the writer could juggle words, move sentences from one page to another, salvage lines from failed paragraphs and save them for use in another context. Across the globe, the sound of balled-up pages being thrown into the wastebasket began to die out.

Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Chassidism, taught that, “Everything that a person sees or hears should teach him a lesson in his service of the Almighty.” Everything—whether it is a natural phenomenon, a quirk of human nature, a technological development or a news story—can tell us something about our life’s purpose. Because the world in which we live—our own everyday, mundane world—is a mirror of the spiritual cosmos.

We know that history is a process—a process by which the whole of creation advances toward the fulfillment of its function as a home for G-d. The climax of history is the era of Moshiach—a time when all ignorance, animosity, suffering and want will be eliminated from the face of the earth. A time when the letters of creation will be perfectly configured, so that the very forces that formerly spelled “evil” will now be channeled as forces for good.

The evolution of writing reflects our world’s progression toward this ideal. In earlier generations, the task of “editing” the forces of creation was beset with false starts, abandoned efforts and wasted resources.[17] But today we live in the age of electronic writing; today, the task of aligning the letters of our lives in their proper configuration is more accessible and more “user friendly” than it has ever been.

Based on an address by the Rebbe, Tammuz 28, 5713 (July 11, 1953)[18].

Adapted from the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe by Yanki Tauber.

__________________________________________________

Tags: good and evil, Moses, kabbalah, light and darkness, transformation, words
Posted in Weekly Parsha, Shmot, Biblical, Soul & Mystical, Shmot, Beliefs & Concepts, Torah Personalities, Spiritual, Moshiach & Redemption, Torah, Moses | No Comments »

Matter

July 7th, 2015

The 24th of Tevet (this year, January 12) is the anniversary of the passing of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of Chabad Chassidism.

Rabbi Schneur Zalman was born in the White Russian town of Liozna on Elul 18, 5505 (1745)—the 47th birthday of the founder of the Chassidic movement, Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov. In 1764 he traveled to Mezeritch to study under the tutelage of the Baal Shem Tov’s successor, Rabbi DovBer, the Maggid of Mezeritch; despite his youth, he was accepted into the inner circle of the great master’s pupils. Upon his return from Mezeritch, there gathered about him a group of disciples whom he instructed in the ways of Chassidism. It was during these years that he formulated his distinct “Chabad” philosophy and approach to life, which he subsequently outlined in his magnum opus, Tanya, on which he labored for twenty years before publishing it in 1796. By that time, his influence had spread throughout White Russia  and Lithuania, where a significant part of the Jewish population regarded him as their “Rebbe” and leader. In the winter of 1812, while fleeing Napoleon’s armies, he arrived in the town of Pyena;[1] there he fell ill, and on Motzaei Shabbat (Saturday night), Tevet 24, at 10:30 in the evening, he returned his soul to its Maker.

In those last days in Pyena Rabbi Schneur Zalman wrote one of the most profound essays to issue from his pen—a lengthy treatise later published as Section 20 of Iggeret HaKodesh (a collection of his letters and essays appended to the Tanya as “Part Four”). Another manuscript that has been preserved from those days is a short discourse entitled “The Humble Soul,”[2] which the Rebbe wrote shortly before his passing (by one account, “after havdallah, several minutes before giving up his soul in purity to G-d”[3]).

The contents of these two discourses present something of an enigma to the student of Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s philosophy, who expects to see a recapitulation of the Rebbe’s earlier works in these products of his final days.[4] Instead, one finds what appears to be a departure from—or even a reversal of—certain key principles of his previous teachings.

Spirit Over Matter

In his Tanya, Rabbi Schneur Zalman describes a perpetual struggle between the spiritual and the material in man and in creation.

Within the human being, this conflict takes the form of a battle between the “animal soul” and the “G-dly soul.” The animal soul is our physical self—the drive to be and exist, the instinct for self-preservation, self-fulfillment and self-enhancement. The G-dly soul is the source of our spirituality—our drive for self-transcendence, our yearning to escape the confines of our material existence and connect to the infinite and the eternal. Life is the war between these two opposing drives: every act we do, every word we utter, even every thought we think, is an outcome of this inner struggle, the victory of one of the two selves vying to express itself and further its aims via the body and faculties which they share.

On the cosmic level, there is the conflict between the spiritual essence of creation—the “divine utterances”[5] or “sparks of holiness” at the core of every created thing—and the mantle of materiality that embodies, obscures and imprisons them. We redeem these “sparks of holiness” by utilizing the material objects and resources of our world to serve G-d, thereby transforming them from “material” things (i.e., things that exist for their own sake) into “spiritual” things (things whose sole purpose is to serve a higher end).

What makes the spiritual more “holy” than the material? Why are the instincts and drives of the animal soul less G-dly than those of the G-dly soul?

Rabbi Schneur Zalman explains that the cardinal law of existence is that “There is nothing else besides Him.”[6]

Hence, transcendent and self-abnegating entities are “holy” and “G-dly,” for they affirm and convey the truth that there is no true existence (that is, nothing that exists for its own sake) other than G-d; self-oriented things are “profane” and “unG-dly” because their very existence entails an obfuscation of this truth.

Thus, even the most innocent of physical actions can be a subtle form of “evil.” If a person eats with no thought other than satisfying his natural craving for food—which is his animal soul’s desire to sustain its physical existence—his eating constitutes a denial of the principle that “there is nothing else.” The Tanya therefore instructs us to “sanctify” our eating by eating for the purpose of utilizing the energy we derive from our food to serve G-d. In this way, the act of eating becomes a holy act—an act that expresses, rather than belies, the exclusivity of the divine.

It is not enough, says the Tanya, to carry out the commandments of the Torah and refrain from transgressing its prohibitions. This is but the most overt dimension of the war of life. We must delve deeper, to battle the more subtle challenge to the integrity of our bond with G-d: to vanquish the material self that contests the divine truth with its pretensions to a self-defined existence.

The Tanya charts a program for life to achieve this end: to dethrone the material self from its natural station as the seat of our identity and the prime motivator of everything we do, and establish our spiritual self in its place; to transform our every deed from an act of self-perpetuation to an act of self-transcendence and self-abnegation; to actualize the spiritual essence within every creation and free it of its corporeal body and prison, by enlisting it in the endeavor to serve G-d.

As Rabbi Schneur Zalman writes in a key passage in Tanya, “The foundation and root of the entire Torah is to raise and exalt the soul over the body.”[7]

The Conquest of Earth

One would presume the moral tone of such an approach to life to be one of disdain for the material world and for all things physical. Yet the Tanya is far from an ascetic’s manifesto. It does not call for a denial of the body’s needs, or even for a renunciation of physical pleasure. While it condemns indulgence in the material for its own sake—for no purpose other than sustaining or giving pleasure to the body—it sees the potential for “sanctification” even in as physical an activity as “eating fat beef and drinking spiced wine” when it serves the purpose of “giving oneself an expansive state of mind in which to serve G-d and [study] His Torah” or “to fulfill the mitzvah of enjoying the Shabbat and the festivals.”[8]

The Tanya goes so far as to declare the physical world the ultimate objective of G-d’s creation and the only environment within which His desire for a world can be satisfied. All other dimensions of creation—including the most lofty of spiritual “worlds” and realities—were created solely to facilitate the creation and the continued existence of our physical world and its actualization of the divine desire for “a home in the lower realms.”[9] Indeed, as Rabbi Schneur Zalman points out in numerous discourses, virtually all the mitzvot of the Torah involve the utilization of some material substance to fulfill the will of G-d—wearing tefillin made of animal hide or tzitzit made of wool, eating matzah on Passover, giving money to charity, etc.

This, however, does not contradict our earlier classification of the material as “profane” and “unG-dly.” In fact, it is precisely because of its profanity and unG-dliness—precisely because its very existence belies the truth that “There is none else besides Him”—that the physical reality is the focus of G-d’s desire for creation.

For it is in the conquest of the material that the true supremacy of the spirit is revealed. As the intensity of a lamp is measured by the farthest point its light can reach, and as genius is ranked by the extent of its ability to explain itself to the simplest of minds, so is the all-pervasiveness of the divine most powerfully expressed when a material substance—the least transcendent of G-d’s creations—is made to serve a G-dly aim.

In other words, the paramount role that physical reality plays in the divine purpose in creation is not a factor of any positive quality on its part. On the contrary: because of its contrariness to all that is spiritual and G-dly, it is the vehicle of choice to reveal the infinite reach and scope of the divine truth.

The Divine Analogue

Such is the world-view put forth in the Tanya and augmented by scores of maamarim (discourses) delivered by Rabbi Schneur Zalman in the four decades of his leadership. Then, in the last days before his passing, he authored two discourses which open an entirely new perspective on the material reality.

In “Section 20” of Iggeret HaKodesh, Rabbi Schneur Zalman addresses the issue of the centrality of the physical mitzvot to the divine purpose in creation. Here, however, he does not explain this in terms of the greater challenge to the divine truth posed by the material world. Instead, he attributes it to a certain synonymy between the divine reality and the physical reality.

We have described physical matter as the most self-defined of G-d’s creations. This quality of the physical, we said, constitutes a denial of the truth that “There is nothing else besides Him.” But it is also the quality that marks it as the only creation that shares this quality with its Creator.

G-d is the ultimate self-defined being—a being not preceded by any cause, a being who exists to no end other than itself. This is how He perceives Himself—for this is what He is. Other than G-d, there is only one other being which sees and presents itself as such—the physical object. But the physical object sees and presents itself as such only because it was instilled with this self-perception by its Creator. And in granting it this self-perception, G-d has imbued the physical object with a quality that is uniquely His. Only G-d, who Himself possesses absolute being, can create something that exudes such absoluteness of being—something that regards itself as “having no other cause preceding it.”[10]

So the great lie of the material reality is also a great truth. It is a great lie because it presents itself as a “true existence” when the only “true existence” is G-d. It is a great truth because the truth it so falsely appropriates to itself is a representation, imprinted in its very being, of the truth of its Creator.

If we take the material world at face value, it is a challenge to the exclusivity of G-d; but if we delve deeper into its essence and origin, it is the ultimate attestation to His truth. If we listen to what the physical object says about itself, we hear a blatant denial of its Source; but if we look at what it is, we see an analogue of the divine being.

This is why the mitzvot—the building blocks of G-d’s home in creation and the ultimate facilitators of our relationship with G-d—are physical deeds enacted with physical objects: not only because the material world is the greatest challenge to the divine truth (making its conquest the greatest “proof” of its potency), but also because, in the final analysis, physical matter is the most “divine” of G-d’s creations.

The Humble Soul

This is also the thrust of The Humble Soul, the other discourse authored by Rabbi Schneur Zalman in the last days of his physical life.

Rabbi Schneur Zalman was a master philosopher and Kabbalist, and his achievements as a Talmudist and Halachist were lauded by follower and foe alike. Yet he devoted a great portion of his time to the material needs of his people, working to establish agricultural colonies to provide a livelihood for hundreds of families, and counseling the many thousands who came to Liadi to seek his advice regarding their communal, business and domestic affairs.

In the closing moments of his life, Rabbi Schneur Zalman looked back upon these expended hours and energies without regret. “For the truly humble soul,” he wrote, “its mission in life lies in the pragmatic aspect of Torah, both in studying it for himself and explaining it to others, and in doing acts of material kindness by lending an empathizing mind and counsel from afar regarding household concerns, though the majority, if not all, of these concern things of falsehood.”

Why occupy oneself with “things of falsehood,” much less see them as one’s mission in life? Rabbi Schneur Zalman finds the answer in the following Midrashic account of the creation of man:

Truth said: “He should not be created, for he is full of lies.” Benevolence said: “He should be created, for his is full of kindness” …. What did G-d do? He took Truth and threw it to the ground. Thus it is written, “And[11] You cast truth to the ground.” Said the ministering angels to G-d: “Master of the Worlds! Why are You insulting Your signet? [Said G-d:] “Truth shall ascend from the earth.” Thus it is written, “Truth[12] shall sprout forth from the earth.”[13]

The material life of man is full of falsehoods: the fallacy that its concerns are formidable and important, the fallacy that material conditions have the power to dictate one’s spiritual course, the fallacy that physical life is an end in itself. Our first inclination may be to demolish these falsehoods, or to rise above them. But the “truly humble soul” accepts that its mission in life is not to repress or escape the material, but to deal with it with faith and integrity.

And when it does so, it will find that its cultivation of the false soil of earth has caused a deeper truth to sprout forth: the truth that, in the words of Maimonides, “All existences, of the heaven, the earth, and everything in between, exist solely from the truth of His existence.”[14]

A Story

How might we reconcile these two world views? Is the vision of reality expressed in Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s Pyena writings a departure from the vision formulated in his Tanya? Or are the Pyena discourses in fact the culmination of his life’s work,[15] while his earlier works are the foundation and edifice that invariably lead to them and support them?

Instead of attempting to resolve this question—an attempt which is sure to consume many more pages than our format allows—we will conclude this essay with a story:

There was once a chassid by the name of Yaakov Mordechai who, for many years, deprived himself of all physical comforts in order to achieve a supremacy of spirit over matter in his life. Before his passing, however, he expressed regret at having weakened his body with his unrelenting regimen: perhaps, had he not been so hard on himself, he would have lived to observe even one more mitzvah. “Thirty years to sleep on a bench!” he was later quoted to have said. “To put on tefillin one more time is far more valuable than to sleep on a bench for thirty years!”

When chassidim told this story, they would add: “True—a single mitzvah is more valuable than a lifetime of self-refinement. But to appreciate the value of a mitzvah as Reb Yaakov Mordechai did, one must first sleep on a bench for thirty years.”

Based on the Rebbe’s talks on Shabbat Shemot 5733 (1973) and 5736 (1976)[16].

Adapted from the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe by Yanki Tauber.

Tags: body and soul, mitzvot, refinement, purpose, self-development, matter and spirit
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The Infant Shepherd

July 7th, 2015

We all know the story of how Moses’ mother, to save him from Pharaoh’s decree that all newborn Jewish males be drowned in the Nile, placed the three-month-old infant in a basket and concealed it in the rushes that grew along the riverbank; and how Pharaoh’s daughter discovered the weeping child when she went to bathe in the river, and raised him in the royal palace.

There is one detail in this story that is the subject of some confusion. Where, exactly, was Moses’ basket placed? In the Torah’s account, we read: “And she placed it in the rushes, on the bank of the river.”[1] According to this, Moses was not placed in the Nile itself, but on the Nile’s shore.[2] A few verses later, however, the Torah tells us that Pharaoh’s daughter named the child she found Moses (“the drawn one”), “because I have drawn him from the water.”[3]

The Torah is G-d’s blueprint for creation, whose every detail is of eternal relevance to our lives. If the Torah tells us that Moses’ mother placed him on the riverbank, this means that she could not have placed him in the Nile itself; if the Torah tells us that Pharaoh’s daughter subsequently took him from the Nile’s waters, this means that it was crucial that he be in the river at that time. And if the Torah troubles itself to tell us all this, this means that it is important to our understanding of the event and its application to our lives today.

The Purging of the Nile

The Gaon of Rogachov (Rabbi Joseph Rosen, 1858-1936) offers a halachic (Torah-legal) explanation for the basket’s change of location. Moses’ mother could not have initially placed him in the Nile itself because the Nile was worshipped by the Egyptians as a god, and it is forbidden to make use of an object of idol-worship even to save oneself.[4] However, Torah law also stipulates that if an idol-worshipper renounces his idol, it becomes “nullified” and permissible for use.[5] Our sages tell us that Pharaoh’s daughter “came down to the river to bathe”[6] not only in the physical sense, but also “to cleanse herself from her father’s idols.”[7] Her renunciation of the paganism of Egypt nullified the river’s idolatrous status, and its waters could now receive and shelter Moses. It was at this point that Moses’ basket entered the Nile.[8]

Why was it important that Moses should be in the Nile? The Midrash tells us that Pharaoh’s astrologers had told him that “the savior of Israel will meet his end by water,” which was why Pharaoh decreed that all male Jewish babies should be thrown into the Nile. When Moses was in the river, the astrologers told Pharaoh, “The savior of the Jews has already been cast into the water.” Thus Moses’ entry into the Nile brought the end of Pharaoh’s decree.[9]

The Cult of the River

Very little rain falls in Egypt. Agriculture is completely dependent on the Nile, whose overflow fills a network of irrigation canals. The ancient Egyptians therefore deified the Nile, regarding it as the ultimate source of sustenance and the ultimate endower of life.

This was the deeper significance of Pharaoh’s decree to drown Jewish children in the Nile. Pharaoh knew that if the next generation of Jews were submerged in the Nile-cult of Egypt—if they were raised to regard the natural purveyors of sustenance as gods—the Jewish faith would be obliterated. The message of a One G-d who is the creator and source of all, which so threatened his pagan oligarchy, would be silenced forever.

One can say that Nile-worship is as prevalent today as it was in the days of the Pharaohs. Today’s “Nile” may be a college degree, a career, social standing—anything that is venerated as a provider of sustenance and life. These are tools of sustenance, as the Nile is an instrument of G-d’s sustenance of those who dwell along its banks; but when the vehicle is confused with the source—when a person submerges his entire self in the “Nile,” investing his choicest energies in the perfection of the instrument rather than the cultivation of his relationship with its divine wielder—this is idolatry.

Faith Feeder

Moses is the raaya meheimna, the “faithful shepherd” of Israel.[10] The words raaya meheimna also mean “shepherd of faith”—i.e., one who feeds faith to his flock.[11] Moses’ primary role was to nurture the faith of his people, to broaden it, deepen it and develop it so that they became completely permeated with a knowledge of G-d and the understanding that “There is none else besides Him”[12]—that all the “Niles” of the world are not forces or realities in their own right, but merely vehicles of divine sustenance.

Moses was eighty years old when he took the people of Israel out of Egypt, led them to Mount Sinai, and fed them the ultimate infusion of divine knowledge, the Torah. But he was already a “shepherd of faith” at the age of three months, when he was instrumental in dethroning the arch-idol of Egypt and putting an end to the drowning of Israel’s children in its waters.

Based on the Rebbe’s talks on Shabbat Parshat Shemot of 5722 (1962) and 5723 (1963)[13].

Adapted from the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe by Yanki Tauber.

Tags: Moses, water, Egypt, spiritual and material, wealth, education
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A Border Birth

July 7th, 2015

The total sum given by the Torah is seventy; but in their particular enumeration, we find only sixty nine! … Said Rabbi Chama bar Chanina: This is Yocheved… who was born between the boundary walls [of Egypt].

Talmud, Bava Batra 123a

In Egypt, there was a generation of Jews who were born back in the Holy Land. Jews who were raised in a purer environment; Jews to whom depraved Egypt was an alien world which could not touch them, and which they could neither understand nor influence.

In Egypt, there were Jews who were born after the original seventy souls of the house of Jacob had settled there. Jews who, while raised on the memories and traditions of the “old country,” knew only Egypt as their home; Jews who could relate to, and even empathize with, the culture and milieu of their adoptive land.

In Egypt, there was one Jew who was born “between the boundary walls” as Jacob’s household entered the country. A Jew who straddled the pre- and post-galut states of mind; who was neither of Egypt nor aloof from it. A Jew rooted in the past but an integral part of the present; a Jew with the power to transform Egypt without being transformed by it.

This Jew was one of the two Jewish midwives (the second was her daughter, Miriam) who delivered, sheltered and raised a generation of faithful Jews under the terrible reign of Pharaoh.

This Jew was Yocheved, mother of Moses.

Based on an address by the Rebbe[14]. By Yanky Tauber.

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[14]. Likkutei Sichot, vol. XVIII, p. 16.

Tags: Moses, redemption, Egypt, Egyptian slavery, boundaries, Yanki Tauber
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