June 24th, 2015
The world was created with ten [divine] utterances.
Ethics of the Fathers, 5:1
G-d formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.
Genesis, 2:19
Says the Midrash: “When G-d came to create man, He consulted with the angels…. Said they to Him: ‘This man, what is his worth?’ Said He to them: ‘His wisdom is greater than yours.’ G-d brought before them the beasts, the wild animals and the birds and asked them, ‘This, what is its name?’ and they did not know. He then brought them before man… and man said, ‘This is a shor (ox), this is a chamor (donkey), this is a sus(horse) and this is a gamal (camel)….’ [8]
Naming things seems easy enough. One selects a syllable or two, coins a word and attaches it to an object. If one wants to be scientific about it, one selects a distinctive feature or two, transfigures them into a Latin-sounding name of eight or ten syllables, and—presto!—one has a name. Why, then, is the ability to name names indicative of a wisdom greater than that of the angels? And why does the Creator consider this ability on the part of man as the one thing that most characterizes his worth as a human being?
A World of Words
The world was created by divine speech. G-d said, “Let there be light… oceans… trees… fish…” and these words came to constitute the essence of every created entity.
In other words, what we experience as physical light is not merely something that the divine words “Let there be light” caused to come into being; it is the very word light being continually articulated by the Creator as a verbal expression of the desire that it exist. The same is true of all other creations: a cow, a fish, a tree, a stone—these are all our physical perceptions of the divine words they embody.
[The “ten utterances,” which are quoted in the Torah’s account of creation, actually specify only the names of a few primary creations (light, water, land, etc.) and several general categories (stars, trees, fish, birds, etc.). But these elementary creations contain within themselves—on both the linguistic and physical levels—the myriad particulars of the created existence. Ultimately, every created thing has a name in the Holy Tongue, a name that, if not explicit in the “ten utterances” of the first chapter of Genesis, is nonetheless implicit therein, by the means of gematria or one of the several other systems of letter transfiguration of the Hebrew language.[9]]
Therein lies the difference between the Holy Tongue (lashon hakodesh) and other languages.
In all other languages, a word is assigned to an existing entity. If there was a reason why a particular word was originally married to a particular object, this is not a matter of great relevance. If the English word ox were to be chosen for that obstinate, silly-looking animal with the long ears, while the word donkey referred to the heavy-set fellow with the horns, this would not make a whit of difference. Language would still be performing its commonly assumed function: identifying objects by some agreed-upon arrangement of verbal sounds and letters.
But language, in its truest, “holy,” sense, is far more than that. In the Holy Tongue, a word precedes its subject, creates it, and constitutes its very being. It articulates the divine desire that it be, expressing its Creator’s perception of its qualities and function—of the end toward which He created it.[10]
So for Adam to call even a single creature by its original, quintessential name, he had to know it utterly. He had to possess the wisdom and insight to penetrate its external form and recognize the “holiness” within—the divine utility and purpose that lies at its heart.[11]
Calling Forth
This ability to recognize and name most expresses the role of man in creation.
Every creature possesses the potential to articulate its Creator’s goodness and perfection. But it is man who actualizes this potential through his development and utilization of his fellow creations and his incorporation of them in his service of the Almighty. Only man has been imbued with the essentially divine quality of “free choice”; thus, only his actions have moral significance. All of creation can, therefore, realize its divine purpose only through him.[12]
This is the deeper significance of the Hebrew word vayikra, “and he called,” used by the Torah in describing Adam’s calling the name of every creature. As its English counterpart, the Hebrew word kara connotes both “calling” and “calling forth”; Adam’s calling of names was a demonstration of his ability to call forth and bring to light the “name” and essence of every created thing, by recognizing and developing its potential to serve him in his service of G-d.
When man harnesses the ox to the plow and uses the proceeds to perform a self-transcending act such as charity, prayer or Torah study, every element of creation that was involved in this act—the energy of the ox, the vegetative potential of the soil, the nourishing water and sunlight—achieves something it could never have on its own. It transcends the limits of its own external being and realizes the purpose for which it was created.
Based on the talks of the Rebbe, Simchat Torah 5731 (October 23, 1970) and Kislev, 5750 (December 23, 1989)
Adapted from the teachings of the Rebbe by Yanki Tauber
This is an excerpt from “Beyond the Letter of the Law” published by The Meaningful Life Center. To order contact contact@meaningfullife.com
[8] Midrash Rabba, Bereishit 17:5.
[9] See Tanya, part II, ch. 1.
[10] The same is true of a person’s name: it forms the channel through which his soul radiates life into his body, doing much to define his nature and character. In the words of Elazar ben Pedat, “One’s name has an influence on one’s life” (Talmud, Berachot 7b). Our sages have therefore said that parents’ naming of their child is “a small prophecy.”
[11] The angels may have been able to know the essence of a creature from the perspective of the spiritual realm they occupy. But to relate to a fodder-chomping ox and discern the way in which its physical, animal qualities can be directed to serve the divine purpose in creation was beyond their spiritually defined (and confined) abilities.
[12] In the words of the Talmud (Kiddushin 82a): “The entire world was created to serve me, and I was created to serve my Creator.” Chassidic master Rabbi Mendel of Kotzk thus advised: “A person should always have two pockets in his garment: in one he should keep the verse, “I am but dust and ashes,” and in the other the Talmudic adage “For my sake was the world created.”
Tags: creation, names, Hebrew, Yanki Tauber, language
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June 24th, 2015
One Friday afternoon, a man knocked on the door of Rabbi Yizchak Eizik, rabbi of Vitebsk. “Rabbi, I have a din-Torah (a matter of litigation),” he said. “I request that you to hear my case and hand down a ruling.”
“The truth is,” said the rabbi, “that I’m quite busy now with the preparations for Shabbat. Perhaps you and your litigant can come after Shabbat, and I’ll hear you both out.”
“I’m a melamed,” said the man, “who teaches children from morning to night. The only time I’m free is on Friday afternoons.”
“Very well,” said Rabbi Yizchak Eizik, “I’ll hear your case now. But we must summon your litigant. It is forbidden for me to hear your arguments when he isn’t present.”
“He is present,” said the man. “My din-Torah is with G-d.”
“Okay,” said Rabbi Yizchak Eizik, after a long pause. “Have a seat, and I’ll try your case.”
Said the melamed: “G-d has blessed me with a daughter, who has now reached marriageable age. But I have not a kopeck in my pocket—no money for clothes, wedding expenses, much less a dowry. My claim is that G-d is legally obligated to provide for my daughter’s wedding.”
“What is your basis for such a claim?” asked Rabbi Yitzchak Eizik.
“The Torah states that ‘There are three partners to a person: his father, mother and G-d.’[13] Two of the partners are paupers, but the third partner is, by His own attestation, quite wealthy: does He not declare ‘Mine is silver, Mine is gold’[14]? It is therefore the duty of the rich partner to assume the expenditures of our joint endeavor.”
The Rabbi retreated to his study to check the relevant sources and ponder the case. After a while he emerged with his verdict. “The melamed is in the right,” he declared. “The Almighty is duty-bound, by Torah law, to provide for the young woman’s marriage.”
When the melamed neared home, he saw a luxurious coach pulling away from his dilapidated hut. “You won’t believe what just happened,” said his wife, the moment he came through the door. “Some nobleman was here with his wife. The lady has it in her mind that someone has given her the evil eye, and has heard that the melamed’s wife knows the proper charms to ward it off. I did as she asked, and then the nobleman asked me how much they owe me. I decided to go for broke, and named the sum we need for dowry and wedding expenses. Without a word, he put the money on the table and went.”
Adapted from the teachings of the Rebbe by Yanki Tauber
[13] Talmud, Kiddushin 30b.
Tags: story, marriage, faith, miracles, Yanki Tauber
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June 24th, 2015
See, I am giving you today the blessing and the curse
Deuteronomy 11:26
The blessing and the curse: all phenomena, and all human activity, seem subject to categorization by these two most basic definers of reality. A development is either positive or negative, an occurrence either fortunate or tragic, an act either virtuous or iniquitous.
Indeed, the principle of “free choice”—that man has been granted the absolute autonomy to choose between good and evil—lies at the heart of the Torah’s most basic premise: that human life is purposeful. That our deeds are not predetermined by our nature or any universal law but are the product of our independent volition, making us true “partners with G-d in creation”[1] whose choices and actions effect the continuing development of the world as envisioned by its Creator.[2]
Philosophers and theologians of all ages have asked: From where does this dichotomy stem? Does evil come from G-d? If G-d is the exclusive source of all and is the essence of good, can there be evil in His work? If He is the ultimate unity and singularity, can there exist such duality within His potential?
In the words of the prophet Jeremiah, “From the Supernal One’s word/ there cannot emerge/ both evil and good.”[3] Yet the Torah unequivocally states: “See, I am giving you today the blessing and the curse”—I, and no other, am the exclusive source and grantor of both.
Transmutation
One approach to understanding the Torah’s conception of “the blessing and the curse” is to see how this verse is rendered by the great translators of Torah.
Aramaic, which was widely spoken by the Jewish people for fifteen centuries, is the “second language” of the Torah. It is the language of the Talmud, and even of several biblical chapters. There are also a number of important Aramaic translations of the Torah, including one compiled at the end of the first century CE by Onkelos, a Roman convert to Judaism who was a nephew of the Emperor Titus; and a translation compiled a half-century earlier by the great Talmudic sage Rabbi Yonatan ben Uziel.
In Onkelus’ translation, the Hebrew word kelalah in the above-quoted verse is translated literally as “curse” (lotin in the Aramaic). But in Rabbi Yonatan’s translation, the verse appears thus: “See, I am giving you today the blessing and its transmutation.” The author is not merely avoiding the unsavory term “curse”—he himself uses that term but three verses later in Deuteronomy 11:29, and in a number of other places in the Torah where the word kelalah appears.[4] Also, if Rabbi Yonatan just wanted to avoid using a negative expression, he would have written “the blessing and its opposite” or some similar euphemism. The Aramaic word he uses, chilufa, means “exchange” and “transmutation,” implying that “the curse” is something which devolves from the blessing and is thus an alternate form of the same essence.
In the words of our sages, “No evil descends from heaven”—only two types of good.[5] The first is a “blatant” and obvious good—a good which can only be experienced as such in our lives. The other is also good, for nothing but good can “emerge from the Supernal One”; but it is a “concealed good,” a good that is subject to how we choose to receive and experience it. Because of the free choice granted us, it is in our power to distort these heavenly blessings into curses, to subvert these positive energies into negative forces.
Onkelos’ is the more “literal” of the two translations. Its purpose is to provide the student with the most rudimentary meaning of the verse. The verse, in the Hebrew, says “the blessing and the curse,” and Onkelos renders it as such in the Aramaic. Anyone searching for the deeper significance of the negative in our world must refer to those Torah texts which address such issues.
On the other hand, the translation of Rabbi Yonatan ben Uziel provides a more esoteric interpretation of the Torah, incorporating many Midrashic and Talmudic insights. So instead of simply calling “the curse” a curse, it alludes to the true significance of what we experience as evil in our lives. In essence, Rabbi Yonatan is telling us, what G-d gives is good; but G-d has granted us the ability to experience both “the blessing and its transmutation”—to divert His goodness to destructive ends, G-d forbid.
This also explains why Rabbi Yonatan translates kelalah as “transmutation” in the above-cited verse (verse 26) and in a later verse (verse 28), yet in verse 29 he renders it literally as “curse,” in the manner of Onkelos. In light of the above, the reason for the differentiation is clear: the first two verses speak of G-d’s giving us both a blessing and a “curse”; but G-d does not give curses—only the option and capability to “transmute” His blessings. On the other hand, the third verse (“And it shall come to pass, when the L-rd your G-d has brought you into the land … you shall declare the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Eval”) speaks of our articulation of the two pathways of life, where the “concealed good” can be received and perceived as an actual “curse.”[6]
Galut
On a deeper level, the different perspectives on the nature of evil expressed by these two Aramaic translations of the Torah reflect the spiritual-historical circumstances under which they were compiled.
Galut, the state of physical and spiritual displacement in which we have found ourselves since the destruction of the Holy Temple and our exile from our land nearly 2000 years ago, is a primary cause for the distortion of G-d’s blessing into “its transmutation.” When the people of Israel inhabited the Holy Land and experienced the manifest presence of the Almighty in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, they experienced the divine truth was a tactual reality. The intrinsic goodness and perfection of all that comes from G-d was openly perceivable and accessible.
Galut, on the other hand, is a state of being which veils and distorts our soul’s inner vision, making it far more difficult to relate to the divine essence in every event and experience of our lives. Galut is an environment in which the “concealed good” that is granted us is all too readily transmuted into negativity and evil.
The translation by Rabbi Yonatan ben Uziel, also called the “Jerusalem Translation,”[7] was compiled in the Holy Land in the generation before the Temple’s destruction. The very fact that its authorship was necessary—the fact that for many Jews the language of the Torah was no longer their mother tongue and the word of G-d was accessible only through the medium of a vernacular—bespeaks the encroaching galut. The “concealed good” was already being experienced as something other than an expression of G-d’s loving relationship with us.
Still, in Rabbi Yonatan’s day the Holy Temple stood in Jerusalem. The descending veil of galut was translucent still, allowing the recognition, if not the experience, of the true nature of reality. One was aware that what one perceived as negative in one’s life was a distortion of the divine goodness.
The Onkelus Translation was compiled a generation later by the nephew of the Roman Emperor who destroyed the Holy Temple and drove the people of Israel into exile. In Onkelus’ day, the galut had intensified to the point that the prevalent reality was that of a world dichotomized by good and evil, a world in which the “concealed good” is regarded as simply “the curse.”
But it is precisely such a world that offers the ultimate in freedom of choice, which, in turn, lends true import and significance to the deeds of man. It is precisely such a world that poses the greater—and more rewarding—challenge to reveal the underlying goodness, unity and perfection of G-d’s creation.
Based on an address by the Rebbe, Shabbat Re’eh 5726 (August 13, 1966)[8]
Adapted from the teachings of the Rebbe by Yanki Tauber
[1] Talmud, Shabbat 10a, et al.
[2] In the words of Maimonides: “Freedom of choice has been granted to every man. If he desires to turn to the path of good and be a righteous person, the option is in his hands; if he desires to turn to the path of evil and be a wicked person, the option is in his hands…. There is no one who compels him, decrees on him or draws him to any one of these two paths-only he, by his own self and mind, turns to whichever path he desires.…
“This concept is a fundamental principle and a pillar of the Torah and its commandments…. For were G-d to decree that a person be righteous or wicked, or if there were to exist something in the person’s inborn nature which would compel him toward a specific path, a specific conviction, a specific character trait or a specific deed… how could G-d command us through the prophets, ‘Do this’ and ‘Do not do this,’ ‘Improve your ways’ and ‘Do not follow your wickedness’…? What place would the entire Torah have? And by what measure of justice would G-d punish the wicked and reward the righteous…?” (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentance 5:14)..
[4] . E.g., Deuteronomy 23:6 and 27:13.
[5] . Midrash Rabbah, Bereishit 51:3; Tanya, Iggeret HaKodesh section 11.
[6] . By the same token, the other instances in which Rabbi Yonatan translates kelalah as “curse” (see note 3 above) likewise speak of human articulation and experience of evil; and the other instances in which kelalahis rendered “the transmutation” of blessing (e.g., Deuteronomy 30, verses 1 and 19), the verse likewise speaks of G-d’s granting us a twofold path for life.
[7] . Certain editions of the Chumash include both a “Translation of Yonatan ben Uziel” as well as a “Jerusalem Translation.” According to most commentaries, these are two versions of the same work.
[8] . Likkutei Sichot, vol. XIX, pp. 133ff.
Tags: free choice, Yanki, good and evil, light and darkness, galut, purpose
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June 24th, 2015
Rejection. It is one of society’s most potent tools for regulating and constraining undesirable behavior. As children, we knew that misconduct carried the risk of a parental glare of disapproval, and perhaps banishment to our bedrooms. As adults, the scepter of imprisonment hangs over would-be criminals as a deterrent for all sorts of illegal behavior. But how effective is enforced isolation in preventing crime, and perhaps more importantly, invoking a feeling of regret in the offender? Psychologists and social researchers are re-evaluating this age-old method of dealing with crime. Banishment and imprisonment may remove the criminal from the midst of society, thereby limiting the risks to the rest of us from his objectionable behavior; however, once separated from the community, the offender feels little motivation to adapt to the behavioral standards of society at large. Through isolating him, we are effectively cutting him out of civilization. Our rejection may not be an incentive to improve, but rather a license to plunge further into the nether world of crime.
The Torah also has its proscribed system of isolation for certain offenses. Tzaraas[1] was a divinely ordained affliction that came upon an individual who was guilty of slanderous talk against his fellow man.[2] Upon being declared impure, the leper was sent out of all three camps[3] and kept completely secluded from the rest of society. His punishment corresponded to his crime. His slanderous talk resulted in friction and disunion between people; his penalty was enforced separation from the community.
Yet it is important to note the process whereby the leper was declared impure. One who discovers a suspicious spot on his skin must have it inspected by a learned scholar. If the sage determines that the spot does indeed have all the symptoms of tzaraas, he then presents it to the Kohen, who declares him impure. The Kohen may be completely ignorant of the details of the laws regarding tzaraas, yet the individual is not declared impure unless the Kohen pronounces him as such. Even if the Kohen merely echoes the decision of the learned scholar, it is his affirmation, rather than the scholar’s learned opinion, that finalizes the person’s status.
It is puzzling why the Torah predicates the declaration of impurity upon the Kohen. The Kohen, after all, was distinct in his special status of purity. The Kohen performed the most exalted and refined tasks in the Holy Temple, and was obligated to refrain from defiling himself through any contact with ritual impurity. Why must the Kohen be the one to declare him impure?
The Kohen’s mandatory involvement sheds light on the Torah’s view of societal isolation as a punishment and deterrent for wrongdoing. The Kohen’s function, aside from his service in the Temple, was to serve as a conduit of blessings for the Jewish People.[4] The Kohanim have maintained this role throughout Jewish history, through their recital of the priestly blessing in the synagogue. Before commencing the Priestly Blessing, the Kohanim recite a benediction concluding with the words:
“Who has commanded us to bless the Jewish people, with love.”[5]
If the Kohen feels that he is lacking in a measure of love for even one member of the community, he is obliged to step down and refrain from uttering the Priestly Blessing.[6] Only the Kohen, known as a “man of kindness,[7]” has the authority to declare a person impure, resulting in his banishment from the camp of the Jewish people.
The Kohen’s pronouncement is based upon the opinion of the learned scholar, well versed in the myriad laws of various skin conditions and their ritual status; nevertheless, it is the Kohen who is given the final say over matters of impurity. The Kohen’s heart, overflowing with love for his fellow man, will not allow him to make such a proclamation lightly. He will be fully aware of the power of his words, and will leave no stone unturned to prevail upon the scholar to find some loophole, some escape hatch to avoid declaring another Jew impure. And if, for all his pains, he is unable to avoid uttering the word “impure,” we can be assured that he will likewise spare no effort to facilitate the purification of the leper.
Isolation and rejection are almost completely ineffective means of ameliorating criminal behavior when there is an absence of one critical ingredient: love. Once an individual feels cast out of his society, he loses his greatest source of motivation and encouragement to lead a wholesome, productive life. The Kohen is there to teach us that even when censuring and condemning improper behavior, we must never lose sight of our primary role: to extend a helping and supporting hand to every member of society, no matter what his or her status may be.
An individual who is able to utter a condemnation of another human being must carefully examine his or her own heart. Those who are lacking in love and compassion are incapable of coming to a true conclusion regarding another person’s status. Instead, they will succeed only in driving others further away with their unrelenting, critical attitudes. In fact, one who is not qualified to render someone “impure,” and does so anyway, is guilty of slander, the very offense that incurs the penalty of tzaraas.
Isolation is enforced for one class of people—those who are unable to tolerate and accept others. Those who feel incapable of reaching out and embracing every member of the community should take a hiatus for themselves to invoke a feeling of clemency in their hearts, and avoid hurting others with the sting of their bitterness and condemnations.
There is no telling how deeply we can impact and influence all of society when we keep our hearts open to all with kindness and compassion. The Kohen, a man of kindness, guides us in attaining this exalted level of sensitivity. It is this form of unconditional love that will obliterate the primary cause of our long exile. For exile is a state of conflict and disharmony, where we feel cut off emotionally from each other and even from our own inner selves. When we consciously attempt to invoke in ourselves a feeling of true acceptance and love for all individuals, we free ourselves and society from the entrapment of isolation and disconnection.
So the next time you encounter any form of imperfection in another human being, don’t turn away. In the manner of the Kohen, look beyond the external blemish, into the soul. Your kind eye and loving heart will accomplish far more than your most severe condemnations. These small acts of unity and acceptance have the power to change the landscape of society from a cold and vicious jungle to a place where peace, serenity, and harmony will reign.
Adapted from the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe by Chaya Shuchat.
[1] Although commonly translated as “leprosy,” tzaraas was actually a spiritual illness with certain physical manifestations, which has no counterpart today.
[2] There were actually ten or more different offenses that carried the penalty of tzaraas, including idol-worship, blasphemy, and murder, but the most severe form of tzaraas was reserved for those guilty of slanderous talk.
[3] In the desert, the Jews camped in a formation of three camps. The central and holiest camp was the Machane Shechina, where the Mishkanwas erected. Surrounding the Mishkan was the Machane Leviya, where all members of the tribe of Levi camped. The Levite camp was surrounded by the Machane Yisroel, where the remainder of the Jewish people encamped. Once the Jews settled in the Land of Israel, the leper was sent out of the city limits.
[4] Eikev 10:8; see Rashi on verse.
[5] Sotah 39:1,See also: text of priestly blessing, Siddur Tehillas Hashem, p. 268
[6] Shulchan Aruch Admur Hazaken, Ch. 128, law 19.
[7] See Berachah, 33:8; Zohar III, 145:2, and other sources
Tags: relationships, rejection, body and soul, Jewish law, love your neighbor, purity, self awareness, love, Chaya Shuchat
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June 24th, 2015
After their long and bitter exile in Egypt, the people of Israel were faced with yet another challenge before they could enter and settle the Land of Canaan: for forty years they traversed the Sinai Desert, overcoming the last hurdles in their path to the realization of their role of a holy people in a holy land.
More than four hundred years ago, master Kabbalist Rabbi Isaac Luria (the “Holy Ari”) told his disciples that the last generation of our current galut(exile)—the generation which will merit to welcome the final and ultimate Redeemer—will be the reincarnation of that very same generation who journeyed through the desert. Moses described that generation’s ordeal as a trek “through the huge and awesome desert… [a place of] thirst without water.”[9] Examining our own spiritually arid environment, we find that description evocative of the very challenges which face us today as we stand on the threshold of Redemption.
A Quantum World
The first problem with our “desert” of today is that it is “great and awesome.” Like all adjectives, the words “great” and “awesome” describe a state of mind rather than an objective reality. It is true that the earth’s untamed wilderness covers more of its surface than do its cultivated areas, but square mileage need not be the ultimate measure of greatness. He who places quality above quantity and views function as more significant than form is not intimidated by the extent of a thing’s physical proportions. From such a person’s perspective, those areas of the earth where man has succeeded in harnessing the resources of his environment and directing them to serve a higher end are the truly “great and awesome” parts of our world. These pockets of refined and realized potential, though but a small fraction of the overall land mass, are far more “substantial” than the undeveloped wilderness.
In contemplating the spiritual terrain of our world, one can also make the mistake of being daunted by quantitative superiority. “If our mission in life is to bring goodness and harmony to our world,” argues the galut-minded individual, “it appears that hardly anything at all has been achieved in our 3000-year effort. For each individual who lives righteously, there exist many who don’t; for every good deed that is done, many selfish and destructive acts are committed. In our world, the negative far outweighs the positive.”
It is not the desert itself which we must overcome as much as our own sense of its “greatness” and “awesomeness.” We must learn to look at content rather than numbers, to recognize that a thimbleful of light will banish a roomful of darkness. We must learn to see the desert for what it truly is: large, but not at all great; a challenge, but certainly no cause for awe.
A Questing Age
A second characteristic of the closing years of galut is that it is a time of “thirst without water.” Ours is a generation which thirsts for the truth, thirsts for meaning and purpose in life. But the water to quench this thirst, the knowledge to sate these questing souls, is elusive to them, sealed behind barriers of ignorance and alienation.
But the thirst is there, awaiting satisfaction. A generation is prepared to drink, if only they would be provided with the water they know not where to seek.
Based on an address by the Rebbe, Shabbat Eikev 5717 (1957)[10]
Adapted from the teachings of the Rebbe by Yanki Tauber
[10] . Likkutei Sichot, vol. II, pp. 372-374.
Tags: kabbalah, galut, Yanki Tauber
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June 24th, 2015
When faced with an assemblage of individuals—a community, a nation, a random crowd—our tendency is to relate to them in terms of their “lowest common denominator.” Some are more knowledgeable, others less so; some are rich, others poor; some are virtuous, others delinquent. So the teacher will take care not to speak beyond the range of his least knowledgeable pupils, the businessman will set the price of his merchandise with a mind to the least affluent among his potential customers, and banks will employ a security system to deter the least moral in the community.
In other words, we tend to view our qualities as additions or premiums to our basic being. We are all born ignorant; some gain a little knowledge, others more. We are all born penniless; some gain a modicum of wealth, others more. We are all born selfish, and are trained to a greater or lesser degree of morality. And so on.
But there also exists another perspective on man: the human being as the vessel of immense potential, with all human achievements as but partial realizations of this potential. In other words, our “common denominator” is as great—indeed, greater than—what we see in the most accomplished human being on earth. This is the vision of humanity expressed by a series of laws in the Torah relating to the korban oleh v’yored, the “sliding scale” offering.
Double Standard
Most of the korbanot (“offerings”) mandated by the Torah are of a fixed nature. In certain cases, the Torah commands to bring a yearling lamb accompanied by specified amounts of meal, wine and oil; in others, a pair of doves; and so on. The korban oleh v’yored (literally, “the ascending and descending offering”) is an exception to this rule. In six cases the Torah instructs that an offering be made in atonement, but says that the content of the offering should be determined by the person’s financial capacity. A woman after childbirth is obligated to bring two offerings—a lamb and a dove; but if she is poor, she is to bring two doves instead.[1] A cured metzora (“leper”), undergoing purification from his state of impurity, must bring two lambs and a ewe; but if he is a poor man, he is to bring a lamb and two doves.[2] And, in the case of one who transgresses a “witness’ oath,” one who inadvertently swears falsely, or one who inadvertently enters the Holy Temple or eats sacred food (kodashim) in a state of ritual impurity, there are three “steps” on the scale: a ewe or she-goat for the most affluent, a pair of doves for a penitent of lesser means, and a meal offering for the most impoverished.[3]
These offerings are commanded by the Torah as a personal obligation upon the individual. However, another person may assume the obligation in his stead. In such a case, the law stipulates that the type of offering is determined by the wealthier of the two individuals. In the words of Maimonides:
“If a rich man says, ‘I assume the obligation for the offerings of this metzora,’ and the said metzora is a pauper, he must bring a rich man’s offering, since a rich man made the pledge. If a poor man says, ‘I assume the obligation for the offerings of this metzora,’ and the said metzora is wealthy, he must bring a rich man’s offering, since he obligated himself to bring a rich man’s offering.”[4]
One can understand the logic of obligating the donor according to his means. There is also logic in the argument that since the offering must achieve atonement for the metzora, the type of offering should be determined by the metzora’s status. But why employ a “double standard,” following the donor’s status when he is the richer man, and the metzora’s status when he is the wealthier?
There is a profound lesson here—a lesson in our mutual responsibility for each other and in how one is to view a fellow man. Every man is intrinsically “wealthy”; the differences between us are only in the extent to which we actualize this wealth. So when one man assumes responsibility for his fellow, both are elevated to the state of the wealthier one between them. If the “donor” has realized his potential to a greater degree, he stimulates an equal realization in his fellow. And if a “pauper” takes it upon himself to help a “richer” man, he has not assumed an obligation that is beyond his means. For he, too, possesses an equal potential, and his very commitment to his “superior” fellow will serve to actualize this potential and raise him to the level on which he can indeed contribute to his fellow’s life.
Based on an address by the Rebbe, Tishrei 26, 5746 (October 10, 1985)[5]
Adapted from the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe by Yanki Tauber.
[2]. Ibid., 14:10, 21-22.
[4]. Mishneh Torah, Laws of Those Requiring Atonement, 5:11.
[5]. Likkutei Sichot, vol. XXVII, pp. 101-106.
Tags: self-improvement, Yanki Tauber, relationships, body and soul, inner self, Jewish law, love your neighbor, responsibility, sacrifices and offerings
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June 24th, 2015
[When Moses said to the people of Israel,] “Remember what Amalek did to you on the road when you were going out of Egypt,” the people of Israel said to him: “Moses our master! One verse [in Torah] states: ‘Remember what Amalek did to you.’ Another verse states: ‘Remember the day of Shabbat, to sanctify it.’ How can both be fulfilled? This one is ‘Remember’ and that one is ‘Remember’!”
Said Moses to them: “A cup of spiced wine is not the same as a cup of vinegar; yet one is a cup and the other is a cup. There is a remembrance to keep and sanctify the day of Shabbat, and there is a remembrance to punish [Amalek]…”
Pirkei D’Rabbi Eliezer, ch. 44
In the course of our lives as human beings, we are called upon to remember hundreds, if not thousands, of things every day: good things and bad things, beneficial things and adversarial things. Why did the people of Israel have a problem with remembering both the sanctity of Shabbat and the evil of Amalek?
Once we understand Israel’s question, perhaps we’ll understand Moses’ enigmatic answer. What is the common denominator between the two “remembrances” expressed by the analogy that “one is a cup and the other is a cup”? And why is the difference and relationship between them expressed by comparing the memory of Shabbat to a “cup of spiced wine” and the memory of Amalek to “a cup of vinegar”?
The Memory of Shabbat
The significance of Shabbat, as we say in the Friday night Kiddush, is that it is “a remembrance of the work of creation.” By ordering our lives, week after week and year after year, after the original days of creation (six days of work followed by a day of hallowed rest), “we remember the work of creation at all times, perpetually conceding that the world has a Creator.” Thus “we permanently establish in our hearts the belief in the creation of the world by G-d in six days.”
The awareness of G-d’s creation of the world is “at all times,” “perpetual” and “permanent” because, as Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi explains in his Tanya, the act of creation itself is unceasing and perpetual. The ten divine utterances (“Let there be light,” “Let the earth sprout forth vegetation,” etc.) that brought the world into being were not a one-time occurrence, but “stand firmly forever within [every creation] and are forever enclothed within [them] to give them life and existence… For if these letters were to depart even for an instant, G-d forbid, and return to their source, all… would revert to naught and absolute nothingness, and it would be as if they had never existed at all.” G-d is constantly “speaking” the world into being; were He to cease verbalizing His desire for a world for a single instant, the world would cease to be.
The ramifications of such a perspective on creation are many and far-reaching. No longer can the world’s relationship with its Creator be delegated to a single moment at the beginning of time; no longer can we conceive of the world as a programmed machine running under the benign eye of its inventor. G-d does not merely watch over the world, or interfere with the world, or even run the world; He creates it, down to its every particle of matter and its every configuration of forces, in every moment of time. The state of the universe at any given point in time is not merely the result of G-d allowing or compelling it to be so, but of His creating it that way, at that very instant, out of absolute nothingness.
With this perspective on reality, we can begin to understand the Torah’s amazing statement that “there is none else besides Him.” The world and everything it contains; the laws of nature, logic and reality; our own sense of identity and selfhood—these are not realities “besides Him.” They possess no existence of their own, for they are utterly dependent upon Him, at any and every given moment, for their very existence and their every quality.
A Dubious Existence
Amalek, on the other hand, represents the ultimate challenge to G-d’s sovereignty. The Midrash compares the circumstances of Amalek’s attack on Israel
“to a tub of boiling water which no creature was able to enter. Along came one evil-doer and jumped into it. Although he was scalded, he cooled it for the others. So, too, when Israel came out of Egypt, and G‑d rent the sea before them and drowned the Egyptians within it, the fear of them fell upon all the nations. But when Amalek came and challenged them, although he received his due from them, he cooled the awe of them for the nations of the world.”
Amalek “recognizes his Master and willfully rebels against Him.” He acknowledges the existence of G-d, acknowledges G-d’s mastery over him, yet he rebels against Him. Amalek does not deny the truth, or evade the truth, or justify his deeds in any way. He simply challenges the truth, knowing that he will fail, knowing that he will be hurt, driven only by an all-consuming need to assert his independence from G-d.
How, then, wondered the people of Israel, can the memory of Shabbat co-exist with the memory of Amalek’s deed? When the Torah commands us to “remember” something, it is telling us to maintain a perpetual awareness of the thing, to ingrain it in our fundamental vision of reality. Indeed, the mitzvah to remember Shabbat and the mitzvah to remember Amalek’s deed are both defined by Torah law as such.
But if the significance of Shabbat is truly internalized, can Amalek be taken seriously? If everything is the exclusive product of the divine volition, can there be any true existence to a phenomenon such as Amalek? One might perhaps conceive of beings that are ignorant of the basis and essence of their own existence; but a being who knows that G-d is his master and nevertheless rebels against Him?
To one who is truly aware of the nature of creation and its utter dependence upon G-d, Amalek is a nonentity, a phantom devoid of all existential validity. How can such a person carry within him a perpetual awareness of Amalek’s deed? How can he be driven to combat something that, to him, does not and cannot exist?
Life as a Meal
In his Tanya, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi speaks of the internal struggles experienced by most every man. There are righteous individuals (tzaddikim) who have so completely transformed their nature that they desire only good; in them, the natural selfishness and rebelliousness of the human heart has been supplanted by a selfless devotion to G-d, to the extent that anything that is contrary to the divine will is literally repulsive to them. But such individuals are extremely rare; most people struggle for their entire lifetime against the negative traits and desires that are part of the inborn character of man.
However, says Rabbi Schneur Zalman, the fact that, for most of us, the struggle continues for as long as we live does not mean that our lives are an exercise in futility. For “there are two kinds of gratification before G-d. One, from the complete annihilation of evil… by the righteous. The second, from the subjugation of evil while it is still at its strongest and most powerful… through the efforts of the ordinary man.
“This is the deeper significance of the verse, ‘Make for me delicacies, such as I love’ —delicacies, in the plural, to indicate two types of gratification… The analogy is to earthly food, in which there likewise exist two kinds of relishes: sweet and luscious foods, and tart and sour foods which have been spiced and fixed in such a way that they are made into delicacies which revive the soul.
“This,” concludes Rabbi Schneur Zalman, “is the meaning of the verse, ‘G-d has made everything for His own sake, even the evildoer for the day of evil,’ meaning that the evildoer should repent of his evil and turn his evil into ‘day’ and light.”
The feast of life includes both wine and vinegar, and the vinegar, too, contributes to the tastiness of the meal. Of course, one must know how to use the vinegar. If one drinks it as one drinks his wine, his meal would be ruined. But when the taste of the vinegar is mitigated and tamed by other ingredients, its very sourness yields a “delicacy to gratify the soul.”
When a person indulges his instinctive ego and rebelliousness as one should indulge one’s positive traits— directly and uninhibitedly—the result is an “evildoer,” and, when taken to the extreme, an Amalek. But when these are moderated and channeled to constructive ends, the result is a “delicacy of the second sort”—a tasty dish concocted out of “the subjugation of the evil while it is still at its strongest and most powerful.”
The Source of Evil
To carry the analogy further, vinegar is a derivative of wine. Vinegar is wine “gone bad,” its natural sweetness and spice deteriorated to virulent sourness.
By the same token, G-d, who is the essence of good, is the ultimate and exclusive source of every existence. Not only the “wine” of life comes from the divine vineyard, but also its “vinegar,” which is actually the offspring of the wine.
There is nothing original to evil. The depraved lusts that inhabit the cellar of the human heart are but the convoluted expressions of its purest loves. The violence that man is capable of is but the corruption of his holiest passions. The most self-destructive addictions are but the soul’s nurturing instincts gone awry.
The rebelliousness of Amalek, too, has a holy source. G-d desires that we challenge Him and has imbued us with the courage to do so. He wants us to contest His conduct when we encounter pain and suffering in His world, as Abraham and Moses protested His decrees against the sinners of Sodom and the worshippers of the Golden Calf, even as we acknowledge the justice and goodness of everything He does and our inability to fathom His ways. By giving us the Torah, He communicated to us His wisdom and will and then told us that “it is no longer in heaven” but entrusted to the finite mind of the Torah sage to interpret and apply. The Talmud relates how when a heavenly voice intervened in support of one opinion in a debate between sages on a point of Torah law, “Rabbi Joshua stood on his feet and said: ‘The Torah is not in heaven’”; G-d’s response was to smile and say “You have triumphed over Me, my children; you have triumphed over Me.”
These challenges are “rebellions” of a holy sort, stemming from a profound faith in G-d, a selfless devotion to His will, and a true appreciation of what He desires from us. But G-d wanted more than the wine of faithful contest. So He distilled from it the vinegar of Amalek—a negative, egotistical rebelliousness that is the antithesis of everything holy—and charged us to vanquish Amalek and exploit its sourness by “spicing it and fixing it” as a delicacy of the second sort, mitigating and redirecting its selfishness and independence as a constructive force in our service of G-d.
The Two Cups
So the remembrance of Shabbat and its message that everything comes from G-d and is utterly servant to Him, and the awareness of the challenge presented by an Amalek who “recognizes his Master and willfully rebels against Him,” are fully compatible with each other. The one is wine, the pristine nectar of divine truth. The other is vinegar, a derivative of that very wine—a corrupt and soured derivative, but a derivative all the same.
As Moses tells the children of Israel, “one is a cup and the other is a cup.” Despite their very different tastes, both are vessels of G-dliness served up to the table of life by the divine caterer; both are part of “All that G-d made, He made for His own sake.” The one is a cup of wine to be relished as is, a direct infusion of joy and flavor into our sanctification of life. The other is a cup of vinegar, belonging to the “tart and sour” elements of life. These we are to “spice and fix in such a way that they are made into delicacies which revive the soul.”
Based on an address by the Rebbe, Shabbat Parshat Zachor 5732 (February 26, 1972)
Adapted from the teachings of the Rebbe by Yanki Tauber
Tags: Rebbe, good and evil, creation, Shabbat, Amalek, love of G-d, Tanya, kiddush
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June 24th, 2015
Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of Chabad Chassidism, served as reader of the weekly Torah section in his synagogue. One year, Rabbi Schneur Zalman was away from home on the Shabbat on which the section of Ki Tavo (Deuteronomy 26-29) was read. In the Rebbe’s absence, someone else did the reading.
Ki Tavo includes the “Rebuke” (tochacha), a harsh description of the calamities destined to befall the Jewish people should they forsake the commandments of the Torah. Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s young son DovBer[1]was so greatly affected by the curses of the Rebuke that he fell ill. Three weeks later, when Yom Kippur approached, he was still so weak that his father was hesitant in allowing him to fast.
When the youngster was asked, “Why did the reading affect you so? Don’t you hear the Rebuke every year?” he replied, “When father reads, one hears only blessings, not curses.”[2]
Another Two Stories
“From the Supernal,” proclaims the prophet Jeremiah, in the midst of his lament over the destruction of the Holy Temple and the exile of Israel, “do not emerge both evil and good.”[3] This is a basic tenet of the Jewish faith: G-d is the essence of good, and since everything in existence derives solely from Him, evil has no true existence. There is only “revealed good” and “hidden good.” What we experience as “evil” is, in truth, hidden good—good that we, because of the limits of our perception, are incapable of perceiving as such.
The Talmud cites two stories that illustrate this point. The first involves Rabbi Akiva:
Rabbi Akiva taught: A person should always say: “Everything that G-d does, He does for the good.” Rabbi Akiva was once traveling, when he arrived in a certain town. He asked for lodgings and was refused. Said he: “Everything that G-d does, He does for the good,” and went to spend the night in a field.
He had with him a rooster, a donkey and a lamp. A wind came and extinguished the lamp, a cat came and ate the rooster, a lion came and ate the donkey. Said he: “Everything that G-d does, He does for good.” That night, an army came and took the entire town captive. Said Rabbi Akiva to his disciples: “Did I not tell you that everything that G-d does, He does for good?”[4] (If the lamp had been lit, the army would have seen me; if the donkey would have brayed or the rooster would have called, the army would have come and captured me.[5] )
The other story is about Nachum Ish Gam Zu:
Why was he called Nachum Ish Gam Zu (“Nachum This Too”)[6]? Because whatever happened to him, he would say: “This, too, is for the good.” Once the Jews wanted to send a gift to the [Roman] Emperor. “Who will go?” they asked. “Let Nachum go, for he is well acquainted with miracles.” They sent along with him a chest full of precious stones and pearls. On the way, he stayed at an inn. During the night, the innkeepers took the contents of the chest and filled it with earth. In the morning, when Nachum saw [what happened], he said: “This, too, is for good.”
When he arrived there, he gave the chest to the king. When the king saw that it was filled with earth, he wanted to kill all [the Jews] and said: “The Jews are mocking me!” Said Nachum: “This, too, is for good.”
Elijah the Prophet appeared disguised as one of the king’s ministers and said: “Perhaps this is the dust of their father Abraham, who would throw dust that turned into spears and straw that turned into arrows[7]?” There was a country which [the Roman armies] could not conquer; they tried [the earth brought by Nachum] and succeeded in conquering it. So they took Nachum into the Emperor’s treasury, filled his chest with precious stones and pearls, and sent him off with great honor.[8]
This
There is a significant difference between Rabbi Akiva’s experience and that of Nachum Ish Gam Zu. Both reacted to seemingly negative events with the confidence that G-d is doing them good rather than evil. But in the case of Rabbi Akiva, the events themselves remained negative: he was left without a roof over his head, in the dark, and he lost his rooster and donkey. The value of these negative events was only that they prevented a greater evil—falling into captivity. Seen in this light, they do not constitute a calamity but a salvation. The fact remains, however, that these experiences were not themselves good, only the implements of good.
In the case of Nachum Ish Gam Zu, the “negative” event itself was revealed as a positive occurrence. The earth the thieves exchanged for the contents of his chest was more valuable than what they took, achieving far more than would a simple gift of gems to an emperor whose treasury was already filled with the same. The only possibly negative element in the whole affair is the anxiety and fear a person of lesser faith might have experienced; Nachum, of course, experienced nothing of the sort, since at no time did he doubt that only good transpires in G-d’s world. Upon waking in the morning and finding the chest filled with earth, he proceeded to the palace to deliver his gift, confident that all would be shown to have been for good.
This difference between the outlooks of Rabbi Akiva and Nachum Ish Gam Zu is also evident in the words they used to express their faith in the goodness of G-d. Rabbi Akiva said, “Everything that G-d does, He does for good.” This implies that while a person might experience certain things as bad, he knows that they are for the sake of a greater good—a good that justifies the negative experience. It does not include the recognition that the event itself is good. Rabbi Akiva did not say that “Everything that G-d does is for good”—meaning that the things He does are positive—only that “Everything G-d does, He does for good”—that G-d’s doing of these things is for a positive end, even if the things themselves are less than good.
But Nachum Ish Gam Zu would say, “This, too, is for good.” Not only am I confident that good shall result from this, but I also perceive this, the event itself, as positive.[9]
Two Generations
The difference between them reflects the different spiritual environments in which the two sages lived.
Rabbi Akiva lived a generation after the destruction of the (second) Beit Hamikdash (Holy Temple) in Jerusalem, which had served as the center of G-d’s manifest presence in the physical world. His was a time of galut—a time of spiritual darkness, a time in which the divine face recedes from view and the divine providence is obscured by hardship, strife and tragedy.[10] Under such conditions, a person is incapable of perceiving the positive essence of every event. At most, he can affirm that there is more to reality than meets the eye—that while an event might remain negative in his perception, he can appreciate that it leads to a greater good. But to comprehend that the event itself is positive is beyond the capacity of one who inhabits a reality that so blatantly belies this truth. He might believe that it is so, but he cannot envision it or relate to it in any way.
Nachum Ish Gam Zu, on the other hand, who was one of Rabbi Akiva’s teachers, was of the previous generation—a generation that experienced the revelation of G-dliness that was the Beit Hamikdash. To them, the quintessential goodness of everything in G-d’s world was close to the surface, and the illusion of evil readily penetrable by a firm faith and unwavering trust in G-d.
The languages in which Nachum and Rabbi Akiva expressed their faith in the ultimate goodness of G-d are indicative of their different perceptions. The Talmud quotes Nachum as proclaiming, “This, too, is for good” (gam zu l’tovah) in the Holy Tongue, while Rabbi Akiva’s words, “Everything that G-d does, He does for good,” (kol d’avid rachmana l’tav avid) are quoted in Aramaic.
The Holy Tongue is the language with which G-d created the world—the language whose words and letters embody the divine essence of creation. A word in the Holy Tongue is much more than an agreed-upon appendage by which to refer to an object or phenomenon; rather, it represents the particular configuration of divine energy that supplies that object or phenomenon with being and life. Words spoken in the Holy Tongue imply a perception of a thing’s essence. Nachum, who lived in an era of divine revelation, was able to say gam zu l’tovah—to express the ultimate nature of every reality.
Aramaic, on the other hand, while closely related to Hebrew, represents a departure from the Holy Tongue’s clear and concise definition of a thing’s essence. When Rabbi Akiva proclaimed the ultimate goodness of everything G-d does, he did so in Aramaic, for his was a more limited perception, a perception veiled by the encroaching galut.[11]
Singing in the Dark
While the (first) Beit Hamikdash was being consumed by flames, Assaf (one of the Levites who served in the Holy Temple) was composing a psalm:
A song to Assaf:
O G-d,
Aliens have entered Your estate
They have defiled Your Sanctuary
They have laid Jerusalem in heaps…[12]
Asks the Midrash:
Should not the verse have said “a wail to Assaf,” “a keen to Assaf,” “a lament to Assaf”? Why does it say “a song to Assaf”? But this is analogous to a king who built a nuptial home for his son, beautifully plastered, inlaid and decorated. Then the son strayed off to an evil life. So the king came to the nuptial canopy, tore down the tapestries and broke the rails, upon which the prince’s tutor took a flute and began to play. Those who saw him asked: “The king is overturning the nuptial canopy of his son, and you sit and sing?” Said he to them: “I am singing because the king overturned his son’s nuptial canopy and did not vent his wrath upon his son.” So, too, was asked of Assaf: “G-d destroyed the Temple and Sanctuary, and you sit and sing?” Replied he: “I am singing because G-d vent His wrath upon wood and stone and did not vent his wrath upon Israel.”[13]
This reflects an “Everything that G-d does, He does for good” conception of evil and suffering, as experienced by Rabbi Akiva. The destruction of theBeit Hamikdash is a terrible tragedy; but it is a positive event in the sense that it prevented the destruction of the Jewish people.
This is the ultimate level of perception of which we are capable in galut: the understanding that despite how terrible and tragic something is in our experience, we know that there is a higher truth, a greater good which it serves. We might eventually discover this greater good, or perhaps never learn what it is; nevertheless, our faith in the goodness of G-d enables us to bear the hardship and pain of the perceived evil in our lives. But we are incapable of recognizing, or even conceiving of, the intrinsic goodness of the “evil” itself.
But there will come a time when the veil of galut will lift, when the divine essence of existence will shine forth, unobscured by the shell of darkness that encases it today. On that day we shall proclaim, “This, too, is for good.” In the words of the prophet Isaiah, “I shall thank You, G-d, for having afflicted me,”[14] for the quintessential goodness of the “affliction” itself will be revealed.
Based on an address by the Rebbe, Av 20, 5711 (August 22, 1951)[15]
Adapted from the teachings of the Rebbe by Yanki Tauber
[1], Rabbi DovBer (1773-1827) succeeded his father as Rebbe and leader of the Chabad Chassidic movement upon the latter’s passing in 1812.
[2]. Hayom Yom, quote for Elul 17.
[4]. Talmud, Berachot 60b.
[6]. Gam zu (‘this too”) is a play on the word Gimzu, the name of Nachum’s hometown in the foothills of Judah.
[7]. When he fought against the Four Kings—see Midrash Rabbah, Bereishit 43:4.
[9]. In Hebrew, the word “this” (zeh or zu) connotes an explicit and directly perceived reality (Rashi on Exodus 15:2 and Numbers 30:2. See The Awareness Factor, WIR vol. IV, no. 1).
[10]. Rabbi Akiva lived in the time of the failed revolt against the Romans led by Bar Kochba (whom Rabbi Akiva had initially believed to be the Messiah); in a time when the study of Torah and the practice of Judaism were outlawed by the Romans and many Jews were tortured and killed. Rabbi Akiva himself met a martyr’s death in the year 134 c.e. (65 years after the destruction of the Holy Temple).
[11]. Rabbi Akiva and Nachum’s different conceptions of “suffering” is also reflected in the exchange between them related in the Jerusalem Talmud, Pe’ah 8:8.
[13]. Midrash Rabbah, Eichah 4:14.
[15]. Likkutei Sichot, vol. III, pp. 393-395; Hitvaaduyot 5751, vol. II, pp. 267-274.
Tags: Rabbi Akiva, Beis Hamikdash, Yanki Tauber, faith, suffering, doing good, redemption
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June 24th, 2015
A disciple of Rabbi Israel of Ruzhin once passed through the town of Premishlan and availed himself of the opportunity to visit the Chassidic master, Rabbi Meir Premishlaner. Upon hearing that the visitor was a chassid of the great Rebbe of Ruzhin, Rabbi Meir received him with honor and reverence.
Upon their parting, Rabbi Meir said: “Tell your Rebbe that I have definite proof that I am greater than he. I have discovered that my blessings are far more effective than his.”
The chassid was quite taken aback to hear these words, especially from the mouth of Rabbi Meir, whose humility was legendary. Noticing his visitor’s confusion, Rabbi Meir smiled and explained:
“The last time we met, your Rebbe blessed me that I should merit to advance in the service of the Almighty, and I returned the blessing. My blessing has been most effective—the holy Rabbi Israel grows daily in saintliness and piety—while his blessing has produced scant results…”
Tags: blessings, Chassidic stories, Divine service, humility
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June 24th, 2015
Elul, the last month of the Jewish year, is a time of paradox.
The Jewish calendar distinguishes between two qualities of time: “mundane” work days, and “holy” days, such as Shabbat and the festivals. Shabbat is a day of disinvolvement from all material endeavor, a day devoted to the spiritual pursuits of study and prayer. The festivals which dot the year are likewise transcendental oases in time, each providing its unique spiritual quality (freedom on Passover, awe on Rosh HaShanah, etc.) to the journeyer through calendar and life.
In this respect, the month of Elul resembles the “holy” portions of the calendar. Elul is a haven in time, a “city of refuge”[1] from the ravages of material life; a time to audit one’s spiritual accounts and assess the year gone by; to prepare for the “Days of Awe” of Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur by repenting the failings of the past and resolving for the future; to immerse oneself in Torah study, prayer and charitable activities. Elul is the opportune time for all this because it is a month in which G-d relates to us in a more open and compassionate manner than He does in the other months of the year. In the terminology of Kabbalah, it is a time when G-d’s “thirteen attributes of mercy” illuminate His relationship with us.
And yet, unlike Shabbat and the festivals, the days of Elul are workdays. On Shabbat, the Torah commands us to cease all materially constructive work (melachah). The festivals, too, are days on which melachah is forbidden.[2] Regarding the month of Elul, however, there are no such restrictions. The transcendent activities of Elul are conducted amidst our workday lives in the field, shop or office.[3]
Elul is the opportune time
Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi explains the paradox of Elul with the following metaphor: The king’s usual place is in the capital city, in the royal palace. Anyone wishing to approach the king must go through the appropriate channels in the palace bureaucracy and gain the approval of a succession of royal secretaries and ministers. He must journey to the capital and pass through the many gates, corridors and antechambers that lead to the throne room. His presentation must be meticulously prepared, and he must adhere to an exacting code of dress, speech and mannerism upon entering into the royal presence.
However, there are times when the king comes out to the fields outside the city. At such times, anyone can approach him; the king receives them all with a smiling face and a radiant countenance. The peasant behind his plow has access to the king in a manner unavailable to the highest ranking minister in the royal court when the king is in the palace.
The month of Elul, says Rabbi Schneur Zalman, is when the king is in the field.[4]
The Field
Bread is the “staff of life”[5] that “sustains the heart of man.”[6] There was a time when most everyone plowed, sowed and harvested the grain that sustained him and his family; but even today, when only a small percentage of us farm the land, we all labor for bread. Everyone works in the field—be it the wheatfield or cornfield, or the field of banking, steelmaking, medicine or politics. “The field” represents the entire spectrum of our workday endeavors.
Indeed, the field is the primary prototype employed by Torah law to distinguish between the “holy” and “mundane” days of the calendar. The Mishnaic passage that lists the types of work forbidden on Shabbat reads: “The categories of work are forty minus one: sowing, plowing, reaping, making sheaves, threshing, winnowing, picking the chaff from the grain, milling, sifting, kneading, baking…”[7]
Each of these activities represents an entire category which includes many different types of work. For example, leveling the ground to make a tennis court is tantamount to “plowing,” mixing cement is a form of “kneading,” and fishing out a fly from your soup would fall under the category of “picking the chaff from the grain.” But it is the work of the field which heads and dominates the list. In the words of the Talmud, “The author of the Mishnah follows the process of bread making.”[8]
For eleven months of the year, our lives alternate between the field and the palace, between the material endeavors of life and the sublime moments in which we abandon the “process of breadmaking” to enter into the royal presence. In the month of Elul, however, the king comes to the field.
What happens when the king comes to the field? The field is not transformed into a palace, yet neither is the king any less a king when he greets the farmer in his soiled overalls. Back in the throneroom, however, in the aura of sanctity that surrounds the king, the sweat and mundane toil of the field seem a million miles away. How do these two worlds meet and what happens when they do?
To understand the essence of Elul, we must first examine the relationship between the palace and the field, between Shabbat and the workweek, between the very concepts of “holy” and “mundane.” Are they really as distant from each other as their very different faces suggest? Or is there some deeper connection between them, some common bond that unites these diverse worlds?
The Sanctuary
A glance at the calendar reveals that mundane days of the year far exceed the holy. Of course, it would be extremely difficult to earn a living if the week consisted of a single workday followed by six days of Shabbat. This, however, is an outgrowth of how G-d created us, encumbering us with a host of material needs and placing us in a world that requires a great deal of plowing, sowing and reaping (or dealing, doctoring or lawyering) to satisfy these needs. Why did G-d so order our lives as to necessitate the investment of the bulk of our time and energy in material endeavors? How is this consistent with the mission with which He charged us at Mount Sinai—to be His “kingdom of priests and holy people”[9]?
The answer lies in G-d’s instruction to the people of Israel, following the revelation at Sinai, to construct a physical edifice to serve as a “Sanctuary” for Him.[10] Fifteen materials (including gold, silver, copper, wood, flax, wool and animal skins) are to be fashioned into a “dwelling for G-d in the physical world.”[11] The construction of the Sanctuary represents the purpose of our soul’s placement within a physical body and world: to imbue our material involvements with an integrity and sanctity of purpose, so that our workday life becomes a “home” for G-d, an abode for His goodness and perfection. Indeed, the Talmud tells us that when a soul ascends to heaven upon the completion of its earthly life, the very first question it is asked—before any questions about the fervor of its prayer or the depth of its Torah study—is, “Have you dealt faithfully in business?” In no other area of life is our purpose in this world fulfilled more than in our day-to-day material dealings.[12]
This explains the rather roundabout way by which the Torah defines the types of work from which we must desist on Shabbat. In both the 31st and 35th chapters of Exodus, the commandment to keep Shabbat, and G-d’s instructions concerning the construction of the Sanctuary, immediately follow each other. The Talmud explains that the juxtaposition of these two seemingly unrelated laws is to teach us that the thirty-nine creative acts which the construction of the Sanctuary necessitated are the same thirty-nine categories of work that are forbidden to us on Shabbat:
A person is guilty of violating the Shabbat only if the work he does has a counterpart in the work of making the Sanctuary: they sowed (the herbs from which to make dyes for the tapestries —Rashi); you, too, shall not sow [on Shabbat]. They harvested [the herbs]; you, too, shall not harvest. They loaded the boards from the ground onto the wagons; you, too, shall not bring an object from a public domain into a private domain…[13]
In other words, the work that occupies the “mundane” days of our lives, and from which we are to desist on Shabbat and the other “holy” days of the year, is holy work—the work to construct a “Sanctuary” for G-d out of the materials of physical life. The mundane is mundane in appearance only—an appearance that is the result of the opacity of the material world, of the veneer of corporeality that conceals its holy function to serve as a “dwelling for G-d.”
The Fortieth Labor
But if the mundane days are intrinsically holy, what are the “holy” days of our lives? If the “holy” days are days in which the construction of the “Sanctuary” is to be halted, what relation, if any, do they have to the purpose of our souls’ descent into the material world? Is Shabbat a vacation from life?
Shabbat and the festivals are elevations in the terrain of time, lookout points for a transcendent view upon its plains and valleys. Without these periodic glimpses from a higher, more detached, perspective, our involvement in the material may well become an enmeshment; instead of sanctifying the mundane, we may find ourselves being profaned by it.
Beyond its mundane surface, the material world possesses a deeper truth—its potential to house the goodness and perfection of its Creator. The purpose of our workday lives is to reveal this potential, to develop the material world as a home for G-d. But on the workdays of our life, this potential is all but invisible to us—obscured by the very process that serves to bring it to light; our very involvement with the material prevents us from experiencing its spiritual essence. To do so, we must rise above it. A “holy” day is a point in time in which we transcend the surface mundanity of our workday lives to behold the true—and future—face of our world.[14]
Thus the Torah instructs: “Six days you shall labor and do all your work.”[15] The Midrash is puzzled by the phrase “do all your work”—is it imperative to finish all one’s work before Shabbat? What if one is working on a project that takes many weeks, or years, to complete? The Midrash explains: “When Shabbat comes, you should see all your work as done.”[16] But is not Shabbat the day on which we transcend our workday endeavors? Would it not be more appropriate to say that on Shabbat one is to view all his work as utterly insignificant and non-existent?
In truth, however, Shabbat is indeed a day on which we “see all our work as done”: a day on which we rise above our workday life to perceive the goal and end-product of our labors.
And when we re-enter the mundane days of our lives, the Shabbat or festival experience lingers on. Enriched with insight into the true nature of reality, fortified by the vision of what our involvement with the material will ultimately achieve, our workday lives become focused on their goal, and less susceptible to the diversions and entanglements of the mundane.[17]
The King
For eleven months of the year, our lives alternate between the holy and the mundane—between the material labor of life and the spiritual vision of that labor’s objective. For eleven months of the year, we must regularly cease our work and rise above it in order to glimpse its soul and purpose.
In the month of Elul, however, the king is in the field.
The king is the heart and soul of the nation, the embodiment of its goals and aspirations. The king, though sequestered behind the palace walls and bureaucracy, though glimpsed, if at all, through a veil of opulence and majesty, is a very real part of the farmer’s field. He is the “why” of his plowing, the reason for his sowing, the object of his harvest. No farmer labors for the sake of labor. He labors to transcend the dust of which he and his field are formed, to make more of what is. He labors for his dreams. He labors for his king.
So is the king in the field an apparition out of its element? Hardly. We may not be used to seeing him here, but is not the royal heart, too, sustained by bread? His bread may be baked in the palace, its raw ingredients discreetly delivered to a back entrance; the golden tray on which it is served may in no way evoke the loamy bed from which it grew; but it is the yield of the field all the same.
The king in the field is making contact with the source of his sustenance, with the underpinnings of his sovereignty. And the field is being visited by its raison d’être, by its ultimate function and essence.
Shabbat is when the farmer is invited to the palace. On Shabbat, his overalls are replaced with the regulation livery, his vocabulary is polished and his manners refined, his fingernails and soul are cleansed of the residue of material life. On Shabbat, the farmer is whisked from the hinterland to the capital and ushered into the throne room.
But Elul is when the king comes to the field.
When the farmer sees the king in his field, does he keep on plowing? Does he behave as if this were just another day in the fields? Of course not. Elul is not a month of ordinary workdays. It is a time of increased Torah study, more fervent prayer, more generosity and charity. The very air is charged with holiness. We might still be in the field, but the field has become a holier place.
On the other hand, when the farmer sees the king in his field, does he run home to wash and change? Does he rush to the capitol to school himself in palace protocol? The king has come to the field, to commune with the processors of his bread in their environment and on their terms.
In the month of Elul, the essence and objective of life becomes that much more accessible. No longer do the material trappings of life conceal and distort its purpose, for the king is paying a visit. But unlike the holy days of the year, when we are lifted out of and above our workday lives, the encounter of Elul is hosted by our physical selves, within our material environment, on our workingman’s terms.
Based on an address by the Rebbe, Elul 4, 5750 (August 25, 1990)[18]
Adapted from the teachings of the Rebbe by Yanki Tauber
[1]. See A Haven in Time, WIR, vol. VIII, no. 51.
[2]. The laws prohibiting work on Shabbat apply, with several exceptions, to the festivals as well.
[3]. Excepting, of course, Elul’s four Shabbatot.
[4]. Likkutei Torah, Re’eh 32b.
[5]. Cf. Leviticus 26:26.
[7]. Talmud, Shabbat 73a.
[11]. Midrash Tanchuma, Nasso 16; see Tanya, ch. 36.
[12]. Talmud, Shabbat 31a.
[14]. Thus, Shabbat is a taste of the World to Come (Talmud, Berachot 57b; et al).
[16]. Mechilta on Exodus, ibid.
[17]. This is also expressed in the curious manner in which the Mishnah refers to the number of categories of work forbidden on Shabbat: “The categories of work are forty minus one.” As a rule, the Mishnah employs a “pure and concise” wording; why doesn’t it simply say, “The categories of work are thirty-nine”? The Talmudic commentaries explain that, in truth, there are forty categories of work, alluded to by the fact that the wordmelachah is mentioned forty times in the Torah. Yet when we count the categories of work involved in the construction of the Sanctuary, we find only thirty-nine. The missing endeavor is one that is permitted on Shabbat—“the work of Heaven.” In other words, there are actually forty elements to the worklife of man: our thirty-nine creative labors within physical reality, and a fortieth, spiritual element that must pervade our work, and whose source is the “work” of Shabbat.
[18]. Sefer HaSichot 5750, vol. II, pp. 642-648.
Tags: Shabbat, love of G-d, Elul, Yanki Tauber
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