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Sin In Four Dimensions
http://www.chabad.org/therebbe/article_cdo/aid/61695/jewish/Sin-In-Four-Dimensions.htm
The Midrash recounts the following dialogue on the significance of sin:
Wisdom was asked: What is the fate of the transgressor? Wisdom replied: "Evil pursues iniquity" (Proverbs 13:21).
Prophecy was asked: What is the fate of the transgressor? Prophecy replied: "The soul that sins, it shall die" (Ezekiel 18:20).
The Torah was asked: What is the fate of the transgressor? Torah replied: He shall bring a guilt-offering, and it shall atone for him (Leviticus, ch. 5).
G-d was asked: What is the fate of the transgressor? G-d replied: He shall do teshuvah, and it shall atone for him.
1) The Philosophical Perspective
Sin follows the course of natural law
The concept of "reward and punishment" is one of the fundamental principles of Jewish faith. But punishment for wrongdoing, say our sages, is no more G-d's "revenge" than falling to the ground is Divine retribution for jumping out the window or frostbite is G-d's punishment for a barefoot trek in the snow. Just as the Creator established certain laws of cause and effect that define the natural behavior of the physical universe, so, too, did He establish a spiritual-moral "nature," by which doing good results in a good and fulfilling life and doing evil results in negative and strifeful experiences.
This is the philosophical perspective on sin and punishment, expressed by King Solomon in the above-quoted verse from Proverbs. "Evil pursues iniquity" -- the adverse effects of sin are the natural consequences of acts that run contrary to the Creator's design for life.
2) The Prophet's View
Prophecy, which is G-d's empowerment of man to cleave to and commune with Him, has a deeper insight into the significance of sin.
The essence of life is connection with G-d. "And you who cleave to G-d," says Moses to the people of Israel, at the end of their physically and spiritually perilous 40-year journey through the desert, "are all alive today." "Love the L-rd your G-d," he also enjoins them, "for He is your life."So a transgression is more than a spiritually "unhealthy" deed -- it is an act of spiritual suicide. In the words of the prophet Ezekiel, "The soul that sins, it shall die," for to transgress the Divine will is to sabotage the lifeline of vitality that connects the soul to its source. Our sages echo the prophetic perspective on sin when they state: "The wicked, even in their lifetimes, are considered dead... The righteous, even in death, are considered alive."
3) The Guilt-Offering
Korban acknowledgment of subjecting of the animal soul to G-d and contrition of that soul as sincere repentance
The Torah has yet a more penetrating view on the dynamics of transgression. It, too, recognizes that the essence of a person's life is his relationship with G-d. But the Torah also perceives the superficiality of evil -- the fact that "a person does not sin unless a spirit of insanity enters into him."
The soul of man, which is "literally a part of G-d above," "neither desires, nor is able, to separate itself from G-d." It is only a person's animal self -- the material and selfish drives which overlay his G-dly soul -- who might, at times, take control of his life and compel him to act in a manner that is completely at odds with his true self and will.
Because the Torah perceives the superficiality of sin, it can guide the transgressor through a process by which he can undo the negative effects of his transgression--a process by which the transgressor recognizes the folly and self-destructiveness of his deed and reinstates his true, G-dly self as the sovereign of his life. This process culminates with the transgressor's bringing of a korban (animal sacrifice) as an offering to G-d, signifying his subjugation of his own animal self to the spark of G-dliness within him.
In this way, the "guilt-offering" achieves atonement for sin. Only the most external self was involved in the transgression in the first place; by renouncing the deed as "animal behavior" and subjugating the beast within to serve the soul's G-dly aims, the transgressor restores the integrity of his relationship with the Almighty.
4) What G-d Sees
Potential for repentance
There is one thing, however, that the philosophical, prophetic and Torahic perspectives on sin have in common: the transgression was, and remains, a negative phenomenon.
"Wisdom" sees it as the harbinger of evil in a person's life. "Prophecy" sees it as antithetical to life itself. Torah delves deeper yet, revealing the root cause of sin and providing the key to the transgressor's rehabilitation; but even after the atonement prescribed by the Torah, the transgression itself remains a negative event. Torah itself defines certain deeds as contrary to the Divine will; so nothing in Torah can change the fact that a transgression constitutes a betrayal of the relationship between G-d and man.
G-d, as the author of wisdom, the bestower of prophecy and the commander of Torah, is the source of all three perspectives. But He also harbors a fourth vision of sin, a vision that is His alone: sin as the potential for teshuvah.
The Forbidden Realm
assur and mutar
The commandments of the Torah categorize the universe into two domains: the permissible and the forbidden. Beef is permissible, pork is forbidden; doing work on the first six days of the week is permissible, to do so on Shabbat is not; the trait of compassion is to be cultivated, and that of haughtiness is to be eliminated.
Chassidic teaching explains that this is more than a list of do's and don'ts: it is also a catalog of realizable and unrealizable potentials. Every created entity possesses a "spark" of Divine energy that constitutes its essence and soul--a spark that embodies its function within the Divine purpose for creation. When a person utilizes something--be it a physical object or force, a trait or feeling, or a cultural phenomenon--toward a G-dly end, he brings to light the Divine spark at its core, manifesting and realizing the purpose for which it was created.
While no existence is devoid of such a spark -- indeed, nothing can exist without the pinpoint of divinity that imbues it with being and purpose -- not every spark can be actualized through man's constructive use of the thing in which it is invested. There are certain "impregnable" elements -- elements with which the Torah has forbidden our involvement, so that the sparks they contain are inaccessible to us.
Thus, for example, one who eats a piece of kosher meat and then uses the energy gained from it to perform a mitzvah, thereby "elevates" the spark of divinity that is the essence of the meat, freeing it of its mundane incarnation and raising it to a state of fulfilled spirituality. However, if one would do the same with a piece of non-kosher meat--meat that G-d has forbidden us to consume--no such elevation would take place. Even if he applied the energy to positive and G-dly ends, this would not constitute a realization of the Divine purpose in the meat's creation, since the consumption of the meat was an express violation of the Divine will.
This is the deeper significance of the Hebrew terms assur and mutar employed by Halachah (Torah law) for the forbidden and the permissible. Assur, commonly translated as "forbidden," literally means "bound"; this is the halachic term for those elements whose sparks the Torah has deemed bound and imprisoned in a shell of negativity and proscription. Mutar ("permitted"), which literally means "unbound," is the halachic term for those sparks which the Torah has empowered us to extricate from their mundane embodiment and actively involve in our positive endeavors.
Obviously, the "bound" elements of creation also have a role in the realization of the Divine purpose outlined by the Torah. But theirs is a "negative" role -- they exist so that we should achieve a conquest of self by resisting them. There is no Torah-authorized way in which they can actively be involved in our development of creation, no way in which they may themselves become part of the "dwelling for G-d" that we are charged to make of our world. Of these elements it is said, "Their breaking is their rectification." They exist to be rejected and defeated, and it is in their defeat and exclusion from our lives that their raison detre is realized.
The Man in the Desert
teshuvah return to G-d
These are the rules that govern our existence and our service of G-d. One who lives by these rules, establishing them as the supreme authority over his behavior, attains the status of tzaddik ("perfectly righteous"). Yet our sages tell us that there is an even higher level of closeness to G-d--that "in the place where baalei teshuvah ("returnees"; penitents) stand, utter tzaddikim cannot stand."
The tzaddik is one who has made the Divine will the very substance of his existence. Everything that becomes part of his life--the food he eats, the clothes he wears, the ideas and experiences he garners from his surroundings--are elevated, their "sparks" divested of their mundanity and raised to their Divine function. And he confines himself to the permissible elements of creation, never digressing from the boundaries that Torah sets for our involvement with and development of G-d's world.
The baal teshuvah, on the other hand, is one who has digressed; one who has ventured beyond the realm of the permissible and has absorbed the irredeemable elements of creation into his life. His digression was a wholly negative thing; but having occurred, it holds a unique potential: the potential for teshuvah, "return."
Teshuvah is fueled by the utter dejection experienced by one who wakes to the realization that he has destroyed all that is beautiful and sacred in his life; by the pain of one who has cut himself off from his source of life and well-being; by the alienation felt by one who finds himself without cause or reason to live. Teshuvah is man's amazing ability to translate these feeling of worthlessness, alienation and pain into the drive for rediscovery and renewal.
THE BAAL TESHUVAH a person whose very abandonment of G-d drives him to seek Him with a passion the most saintly tzaddik cannot know.
The baal teshuvah is a person lost in the desert whose thirst, amplified a thousandfold by the barrenness and aridity of his surroundings, drives him to seek water with an intensity that could never have been called forth by the most proficient welldigger; a person whose very abandonment of G-d drives him to seek Him with a passion the most saintly tzaddik cannot know. A soul who, having stretched the cord that binds it to its source to excruciating tautness, rebounds with a force that exceeds anything experienced by those who never leave the Divine orbit.
In this way, the baal teshuvah accomplishes what the most perfect tzaddik cannot: he liberates those sparks of divinity imprisoned in the realm of the forbidden. In his soul, the very negativity of these elements, their very contrariness to the Divine will, becomes a positive force, an intensifier of his bond with G-d and his drive to do good.
This is teshuvah, "return," in its ultimate sense: the reclaiming of the "lost" moments (or days, or years) and energies of a negative past; the restoration of sparks imprisoned in the lowliest realms of creation; the magnified force of a rebounding soul.
Good and Evil
But what of the "bindings" that imprison these sparks? If the tzaddik were to employ a forbidden thing toward a positive end, he would fail to elevate it; indeed, the deed would drag him down, distancing him, rather than bringing him closer, to the G-d he is presuming to serve. From where derives the baal teshuvah's power to redeem what the Torah has decreed "bound" and irredeemable?
In its commentary on the opening verses of Genesis, the Midrash states:
At the onset of the world's creation, G-d beheld the deeds of the righteous and the deeds of the wicked... "And the earth was void and chaotic..." -- these are the deeds of the wicked. "And G-d said: ‘Let there be light'" -- these are the deeds of the righteous. But I still do not know which of them He desires... Then, when it says, "And G-d saw the light, that it is good," I know that He desires the deeds of the righteous, and does not desire the deeds of the wicked.
In other words, the only true definition of "good" or "evil" is that "good" is what G-d desires and "evil" is what is contrary to His will. The fact that we instinctively sense certain deeds to be good and others to be evil -- the fact that certain deeds are good and certain deeds are evil -- is the result of G-d having chosen to desire certain deeds from man and to not desire other deeds from man. We cannot, however, speak of good and evil "before" G-d expressly chose the "deeds of the righteous." On this level, where there is nothing to distinguish right from wrong, we cannot presume to know what G-d will desire.
Therein lies the difference between the tzaddik and the baal teshuvah.
The tzaddik relates to G-d through his fulfillment of the Divine will expressed in the Torah. Thus, his achievements are defined and regulated by the Divine will. When he does what G-d has commanded to be done, he elevates those elements of creation touched by his deeds. But those elements with which the Divine will forbids his involvement are closed to him.
The baal teshuvah, however, relates to G-d Himself, the formulator and professor of this will. Thus, he accesses a Divine potential that, by Torah's standards, is inaccessible. Because his relationship with G-d is on a level that precedes and supersedes the Divine will--a level on which one "still does not know which of them He desires"--there are no "bound" elements, nothing to inhibit the actualization of the Divine potential in any of G-d's creations. So when the baal teshuvah sublimates his negative deeds and experiences to fuel his yearning and passion for good, he brings to light the sparks of G-dliness they hold.
To Be and To Be Not
What enables the baal teshuvah to connect to G-d in such a way? The tzaddik's ability to relate to G-d through the fulfillment of His will was granted to each and every one of us when G-d gave us the Torah at Mount Sinai. But what empowers the baal teshuvah to reach the "place where utter tzaddikim cannot stand" and tap the "pre-will" essence of G-d?
The thrust of the baal teshuvah's life is the very opposite of the tzaddik's. The tzaddik is good, and the gist of everything he does is to amplify that goodness. The baal teshuvah had departed from the path of good, and the gist of everything he does is to deconstruct and transform what he was. In other words, the tzaddik is occupied with the development of self, and the baal teshuvah, with the negation of self.
Thus the tzaddik's virtue is also what limits him. True, his development of self is a wholly positive and G-dly endeavor--he is developing the self that G-d wants him to develop, and by developing this self he becomes one with the will of G-d. But a sense of self is also the greatest handicap to relating to the essence of G-d, which tolerates no camouflaging or equivocation of the truth that "there is none else besides Him."
The baal teshuvah, on the other hand, is one whose every thought and endeavor is driven by the recognition that he must depart from what he is in order to come close to G-d. This perpetual abnegation of self allows him to relate to G-d as G-d is, on a level that transcends G-d's specific projection of Himself formulated in His Torah.
The Fourth Dimension
This is G-d's perspective on sin: sin as the facilitator of teshuvah. "Wisdom," "prophecy" and "Torah" are all part of a reality polarized by good and evil; they can perceive only the damage inflicted by sin, or, at most (as in the case of Torah), the manner by which it might be undone. G-d's reality, however, is wholly and exclusively good. "No evil resides with You," sings the Psalmist. In the words of Jeremiah, "From the Supernal do not stem both evil and good."
From G-d's perspective, there is only the positive essence of transgression--the positive purpose for which He created man's susceptibility to evil and his capacity for sin in the first place. As viewed by its Creator, transgression is the potential for a deeper bond between Himself and man--a bond borne out of the transformation of evil into good and failure into achievement.
The Speed of Light
http://www.chabad.org/therebbe/article_cdo/aid/61959/jewish/The-Speed-of-Light.htm
For thousands of years, information traveled no faster than its human bearer. Beyond the range of the human ear and eye, man could communicate with his fellow only as speedily as the swiftest means he could devise to physically carry a person (or animal) across the miles which separated them.
But a century and a half ago, the very concept of communication underwent a radical transformation: man learned to translate words into pulses of energy surging through a copper wire. Then radio waves were discovered and exploited, even further freeing the flow of information from the limitations imposed by physical distance--ideas and data could now be transmitted across vast distances in virtually no time at all.
TIMELESSNESS AND SPACE TIME
The new communication technologies yielded a vast array of tools which man--imbued by his Creator with the capacity to freely choose between good and evil--could utilize to the betterment of his self and world, or to their detriment. But even more significant is the way these discoveries changed our very perception of the reality we inhabit. For the first time in our history, we experienced timelessness.
As physical beings, we inhabit a world defined by "spacetime"--a virtual grid in whose context all objects and events are assigned a "place" which defines their relationship vis-a-vis each other by placing an X amount of "distance" between them. Bridging this distance "takes time": to get from event A to event B, one must first pass through the seconds or centuries which separate them, one at a time; for object A to exert an influence upon object B, it must first surmount the millimeters or miles which separate them, one at a time. In other words, getting from point A to point B is a process--a sequence of actions occurring one after the other.
Such was our experience of reality before the advent of electronic communication. But with the invention of the telegraph, telephone and radio, the transfer of information became instantaneous. No longer did it take any longer to communicate across the globe than across the room. No longer was time a meaningful factor in linking two points on earth, regardless of the distance between them.
Of course, it does take time for radio waves to pass through space: ultimately, our world is no less physical (i.e., no less defined by time and space) than it was two centuries ago. But the fact that we experience a link across distances in no perceptible duration of time represents a breakthrough not only in the way we live but also in the way we think. Perhaps we, living today, cannot appreciate how incredible the notion of instantaneous communication was to the mind of pre-telegraph man. We do know, however, that despite the fact that we never actually supercede time, the concept of "timelessness" has become part and parcel of our idea and experience of reality.
THE PAADOX OF TIMELESSNESS APPRECIATION THAT TIME BIDS
Paradoxically, our newly-acquired capacity to experience timelessness has also deepened our awareness of the time-bound quality of our lives. As long we lived wholly within time, we could not attain a true appreciation of what time is. Would we know that "light" exists and be able to study its characteristics if we never experienced darkness? Would we be aware of the phenomenon of "life" if never confronted by its deterioration and departure? To know a thing and appreciate its qualities and potentials we must first surpass its limits, at least in the realm of the mind.
Why is time necessary? And why is it important that we should understand what time is? Of course, we cannot even imagine what a truly timeless reality would be like (would everything happen at once? or would things not "happen" at all, only "be"?). But no matter: if G-d would have created a timeless world, that would have been the only comprehensible form of existence, and we would have had no idea of what "time" might be. So is time just one of many possible ways to make our world "work"? Or is there a deeper reason for this particular formulation of reality?
Conversely, we might ask: Having been placed within a time-bound reality, why have we been granted the ability to try its limits and advance to the threshold of timelessness? Is this just so that we should better appreciate the significance of time? Or is there some deeper reason why our time-centered lives must also include a glimpse of a reality beyond time's boundaries?
Spiritual Time
Seder Hishtalshelut ("Order of Evolution")-a cosmic chain of "worlds"
Even G-d's creation of the world "took time."
The Torah relates how G-d created the world in six days. On a deeper level, the Kabbalistic masters refer to the physical world as the last link of a Seder Hishtalshelut ("Order of Evolution")-a cosmic chain of "worlds" extending from heaven to earth. Kabbalah describes how G-d began His work of creation by creating all existences in their most sublime and spiritual form, and then proceeded to cause them to evolve and metamorphose, in many steps and stages, into successively more concrete forms, ultimately producing our physical world--the "lowliest" and most tangible embodiment of these realities.
For example, physical water is the end product of a series of more spiritual creations, such as the emotion of love and the divine attribute of chessed ("benevolence"); physical earth is the material incarnation of a string of creations which include concepts such as "femininity" and "receptiveness," and originate in the divine attribute of malchut ("regality"). And so it is with every object, force and phenomenon in our world: each exists on the many levels of the Seder Hishtalshelut, ranging from its most ethereal state to its most corporeal form.
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Seder Hishtalshelut
(Chassidic term; lit. "order of evolution"); the chainlike progression of spiritual worlds; the spiritual cosmos
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Not only the contents of our physical world, but also its defining parameters--space and time--are "end-of-the-line" products of the Seder Hishtalshelut.
We know space as the three dimensions in whose context physical objects are positioned in spatial relation to each other (above, beside, behind, etc.). But there is also a conceptual space: we speak of "higher" and "lower" planes of reality; we describe ideas as "deep" or "shallow." So spiritual entities also occupy a "space" which defines their position in relation to each other and to the world they occupy. Common thinking is that these "conceptual space" characterizations are merely mental projections of physical phenomena in an attempt by our physical minds to contemplate and discuss metaphysical abstractions. The truth, say the Kabbalists, is the very opposite: space originates as a wholly spiritual phenomenon, and then "descends" through the Seder Hishtalshelut to evolve into increasingly more concrete forms. Thus physical space derives from "conceptual space," which in turn evolved from an even more abstract form of space, and so on. The higher we ascend the chain of Hishtalshelut, the more abstract and ethereal is the space of that particular "world."
spiritual time is not so limited.
Time, too, exists on many levels, as it evolves from its most spiritual form all the way down to "our" physical time. What we experience as a one-way time arrow through the tenses of past, present and future is but the last and most concrete incarnation of the element or phenomenon of time. As it descends through the Seder Hishtalshelut time is expressed in many forms: it is the essence of motion, causation, and change; it underlies the pulse of life, the processional nature of reason and the pendulum of feeling.
While physical time is chronological--its "past" occurs before its "future"--spiritual time is not so limited. For example, the concepts A (1+1=2) and B (2-1=1) occupy different positions in the timeline of logic: A precedes B in logical sequence (i.e., because one plus one equals two, therefore two minus one equals one). But the fact that B "follows" A does not mean that there is a point in physical time at which A exists and B does not. They both always exist, even as the "first" causes the "second." Or, to take an example from the "world" of emotion: feeling A may cause feeling B (e.g. a feeling of reverence and awe toward a great and magnificent being produces a yearning to approach this being and be touched by its greatness), but the possessor of these two feelings always had them both--they developed simultaneously in his heart, although the "first" (the awe) is the root and cause of the "second" (the craving to come close).
In other words, spiritual realities such as ideas and feelings also exist within "time," yet theirs is a more abstract, spiritual form of time, transcending the "one at a time" and "one way travel" limitations of physical time.
The Seder Hishtalshelut itself is a function of spiritual time: the very concept of an "order" and an "evolution" presumes a reality governed by cause and effect. Of course, the evolution of creation from spirit to matter did not "take time" in the commonplace sense of the word--G-d did not have to "wait" for the successive phases and stages of the Seder Hishtalshelut to yield their final product. In terms of physical time, the creation of the physical world--the result G-d desired of the creation-process--was instantaneous. But on the conceptual level, "time" is the framework within which the many levels of the created reality unfold.
Thus time may be regarded as the "first" creation. Since creation is a process in which a series of worlds evolve one from (and thus "after") the other, it is an event which "takes time"--at least in the most abstract sense of the term. On the other hand, G-d's act of creation did not take place "in" time, which would imply that there was something (i.e., the phenomenon of time) that wasn't created by G-d! So if time did not pre-exist creation yet is a necessary component of it, this means that time came into being as an integral part of the very concept of "creation" (which is itself a created entity).
WHY NOT IMMEDIATE CREATION ?
In other words, time exists because G-d desired that creation should constitute a process--a chain of worlds extending from heaven to earth, each the product of its "predecessor." Without time (on the most abstract level) there could not be a Seder Hishtalshelut; and without time (on the physical level), we, who can only relate to spiritual concepts as abstractions of their counterparts in our physical reality, could not conceive of, much less contemplate, the "order of evolution" linking the Creator's most sublime works to our own world.
The Parable
Of course, G-d did not "need" all this. He could have created the physical world in a truly instantaneous manner--not only in terms of physical time but in the conceptual sense as well, without passing through the stages of the Seder Hishtalshelut. So why create an entire chain of universes populated by spiritual versions of our reality, just so that our world could congeal into being as its lowest link? Why not just go ahead and create the physical reality as it is, since this was the objective of His creation?
In any act of creation or development, the method which yields instantaneous results usually represents the most direct and convenient approach--as far as the creator or developer is concerned. But what about those at the receiving end? How is such an approach--as opposed a phased, evolutionary process--reflected in the nature of the end-product? How does it affect its utility for those for whom it is intended?
EXAMPLE OF A TEACHER CONVEYING AN IDEA
Let us consider the example of a teacher who wishes to convey an idea to his pupil, and thereby create a new mental vista within the mind of the pupil. Our teacher has two possible approaches open to him. He can take the direct approach and simply declaim the idea as he, the teacher, understands it. Or, he can coarsen the idea by means of a parable or metaphor, bringing it down to his pupil's level by dressing it in terms and concepts from the pupil's world.
In certain cases, bringing it down just one level would not be enough--even the parable might be too subtle for the pupil's unrefined mind. In such a case, the patient teacher will dress the parable in yet another layer--or even numerous additional layers--of allegory, until his most abstract idea has been made sufficiently tangible for consumption by the pupil's mind.
Once this has been achieved and the concept has been successfully "smuggled" into the pupil's mind within its allegorical packagings, the pupil can them proceed to ponder the parable and seek its deeper significance. Eventually, the pupil may succeed in his efforts to strip the concept of its outermost layer of tangibilization and reveal the next layer. Knowing that this, too, is but an allegory, the pupil will repeat the process. Ultimately, perhaps only after many years of mental toil and intellectual maturation, the pupil will uncover the innermost kernel of wisdom concealed within.
But why bother? Why not take the direct approach and simply articulate the concept in all its depth and profundity? Because were the teacher to do so, his words would be absolutely meaningless to the pupil. The pupil may record his master's words; he may review them and learn to repeat them verbatim; he may even, if keeps at it long enough, convince himself that he understands them; but, in truth, he has not gained an iota of insight into their significance.
Certainly, G-d could have created our physical reality in an "instantaneous" manner, without "bothering" with a Seder Hishtalshelut. But where would that leave us? We and our world would exist, but would we be capable of any insight into the significance of our existence? We could be told about our mission in life and our relationship with our Creator, but could we possibly understand it?
G-D WANTED OUR LIVES TO BE A PARABLE OF SEARCHING LAYERS
G-d wanted our lives to be a parable (of a parable of a parable of a parable) of a higher reality. He wanted that the world we inhabit should be but the outermost layer of successively more abstract and spiritual realities, each but a single leap of insight from the one within it, so that by beginning with our comprehension of our own reality we may ascend, step by step, in our understanding of from whence we come and what and why we are.
The Limitations of Hishtalshelut
It would mean that we can relate to these truths only via the many garments in which G-d has shrouded Himself in order to make Himself and His creation comprehensible to us.
Hence the "necessity" for the Seder Hishtalshelut. This is why the essence of time--the very phenomena of "evolution," "cause and effect" and "process"--was created: so that our physical existence should not be an island in the void of the incomprehensible but a connected link in a chain of worlds leading to its sublime origins in the creative energy of G-d. And because we experience time on our physical level, we can relate to the concept of a Seder Hishtalshelut in "spiritual time" and retrace the process of creation by climbing the links of this cosmic chain.
But all this is only one side of the story. The Seder Hishtalshelut is crucial to our mission in life, which dictates that we not only serve G-d but also strive to comprehend the nature of His relationship with our existence. But the "chain of evolution" is not only a link--it is also a screen, like the parable with conveys the idea but also simplifies its profundity and coarsens its subtlety. Were our relationship with the Almighty to be confined to the channel offered by the Seder Hishtalshelut, it would mean that we have no direct connection with the infinite and utterly indefinable reality of our Creator and the divine essence of creation. It would mean that we can relate to these truths only via the many garments in which G-d has shrouded Himself in order to make Himself and His creation comprehensible to us.
a glimpse of the "real thing,"
Let us return to our teacher and pupil. If you recall, the teacher is in the midst of expounding a parable (the last and most "external" of a string of parables) which will embody the concept, but will also obscure it and convey only the much constrained and coarsened version of it which the pupil is capable of comprehending. But the teacher also wants to somehow allow his pupil a glimpse of the "real thing," to accord him a true, if fleeting, vision of the concept in all its sublime purity. He wants the pupil to know that this is not where it's at; he wants him to appreciate the extent of that which lies buried within. Because although the "multi-parable" approach presents the pupil with the tools with which he can ultimately attain a full and comprehensive understanding of the concept, it is not free of its own pitfalls. There is a danger involved as well--the danger that the pupil will get bogged down in the parable itself (or in its second, third or fourth abstraction) and fail to carry it through to its ultimate significance; that he will come to mistake a shallow and external version of his master's teaching for the end of his intellectual quest.
So in the course of his delivery, the teacher will allow a word, a gesture, an inflection to escape the parable's rigid constraints. He will allow a glimmer of unconstrained wisdom to seep through the many layers of allegory which enclose the pure concept within. This "glimmer" will, of course, be utterly incomprehensible to the pupil; but it will impress upon him an appreciation of the depth of the concept within the parable--an appreciation of how far removed he still is from a true comprehension of his master's teachings.
By the same token, G-d did more than make us creatures in time: He also empowered us to contemplate its limits and even experience a semblance of "timelessness" in our daily lives. And our complex relationship with physical time mirrors our souls' relationship with time's spiritual counterpart and predecessor. Even as G-d relates to us via the Seder Hishtalshelut, which dictates that our experience of Him be filtered through a chain of intellectual, emotional and spiritual processes, He also grants us moments of direct and unfiltered contact with Himself--moments of "instantaneous" connection that transcend the order of creation.
This essay along with the Talmud's revealing of Joseph Smith as the forerunner of Jesus the Messiah and Church as the reposing of divine knowledge was described in the Zohar as described here in this essay.The Church will be its custodian and guardian delegated by our illustrious Savior Jesus Christ (known on earth) from heaven and will be directed in manners inconceivable from there and from his visitation to the darkest in the cyclical chain of worlds(prior to its being "enlightened"). He referenced many times Jesus in his long six hour talks ,etc.
(Menachem Mendel Schneerson, 7th Rebbe of the dynasty of Lubavitch and recognized leader the world over of world Jewry. This was an essay of the Rebbe . He expired 1992 and is now with his inspiring lord and other dignitaries of heaven. "and greater works than these shall ye do because I go to the Father" (paraphrase).
The Fifty-Sixth Century
http://www.chabad.org/therebbe/article_cdo/aid/1172/jewish/The-Fifty-Sixth-Century.htm
Based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
The Fifty-Sixth Century
Based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
Courtesy of MeaningfulLife.com
In the six hundredth year in the life of Noah... all wellsprings of the great deep burst open, and the windows of heaven were opened...
Genesis 7:11
The Zohar interprets this verse as a prediction that "in the sixth century of the sixth millennium, the gates of supernal wisdom will be opened, as will the springs of earthly wisdom, preparing the world to be elevated in the seventh millennium."
Indeed, the fifty-sixth century from creation (1740-1840 in the secular calendar) was a time of great discovery and accelerated development, both in the supernal wisdom of Torah and in the earthly wisdom of secular science. This was the century in which the teachings of Chassidism were revealed and disseminated by Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov and his disciples. The inner soul of Torah, which until then had been the province of a select number of mystics in each generation, was made accessible to all, imparting a new depth to our understanding of the divine wisdom and infusing vitality and joy into our observance of the mitzvot.
As these supernal revelations poured forth from the windows of heaven, the earthly wellsprings answered in kind. The same century saw an unprecedented eruption of knowledge in all fields of secular science -- in mathematics, physics, medicine, technology and the social sciences -- revolutionizing all areas of human life.
According to the Zohar, this dual revolution came to prepare the world for the "seventh millennium" -- the era of Moshiach, when the six "workday" millennia of history will culminate in an age "that is wholly Shabbat and tranquillity for life everlasting."
Israel Baal Shem Tov
(lit. “Master of the Good Name”); Rabbi Yisrael ben Eliezer (1698-1760), founder of Chassidism
The Trickle Before the Flood
The redemption by Moshiach is many things. It is the gathering of the dispersed people of Israel to the Holy Land, the rebuilding of the Beit HaMikdash (Holy Temple) in Jerusalem and the re-establishment of the Temple service. It is mankind's return to G-d and its recommitment to a life of goodness and holiness. It is the end of hunger, war, jealousy and greed; the removal of evil from the heart of man and suffering from G-d's world. It is all of these things because of a basic transformation that our world will undergo: the human mind will comprehend the divine truth.
In its present state, the world conceals the face of G-d. True, the workings of nature bespeak the wisdom and majesty of the Creator, and the processes of history show the hand of divine providence in the affairs of man; yet these are but pinpoints of light penetrating the thick weave of nature's veil. Far more pronounced is the physical world's concealment of the divine truth with the regularity of its cycles, the apparent amorality of its laws and the brute immanence of its being. I am, it proclaims with every proton of its being; I am an existence unto myself, absolute and independent; whatever "higher truth" there might be to existence is just that -- a "higher" truth, abstract and immaterial, and quite apart from the "real" world.
But in the age of Moshiach, "knowledge and wisdom will increase" to the point that "the world will be filled with the knowledge of G-d as the waters cover the sea." The true essence of reality will be revealed; the physical world will be experienced as an expression, rather than an obfuscation, of the absolute, exclusive and all-pervading reality of G-d. And when the world will cease to be perceived as something apart from G-d, all other features of the messianic world will fall into place. Man will endeavor only to know G-d and obey His will; the strife and conflict-ridden existence we now know will be replaced with a perfect peace and harmony -- harmony between the various drives and forces within the human soul, harmony between men and nations, and harmony between the Creator and His creation.
This explains how the supernal wisdom that emanated from the "windows of heaven" in the fifty-sixth century served to "prepare the world to be elevated in the seventh millennium." The teachings of Chassidism offer a taste of this futuristic awareness and understanding. Employing the tools of human reason, Chassidism explains to the mind of man and implants in his heart the truth that "there is none else besides Him," that "G-dliness is everything and everything is G-dliness"; it describes the origins, development and inner workings of the soul of man and the manner in which it finds realization and fulfillment through the knowledge of G-d and the actualization of His will; it expounds on man's role in creation and how our deeds transform the very nature of reality, making it more receptive to G-dliness.
Today, our ability to truly comprehend and assimilate these truths is limited by the present state of the human mind and the world that colors its thinking. Yet the revelation of the inner soul of Torah was the drizzle that heralds the deluge, the trickle that marks the beginnings of the great flood that will "fill the world with the knowledge of G-d as the waters cover the sea."
Implement and Illustrator
Complementing the downpour of divine wisdom from the windows of heaven was an upsurge of earthly knowledge, which the Zohar also considers a prologue to and preparation for the messianic era of knowledge.
There are three basic ways in the revolutionary advances in science and technology of the recent generations prepare the world for the coming of Moshiach:
1) As a tool: On the most elementary level, the scientific revolution has facilitated, to an unprecedented degree, the dissemination of Torah. Three hundred years ago, a teacher could communicate directly only with those who were within range of his voice; today, his words (and even his image) can be broadcast to billions of people in all parts of the globe. In these and numerous other ways, the scientific advances of the last three centuries have aided and enabled the spread of the divine wisdom on a scale that could not even be envisioned before the "wellsprings of the great deep" burst open in the sixth century of the sixth millennium.
2) As an analogue: On a deeper level, the accelerated development of earthly wisdom has not only brought the knowledge of G-d farther, faster and to more people -- it has also enhanced the quality of our understanding of our Creator. The scientific revolution has actually enabled us to better appreciate and relate to the divine reality.
For example: integral to our faith is the concept of "specific divine providence" (hashgachah peratit): that G-d observes our every act, word and thought and holds us accountable for them; that He is aware and concerned with every event in the universe, from the birth of a star in a distant galaxy to the turn of a leaf in the wind in a remote forest, and that they all figure in His master plan of creation and contribute to its realization.
In earlier generations, the concept of an all-seeing eye that simultaneously observes billions of actions thousands of miles apart from each other, and of a consciousness that is simultaneously aware of innumerable events and their effect upon each other, were beyond the realm of reason. One could believe it absolutely, for faith has the capacity to accept even the most illogical of truths; but one could not rationally relate to it and envision it with the mind's eye. Today, when we can converse with ease with someone ten thousand miles away, when we can watch a spacecraft landing on Mars and use a chip of silicon to compute millions of data a second, it requires no great "leap of faith" to understand that He who imparted such potential in His creation certainly possesses it Himself, and in a far greater measure.
This is but one example of how modern science has transformed our very vision of reality, introducing certain concepts into the lexicon of our minds which, in earlier generations, had belonged exclusively to the realm of faith.
3) As a revelation of G-dliness: In both examples cited above, we have seen how the "earthly wisdom" of science serves the revelation of the supernal wisdom, whether as a tool that aids its dissemination or as a model that makes tangible and real what was previously abstract and surreal.
There is, however, a third and more essential way in which the eruption of the "wellsprings of the great deep" has prepared the world for the seventh millennium. A way in which the earthly wisdom is not only a facilitator of the supernal wisdom of Torah, but itself a revelation of G-dliness.
For science is discovering the face of G-d. For the past three hundred years, it has been dissecting the veil of nature to the point that the veil has been becoming more and more transparent, more revealing of the truths it both embodies and conceals.
To cite but one example of many:
In earlier generations, the study of the nature yielded a picture of a multifarious universe. The world was perceived as being comprised of dozens of elements and driven by a number of distinct forces. But the more science developed, the more it uncovered the unity behind the diversity. A hundred "elements" were revealed to be composed of a much smaller number of fundamental building blocks; diverse forces were shown to be but variant mutations of a single, elementary force. Even the differentiation between matter and energy was shown to be but an external distinction between two forms of the same essence. Indeed, science is rapidly approaching the point of being able to demonstrate that the entirety of existence is a singular ray emanating from a singular source.
Of course, the "windows of heaven" have already unleashed this truth -- in the language of Torah thought and Kabbalistic metaphor. Complementing this revelation, the scientist is currently formulating this truth in mathematical equations and demonstrating it in state-of-the-art atom smashers.
From above and from below, our world has been primed for the Age of Knowledge.
For Real
http://www.chabad.org/therebbe/article_cdo/aid/1173/jewish/For-Real.htm
For Real
Based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
Courtesy of MeaningfulLife.com
In his famed introduction to the Talmudic chapter of Chelek, Maimonides enumerates the thirteen basic principles of the Jewish faith.
The first four principles deal with the belief in G-d: that G-d is the Original Cause upon which every creation is utterly dependent for its existence; that He is absolutely one and singular; that He is non-corporeal and timeless. The fifth principle establishes man's duty to serve Him and fulfill the purpose for which he was created. Principles six to eleven establish that G-d relates to humanity: that He communicates His will to man; that every word of the Torah was transmitted by G-d to Moses; that G-d observes and is concerned with the behavior of man; that He punishes the wicked and rewards the righteous.
The final two principles deal with the era of Moshiach: the belief that there will arise a leader who will bring the entire world to recognize and serve the Creator, ushering in an era of universal peace and Divine perfection.
What does it mean when we say that something is a "basic principle" in Judaism? A simple definition would be that in order to qualify as a "believing Jew" one must accept the truth of these thirteen precepts. But the Torah clearly makes no such distinctions. As Maimonides himself writes in his eighth principle:
"... This entire Torah, given to us by Moses, is from the mouth of the Almighty - namely, that it was communicated to him by G-d.... In this, there is no difference between the verses, `The sons of Ham were Kush and Mitzrayim,' `The name of his wife was Meithavel' and `Timna was a concubine,' and the verses, `I Am the L-rd your G-d' and `Hear O Israel, [the L-rd is our G-d, the L-rd is One]': all are from the mouth of the Almighty, all is the Torah of G-d, perfect, pure, holy and true.... Our sages have said: Anyone who believes that the entire Torah is from the mouth of the Almighty except for a single verse, is a heretic...."
So a "basic principle" is more than a required set of beliefs; that would apply to each and every word in the Torah. Rather, these are thirteen principles upon which everything else rests. The Hebrew word Maimonides uses is yesodot, "foundations": different parts of an edifice could conceivably exist independently of each other, but without the foundation, the entire building would collapse. So, too, each of these thirteen principles is a "foundation" to the entire Torah.
In other words, while every word in the Torah is equally important to the believer as a person, these principles are crucial to the faith itself. To deny that "Do not steal" is a divine commandment is no less heretical than to deny the existence of G-d; but belief in the rest of the Torah is not dependent upon the fact that G-d said not to steal. On the other hand, things like the existence of G-d, His absolute and exclusive power, His involvement in human affairs, and His communication of the Torah to man, obviously prerequire the whole of Judaism. Without these "foundations" the rest is virtually meaningless.
One difficulty, however, remains with this explanation: Why is the belief in Moshiach included among the foundations of the Jewish faith? Obviously, the concept of Moshiach is an important part of Judaism. The Torah speaks of it (in Deuteronomy 30 and Numbers 24, among others), the prophets are full of it. But could one not conceivably believe in the rest of the Torah without accepting its vision of a future perfect world?
Not In Heaven
The Torah details a most exacting and demanding code of behavior, governing every hour of the day, every phase of life, and every aspect of the human experience. It takes a lifetime of committed labor, tremendous self-discipline, and every iota of man's intellectual, emotional and spiritual prowess to bring one's life into utter conformity with the Torah's edicts and ideals.
Thus, there are two possible ways in which to view the Torah's vision of life.
One may conceivably argue that the level of perfection expected by Torah is beyond feasible reach for a majority of people. From this perspective, Torah is an ideal to strive towards, a vision of absolute goodness designed to serve as a point of reference for imperfect man. A person ought to seek attaining this ideal - says this view - although he will probably never reach it, for he will much improve himself in the process.
The second view takes the Torah at its word: each and every individual is capable of, and expected to attain, the perfectly righteous and harmonious life it mandates. Torah is not an abstract ideal, but a practical and implementable blueprint for life.
The Torah itself leave no room for doubt on its own view of the matter: "For the mitzvah which I command you this day," it states, "it is not beyond you nor is it remote from you. It is not in heaven... nor is it across the sea.... Rather, it is something that is very close to you, in your mouth, in your heart, that you may do it." (Deuteronomy 30:11-14).
Underlying Perspectives
These two views reflect two different ways of looking at the essence of G-d's creation. If man is inherently or even partially evil, then obviously he can go either way. There is no reason to assume that he will, or even can, attain a state of perfect righteousness. A world community that is utterly committed to goodness, in which every single individual acts in concert with the purpose for which he was created, can only be the dream of a chronic optimist, or of one who is hopelessly out of touch with "reality."
Yet if one believes that the world is intrinsically good; that G-d has imbued His every creation with the potential to reflect His absolute goodness and perfection; then, one's concept of reality is completely different. Then, our currently harsh reality is the anomalous state, while the reality of Moshiach is the most natural thing in the world.
In other words, where a person stands on Moshiach expresses his attitude vis-a-vis the entire Torah. Is Torah's formula for life a pipe dream, or is it a description of the true nature of creation? If the Torah is nothing more than a theoretical utopia, then one does not expect a world free of greed, jealousy and hate any time in the near future. But if the Torah mirrors the essence of man, then one not only believes in a "future" Moshiach, but understands that the world is capable of instantaneously responding to his call.
This explains why belief in Moshiach entails not only the conviction that he will "eventually" arrive, but the anticipation of his imminent coming. In the words of Maimonides: "The Twelfth Principle concerns the era of Moshiach: to believe and to validate his coming; not to think that it is something of the future - even if he tarries, one should await him...." And in his Mishneh Torah, Maimonides states: "One who does not believe in him, or one who does not anticipate his coming, not only denies the prophets, he denies the Torah itself" (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Kings, 11:1).
When Moshiach is that very realistic possibility, for another moment to go by without the Redemption taking place is far, far more "unrealistic" (that is, less in keeping with the true nature of things) than the prospect of its immediate realization.
The Nature and Definition of Truth
Of course, man has been granted freedom of choice. But the choice between good and evil is not a choice of what to be - he cannot change his quintessential self- but the choice of how to act. Man can choose to express his true essence in his behavior, or choose to suppress it.
Ultimately, the truth, by nature and definition, always comes to light. So, while man can choose how to act in any given moment, the very nature of humanity, and of G-d's creation as a whole, mandates that it not only can, but will attain the perfection of the era of Moshiach.
Moshiach means that the true nature of creation will ultimately come to light. That "evil" is but the shallow distortion of this truth, and has no enduring reality. That man will free himself of hate and ignorance. That every human being will fulfill his divinely ordained role as outlined in the Torah, transforming the world into a place suffused with the wisdom, goodness and perfection of its Creator.
Moshiach means that the Torah is for real.
Facing Reality
http://www.chabad.org/therebbe/article_cdo/aid/63549/jewish/Facing-Reality.htm
Facing Reality
Adapted from a public talk by the Lubavitcher Rebbe
Sometimes it all seems so hopeless.
Half the world goes to sleep hungry. Today’s news may bring one “regional conflict” to the forefront of our attention, even as the other dozen wars rage on, with one group of human beings hacking off the limbs, burning down the villages or pulverizing the shopping centers of another group. And if you’re fortunate enough to live in a more civilized part of the world, you can observe the more civilized forms of man’s cruelty to man, as people break each other’s hearts and trample everything good in themselves underfoot in the rampage for money, power and “self-realization.”
You want to do something, but it all seems so hopeless. You can feed a hungry child, yet millions more remain hungry. For every kind word you speak, so many nasty, hurtful, antagonistic words are spoken all over the world. For every good deed you do, so many evil deeds are committed. What can you possibly hope to achieve?
Jacob was nobody’s fool. He may have been “a guileless man” (Genesis 25:27), but he could muster enough guile to wrest the birthright and the blessings from Esau and to best the conniving Laban at his own game. He knew how to talk his way out of an assassination attempt, build a fortune from scratch and wrestle with an angel. One can safely say that he knew the world in which he lived.
And the world in which he lived was not a pretty place. 3,500 years ago, people were sacrificing their children to Moloch, and war and pillage were commonplace features of everyday life. Yet Jacob believed that very world to be on the threshold of the messianic era!
In the 33rd chapter of Genesis, the Torah describes Jacob’s encounter with Esau. Many years earlier, Jacob had fled to Haran because his brother wished to kill him; now he returns, believing that Esau is ready for a reconciliation. The brothers meet, they even hug and kiss, but Jacob realizes that the day has not yet come in which the sons of Isaac can live together in harmony. So he says to his brother: “Please, go on ahead. I will follow slowly, according to the pace of the work before me and the pace of the children, until I will come to my lord to Seir.”
Esau goes, but Jacob never does make it to his brother’s mountain kingdom; he settles in Hebron and, more than thirty years later, moves to Egypt, where he spends the final seventeen years of his life. So when, asks the Midrash, will Jacob make good on his promise to come to Seir? In the days of Moshiach, when, as Obadiah prophesies, “The saviors will ascend the mountain of Zion to judge the mountain of Esau.”
In other words, Jacob initiated his encounter with Esau only because he believed that the messianic era was at hand. Had Esau been ready for a true reconciliation, this, in Jacob’s view, would have ushered in the state of divine goodness and perfection that is the purpose and end goal of G‑d’s creation.
There is a lesson in this, says the Lubavitcher Rebbe, to each and every one of us. Jacob knew that his particular mission in life was to actualize the enormous positive potential locked within his externally wicked brother. He also knew that the moment he achieved this, the entire world would be transformed for the better.
If you want to create a nuclear explosion, all you need to do is split a single atom. That will set in motion a chain reaction in billions of other atoms, and transform the face of the earth over an area of many square miles.
In the same way, we have each been allotted our own “portion of the world”—the material resources we possess; the talents and capabilities with which we have been endowed; the circle of family members, friends and colleagues with whom we interact and whom we influence. Transforming the nature of reality in our own slice of the world will transform the nature of reality in the entirety of G‑d’s creation.
Yes, feeding that one child will mitigate the hunger of every hungry child in the world. Saying that one kind word will soften every insult uttered on the face of the earth. Doing that one good deed will nullify all the evil in the universe. Because the world is one, and you are the world.
The Window
http://www.chabad.org/therebbe/article_cdo/aid/61697/jewish/The-Window.htm
The Window
Adapted from a public talk by the Lubavitcher Rebbe
It happened before: a world drowning in violence awaited redemption. Waited for divine action, because man had done all that was in his power and the rest was up to G‑d.
Man waited in a sealed ark, but the ark had a window. And from the window a dove was dispatched to circle the skies, to agitate the heavens with its restless reconnaissance. For the next four thousand years its spread wings and the olive leaf clutched in its beak would symbolize humanity’s quest for harmony and peace
No, waiting is not a passive endeavor. On the threshold of redemption, we must open windows through which to look upon a harmonious tomorrow, and through which to dispatch winged emissaries to hasten the divine response from on high.
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The Book of Genesis (chapters 6–8) relates the story of the great deluge which swept the earth in the dawn of human history.
Outside the ark that Noah had built and populated by divine command, the flood raged, the violent culmination of a violent world. Within, Noah presided over a miniature universe: his family; and—as G‑d had instructed him—“of all living things, two of each kind, a male and a female; and specimens of every food that is to be eaten . . . to keep seed alive on the face of the earth.”
For forty days and nights the rains fell, followed by five months in which the waters swelled and churned, cleansing the earth for the promise of a new beginning contained in the floating ark. Finally, the waters calmed and began to recede.
Noah then opened the window in the sealed ark and sent out a raven “to see if the waters had subsided from the surface of the earth.” The raven, which refused the mission, was followed by three doves: the first returned immediately, indicating that the flood’s waters still engulfed the earth; the second came back in the evening, clutching “a plucked olive leaf” and the promise of a new life for earth. The third did not return at all, informing the ark’s inhabitants that the earth was ready for habitation.
Why did Noah dispatch these winged emissaries? Obviously, he was eager to rebuild, to replace the mayhem of the flood with a new, harmonious world. However, it would seem that Noah would have had little use for whatever information these “reconnaissance flights” might provide him. In fact, even after he was convinced that the flood was over, Noah could not act on his own assessment that the earth was ready for a new beginning to take root. Noah had first entered the ark by the explicit command of G‑d, and as long as he did not receive further instructions to the contrary, the divine injunction, “Come into the ark,” remained in force. Only upon being commanded to “go out from the ark” and “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth”—commands which came several weeks after the third dove’s mission—could he begin settling and developing the world outside the ark.
Hence the question: For what purpose did Noah dispatch the raven and the doves?
Contemporary Arks
Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov explains the relevance of the divine instruction to Noah, “Come into the ark,” to our daily lives. The Hebrew word for “ark,” teivah, also means “word.” Come into the word, says the Almighty to each and every one of us; enter within the words of prayer and Torah study. Here you will find a haven of wisdom, meaning and sanctity amidst the raging floodwaters of life.
The word that the Torah uses for the flood is mabul, which means disorder and confusion. Our world is a mabul of moral disarray and distorted priorities. But even as the chaos of a still unperfected world churns about us, we have the ability to create, as did Noah, an island of tranquility and perfection, sheltered by the protective words (teivot) of Torah and prayer.
Furthermore, the personal havens we create are not confined to the interior world of our minds and hearts. As was the case with Noah’s teivah, we also bring “specimens” from the outside world into the sanctity of our “ark.” Through our observance of the mitzvot, we employ a great variety of creatures and elements to fulfill G‑d’s will: the animal hide that is made into tefillin, the wool spun into tzitzit, the food which provides the energy to pray, the money given to charity. These are all “brought into the teivah”—made part of a personal universe that is wholly devoted to good and G‑dly pursuits.
But our personal arks are not ends in themselves. It is not sufficient to bring “samples” from the outside into the insulated havens of Torah and prayer, and content ourselves with these pockets of perfection adrift in a strife-torn world. Our “arks” must also serve as the seeds from which a new world, embracing the entirety of creation, will grow. Our mission in life is to create a world free of greed, jealousy and hate, a world suffused with the wisdom and goodness of its Creator; to translate the G‑dly perfection of our personal teivot into the divinely perfect world of Moshiach.
The directive, “Come into the ark,” which characterizes our task during the mabul-years of history, is but a prelude to the “go out from the ark” era of Moshiach, when the holiness and perfection of a Torah-defined existence will extend to all of creation.
Awaiting Word
As with Noah, we must await the word. It is not for us to decide that the era of Moshiach has begun. It is by G‑d’s command that we entered the “ark,” and it is He who will send Moshiach to herald the new dawn.
This may lead to the belief that we must passively wait for the redemption. Therein lies the lesson of Noah’s winged emissaries: well before he was commanded to “go out from the ark,” Noah opened a window to the outside world. As soon as he sensed signs of the flood’s abatement, he dispatched messengers to “test the waters” and confirm the fact that the world was ready for rebirth. Noah did not content himself with developing the inner world of the teivah while allowing history to take its course, but did everything in his power to establish the world’s readiness, thereby hastening the divine empowerment to make his ark a universal reality.
Today, we find ourselves at the same crossroads that Noah faced forty-one centuries ago. All around us, we detect signs of a world that is bettering and perfecting itself, beating its nuclear swords into the plowshares of aid to the hungry, and accepting the principles of freedom, justice and compassion as universal givens. Amidst this calming and abatement of the mabul’s waters, we cannot, and must not, closet ourselves in our insulated arks, concerning ourselves only with the perfection of our individual lives and communities, waiting for G‑d to send Moshiach. We must throw open the windows of our arks and reach out to a world that is shedding the turmoil of its mabul past. Our continued efforts to establish that the world is indeed ready for redemption will hasten the divine word from on high, instructing us that the era of universal peace is upon us.
The Emissaries
http://www.chabad.org/therebbe/article_cdo/aid/61962/jewish/The-Emissaries.htm
The Emissaries
Adapted from a public talk by the Lubavitcher Rebbe
What do you do if you have a vision, and are determined to see that vision implemented in the life of every man, woman and child on the face of the earth? Only you can make others see what you see, only you can communicate its urgency, only you can impart the motivation and empowerment to make it happen. But you are a single individual. How to bridge the miles, not to mention the cultural and psychological expanses, that separate you from them?
"From the time that I was a child attending cheder," the Lubavitcher Rebbe states in a letter he wrote on his 54th birthday in 1956, "and even earlier than that, there began to take form in my mind a vision of the future redemption: the redemption of Israel from its last exile, a redemption such as would explicate the suffering, the decrees and the massacres of galut."
The Redemption, of course, is not just the vision of a very exceptional child growing up in the pogrom-smitten city of Nikolayev in the first decade of the 20th century. The vision of a future world free of ignorance, suffering and strife -- a world which embodies and exhibits the goodness and perfection of its Creator -- is the subject of numerous biblical prophecies and the aspiration of a hundred generations of Jews. But no man in recent memory has made this vision the stuff and substance of his life, and has achieved so much towards its realization, as has the Rebbe.
Upon assuming the leadership of Chabad in 1950, the Rebbe set himself a goal: to reach every person on the face of the earth and inspire them to turn to the Torah as the guiding light by which to achieve personal and global redemption. To attain this goal, the Rebbe invented the shaliach.
Shaliach
(lit. "emissary"); commonly denoting emissaries of the Lubavitcher Rebbe involved in Jewish outreach work
Man is a creature of contradiction.
On the one hand, the human being is the most egotistical of G-d's creations. Other life forms are content if their daily labor secures them food and shelter; we want to know "Are my talents being fully exploited?" and "Am I producing something that is distinctly my own?" Other creatures toil to survive and perpetuate their kind; we strive also for recognition, fulfillment and "self realization."
On the other hand, we are constantly seeking union and fusion with something greater than ourselves: a community of which we may be part, a personality or cause which we might submit to and serve. Deep within us resides a craving for self-abnegation -- a desire to shed the trappings of the ego and be absorbed within the universal and the divine.
Employers, political leaders and military commanders -- anyone who needs to motivate other people to do his or her bidding -- usually enlist one or the other of these human traits. An employer might, for example, encourage creativity, initiative and the attainment of "personal best" in the workplace. Or, he might take an opposite approach, placing the emphasis on teamwork and company loyalty, thereby tapping his employees' instinctive striving for an identity which transcends the personal.
Each approach has its drawbacks and limitations. For while each cultivates one of the above basic human qualities, it also runs contrary to the other, no less fundamental property of the human soul.
And then there is the approach of the shaliach.
Shaliach -- the word means "agent" and "emissary" -- is a halachic (Torah-legal) term for a person empowered by someone else to act in his stead. The shaliach first appears in the Torah in the person of Eliezer, whom Abraham commissioned to find a wife for his son, Isaac. Rebecca was selected and betrothed as a wife for Isaac by Eliezer -- she was legally Isaac's wife without her actual husband having ever set eyes on her or having exchanged a single word with her. In the words of the Talmud, "A person's shaliach is as he himself."
There exists a halachic model (the eved or "slave") for one who has abnegated his will, personality and very identity to that of his "master." There also exists the model of the "employee" (sachir), who assumes the obligation to perform a certain task for someone else, but whose personality and identity remain separate and distinct from the personality and identity of his "employer." The shaliach is unique in that he or she retains a great degree of autonomy in carrying out his mission, yet at the same time becomes a virtual extension of the person who commissioned him (the meshaleiach).
The shaliach does not abnegate his intellect, will, desires, feelings, talents and personal "style" to that of the one whom he represents; rather, he enlists them in the fulfillment of his mission. The result of this is not a lesser bond between the two, but the contrary: the meshaleiach is acting through the whole of the shaliach -- not only through the shaliach's physical actions, but also through the shaliach's personality, which has become an extension of the meshaleiach's personality.
The Rebbe took the halachic concept of shelichut and transformed it into a calling and a way of life. In the five decades of his leadership, he recruited, trained, motivated and commissioned thousands of men, women and children to act as his personal representatives and emissaries in hundreds of communities throughout the world.
Intrinsic to the role of shaliach is the challenge to bring one's own initiative, resourcefulness and creativity to the task. The Rebbe did not allow his sheluchim the luxury of mindless obedience to his dictates. Instead, he insisted that Chabad's programs and activities arise from the particular strengths and inclinations of the shaliach and the particular needs and circumstances of his locality.
But neither did the Rebbe send his emissaries to tackle their mission on their own. He empowered them to be "as he himself," so that a shaliach's every deed is imbued with the awareness that he is acting as an extension of the Rebbe's very person; that his thoughts and feelings, choices and deliberations, efforts and satisfactions, while the product of his own prowess and personality, are now serving as extensions of the Rebbe's prowess and personality.
Never before in the history of our people has one man built a following so large in number, so diverse, so highly motivated, and so successful in the furtherance of his vision. At the core of this phenomenal success is a seemingly benign legal dynamic, first employed more than 3,600 years ago when Abraham sent Eliezer to find a wife for his son.
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It is now more than a decade since the Rebbe's passing, and the urgency of his vision has never been more acute. Our hurting world needs him more than ever. Yet in a certain sense, he is here more than ever, a tactual presence in the thousands of lives imbued with his passion and compassion, his wisdom and commitment.
Is Judaism a Theocracy?
http://www.chabad.org/therebbe/article_cdo/aid/61960/jewish/Is-Judaism-a-Theocracy.htm
Is Judaism a Theocracy?
Adapted from a public talk by the Lubavitcher Rebbe
After those days . . . no longer shall a man instruct his fellow . . . for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest.
Jeremiah 31:32–33
The human psyche is home to two contrasting impulses: a striving for freedom, and a propensity for submission to authority. The aim of this essay is to examine the manner in which these two drives are regarded in classical Jewish sources and, in particular, the teachings and philosophy of Chabad Chassidism. To this end, we will discuss the reaction of two Chabad chassidic leaders to two “liberation” movements occurring in their times: a) the founder of Chabad Chassidism, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi (1745–1812), and his involvement in the Napoleonic wars; b) the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and what he said and did in face of the “Youth Revolution” of the Sixties.
Freedom and liberty are axiomatic to Judaism. The prophet Ezekiel describes the liberation from Egypt as the “birth” of the Jewish people; the event is celebrated to this day as zeman cheiruteinu, “the time of our liberation,” which is one of the three traditional names for the festival of Passover. The Jew is commanded to “remember the day that you went out of Egypt, every day of your life” (Deuteronomy 16:3). According to the Maharal (Rabbi Judah Loewe of Prague, 1512?–1609), the purpose of the Exodus was not merely the liberation of the Jewish people from Egyptian slavery, but the creation of a new type of person, the Free Man. Because of the Exodus, the Jew, even if subsequently conquered and oppressed, remains inherently free.
This centrality of the Exodus to Judaism is most strongly emphasized by the fact, noted by many of the biblical commentaries, that when G‑d appears to the Children of Israel on Mount Sinai, He does not say, “I am the L‑rd your G‑d, creator of the heavens and the earth.” He says, “I am the L‑rd your G‑d who took you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery.” That event, the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai—occurring seven weeks after the Exodus—is regarded by the sages of the Talmud as a further step in the attainment of true freedom: “There is no free person,” says Rabbi Joshua ben Levi, in the sixth chapter of Ethics of the Fathers, “save one who is occupied in the Torah.”
Indeed, the image of Moses standing before Pharaoh and demanding, “Let my people go!” has inspired numerous liberation movements in the 33 centuries since, including the American revolution of 1776 and the abolitionist movement in America in the mid-19th century. This defining moment in Jewish history became a paradigm of freedom for peoples as diverse as British colonists objecting to “taxation without representation” and African slaves yearning for the most basic of human freedoms.
If the whole of Jewish history is the outgrowth of the liberation from Egypt, it is also the movement toward a higher liberty—toward the geulah ha-amitit veha-sheleimah, “the true and complete redemption” of the messianic age, which is seen as the completion of the process, begun at the Exodus, of the liberation of the human soul.
Chassidic teaching explains that the quest for freedom is the essence of Judaism because it is as a free being that man reveals his synonymy with the divine. In this, it follows Maimonides’ famous statement that there are only two free beings: G‑d and man. G‑d is unique and distinct “in the heavens” because only He is free (the angels, in contrast, are called “holy animals” because, like terrestrial beasts, their every act is dictated by the nature imparted to them by their Creator); man is unique and distinct among all corporeal creations, because he alone possesses free choice. In creating man and “breathing into his nostrils” a soul that is “literally a part” of Himself, G‑d created the single creature with a potential for freedom—a potential that is, in essence, divine. It is this potential that drives the human being to constantly challenge and surmount the limits imposed on him, including even the limits of its own nature. The purpose of the Exodus and the giving of the Torah is to provide man with the tools for the actualization of this potential—a process which attains its ultimate realization in the messianic redemption.
Submission to the “Yoke of the Kingship of Heaven”
But this vision of Judaism as a liberation movement is contrasted by another, no less axiomatic principle of Judaism: the Jew’s utter and unequivocal submission to the authority of G‑d.
Twice a day the Jew recites the Shema, declaring, “Hear O Israel, the L‑rd is our G‑d, the L‑rd is one”; the purpose of this declaration, says the Talmud, is kabbalat ol malchut shamayim—to “accept the yoke of the kingship of Heaven,” for one cannot begin one’s day as a Jew without this acceptance. The very stuff and substance of Judaism are the 613 mitzvot of the Torah, and there can be no such thing as a mitzvah—“commandment”—without acknowledgement of its Commander and absolute obedience to His will. This is the idea behind the thousands of Talmudic and Midrashic references, and references in the text of our prayers, to G‑d as “King”, “King of the Universe”, “King of All Kings”, “Master of the World,” and the like.
We mentioned how the image of Moses, representing a clan of powerless slaves and confronting the ruler of the mightiest nation on earth to boldly demand, “Let my people go,” has become a paradigm of the quest for freedom. But a closer examination of that scene shows it to be something quite different than commonly perceived. Simply stated, Moses is being quoted out of context. What Moses actually says to Pharaoh is: “So said the G‑d of the Hebrews . . . Let My people go, so that they may serve Me.” G‑d, for His part, is clear about His purpose in taking the Jews out of Egypt from the very start. When He first appears to Moses in the burning bush, He says: “This is the sign that I have sent you: when you take this people out of Egypt, you will serve G‑d on this mountain.” And later, in the desert: “For the Children of Israel are My servants; they are My servants, who I have taken out of the land of Egypt: they cannot be sold into slavery.” (This last statement, incidentally, is the basis for the Maharal’s above-quoted assertion that, following the Exodus, the Jewish people will never again be slaves to any mortal power.)
In Human Nature
We have noted that Judaism paradoxically—often in the very breadth—defines itself both as liberator of the human soul and as a covenant of submission to a Higher Authority. Let us also acknowledge that these two impulses reside side by side in the human psyche.
Man’s striving for freedom requires no proof or documentation. We need not look further than the “Velvet Revolution” in Eastern Europe twenty years ago. But the human impulse for submission to authority is no less apparent. We see it in the simple fact that billions of people accept as a matter of course the authority of parents, teachers, government, and religious leaders to dictate matters pertaining to every area of their lives. We see it in the phenomena of patriotism, hero-worship and cultism. We see it in the survival, and even blossoming, of religious observance, long after its political braces have been dismantled. Man, it seems, has a deep-seated need to be part of something greater than himself, to negate his own will and ego in face of a will and ego greater than his own. Chabad Chassidism has a name for this ideal, which it regards as a great virtue: bittul (“self-abnegation”).
The human soul, it might be said, is both rebellious and submissive. It is left to education, conditioning and environment to emphasize and cultivate—or alternately, to de‑emphasize and suppress—either of these tendencies.
Since both these impulses are fundamental to Judaism’s vision of human potential, and since the cultivation of one presumably will mean the suppression of the other, the question arises: which should be given priority over the other? Or, to otherwise state the question: in what sort of environment would the Torah prefer to see the Jew—as a member of a free society, or as the subject of an authoritarian regime?
Submission to the “Yoke of the Kingship of Heaven”
But this vision of Judaism as a liberation movement is contrasted by another, no less axiomatic principle of Judaism: the Jew’s utter and unequivocal submission to the authority of G‑d.
Twice a day the Jew recites the Shema, declaring, “Hear O Israel, the L‑rd is our G‑d, the L‑rd is one”; the purpose of this declaration, says the Talmud, is kabbalat ol malchut shamayim—to “accept the yoke of the kingship of Heaven,” for one cannot begin one’s day as a Jew without this acceptance. The very stuff and substance of Judaism are the 613 mitzvot of the Torah, and there can be no such thing as a mitzvah—“commandment”—without acknowledgement of its Commander and absolute obedience to His will. This is the idea behind the thousands of Talmudic and Midrashic references, and references in the text of our prayers, to G‑d as “King”, “King of the Universe”, “King of All Kings”, “Master of the World,” and the like.
We mentioned how the image of Moses, representing a clan of powerless slaves and confronting the ruler of the mightiest nation on earth to boldly demand, “Let my people go,” has become a paradigm of the quest for freedom. But a closer examination of that scene shows it to be something quite different than commonly perceived. Simply stated, Moses is being quoted out of context. What Moses actually says to Pharaoh is: “So said the G‑d of the Hebrews . . . Let My people go, so that they may serve Me.” G‑d, for His part, is clear about His purpose in taking the Jews out of Egypt from the very start. When He first appears to Moses in the burning bush, He says: “This is the sign that I have sent you: when you take this people out of Egypt, you will serve G‑d on this mountain.” And later, in the desert: “For the Children of Israel are My servants; they are My servants, who I have taken out of the land of Egypt: they cannot be sold into slavery.” (This last statement, incidentally, is the basis for the Maharal’s above-quoted assertion that, following the Exodus, the Jewish people will never again be slaves to any mortal power.)
In Human Nature
We have noted that Judaism paradoxically—often in the very breadth—defines itself both as liberator of the human soul and as a covenant of submission to a Higher Authority. Let us also acknowledge that these two impulses reside side by side in the human psyche.
Man’s striving for freedom requires no proof or documentation. We need not look further than the “Velvet Revolution” in Eastern Europe twenty years ago. But the human impulse for submission to authority is no less apparent. We see it in the simple fact that billions of people accept as a matter of course the authority of parents, teachers, government, and religious leaders to dictate matters pertaining to every area of their lives. We see it in the phenomena of patriotism, hero-worship and cultism. We see it in the survival, and even blossoming, of religious observance, long after its political braces have been dismantled. Man, it seems, has a deep-seated need to be part of something greater than himself, to negate his own will and ego in face of a will and ego greater than his own. Chabad Chassidism has a name for this ideal, which it regards as a great virtue: bittul (“self-abnegation”).
The human soul, it might be said, is both rebellious and submissive. It is left to education, conditioning and environment to emphasize and cultivate—or alternately, to de‑emphasize and suppress—either of these tendencies.
Since both these impulses are fundamental to Judaism’s vision of human potential, and since the cultivation of one presumably will mean the suppression of the other, the question arises: which should be given priority over the other? Or, to otherwise state the question: in what sort of environment would the Torah prefer to see the Jew—as a member of a free society, or as the subject of an authoritarian regime?
freedom the most devastating of corruptions
The Holy Side of Tyranny
This dilemma is very beautifully illustrated by an anecdote told of the mashpia (chassidic teacher and mentor) Rabbi Dovid Kievman, also known as “Reb Dovid Horodoker.” It is said that Reb Dovid wept when Czar Nicholas II was overthrown in the Russian Revolution of 1917. “Why do you shed tears over the fall of a tyrant?” he was asked. “I weep,” replied the chassid, “because a mashal (metaphor) in chassidic teaching is gone.”
(The metaphor, or mashal, is an elementary tool of chassidic teaching. The premise is that to truly understand something, one must experience it, or something like it, oneself. This is even more so when one seeks to understand spiritual realities: to make palpable the ethereal to the human mind, one must first find the corresponding model in human experience. Chassidic teaching thus makes extensive use of metaphors in its endeavor to explain the nature of G‑d’s relationship with the created reality, and the essence and purpose of creation.)
We have already mentioned the extensive use of the metaphor of “kingship” in the Talmud and Midrash; this is further expanded on in chassidic teaching. The chassidic masters point out that while the Torah employs a variety of models in speaking of our relationship with G‑d—that of a child to his father, a beloved to her lover, a disciple to his master, a flock to its shepherd, among others—and that while these models each express another facet of the bond between man and G‑d, there is a dimension to the relationship that can be expressed only by the model of a subject’s relationship to his king.
So when the czar was overthrown, a teacher of Chassidism wept. To live as a subject of the czar was, in many ways, a great hindrance to living as a Jew. But Reb Dovid was thinking of the deeper, more basic implications of authoritarianism: not of the blatant ways that a tyrant’s authority intruded upon one’s life, but in the particular mindset and psychological makeup it cultivated in a person. How, agonized this mashpia, will a kingless generation possibly understand the utter surrender of self that the king-subject relationship epitomized? How will they comprehend the awe accorded one whose rule is absolute and incontestable? What model would they have for a “king”—a figure who transcends the personal to embody the soul of a nation? Never mind that most kings of history were unworthy metaphors of divine sovereignty; central to our relationship with G‑d is something that only one who has been subject to a king can truly appreciate.
But what about man’s potential for freedom? While monarchical rule certainly made submission to authority a tangible reality in the lives of its subjects, it also suppressed their quest for freedom—a quest which, we have claimed, is part and parcel of the soul’s formation in “the image of G‑d,” and which impels man toward the state of freedom that is the end goal of creation.
And yet, there is another face to freedom as well. All too often, personal freedom translates into selfishness, anarchy and violence; into the exploitation of the few and the weak by the many and the strong; into the abandonment of giving and altruistic relationships (marriage, family, community) for an egomaniacal lust for power, wealth and corporeal pleasure. Instead of freeing himself, the human being enslaves himself to the most base and animalistic elements of his nature. Set free from the bonds of authority, the worst in man is often the first to assert itself.
Chassidic teaching sees this, too, as a factor of how deeply rooted the quest for freedom is in the soul. There is a kabbalistic rule: the higher a thing is, the lower it falls. Precisely because it is an expression of the very essence of the soul’s synonymy with the divine, the drive for freedom is susceptible to the most devastating of corruptions.
Hence the dilemma. Presuming that he can in some way influence world events and the nature of the society in which we live, which should the Jew prefer: Should he prefer an authoritarian society which breeds the type of mind and personality that more readily submits to “the yoke of Heaven” and minimizes the dangers of freedom gone amok, but which suppresses the most divine of human potentials? or should he prefer a free society, in which a state of kabbalat ol is far more difficult to achieve and he is far more vulnerable to the pitfalls of freedom, yet which nurtures that part of himself with the potential for deepest identification with his Creator?
Napoleon and the Czar
In the first two decades of the 19th century, this issue was embodied by two massive armies slaughtering each other on the battlefields of Europe. On one side stood Napoleon, heir of the French Revolution, espousing the ideals of “liberty, equality and fraternity” and promising emancipation to the oppressed peoples of the continent. Against him stood the monarchs of Europe, claiming a divine right to rule, casting themselves as defenders of the family, institutionalized religion, law and order—indeed, of civilization itself—and warning of the havoc the apostasy of freedom had wreaked in France.
The leaders of European Jewry were likewise divided. There were rabbis and chassidic rebbes who eagerly awaited liberation by Napoleon’s armies. No longer would the Jewish people be locked into ghettos and deprived of their means of earning a livelihood; no longer would the state be allied with a religion hostile to the Jewish faith. Liberated from the persecution and poverty that had characterized Jewish life on European soil for a dozen centuries, the Jewish people would be free to deepen and intensify their bond with G‑d in ways previously unimaginable. Indeed, there were those—such as the chassidic masters Rabbi Shlomo of Karlin; Rabbi Israel, the Maggid of Kozhnitz; Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev; and Rabbi Mendel of Rimanov—who believed that a French victory would ready the world for the coming of Moshiach and the final redemption.
But there were other voices in the Jewish community as well, voices that prophesied the exchange of material poverty for spiritual woe. Yes, the ghetto walls would fall; yes, the financial centers, professional alliances and universities of Europe would open their doors to the Jew. But at what price! The demise of the shtetl would mean the destruction of the spiritual center of Jewish life, the breakdown of the Jewish family and community, and the compromising of the Jews’ commitment to Torah. Yes, Napoleon would free the Jewish body, but he would all but destroy the Jewish soul.
A major force in the Jewish opposition to Napoleon was Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, founder of Chabad Chassidism. In a letter to one of his loyal followers, Rabbi Moshe Maizlish of Vilna, he wrote:
If B[ona]p[arte] will be victorious, Jewish wealth will increase, and the prestige of the Jewish people will be raised; but their hearts will disintegrate and be distanced from their Father in Heaven. But if A[lexander] will be victorious, although Israel’s poverty will increase and their prestige will be lowered, their hearts will be joined, bound and unified with their Father in Heaven. (Igrot Kodesh Admur HaZaken, letter #64)
Rabbi Schneur Zalman did more than warn against the dangers of freedom; he rallied all his forces—both physical and spiritual—to halt Napoleon’s “emancipation” of Europe. There was even a chassidic spy—the same Moshe Maizlish to whom the above letter is addressed—who, at Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s behest, worked as an interpreter for the French high command and relayed their battle plans to the czar’s generals. On the spiritual plane, Rabbi Schneur Zalman interceded on high to effect Napoleon’s downfall. Chassidim tell of a contest that took place on the morning of Rosh Hashanah between Rabbi Schneur Zalman and the Maggid of Kozhnitz to decide the outcome of Napoleon’s war against Russia. According to kabbalistic tradition, the sounding of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah effects G‑d’s coronation as king of the universe and the divine involvement in human affairs for the coming year; each of these two rebbes therefore endeavored to be the first to sound the shofar in the fateful year of 5573 (1812–1813), and thereby influence the outcome of the war. The Maggid of Kozhnitz arose well before dawn, immersed in the mikvah, began his prayers at the earliest permissible hour, prayed speedily, and sounded the shofar; but Rabbi Schneur Zalman departed from common practice and sounded the shofar at the crack of dawn, before the morning prayers. “The Litvak (Lithuanian, as Rabbi Schneur Zalman was affectionately called by his colleagues) has bested us,” said Rabbi Israel of Kozhnitz to his disciples.Rabbi Schneur Zalman gave his very life to the effort. As Napoleon’s armies neared his hometown of Liadi in the late summer of 1812, he fled his home; though confident of Napoleon’s eventual defeat, he refused to live under his rule for even a single moment. He died many miles from home in December of that year, weakened by the tribulations of his flight and the harsh Russian winter. His role in the defeat of Napoleon was recognized by Alexander I, who awarded him and his descendants the title and privileges of a “Citizen Honored for Posterity.”
Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s fears were borne out by the events of the next two centuries. When emancipation did come to European Jewry, it came as a gradual process, and traditional Judaism had by then developed an array of intellectual and moral responses (most notably, the chassidic and mussar movements). Still, the spiritual toll of freedom was high: traditional Jewish life was all but wiped out in France and Germany by the upheavals spearheaded by the French Revolution, and while it persevered in Eastern Europe until the eve of the Holocaust, many fell prey to the winds of anti-religious “enlightenment” blowing from the west. We can only imagine what the toll might have been had Napoleon conquered the continent in the early years of the nineteenth century.
The Rebbe and the Sixties
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (henceforth, “the Rebbe”), who assumed the leadership of Chabad Chassidim in 1950, was a direct descendent of Rabbi Schneur Zalman. A cohesive line of development runs through the seven generations of Chabad teachings, from Rabbi Schneur Zalman to the Rebbe; only in very rare occasions do we find a rebbe disagreeing with a predecessor. Yet certain aspects of the Rebbe’s approach to freedom and authoritarianism seem a radical departure from that of Rabbi Schneur Zalman.
A case in point is the Rebbe’s attitude to the cultural upheavals of the 1960s. The early years of that decade saw the emergence of what was subsequently termed the “youth culture.” In increasing numbers, the younger generation was rebelling against the authority of their elders and rejecting the values and way of life into which they had been raised.
Parents, educators and religious leaders were horrified. But the Rebbe saw this as essentially a positive development. At a farbrengen (chassidic gathering) with his chassidim on Purim of 1963, the Rebbe said:
Our generation has been granted opportunities that have never been granted before. There has come about a tremendous awakening for what is being called “a return to the source.” That name, however, implies that one must journey a great and long distance to reach this source, when in truth, every individual, whether righteous or iniquitous, possesses a soul that is a “part of G‑d above.” So he need not journey anywhere to reach the source, which resides in his own mind and heart; he need only remove the covering that conceals it. But since he does not know the means by which to remove the covering, he goes around proclaiming his hunger and thirst.
We must therefore fulfill the mitzvah to “love your fellow as yourself.” We must go to this hungering and thirsting person and explain to him what it is that he hungers for, and what it is that he thirsts for: for the word of G‑d.
Similar statements and letters followed. A close examination of the Rebbe’s words shows that he is not merely exploiting the prevailing spirit of nonconformity to sell his own brand of “religion,” but that he sees this as a truly spiritual moment, a time of “awakening.” In the Rebbe’s eyes, it was a quest for freedom in its truest sense—freedom to seek a higher purpose to life, freedom to transcend an ego-encumbered self to discover a truer, more altruistic self within. Much of it may be misguided and destructive, as rootless and unfocused revolutions are wont to be. But it can be directed toward its true, divine objective.
The Rebbe’s followers began showing up in college campuses around the country. Drop-in centers were opened for students, and “Encounter with Chabad” weekends were held, introducing young men and women to the spiritual world of Torah and Chassidism. After decades, and even generations, of assimilation, young Jews were doing teshuvah—returning to their source and reclaiming their heritage.
The Time Factor
There is a sichah (talk) delivered by the Rebbe at a farbrengen in November 1991, which sheds light on the Rebbe’s apparent divergence from Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s approach to authoritarianism and liberty.
In this talk, the Rebbe discussed Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s opposition to Napoleon because of the threat to Judaism posed by the French Revolution and the Emancipation. Yet today, the Rebbe continued, France (which is certainly no less liberated, and no less libertine, than it was in Napoleon’s day) is home to one of the greatest success stories of the teshuvah phenomenon. Today, said the Rebbe, we are witnessing how an environment of freedom nourishes, rather than destroys, spiritual growth and deeper connection with G‑d.
Why this difference? Why was freedom harmful to spirituality two hundred years ago, and a boon to spirituality today? Because, said the Rebbe, we are now on the threshold of the messianic age.
To better understand what the Rebbe is saying, we must first appreciate that, according to chassidic teaching, many of life’s issues—including questions of right and wrong, and even good and evil—are, in truth, issues of context and timing rather than intrinsic positivity or negativity.
A case in point is the first sin of history, Adam and Eve’s eating from the Tree of Knowledge, which the Torah describes as being responsible for everything wrong in our world from death to menstrual cramps. Yet, if Adam and Eve had waited three hours, until nightfall of that fateful Friday and the onset of Shabbat, the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge would have been permitted to them! Eating from the Tree of Knowledge was not, in and of itself, an undesirable action (what can be bad about greater knowledge?), but a premature action, a phase in the unfolding of the divine plan for creation whose time had not yet come.
Another example is Korach’s rebellion against Moses. Korach is treated in the harshest way in the biblical narrative, and described in the harshest terms in the Talmudic and Midrashic literature. But all he seems to be seeking is spiritual empowerment for the ordinary man, the right to relate to G‑d directly, independently of a spiritual hierarchy. “The entire community is holy,” Korach challenges Moses, “and G‑d is amongst them; why do you raise yourself above the community of G‑d?” (Numbers 16:3). He sounds like the Baal Shem Tov!
What was undesirable in Korach’s campaign? Does not the prophet Jeremiah describe the messianic age as a time when “no longer shall a man instruct his fellow . . . for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest”? But precisely that, says the Rebbe is one of his talks, was Korach’s sin: he was preempting history. His vision was a positive vision, a holy vision, but the context was wrong, destructive, and thus evil.
(This concept is best understood in light of the kabbalistic doctrine of evil as concealment. As presented in numerous chassidic discourses, this thesis argues that G‑d is the essence of good, and all that flows from Him is therefore good in essence. This means that there is nothing that is intrinsically evil: there are only negative forms of essentially positive forces, like a healing medicine that is administered in the wrong dosage or in the wrong manner.)
To return to the Rebbe’s sichah on “the refinement of France” (as he refers to it there). In that talk, the Rebbe quotes the Midrashic dictum, “When you come to a city, do as their custom” (Exodus Rabbah 47:5). To the Rebbe, this meant: You are not here to fight the world, but to mold it, develop it and sublimate it. Each era and society has its “customs,” its unique zeitgeist and cultural milieu that is to be exploited to serve your Creator and your mission in life. If you live under the hegemony of a czar, canalize the submission to authority in which this indoctrinates you to feed your commitment to the supernal King of all kings. If you live in a world profaned by an “everything goes” freedom, recast it as a G‑dly freedom—as the facilitator of the uninhibited expression of the “image of G‑d” that is your truest self. And the very fact that we live in such a world, claims the Rebbe, indicates that we stand at the threshold of the age of absolute freedom.
We have spoken of the contradiction between kabbalat ol, “acceptance of the yoke of Heaven,” and giving expression to the spirit of freedom that is our most divine quality. But is this ultimately a contradiction? Imagine a person whose soul is truly and utterly free to express its deepest desires. What would such a person want? Would there be any conflict between what he wants and his soul’s utter commitment to the divine will?
The Midrash describes a world: “A fig tree shall cry out: Do not pick my fruit! Today is Shabbat!” That is the world of Moshiach—a world in which individual desire and obedience to G‑d’s law are in full harmony.
That is not the world we know. In the world we inhabit, acting in harmony with the divine will still requires a conquest of self, an overriding authority. But the institutions which presumed to represent such an authority, and to impose a moral or spiritual code upon the community of man, have been overthrown in the last two hundred years. Where does this leave us?
The last frontier is before us—the frontier of self. Who are we, really? What happens when we are freed of all external constraints and authority structures? Is our bond with G‑d something to be enforced upon a resisting self, or is it the ultimate fulfillment of the self’s incessant quest for freedom?
To the Rebbe, such a state of affairs could mean only one thing: the era of Moshiach is upon us.
A Long Pole
http://www.chabad.org/therebbe/article_cdo/aid/61961/jewish/A-Long-Pole.htm
A Long Pole
Adapted from a public talk by the Lubavitcher Rebbe
Here's the problem: you're here, and you want to be there ("there" being someplace better, loftier, more spiritual than "here"). But you're not there, and won't be there for a good while, perhaps ever.
So do you act as if you're already there? Or do you tell yourself that here's just fine, and who needs there anyway?
You can become a hypocrite, or you can come to terms with your limitations. But there's also a third way--the way of the Long Pole.
In the outer chamber of the heichal (Sanctuary) in the Holy Temple stood the menorah--a five-foot, seven branched candelabra of pure gold. Every morning, a priest filled the menorah's seven lamps with the purest olive oil; in the afternoon, he would climb a three-step foot-ladder to kindle the menorah's lamps. The seven flames burned through the night, symbolizing the Divine light which radiated from the Holy Temple to the world.
Actually, it did not have to be a priest (kohen) who lit the menorah--the law states that an ordinary layman can also perform this mitzvah. But there is also a law that restricts entry into the Sanctuary to priests only--ordinary Israelites could venture no further than the azarah, the Temple courtyard.
These two laws create a legal paradox: a layman can light the menorah; but the menorah's designated place is inside the Sanctuary, and a layman cannot enter the Sanctuary.
Technically, there are solutions: a layman can light the menorah by means of a long pole, or the menorah can be carried out to him by a kohen and then replaced in the Sanctuary. But the inconsistency remains: if the Torah believes that an ordinary person should be able to light the menorah, why doesn't it place the menorah in a part of the Temple accessible to ordinary people? And if the sanctity of the menorah is such that it requires the higher holiness of the Sanctuary, why does the Torah permit someone who cannot attain this level to light it?
This paradox, says the Lubavitcher Rebbe, is intentionally set up by the Torah in order to convey to us a most profound lesson: the lesson of the long pole.
The lesson of the long pole says that we should aspire to spiritual heights that lie beyond our reach. Not that we should presume to be what we are not--that would be like an ordinary person entering the Sanctuary--but neither should we desist from our efforts to reach that place. Even when we know that we, ourselves, will never be "there", we can still act upon that place, influence it, even illuminate it.
At times, this means that someone from that higher place reaches down to us. At times, it means that we contrive a way to reach beyond what we are at the present time. In either case, we are what Rabbi Sholom DovBer of Lubavitch calls a "lamplighter": a person who carries a long pole with a flame at its end and goes from lamp to lamp to ignite them; no lamp is too lowly, and no lamp is too lofty, for the lamplighter and his pole.
