Parshat Balak

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Truth in Positive and Negative Form

Every so often, it’s really satisfying to be wrong—to realize that there’s a whole other way of looking at something you’ve seen before. You can throw out your old thoughts and open up a whole new perspective. This happens to me lot when I’m learning Midrash.

Take Bereisheit Rabbah 8:5. It famously describes the clash that occurred between chesed and emet at the time of the creation of man. Chesed argued that humans are worthwhile, because of all the chesed we do. And emet argued that we should not be created, because we are completely full of falsehood. In response, Hashem casts emet to the ground.

I had always thought the midrash was telling us that real truth doesn’t exist in this world, that in order for us to have free will it is not possible for truth to exist in this world. And to a certain extent this is accurate. Truth, as it exists in the higher worlds, simply doesn’t exist here. In the higher worlds truth is synonymous with reality itself. Anything not truth is simply non-existent. Here, falsehood often looks like a great option, another competing reality. Truth has certainly been cast down to the ground.

However, Rav Moshe Shapiro points out (Reflections and Introspection on the Torah, vol 5, p.547) that the Midrash doesn’t end there. Hashem commands, “let truth rise up from the ground.” There is an aspect of truth that we can arise in our world. All falsehood, as strong as it may appear, is inherently unstable. And there is a powerful aspect of truth that is revealed when falsehood is allowed to self-destruct. This aspect of truth is only available here, in our confusing world of mixed-up truth and falsehood. Only here can we watch falsehoods self-destruct.  The truth, seen together with its opposite, that reveals the full truth. The deep truth here is that the greatest weakness of our world, seen from another perspective, is also its greatest strength.

Our world is made up of things and their inverse. For everything true, there is something equally false. In this week’s parsha, this means that for Moshe there is Bilaam, a prophet for the nations that was on the level of Moshe. The Gemara (Bava Batra 14b) makes an amazing statement. It lists the books written by Moshe as: his book, the parsha of Bilaam, and Sefer Iyov. The parsha of Bilaam, of course, means the psukim in the Torah that relate are Bilaam’s nevuah. Why are they something different than the rest of the Torah?

This particular piece of Torah, though transcribed by Moshe into our Sefer Torah, was brought into the world by Bilaam. In giving us the Torah, Moshe gave us the full picture of truth in our world. This means that it includes both the truth in and of itself, and also the truth as revealed by the negation of falsehood. Bilaam’s Torah is the Torah that implodes on itself. It reveals to us how everything that Bilaam stands for is wrong.

What is it that Bilaam was trying to do? The Gemara tells us (Brachot 7a) that Bilaam wanted to take advantage of the one moment during the day in which Hashem was angry and use that moment to curse us. Even more, the Gemara tells us that if Bilaam had succeeded in finding that moment, his curse would have destroyed us. For this reason, Hashem did not allow that moment to occur.

Rav Moshe Shapiro helps us understand what this means. We know that Hashem recreates the world every day. This means that the events of creation are continuously reoccurring. One of the things we know about creation (Rashi Bereisheit 1:1) is that Hashem placed into the world the momentary possibility for a world of strict justice. However, the world can not continue to exist under a system of strict justice. We would cease to exist. And so Hashem mixed justice with rachamim, mercy. Rachamim is connected to the Hebrew word rechem, meaning womb, and also has the same letters as the word machar, tomorrow. It is the middah of Hashem that gives birth to our ability to continue to exist in time.

Bilaam was a prophet. He could only say what was true. But he was also a person. And he retained the ability to shape that truth for his own ends. Bilaam praised us with the truth of who we are at our core. But his intent was to use that praise as a curse, as a weapon against us. He wanted to speak that truth at the time when Hashem was viewing the world through the medium of strict justice. When we didn’t live up to our potential, it would destroy us.

Hashem, instead, used Bilaam’s own power to destroy him. The Ohr Gedalyahu exlplains that Bilaam thought that at one and the same time he would be able to prophecy on the level of Moshe, and also color the nevuah according to the desires of his soul. However, prophecy on the level of Moshe doesn’t work like that. Prophecy on the level of Moshe is truth, and it is not affected by the Navi who utters that truth. Bilaam did merit to bring Torah into the world. But the truth of his Torah was the opposite of his intention. Instead of expressing a curse, his praises of us were a blessing, an expression of our connection to Hashem, and His love for us. Bilaam’s nevuah is therefore separate from the Torah, because it came into this word through him. It is also part of the Torah, expressing the truth of our relationship with Hashem, through the negation of everything Bilaam stands for.

Parshat Chukat

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Earth and Ashes

In this parsha we begin with the mitzvah that is at one and the same time the most incomprehensible and also the one which gives us a path toward facing our worst fears. I am talking, of course, about the mitzvah of parah adumah, which deals head on with the spiritual and emotional results of coming into close contact with death.

The tumah of death is the gravest sort of tumah. In the face of death, our emotional and spiritual reaction is almost always despair. It is so final. We retain hope to the last second as long as someone is drawing breath. Even at the very edge of death, we will storm the heavens in prayer. But at the moment of death, we stand with no hope. We pray no more. We stand cut off.

Rav Schorr explains that tumah a blockage of our life force. The Hebrew word tumah is connected to the word atum, meaning impeded. The laws of tumah reflect this. That which is alive, like a plant connected to the earth, cannot become tamei. However, a plant which is picked from the ground becomes tamei with ease.

We were originally created completely tahor. Tahor is connected to the word tzohar, which means a translucent object that lets the light through. Something which is tahor is something which is connected to and expresses its life-force. This was our state in Gan Eden. Our bodies drew their life force perfectly from our souls. Every aspect of our bodies, up to and including the most external aspect, our skin, radiated that light. It was only after we sinned that we created a blockage between our life force and ourselves, between our bodies and our souls. After we sinned our skin became the covering it is now, which does not allow us to see our neshama radiating through.

We returned to a state of complete connection at the time of matan torah. Then, we were connected to the highest aspect of the Torah, the part that is beyond this world and connects us to eternal life. The Torah point out to us that words of the Torah were engraved on the luchot. Our Sages point out that this was an expression of the way our souls were connected to our bodies. Words which are engraved, unlike words which are written on paper, are words which are completely connected to the medium that holds them. At Matan Torah we were completely and inseparably connected to our souls. The result was a complete state of taharah. In the words of our Sages (Avot 6:2), “don’t read engraved, read freedom.” The complete connection to our souls freed us from death.

That was true until we sinned again and the luchot were broken. Mostly, we have lost our ability to be connected to the Torah at the level we were on at Har Sinai. However, we retain one impression of the level of the first luchot. That impression is parshat parah. The mitzvah of parah adumah begins with the words, “this is chukat hatorah.” Ramban connects this language to the word mechukak, which means carved out, or hollowed out. Parah adumah is a mitzvah which is carved out from the very essence of the Torah. It is a vessel for the life force of the Torah.

Parah adumah remains incomprehensible to us because it remains on the level of Har Sinai. It did not descend to our level, as the other mitzvot did. For this reason only Moshe Rabbeinu, who had no part in the chet haegel, was able to fully understand this mitzvah. Parah adumah remains connected always to Moshe and to his level. In every parah adumah there was always a bit of the ashes from the one that Moshe made.

Even though we can’t understand it, however, this mitzvah still it speaks to us. Specifically, it speaks to us through its ashes. What is ash? Ash is the burnt-out end from which nothing more can grow. In order to purify someone with the parah adumah we burn the heifer and sprinkle its ashes. However, when the Torah describes this process of sprinkling in Bamidbar 19:17, the word the Torah uses is not ashes, but soil. Which is a little odd, because soil is the opposite of ash. The Gemara specifically defines soil as the medium that cultivates new growth (Chullin 88b).

By using the word soil the Torah is sending us a message about the way we experience death in this world. We experience it as ash, as an end, as a state of being completely cut off. But that is not the truth. Life is eternal. Our soul is eternal. We cannot comprehend it, but we can experience it and know it. In every situation, there is a place for growth and moving forward. As Rav Shapiro explains, “The fearsomely novel insight of the subject of the Red Heifer is that even those parts that were worn out in the struggle, even those parts that seem to have transformed into ash—they too will bring about growth (Refections and Introspections on the Torah, Volume 5, p, 30).”

The chachamim tell us (Chullin 89a) that we received the mitzvah of parah adumah in the merit of Avraham, who said “I am but earth and ashes.” Parah adumah is a response to a world that is both earth and ashes. There are times that we feel cut off, and times that we feel connected. But our ability to give ourselves over to Hashem’s plan is the ability to reconnect to the eternal part of ourselves, and to move forward from any place, regardless of how hopeless or cut off it may seem.

 

 

Parshat Korach

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Monday’s Song: Yearning for Shamayim

All the trouble began on Monday. On that day, the second day of the creation of the world, Hashem separated the lower waters from the higher waters, and the unity of the world was broken. Rabbenu Bachya says the name of the day, sheni, which means two, introduced the concept of shinui, change to the world. From this day forward, the ability to change G-d’s plan was in the hands of creation. Immediately, things began to stray from the plan. On day three the earth produced trees that were different from what Hashem had commanded. On the fourth day the moon complained and was made smaller. On the fifth day the female leviatan, the sea monster, was killed. And on the sixth day we sinned and were kicked out of Gan Eden. Change, free will and machloket were created, and that affected everything moving forward.

From one perspective, this is a negative development. And in fact, Hashem did not say “ki tov” on day two. On the other hand, there is great spiritual force to the day. The mizmor for Monday is mizmor 38, which begins by describing how Hashem is gadol, great. Rav Moshe Shapiro, zt”l, explains that gadol describes a specific aspect of Hashem’s greatness: His ability to unify all the disparate pieces of our world into one whole. Hashem’s greatness is revealed in the diversity of the Rain Forest, and it is revealed in the diversity of the opinions of humanity. As the mizmor continues, it is found openly in the City of Hashem. The reference is to Yerushalayim as it is described at the end of Yechezkel (48:30-35), a city with a unique gate for each tribe. The greatness of Hashem is expressed in the recognition that even when we are going to the same place, we each have our own path to get there.

It is not by accident that we Jews have a long history of disagreements.  Rav Schorr explains that Hashem used the Torah as the blueprint for the world. Just as in the Torah there is not one word which is repeated or extra, so too in the world, there can be no extra creation, nothing unnecessary. If two creations were exactly the same, that would make one unnecessary. Therefore, each creation has an individualized purpose. Each person is gifted with an individualized face and an individualized mind.

We live our lives with a balance between our own unique path, and our place in the whole. This is how Rav Schorr explains the famous words of Hillel HaZaken, “If I am not for myself, who is for me?” Each of us has our own unique purpose, and it is our job to be mindful of that. No one else can fulfill our purpose for us. Nevertheless, “If I am only for myself, what am I?” Each of our paths leads to a place of unity in the world, and we have to keep that in mind as well. Finally, “If not now, when?” because each moment of our lives is as unique as we are. Each moment is another unique rediscovering of our unique place in the world. Our life is an ever-expanding journey of expressing our truth in this world.

Diversity can be an incredible expression of the greatness of Hashem. But it is not always intrinsically good. Rabbenu Bachya, in his comments to Parshat Korach, tells us that Korach drew the spiritual strength to begin his famous argument with Moshe from the spirituality of the second day. Korach’s sin was a repetition of the sin of the generation of the Tower of Bavel. Like that generation, Korach spoke words of unity: “This whole congregation are all Holy and Hashem is among them.”  And also like that generation, the unity was a false unity. It led over 250 men to their deaths.

Korach’s underlying desire was for self-sufficiency. In the generation of the Tower of Bavel, the Midrash tells us that what they desired was to create a method where they could be sure that no flood would ever come to the earth again. They didn’t want to rely on Hashem. Korach did something similar in the spiritual realm. The question he addressed to Moshe was, “If I have a garment that is completely made of techeilet, do I need to add a single techeilet string to the fringes?” The idea underlying this question was, if I am already the “techeilet,” if I am already holy, why do I need anything more? In fact, he took this idea even further. He argued that if the entire congregation of Jews is holy enough, they no longer need Moshe to bring them close to Hashem.

This is, of course, not how our world works.  Separation and diversity were not introduced into the world alone. There was something else created at the same time. The Zohar (Tikkunei Zohar Tikun 5) tells us that when the lower waters were separated from the higher waters they cried out, “We too want to stand before the King!”  Together with the separation, the desire to reunite was born.

Our world is divided between aretz and shamayim. Bereisheit Rabbah 5:8 tells us that the earth is called aretz because it runs (ratz) and desires to fulfill the will (ratzon) of its creator. The earth is the place of movement, the place where we are all running to fill our individual desires. It is also therefore the place of conflict and machloket. We bump into each other in our race to get what we want.

Shamayim, on the other hand, comes from the plural of the word sham, there. It is the end point, the collection of all destinations. Rashi (Bereisheit 1:8) tells us that shamayim is the place of fire and water together. On earth fire and water can not mix. But shamayim is the place of Hashem’s limitless power. There, fire and water can be combined.

Our individual paths are important, but they are not the end of the story. They are valuable because they are part of Hashem’s infinite plan. We are not self-sufficient in our kedusha. We are kadosh because we are connected to Hashem. This is the message of the techeilet, the message that Korach didn’t hear. Even though we are holy creations of Hashem, we still need the little string to remind us to reach out for something bigger. Our diversity is valuable as an expression of the limitless Kingship of Hashem.

Our Sages (Avot 5:16) tell us that the machloket of Korach didn’t endure because it was not l’shem shamayim. Korach didn’t understand the whole picture. He didn’t see that the space for our individual diversity is created through our connection to the limitlessness of Hashem. Even so, he played a valuable part in Hashem’s world. And in the end, the mizmor that the leviim sang in the Beit HaMikdash on Monday was written by Korach’s sons.

Parshat Shelach

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Seeing Good

This is the parsha of the spies; the parsha of seeking out, scouting and spying. Essentially, this is the parsha of the Hebrew verb “tur.”  Of the 15 times that this verb appears in chumash, 13 of them are in this parsha. But not the first one. The first time the verb tur is mentioned in the Torah is in last week’s parsha, Beha’alotecha.

As we mentioned last week, according to Rebbe what we call Bamidbar is really three separate books. The first book, from the beginning of Bamidbar to perek 10, is the story of the how Bnei Yisrael began their journey after receiving the Torah. This journey was supposed to move us quickly into Eretz Yisrael, but never came to its intended conclusion. Instead, starting in perek 11, we have the third book of Bamidbar, which details the journey that actually occurred, which involved wandering in the desert for 40 years, and ultimately led to all the exiles we have endured. In the middle of these two journeys is the short book, only two verses, that details the journey of the aron kodesh.

It is at the very end of the first book of Bamidbar that we find the first use of the verb “tur”. Pasuk 10:33 describes how the Aron containing the broken luchot would travel ahead of the nation “latur lahem menucha, to prepare for them a place to rest.”  Tur here is a process of searching out, of seeking and seeing, but only for the purpose of spiritual preparation. This is what tur is supposed to be.

When Hashem commands, in the second pasuk of this week’s parsha, “Send forth men, and they will ‘tur’ the land of Canaan,” these men are being sent on a spiritual mission. Their forty days of spying out the land are parallel to the forty days Moshe spent on Har Sinai. Moshe brought the Torah from shamayim down to earth. The job of the meraglim was to bring the Torah from the desert, where we lived in a world of miracles, into the land of Israel, where we could live with the Torah in a system of nature.

How were they meant to do this? Rabbi Moshe Shapiro (Reflections and Introspection on the Torah, Volume 4, p. 460) explains that their mission was actually the mission of each and every one of us, from the moment of creation. We were all formed in the image of Hashem, as creators. Specifically, we create as Hashem created on most of the days of creation, but not the way He created on the first day of creation. On the first day of creation, Hashem brought all of existence into being from a state of nothingness. This is, of course, entirely beyond our comprehension. We can’t do this at all.

However, for the next five days of creation Hashem formed the matter he had created on the first day into a usable world. The Torah tells us the process he used was a process of saying and then seeing. For example, “G-d said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. G-d saw that the light was good (Bereisheit 1:3-4).” Hashem used speech to form the world, and then that reality became perceivable as “good.” What does it mean that it was good? It means that after Hashem spoke, the world became a place that could be perceived to be fulfilling its purpose. The world was a place that was visibly moving toward its intended destiny.

On the sixth day, Hashem created mankind, and gave us the power of speech. This is the power to form the raw material of our world. We each create the world around us with our speech.  Rav Shapiro tells us that our creation begins with speech and ends in sight. We speak the reality we perceive, and that becomes the visible form of our world.  

The job of the meraglim was to use their speech to prepare Eretz Yisrael for us to live in.  They were meant to perceive the world through the lens of what Hashem had promised us in the Torah. Then, the meraglim were supposed to use their words to form that perception into reality, so that we could all look at Eretz Yisrael and see that it was good, meaning that is was the place that we were destined to be.

What the meraglim actually did was the exact opposite. They lost the vision of Eretz Yisrael as our destiny, and they used their words to create a perception of Eretz Yisrael as a place that where we did not belong. The result was that we, as a nation, cried. Our vision became blurry and confused with our tears. And we lost our connection to Eretz Yisrael.

The Maharal (Netzach Yisrael Chapter 8) tells us that we were supposed to acquire Eretz Yisrael eternally and unshakably. But when we refused to perceive Eretz Yisrael as the place we were meant to be, that changed the form of the world, the reality of the world. With our words, we created the possiblity for Am Yisrael to live outside of Eretz Yisrael. This is why the weeping of that first Tisha B’av echoes through the generations. It was what made all future exiles possible. As Rav Shapiro says, “Our entrance into the land is no longer imperative. We can be there or not, and consequently, even when we are there, we are not there absolutely; we are not entirely there. p.467.”

This was a national failure, but it was not the end of the story. As we said, this is the parsha of the word tur. There is one more use of the word tur in the parsha after the story of the meraglim. The parsha ends with the mitzvah of tzitzit, where we are told, “lo taturu acharei levavchem v’acharei eineichem, do not explore after your heart and after your eyes (Bamidbar 15:39).” Rav Shapiro tells us that this mitzvah is a response to the disaster of the meraglim. In this constant reminder not to explore incorrectly. And it gives us a path forward.

The essence of the mitzvah of tzitzit is the techeilet, the blue string that is interwoven into the white strings. The Gemara tells us (Chullin 89a) that the blue string is meant to remind us of the sea, the sea is meant to remind us of the sky and the sky is meant to remind us of the Throne of Glory. Rav Moshe explains that these are progressive levels of understanding of the limitlessness of Hashem. The blue string is woven into the white strings, just as the expansive power of Hashem is meant to be woven into the fabric of our lives.

When we stand by the sea, and breathe in the salty air, and watch the waves rolling off into eternity, we can feel the expansiveness of Hashem’s creation, even though we know that ultimately that the sea is limited. We can carry that feeling with us as we look up the sky and experience its expansiveness that appears to have no limits at all. We can take that feeling and remind ourselves that Hashem has no limits at all.

Grounded in this understanding, we can weave the blue string into the white background of our life. If there are no limits, there is no event too small or too big for Hashem. He is with us in the tiny moments of frustration, when we are searching for a parking spot, and He is with us in national moments of crisis as well. The parsha begins with national failure, but it ends with personal redemption, which we create moment by moment in our lives. We expand and redeem our lives when we open ourselves up to experiencing the awesome, infinite power of Hashem. When we speak that truth we can see that reality, and we can experience the good that is our world.