Sparks of Chayei Sarah

Posted on by Rebecca


Sparks of Chayei Sarah

Double Your Money

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Let’s talk money. When Avraham buys Ma’arat Hamachpelah for 400 silver shekel, it’s the first time a transaction using currency is recorded in the Torah. Which gives us an excellent opportunity to explore the spiritual aspects of currency. As Rav Moshe Shapiro points out, money is something that is given legal status in the Torah. It is therefore an intrinsic part of our world and has spiritual meaning.

What money doesn’t have is intrinsic worth. Currency is not valuable in and of itself. It’s valuable because of what you can buy with it. All its value lies in what it can acquire. Avraham’s coins are kesef, silver, which is also the name for currency as defined in the Gemara (Bava Metzia 44 a-b). As a verb, kesef means to yearn for something, or to aspire for it. Therefore, Rav Shapiro defines money, kesef, as that which seeks what it does not have.

Another way we can look at this is that currency, at its core, is undefined potential. The joy of having money is the joy of having potential. And it is something which our culture loves. Secular culture worships youth, that time in life when everything seems possible. And we admire those who amass great stores of wealth, much more than could ever be spent. We like the feeling of leaving our options open.

However, the first time we see currency in the Torah, Avraham is spending it, not amassing it or saving it. And this is the whole point. Money is meant to be spent. Our avodah, as described in the first pesukim of Bereisheit (and as we discussed in the post on Bereisheit), is to use the unformed potential of the world and to bring it to actuality by giving it definition. Money is like the first material from which Hashem shaped the world. The tohu, the unformed matter of the first day of creation, had the potential for everything, and yet was nothing until it was formed and defined. We can look at our entire world as currency we are meant to use.

After the purchase of Ma’arat Hamachpela we learn that, “Avraham was old (zaken), getting on in days (lit. coming with his days), and Hashem blessed Avraham with totality  (Bereisheit 24:1).” This is a description of what it looks like when a person recognizes the currency of the world, and uses it. Avraham is zaken, from the words “zeh kanah,” he is one who has acquired. And what he acquired is all his days. Instead of disappearing into the abyss of history, Avraham brings his days with him into his future.  

To understand what this means, let’s take a moment to explore the opposite: the person who does not acquire his days. Think of that person you know who refuses to commit, who always has to have all his options open. He can’t bear to close any of them off by choosing just one. And in this way, he loses them all. Because there always comes a time when the options end. A day that isn’t actualized is a day that is lost. The days we used to express and actualize our soul are the only days we take with us. There is great truth behind the idea that time is money. And there is no greater waste of money than not to spend it.

So what did Avraham, the tzaddik who understood everything about spending days and money, purchase? He purchased Ma’arat Hamachpeila, the doubled cave. Avraham and Sara lived a double life, not as spies, but as fully actualized people. They were following the instructions of the first pasuk of the Torah, “In the beginning G-d created Heaven and Earth.” Heaven and Earth were created together, Rav Shapiro teaches, because everything is heaven has a counterpart in earth, and everything in earth has a counterpart in heaven. Our job is to keep heaven and earth aligned, as Hashem created them. We do this through doubling ourselves.

In Hebrew, the concept of doubling can be expressed in two ways: there is the word keifel, and there is the expression pi shenayim.  Both of these expressions are related to our bodies. Keifel is related to the word kaf, which can be either the palm of the hand or the soul of the foot. And the pi in pi shenayim is the word for mouth. Like the world as a whole, we are made partially from earth, and partially from heaven. Our avodah is to actualize ourselves, by expressing our soul. We can do this though our speech (pi) or through our actions (kaf). A person doubles himself when his speech and his actions are an exact reflection of his soul. The avot lived a double existence. They lived in complete harmony between soul and body.

The Midrash (Tanna D’vei Eliyahu 25) teaches that we are all supposed to say, “When will my deeds reach the deeds of my Fathers?” Rav Moshe teaches that this is an instruction, not to try to be the Fathers, but to act in a way that “reaches” what they did. We should try to have actions that are similar enough that they could be compared. It is an instruction to actualize ourselves as the Avot actualized themselves.

Avraham, our Father, left us the means to do this. He instituted the tefillah of Shacharit. In the morning, the whole day stretches out before us with seemingly limitless possibilities. To step into the space of tefillah that Avraham created for us in the morning means to step into the recognition that Hashem created the world as a series of days. Time is not an endless expanse that marches on toward nothing. We live in a world of days, each one its own universe of opportunity. Each one has its own mission and its own character.

Shacharit is the tefillah that reminds us what real opportunity and real potential look like. Avraham was a giant of a man who made himself like a newborn child. He refused to be defined by his geographic location, his culture or his family.  He was not even defined by the laws of nature (see Rashi, Bereisheit 15:5).  Instead, Avraham chose to follow where Hashem would lead him, even though he had no idea where that would be. He stepped off the routine cycle of history and nature. And he took us with him.

Shacharit is the Jewish response to the routine of the world. It is not a prayer of distress; it is a prayer of recognition. When sun rises, and nature seems to be firmly on its preset path, we respond with the declaration that even though everything looks routine, it is really the Hand of Hashem. We pray, each morning, for the same things again and again, because we know that each day, the world is new. Each day, Hashem gives it to us again.

It’s not just the natural world that is hiding the hand of Hashem. As we spoke about in Parshat Lech Lecha, it is the cycle of history as well. As time marches forward, it is pregnant with the inner purpose of the world. Time is marching toward a definite end when it will birth the era of Moshiach. The Avot understood this, and they acted as Hashem’s Merkavah, Hashem’s chariot that carries His Will forward in time. When we pray the prayers they left us with, we join them. They set the chariot on its path, and we continue to push it forward as we walk forward through time, hand-in-hand with Hashem.

Sparks of Vayeira

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Sparks of Vayeira

When Evil Self-Destructs

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We begin the parsha with the three angels that visit Avraham after his brit milah. Three angels, as many of us learned as children, means three missions. One mission per angel. There’s just one problem: the angel Raphael, who came to heal Avraham and also to save Lot from Sodom. He appears to have two missions. In the intersection of these two missions, Rav Shapiro finds some amazing insights.

The angels that appear to Avraham at the beginning of Parshat Vayeira did not come at a random time, with three unrelated messages. They came after the brit milah because the brit, related to the word beriyah, creation, changed the nature of the world. The angels came to reveal three aspects of the new world. First, the brit created the reality of Avraham as the mainstay of the world. His relationship with Hashem would keep the world in existence. We, his children, are necessary in order maintain that relationship. The first angel revealed that this new reality meant that Yitzchak would finally be born.

The second angel came to heal. The brit was an opening of the spiritual channels that fully connect our bodies to the spiritual roots of life. This connection between physical and spiritual is the essence of healing. The second angel came, not just to heal Avraham, but also to reveal a new level of healing which was now available to the world.

And what about the angel that came to destroy Sodom? How is that connected to the brit? The answer lies in the specific connection between Avraham and Lot. It is a connection that Avraham describes as, “we are brothers (Bereisheit 13:8).” Rashi adds, their faces were similar. They looked alike. But they went in opposite directions. Whichever way Lot went, Avraham went the other way. Their alikeness was like a mirror reflection, exactly opposite.

In which direction did each of them go? The psukim tell us that Lot traveled away from Avraham, “mikedem,” literally east. Rashi tells us this means “mikadmo shel olam, away from the One Who preceded the world (Bereisheit 13:10-11).” Avraham had innovated a way to connect to Hashem, and therefore to connect to the basis of our true existence in this world. Avraham remained connected to Hashem at all times, but Lot wanted out. He wanted to live his life without Hashem.

The results of these choices created real, practical distinctions. Where once they traveled together, Avraham and Lot’s lives became opposites. Avraham embodied the middah of chesed completely. He planted an orchard and invited in guests. Lot went to Sodom, a society where kindness was forbidden by law.

The root of Avraham’s kindness came from his connection to Hashem, his recognition that our existence in this world is possible only because of Hashem’s boundless kindness at every moment. This connection to Hashem was expressed through every moment of his life. Lot, on the other hand, moved away from the One Who proceeds the world. He went to Sodom, where life was viewed as a fait accompli, with no thought to what came before. Sodom believed that the world runs on justice and was created for man to work. Man must earn his existence in the world, and it is not for others to give him. And while there is some truth to the idea that this world is a place of work, Sodom forgot one thing. Like the “self-made man” who started his business with an investment from his father, Sodom forgot that our entire ability to do anything in this world is only because of the tremendous kindness Hashem did for us when he gave us life.

The brit milah revealed Hashem as the Source of our existence, while Sodom’s entire existence was predicated on separation from Hashem as the Source of the World. In the face of the reality of the brit, the continued existence of Sodom became an impossibility. Their belief in their own self-reliance caused them to self-destruct. Sodom was inverted. The world experienced a new reality, a truth that is fundamental to the entire course of our world.  Evil, when followed to its own conclusions, will ultimately reach such self-contradictory proportions it will self-destruct.

When Hashem originally created the world, He created a world of good and truth which stood opposite falsehood. There was no concept of “evil.” We introduced the concept of evil to the world when we ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. We are the reason that sin looks good in our eyes. For Moshiach to come, we need to remove the evil we added to our world. There are only two ways this can happen. The first is if the entire human realm unanimously agrees that evil should be dismissed. We all let go of it completely. This is what the Gemara calls a generation that is entirely righteous (Sanhedrin 98a). As this seems highly unlikely, it’s a good thing that there is another option, what the Gemara calls a generation that is entirely evil. In this generation, Rav Shapiro tells us, “the bad becomes stronger and stronger until it reaches such dimensions as to contradict itself, and its impossibility becomes glaringly evident (p. 480).” When evil advances to such a degree that it becomes unsustainable, transformation can take place.  As we say in our tefillot for the Yamim Noraim, “wickedness shall dissipate like smoke.” Sodom was the first, but the rest of the evil in the world will someday follow.

But that is not the end of the story. There is one final step in the process which we learn from a man named Eliezer ben Durdaya (Avodah Zara 17a). This was a man who spent his entire life in pursuit of the basest pleasures, to the exclusion of anything meaningful. This continued until one day he recognized that he had lived himself into a state of non-existence. He was completely disconnected to anything real. The moment he recognized the truth was a moment of self-destruction. He perished from this world. But it is also the moment when he gained everlasting life.  He was transformed to Rabbi Eliezer ben Durdaya.  

His Jewish soul, like all Jewish souls, could never be destroyed. Actually, everything created through Hashem’s eternal world cannot be destroyed. This is what Rabbi Eliezer taught us. When we are at the point of self-destruction, we have the choice to destroy our old self through the process of transforming it into something better. This is the real truth of Sodom. From the ruins of Sodom was the seed of our final true existence.

Avraham brought the world closer to its true purpose, its healing, through direct connection with Hashem. He taught us truth through bracha. But Lot also brought the world closer to is true purpose, in an inverted way. Lot, the midrash tells us, had tents: the tent of Rut the Moabite, who was the great grandmother of David HaMelech, and the tent of Naamah the Ammonite, who was the mother of Rechavam, heir of Shlomo HaMelech. Lot taught us that evil self-destructs.  That it is unsustainable. That when evil grows stronger, strong enough to self-destruct, it is also part of the healing that our world needs. This is why it was the same angel, Rafael, who brought healing to Avraham and who saved Lot from Sodom. From both Avraham and from Lot, the Moshiach is born.  

Sparks of Lech Lecha

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Sparks of Lech Lecha

Space of Our Fathers

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Parshat Lech Lecha opens up seemingly out of nowhere. Hashem tells Avraham, “Go!” But who is Avraham? Why does Hashem decide to speak to him? Why won’t He tell Avraham where he’s going? We’re not sure. Like Avraham, we just have to follow along, and see where Hashem is taking us. Rav Shapiro tells us that this is exactly the point. Lech Lecha was the moment Hashem promised Avraham that he would be a nation. And that required a moment of complete newness, a moment of stepping out of everything known, because that was the nature and the greatness of Avraham’s emunah and the founding principle of our nation.

We usually translate emunah as faith, which unfortunately does very little to help us understand what Emunah is really all about. Rav Shapiro explains that emunah is based in reliance. Specifically, it is our reliance on Hashem because we recognize that there is a limit to our understanding and abilities. The nature of the world we live in is that it has both an external layer, and an internal, hidden aspect. We see this represented physically in the nature of the earth that we walk on. Hidden within the earth are two types of treasure. There is tremendous energy that we have only begun to harness. And there are precious rocks and stones. None of this is visible on the surface.

The nature of the physical earth is representative of the nature of the Torah, which was the blueprint for our physical reality. The Torah also has a peshat level, a simple level, which we can understand on the surface, and then endless layers of spiritual depth when we begin to dig. People are created in this same mold, with external kochot, and internal kochot that come from our eternal soul, which are usually not apparent on our surface.

We don’t always think about it, but the way Hashem guides us in time follows this pattern as well. There is the external reality, the history that we can all study and understand. But there is also an internal level, the spiritual guidance of Hashem that is hidden within the history of the world. Pirkei D’Rebbe Eliezer (Chapter 8) explains that Avraham understood this fully and was in possession of a tradition that had been passed down from Adam to Chanoch to Metushelach to Noach and then to Shem. It was called the mystery of intercalculation, and it is a tradition that was passed down to us as a nation.

The intercalculation of the year is the way that we synchronize the solar calendar with the lunar calendar. The solar cycle is the cycle that is established and firm. This is the shana, the yearly cycle, which is connected to the word shoneh, repeat, because it does not change. The lunar cycle is the cycle of the month, the chodesh, from the word chadash, new. It is a cycle that is full of ascents and descents and is constantly renewing itself. Intercalculation is the power to perceive the internal content and hidden treasure that exists in the seemingly unchanging external cycle of the sun.

In Hebrew, intercalculation is called ibbur, pregnancy. Pregnancy, of course, is where one complete being exists in another. The chachamim tell us that the history of our world is also pregnant. There is another course that is taking place through history, which is beyond what we see on the surface. There is an internal plan, Hashem’s plan, leading to Hashem’s goal. In the end, the revealed course of the world will give birth to the internal course.

Avraham understood how to integrate the revealed physical world, in all its realms, with the inner spiritual reality of the world. He understood that Hashem was guiding him and the entire world. This was the basis of Avraham’s emunah. Rav Shapiro points out that the world considers those who are faithful as closeminded. The opposite is true. A person without emunah is a person who refuses to move beyond what his five senses and his limited intelligence tell him. He feels the need to be in control of his entire reality, and so the only reality he will admit to is what he already knows.  

A person with emunah is a person who understands that he doesn’t understand, that the world is much more than he can grasp. Emunah means understanding that I am not the One who establishes reality, and therefore I don’t know exactly what I will do next. I have reached something beyond me, and that is what I will rely on. This was lech lecha. Avraham was asked to go to a place that could not be showed to him before he got there. It cannot be understood until it is experienced. So he followed Hashem, and he went.

And because he went, the promises Hashem made to Avraham when He spoke the words “lech lecha” came true. Rashi, based on Pesachim 117b, understands those promises in a surprising way. He understands that they are fulfilled through the words we say at the beginning of our Amidah, mentioning our Fathers. Brachot 26b teaches that the tefillot were instituted by our Fathers. This is not just an ancillary fact. Rav Shapiro tells us that this is an important facet of how our Fathers were revealed as Fathers. Instituting the tefillot was intrinsic to their nature as our Avot.

What does it mean to be an Av? It’s primary meaning in our daily life is father. But the first time it is used in the Torah it does not mean that. The Torah tells us (Bereisheit 4:20-21) that Yaval was the father of all who dwell in tents and breed cattle and Yuval was the father of all who handle the harp and the flute. Obviously, they were not the literal fathers of all musicians and cattle herders.

Radak in Sharashim connects the world ‘av’ to the ‘avoh, to want.’ An av is someone who strongly desires something, and from his desire for it, creates the space for it to exist in the world. Yaval and Yuval had a desire for human development. And that desire and vision created the place in the world for all those who came after.

Avraham also had a vision, and a desire. His desire was to follow Hashem, and to live in Hashem’s spiritual reality. And this is exactly what Hashem promised him. Within the natural order of the world, there was no ability for Avraham to have children. But Hashem told him (Bereisheit 15:5 with Rashi), go outside of your mazal, outside of what is possible in the natural world. Hashem made a new space for Avraham from within the inner spirituality of the world. And that space is the space that we exist in today.

Our ability to pray is due to our Fathers. Rav Shapiro tells us, this is how they left themselves with us. They created the space we stand in when we pray. And our tefillah is the way that we move ourselves into the space that Avraham created for us to exist in the world. We therefore begin our prayers mentioning Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaacov. When we daven we are the fulfillment of the promise that Hashem made to Avraham at Lech Lecha. We are a great nation, and we are blessing.

The Gemara tells us (Brachot 6b) that whoever sets a fixed space for his prayer has the G-d of Avraham as his helper. What does it mean to set a fixed space for our prayer? It means giving our prayers the correct aspect of space. When we pray, we enter a new place, another realm of existence. We are facing our Creator. We return to the supernatural space that Avraham created for us in this world. If we only take a moment to understand what this means, we can understand the tremendous power Avraham bequeathed to us with each and every prayer. May we all be zoche.

 

Sparks of Noach

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Sparks of Noach

The Power of Being Bent Out of Shape

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Welcome to Cheshvan, the month of bul. At least that’s the name for it in Melachim Aleph (6:38). The Midrash Tanchuma (Noach, 11) tells us that this is actually a shortened form of the word mabul, flood. The month of Cheshvan was the month when the mabul began, and it retained the imprint of the flood for centuries. Every year, on the 17th of Cheshvan, it would rain for 40 days straight. This continued until King Shlomo completed the Beit HaMikdash, also in the month of Cheshvan. With the Beit Hamikdash built, we were able to pray for rain properly, and the yearly forty days of rain stopped. The letter mem, which is equivalent to the number 40, was dropped from the name, and the month became known as bul, which is the name used in Tanach for an unformed block of wood (Yeshayahu 44:19).  

Rav Shapiro tells us that this transformation, from mabul to bul is significant. Mabul is a mass of water. It is matter with no form. Imagine trying to hold water in your hand and give it a shape. It is not possible. A block of wood is an entirely different matter. In the hands of a skilled craftsman, it has the potential to be formed into almost anything. Cheshvan was the month of the mabul, but it became the month of the finishing of the Beit Hamikdash. It is the month that once brought the Earth to complete extinction through water but is now the month that we begin to pray in earnest for rain. The process of moving from mabul to bul is the process of building ourselves up.

To understand this more fully, we need to understand that the punishment of the flood was not arbitrary. It was middah kneged middah. They made themselves like water, and so they were destroyed with water. What does it mean to be like water? Water is identified by our  Sages as relating to desire. It moves and goes wherever it likes. A person who acts like water is a person who, moment by moment, is led by his desires. He accepts no limitations. However, since limitation is the essence of form, he also has no form. In essence, instead of acting, he is acted upon. He is formed by his environment and his desires. And this destroys the true form of man. We were created to create ourselves and shape our world. When we allow ourselves to be led by our circumstances and our every passing desire, we dissolve the essence of who we are. The generation of the flood spiritually dissolved themselves and their world. The result was the flood, the physical dissolution of themselves and their world.  

The flood returned the world to the way it was on the second day of creation, the only day when Hashem did not say, “this is good.” On the second day of creation the waters had free reign over the Earth. Then, on the third day something amazing happened. Following the command of Hashem, the waters went against their nature, and formed themselves. They gathered themselves into seas and made space for the dry land. They reformed and recreated themselves. This is the spiritual root of why a gathering of water, a mikveh, has the power to purify. They gave themselves a new form, and in the process, they gained the power to grant new form. The process of going to the mikveh is a reenactment of the original process of creation. We immerse ourselves in water, where we have no place, and then emerge and become visible as the land became visible on the third day of creation, giving us a place to exist.

The promise made after the flood is that we would always have that place to exist, we would never again we completely wiped out. That promise was made with a rainbow. The rainbow is a natural phenomenon which Hashem used to reveal a deep aspect about our world. It is a half-circle of water that refracts the sun’s light. It is a symbol of the beauty that is possible when the unformed matter of this world is illuminated by the light of Hashem’s presence. For this reason, our Chachamim compare the rainbow to the revelation of Hashem’s Presence. This half circle from above meets the curve of our earth, and the two together form one complete circle. The message is that the two worlds are connected. The revelation from above is completed in the world below. Creation is in accord with the Higher Will.

Ramban tells us that the rainbow is also the symbol of an archer’s bow, pointing toward the heavens. A bow is made from a piece of wood, naturally straight, which is pulled into a curve, against its natural form. The force of the arrow comes from the force of the wood, as it exerts force to return to its original form. The immense power of the archer’s bow comes from the aspiration of the wood to return to its natural state. The more the wood of the bow was changed from its natural state, the greater its power to return to itself. The message is that from the time of the flood, the force of the world moving away from where it is meant to be will no longer move us to destruction. Instead, it will propel us back towards Hashem.

Rav Shapiro tells us that this is exactly what we are experiencing today. We are in the dawn of the Moshiach. When the dawn begins, before everything becomes light, there is a moment of darkness that is darker than the night. The first ray of the dawning of Moshiach is the wisdom which has flooded into our world in astonishing amounts since the dawning of the industrial revolution. Dawn’s first ray does not bring light with it. It is an expression of the immense power of a world that aspires with all its might to return to its natural spiritual state. From that expression of power we can only imagine what it will be like to experience that power in the form of beautiful light. At the moment, what is being revealed is the power of the bow, but at the time of redemption, the entire brilliant rainbow will be revealed.

This Wednesday we begin to pray for rain here in Israel. On Yom Kippur we stepped into the mikvah, and came out brand new, like a bul, a block of wood. After the chagim, we return home. Once we are home, we can pray for water that helps us grow and doesn’t destroy us. And if we feel a bit bent out of shape, we should know that that’s all part of the plan. The seventh of Cheshvan is the day that we begin to reshape ourselves in the new year, the first day of the Divine Service to form this year anew. Now’s the time to water and tend to the newness of this year.