Standing Alone and Connected
The stage is set for the greatest battle of Yaacov’s life with three simple words. “And Yaacov was left alone.” In his comments to this week’s parsha, Rav Schorr reveals some of the tremendous depth that exists in these three words. On one level, these are the words that always begin any major spiritual test. As we mentioned in connection with parshat Lech Lecha, the nature of a test is that Hashem removes some level of His constant help and closeness, which leaves room for us to stand on our own and develop our own strength. This means that each of us faces our spiritual tests in a state of aloneness.
We are not always comfortable with being alone. The Gemara (Ta’anit 23a) expresses the general feeling on the topic with the phrase, “Either companionship or death.” Without companionship, we feel lost. Many of us, constantly under assault from social media and streaming content don’t even know the meaning of being alone. Alone just seems sad and lonely. But there is another, spiritual way of being alone.
Yaacov Aveinu mastered the spiritual level of standing alone, and he paved the way for us to learn it, too. To stand alone as Yaacov stood alone is to stand in reflection of the middah of Hashem. Bereisheit Rabbah 77 notes that just as it says about Hashem, “And Hashem will stand alone on that day (Yishayahu 2:17), it says about Yaacov, “And Yaacov was left alone.” What does it mean, the Hashem stands alone? Hashem exists, in all His Unfathomable, Inexpressible Greatness, completely independent of anything else. To reflect this means to connect to that aspect of ourselves which remains unchanging, and is independent of our circumstances. To stand alone is to stand in connection to the deepest part of ourselves, the part that never changes, the soul which keeps us constantly connected to Hashem.
Yaacov’s middah was Emet, the middah of connecting to truth, which does not change. Yaacov was able to retain his connection to the awareness of the Oneness of Hashem, completely independent of any situation in which he found himself. The fight against Eisav’s angel was a fight over whether Yaacov could maintain this level, “alone,” even when faced with the concentrated essence of everything Eisav stood for. When Yaacov emerged victorious, it was not only that his essence was changed. We gained as well. The spiritual victories of the Avot are our spiritual inheritance. We now carry within us the ability to tap into this spiritual level of “alone.” Balaam says of us (Bamidbar 23:9), “it is a nation that will dwell in solitude.” And Moshe blesses us (Devarim 33:28), “Thus Israel will dwell secure, solitary, in the likeness of Yaacov.”
The test of this middah on a national level came during the time of Chanukah. The battle with the Greeks was a battle over the essence of who we are. We can gain insight into its nature by looking at its roots in the Torah: the narrative of Shem, ancestor of the Jews, and Yafet, ancestor of the Greeks. In Parshat Noach (Bereisheit 9:18-27) Shem and Yafet are informed by their brother Ham that their father Noach is intoxicated and uncovered in his tent. They both take a garment, and carefully cover their father. But Rashi (9:23) says that their reward is very different. Shem is rewarded with tzitzit, while Yafet is rewarded with burial for his sons during the wars before Moshiach. Why is there a different reward for the same action?
The answer is, it was not the same action at all, even though it looked the same. And this is essence of the difference between Bnei Yisrael and Yavan, Greece. Chazal call the wisdom of Yavan “external wisdom.” Yavan had wise men who were experts in all manner of logic and science, math and athletics. Everything that could be quantified and rationalized was important in their world. They defined reality by what they could perceive and quantify. But they did not believe that there was a spiritual reality that existed above the natural order of logic and reason. We, clearly, disagree. Hashem creates reality as a form within a form, and there is always a spiritual core inside the physical husk, even if we can’t immediately see it.
The difference in the actions of Shem and Yafet lays in the area that could not be seen. It was a difference of intent. Yafet was concerned with the external nature of the event, the impropriety of seeing his father in such a drunken state. He was rewarded with burial, which is a covering for the physical body. Shem covered his father because of kivud Av, and out of a concern for kavod habriot. He was rewarded with tzitzit, which is a covering for the soul within the body. This is the root of the two paths of these two nations. The Greek path is one natural physical and intellectual accomplishment, which negates that which lies outside the realm of what the mind can comprehend. The Jewish path is the path of connection to the pnemiut, the inner essence of life.
Looking at this a little more deeply, Rav Schorr introduces the idea in chazal that each of the four Kingdoms of our exile relates to a different one of the four most serious sins, and Greece relates to the sin of murder. At first glance it seems odd to connect the Greek culture of beauty and wisdom with murder. But there is great depth that is hidden here. In Hebrew, the term used for murder is shefichat damim, which literally means spilling blood. As we know, the blood is the life of the person. Murder is the separation of the soul, the inner essence of the person, from their body. But there is more than one way to murder someone. The Greeks denied the reality of the soul, the inner life of the person. Through the denial of the reality of the soul, Greek culture created the greatest separation that could exist between body and soul while the person was still alive in this world. No less than murder, this was a drawing out of the lifeblood of the person, our inner essence. A person who remains detached from his inner essence is not really alive.
What the Greeks were attempting at the time of Chanukah was murder on a national level. In every instance, they wanted to maintain the outer hull of Jewish life, but bleed it dry of its inner essence. The Greeks translated the Written Torah into Greek, and accorded it honor, but denied its inner life, the Oral Torah. They were happy to join us in the Temple, but they defiled the holiness of all the oil. They were “michallel” the Beit Hamikdah, they defiled it by removing it’s inner kedusha, and turning it into something like a “chalal,” a corpse, void and empty within.
The polar opposite of this is Yaacov, the father about whom we say, “Yaacov Avinu didn’t die.” Yaacov is called “Mekor Hachayim,” the source of life. This is connected to his middah of emet. For something to be true, it means that the external reality reflects and is completely aligned with the internal reality. Falsehood occurs when there is disparity between the outward appearance and the internal reality. Yaacov’s middah was the ability to connect completely all the external aspects of this world to their internal truth. This was how Yaacov did battle with Eisav. “And Yaacov was left alone.” He was alone, but very much with himself, connected to his soul and connected to Hashem.
We can walk in Yaacov’s footsteps. The essence of Greek culture is still very much alive today. Chanukah is an excellent time, spiritually, to revitalize ourselves. It’s a great time to reacquaint ourselves with the joy and power that comes from being alone in its truest sense. This means being alone with the deep and unlimited self we carry within us, which is our constant and intimate connection to Hashem.