Parshat Va’eira

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The Path We Choose To Walk

Our Parsha begins in the middle of a conversation with the words, “And Elokim spoke to Moshe, and He said to him, ‘I am Hashem.’” This is Hashem’s response to Moshe’s cry at the end of last week’s parsha, “Why have you done evil to this people, why have you sent me? (Shemot 5:22)” The structure of this pasuk is both interesting and familiar. It begins with the name Elokim, and then shifts to the four-letter name of Hashem, the Shem Havayah. We can recognize this same pattern from the story of creation. The Torah begins, “In the beginning Elokim created heaven and earth.” Only in the second perek is it written “on the day that Hashem Elokim made the earth and the heaven (2:4).” Rashi tells us that, “In the beginning, it arose before Him in thought to create the world with Middat HaDin, He saw that the world would not endure, and so He added Middat HaRachamim.”

This does not mean, chas v’shalom, that there was a change in Hashem’s Will. The Midrash is describing the reality that creation is made up of many worlds. An olam, a world, is a place of he’elem, a place of concealment, where Hashem’s presence is concealed. Or, if we flip that idea, it is a place where we have a certain amount of clarity through the concealment. Each world is a revelation of the middot of Hashem on a different level. All the worlds exist simultaneously. What we perceive, which world we live in, is determined by our spiritual level, and by our personal and national avodah. The same way that we have a choice of where we walk in space, we have a choice of how we travel through time and what world we experience as we do so. We can live in the natural order of the world. We can also live on a higher level, in the Toratit level of the world. This is how two people can be standing in the same place, and yet be in completely different worlds. We saw this phenomenon in Parshat Vayechi, where Yaacov was living in Olam Habah within the confines of Mitzrayim while his children were living in galut.

The world of thought, the world of din, continues to exist, even as we exist in the world of rachamim.  The Avot, and certain tzaddikim like Moshe and Rebbe Akiva, lived with a connection to it.  We saw that at the akeidah Avraham acted in both worlds simultaneously. In the world of thought, the akeidah was actually carried out, and the ashes of Yitzchak are considered as if they still rest on the mizbeach. However, in the world of action, the malach told Avraham not to touch Yitzchak, and the command from Elokim was tempered with rachamim.  

In our Parsha, Hashem tells Moshe that there was a plan for the slavery in Egypt which was in accordance with Middat HaDin. That plan was that we would be in slavery for 400 years. Moshe, like Avraham, lived with an attachment to the world of Din. But what he sees on the ground is that as a nation, Klal Yisrael is not there. They can not withstand this level. They need rachamim. Moshe takes this plea to Hashem, and Hashem responds by revealing to Moshe that His relationship with us as a people is going to take a new form, different from the Avot.

The Avot related to Hashem through the name Shakkai. This name, as we spoke about in Parshat Miketz, refers to the way Hashem acts upon nature to place boundaries on it so that it is both able to conceal and reveal Hashem’s presence in the world. This was the path of the Avot. They used the natural world as the path for experiencing Hashem. Avraham looked at the world around him and came to recognize Hashem through his contemplation of it. The Torah goes to great lengths to describe the physical actions of the Avot, because each one was imbued with connection and attachment to Hashem. They constricted their physical actions in such a way that malchut shamayim could be seen in the midst of the physical creation. Hashem’s response to the Avot was a reflection of their own avodah. The miracles that Hashem performed for the Avot fit into this pattern. The fire did not burn Avraham when he was thrown into the furnace in Or Kasdim because when Hashem set limits to the world, one of those limits is that the natural world can only operate in its own sphere. Avraham raised himself to a spiritual level beyond the system of nature, and fire, by right, had no ability to burn him. This is a miracle from within the system of nature, part of the boundaries that were set up for the natural world from the time of creation.

However, with the words, “I am Hashem,” Hashem reveals to Moshe that in Mitzrayim, everything was going to change. We were not on the level to effect miracles though the natural world. We would now have a new relationship with Hashem, based on the Shem HaHavayah. This name of Hashem reflects the truth that every single aspect of creation is continuously brought into existence by Hashem. The natural world exists, but only because Hashem wills it into existence at every moment. There is nothing forcing it to continue along its current path except for Hashem’s will. There is also nothing confining it, and on this level, Hashem can bring about the geulah even if we don’t deserve it. We don’t really understand this fully in this world, and that is why we can’t say this name aloud.

Hashem reveals to Moshe that Klal Yisrael is about to embark on a process that will allow them to stand at Har Sinai and experience the full understanding of this name, even though they were not on the level to earn it.  This is the message that Hashem gave Moshe through the nevuah of the burning bush. The bush did not raise itself up spiritually. It was a scrub before, it remained a scrub after, but it still didn’t burn. Hashem changed the laws of nature, and the bush was not consumed. Even more, it was able to experience the tremendous revelation of Hashem that was expressed through that fire.

This is what we gained in Mitzrayim. We gained the ability to have a relationship with Hashem at every level, at all times. The process that gave us this ability was the process of the ten plagues, which were a revelation of the ten ma’amarot that keep our world in existence. The plagues revealed that it was only the Will of Hashem that keeps the world in existence at any given moment. We can’t understand this on its deepest level, of course, but for me, the experience with Covid has given a bit of an insight into it. What I’ve noticed is that all of us, even those of us less affected, have a new relationship with our world. Maybe we learned not to make plans too far ahead, not to rely on school happening, or stores being open, or being able to get a hug from a friend when we need it. Most of us have a different relationship with time than we did before. And our world has only been partially disrupted. Imagine living in a world where water turns to blood and burning hail falls from the sky. How could you not have a new appreciation for how the system of nature is only the hand of Hashem? The process of the ten plagues was a revelation of Hashem that taught an entire nation to have a different relationship with the physical world.

We did not retain that level of awareness of Hashem. But we did retain an imprint of it. As a nation, and as individuals in that nation, we retain the knowledge that the natural order is not the only order in this world. There exists a higher order, which we can reach according to how we choose to serve Hashem in this world. The Maggid of Kozhnitz says that this is the deeper meaning of the question each person is asked at the end of their life, “Were you koveah itim in Torah?” He reads this not as, ‘Did you establish times to learn Torah?’ but as, ‘Did you establish your time as Torah, did you establish the time you walk through as being in the seder Toratit, in a place above nature?’ This is the choice we all have. We can walk through our time in the natural world, or we can choose a path through it on a higher plane.

Parshat Shemot

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The Names of the Stars

Sefer Bereisheit is the story of how the Avot imprinted in us as a people the spiritual strength we needed to succeed. Sefer Shemot is the story of geulah, of how those strengths come to expression. And although Sefer Shemot is definitely the story of national geulah, Rav Schorr shows us how it is the story of personal geulah as well.

It all begins with names. Specifically, Shemot begins with what appears to be an unnecessary repetition of the names of Yaacov’s children. Rashi famously gives the reason for this, “to make known His love for them, as they are likened to the stars which He takes out and brings in by name.” Rav Schorr points out that when Chazal said, “to make known his love for them” this was not just a random declaration. The intent was to make it known to us, each and every one of us. What Hashem is making known is that He loves us, and that we, too, are like the stars with a light that shines eternally.

Our individual light is expressed through our Hebrew name. Hebrew, lashon hakodesh, is different than other languages.  A Hebrew name is not just something we use to get someone’s attention. It is a description of essence and internal strength. When Hashem names something, he defines its spiritual purpose in this world. Everything that was created was created for a specific purpose. Each of us has a unique aspect of kavod shamayim which we are meant to express in the world, and unique spiritual strengths which we are given in order to accomplish our task. Speech is the vehicle by which we give expression to internal things. This is why naming things was an intrinsic part of the creation process. Having a name means that we have spiritual strengths, and the ability to actualize those strengths in the world.

When we call a child by a name, we are giving the child’s inner kochot expression in the world. After we name a baby boy at his brit, there is a bracha which is given by the community to the child: “Just as he has entered into the Covenant, so may he enter into Torah, into marriage, and into good deeds.” What we mean is, just as you entered into this brit with Hashem with these specific kochot and spiritual lights, we bless you to be able to continue to express your spiritual light, and to use it to enter into Torah, marriage and good deeds. We are blessing the child that he will have the ability to bring his kochot into expression in a way that is fitting with his name.

If the highest part of ourselves, our soul, is unable to express itself, it becomes imprisoned in our body. We become disconnected from our own light, and we fall into personal galut. We experience our own personal version of the slavery in Mitzrayim. The Ishbitzer Rebbe gives an interesting insight into the nature of this slavery, which is applicable on a personal level as well. Commenting on the midrash (Rashi, Shemot 18:9) that no slave was ever able to escape from Mitzrayim, the Ishbitzer says this doesn’t mean that there was a wall, or some other kind of barrier which held them in. Slaves stayed in Mitzrayim because they thought it was “like the Garden of Hashem” (see Bereisheit 13:10). They couldn’t imagine that there was anywhere else they wanted to go to.  

The Chiddushei HaRim makes a similar comment on Shemot 6:6, where Hashem says, “I took them out of the sufferings of Mitzrayim.” He says that the suffering of Mitzrayim was that we suffered Mitzrayim, we tolerated it. We did not understand that we wanted to go, and for this reason, Hashem had to make life in Egypt unpleasant, so that we would want to go. The first step of geulah, personal or national, is the knowledge that there is more, and the yearning for something better.

Chazal tell us that in Mitzrayim speech was in exile. This means that the aspect of ourselves that allowed us to express and actualize who we are, was not fully operational.  The thing that saved us was that we kept our Hebrew names. This is not just on the surface level, but on a deeper level as well. We remained connected to the essence of who we are.

Staying connected to who we are is our key to freedom. And we daven for it every day. At the very end of the Amidah we daven to “Hashem, our Rock and our Redeemer.” This is a request for personal redemption. We connect this request to our name, by saying a pasuk that shares the first and last letters of our name. The idea is that each day, every day, we remind ourselves as we daven to Hashem, that we have the ability to express our unique spiritual strength in the world. We do it while we use our power of speech. And we create, with Hashem’s help, our own personal geulah every day.

Parshat Vayechi

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Light, Hidden and Revealed

In this parsha Rav Schorr spends time discussing not just the words of the parsha, but the spaces of the parsha. Or more accurately, he discusses the lack of space between this parsha and the parsha before. The spaces in the Torah are a significant part of the Torah, with their own set of rules and meaning. The chachamim tell us that in the spaces of the Torah we have the room to grasp and absorb its light. Places in the Torah like “Az Yashir,” which was sung after the revelation at Yam Suf, and which is written in a unique and open brick-like pattern, are places where the guiding hand of Hashem is easily grasped. And places in the Torah like Parshat Vayetzei, which describes Yaacov’s time in galut and is written with no spaces at all, are places where it is much harder to grasp Hashem’s guiding hand. This is not, of course, because Hashem is not guiding us. Hashem guides us in times of galut even as He guides us in times of geulah. However, in the dark and closed spaces of galut the light is hidden. Nevertheless, even though the light of the open spaces is recognizably great, there is even greater light hidden in the closed spaces of the Torah.

Our Parsha begins with an unusual closed space. Between Parshat Vayigash and Parshat Vayechi, where we would have expected a space of nine letters, there is instead a space of only one letter.  Rashi quotes Pesachim 56a to explain. The Gemara tells us that at the end of his life Yaacov gathered his children together, intending to reveal to them “the end.” However, the moment he opened his mouth, the Shechina left him. Scared, Yaacov wondered if this was because one of his sons was not worthy. His sons in unison answered, “Shema Yisrael, Hashem Elokeinu Hashem echad,” and he answered, “Baruch shem kavod malchuto l’olam va’ed.”

The Gemara seems to imply that the closed space between the parshiot reflects Yaacov’s inability to give over the revelation of “the end” to his children. The Zohar, however, hints at a deeper reality. The closed space between the two parshiot connects the words “And they (Klal Yisrael) were fruitful and multiplied greatly (47:27),” to “And Yaacov lived (47:28).”  The closed space expresses the connection between the chayut, the life-force of Yaacov, and the souls of the Jewish people. Rav Schorr tells us that that Yaacov did, in fact, transmit what he wanted to transmit, but not in an open way. What Yaacov succeeded in doing was imprinting his life force into each and every one of his descendants, giving us the strength to withstand the galut.

To understand this more deeply, we have to understand something about the spiritual nature of galut. Chazal describe galut as planting (see Hosea 2:25 and Pesachim 87b). What happens when we plant something? We put a seed in the ground, and it appears to rot completely. Then, from the remains of that seed a new plant is born. Something similar happens though the process of galut.  In every galut there is a spiritual light which accompanies us throughout the galut. That light might appear very dim at times, but it is from that light that the geulah is formed.

This is the meaning behind the kabbalistic idea that Hashem had to rush us out of Mitzrayim because we had sunk to the 49th level of tumah. This is not because at the 50th level of tumah Hashem would no longer be able to take us out. There is, of course, no limit to what Hashem can do. However, at the 50th level of tumah, the original spark of kedusha has been destroyed. At that point, the concept of geulah no longer applies.  There is nothing left from the original light which can be redeemed.  The geulah from Mitzrayim was a geulah of the original point of chiyut, spiritual life, which Yaacov implanted in each and every Jew.

How can we understand this point of chiyut, this life force? Rav Schorr explains that Yaacov lived the last seventeen years of his life in a state that was olam haba within this world. He experienced personal geulah even in the midst of national galut. This is what Yaacov wanted to share with his children when he gathered them together, and said, “I will tell you what will happen to you at the end of days.” And then, in the Torah, the subject is dropped. This is because, while Yaacov saw with perfect clarity the unity of the entire world and how each and every part of the world expresses the Will of Hashem, there was no way to directly transmit this to anyone else.  

However, although Yaacov could not transmit his vision accurately to his children, he could instill within us emunah. Yaacov’s children said to him, “Shema Yisrael, Hashem Elokeinu, Hashem Echad.” By this they meant, “Listen, our father Yisrael, we know and understand that Hashem, the Hashem that is above and beyond our comprehension, is the same Hashem who is Elokim, the force behind the entire system of nature, and that everything that we experience and see in this world comes from one source, one Hashem. But we do not know this, as you know this, with blinding clarity. We can only experience it through emunah.”

In galut, emunah is the key to survival. To his children’s declaration of emunah, Yaacov replied, “Baruch Shem Kavod Malchuto L’Olam Va’ed: Hashem’s Name, His Glory, His Kingship in the World, will be blessed forever.”  This is a pure expression of Hashem’s oneness in the world. We can’t say loudly, as Yaacov did. However, we do whisper it, twice a day, every day, after we say the shema. Yaacov could not express his vision directly to us, but the whisper of Yaacov’s blinding clarity is still alive within us today. Yaacov’s yearning to reveal the end left an imprint on us. We have emunah. We carry the yearning for geulah with us. And we carry the knowledge that within us is the light of personal geulah which we can access even in the midst of galut.

Parshat Vayigash

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Many Paths, One Center

In this parsha we have the reunification, after twenty-two years, of Yaacov and Yosef. It is, of course, an emotional meeting. Yaacov travels all the way to Mitzrayim with the entire family. Yosef harnesses his chariot himself and goes out to greet his father. However, the pasuk that describes the meeting itself is ambiguous. “He appeared before him, fell on his neck, and he wept on his neck excessively (Bereisheit 46:29)” It’s a little unclear who exactly is doing what. Rashi explains that it was Yosef who fell on Yaacov’s neck, and Yosef who wept, while Yaacov did neither because he was saying Shema. Now, this is not necessarily the most intuitive explanation of the pasuk. However, Rav Schorr gives us the depth we need to really understand the moment according to Rashi’s explanation.

Yaacov and Yosef, standing together in a loving embrace, are experiencing two different worlds. For Yaacov, this moment is the sweet end of his last and hardest test. As Yaacov absorbed the news that Yosef was still alive, his spirit revived and the Shechina, which had been absent for twenty-two years, came to rest on him again (see Rashi, 45:27). The rogez of Yosef, the troubles of Yosef, had ended with the clarity of “your son Yosef is still alive,” and Yaacov was finally able to leave behind the world of galut and begin to prepare for the geulah.

For Yaacov, a new period of ma’aseh avot siman l’banim had begun. For the last seventeen years of his life Yaacov lived in a state of geulah, and he implanted within us the spiritual seeds for our own geulah. The Maharal explains that when Yaacov saw Yosef standing before him, not just alive but a ruler in Egypt, his heart was filled with love and fear of Hashem. He had moved out of the darkness and could now see with clarity the hashgacha of Hashem, how Hashem and His Name are one in the world. The intense spiritual joy this tzaddik felt during his reunion with his beloved son was naturally channeled into saying the Shema. That was Yaacov’s reality. But Yosef’s reality was different. For the children of Yaacov, the arrival into Mitzrayim was the start of the galut. Yosef, so happy to be united with his father, also knew that this was the first step along a long and difficult road. How could Yosef do anything but cry?

These two tzaddikim were experiencing the exact same moment, in the same place, and yet they were living in two different realities. This ability to share a moment, and a mission, with another person who sees reality differently is one of the important themes of this parsha. The parsha begins with the confrontation between Yehudah and Yosef. These two brothers are two kings in one family, which is not a comfortable situation. However, Rav Schorr compares their approaches to that of the heart and the mind, which are the two kings of the body. In a healthy body, these two sources of power work together, and in a healthy nation, the same is true. As we approach the end of Sefer Bereisheit, and the seeds for geulah are implanted in the nation, these two tzadikkim, with their very different approaches, must come together.  This theme is repeated in the haftorah, which is from Yechezkel (37: 15-28) and is all about the future unification of Yehudah and Yosef. The message is clear. Geulah is about unification, but it is a specific type of unification. It is the unification of different parts, where each piece of the whole still retains its own identity.

This message of simultaneous unity and diversity comes intertwined with the story of the beginning of galut in Mitzrayim. This is not by accident. Our ability to tolerate the differences of others is born from the same emunah which allows us to get through the difficult circumstances in our lives. Our emunah tells us that Hashem has a plan that is greater than what I can see. Tolerance is based on the knowledge that each person has a role in Hashem’s grand plan that is greater than what I can see.

At the very end of Mesechet Ta’anit there is a description of the tzaddikim in Gan Eden: “In the future the Holy One, Blessed is He, will make a circle of all the righteous people and He will sit among them (in the middle of the circle) and each and every one will point with his finger (toward him).”  Rav Schorr explains that in this world, every Tzaddik has his own path, each different from the other, which will require individualized and different responses. We saw that Yaacov was living in geulah at the same moment, and in the same space, that Yosef was experiencing the beginnings of slavery. They could not live in each other’s world. Similarly, it was incomprehensible to the young Yehudah how Yosef could follow the path he did, and it is often incomprehensible to us why those Jews we term ‘other’, in whatever clothes they wear, choose to act as they do.

If we had to map the spiritual path of the world from our own perspective, we would probably draw a maze of intertwining lines that point in every direction imaginable. What Hashem will reveal in the World To Come is that all the different paths are really one path. They are all circling around a central axis. In this world it looks as if each tzaddik, each person, is travelling his own path, alone. In the future Hashem will show us how all the paths were really pointing in the same direction, towards a central point that unifies them all.

Parshat Miketz

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“Enough is Enough"

Toward the end of the Parshat Miketz, Yaacov is forced by famine to relinquish his youngest son Binyamin and allow him to go with his brothers to Mitzrayim. As he does so, he turns to Hashem with a prayer (Bereisheit 43:14): “May E-l Sha-dai grant you compassion before the man, and he will release to you your other brother and Benjamin, and as for me as I am bereaved, I am bereaved.” This is the tefillah of a tzaddik who is suffering. In order to understand it, we have to look a little more closely both at the test that Yaacov is facing, and also the particular name of Hashem he uses in his prayer.

At the time that he utters this prayer, Yaacov is facing his longest and hardest test. It had begun almost twenty-two years earlier. Rashi describes (Bereisheit 37:2) how Yaacov, after having dealt with Eisav, Lavan and Dina, and after having finally settled with his family in Eretz Yisrael, was hoping for and expecting some peace in his life. This was not just a matter of wanting to rest. Yaacov had a strong desire to return to his spiritual roots. As we mentioned previously, Yaacov was connected spiritually to the Eitz HaChayim, the tree of life. He was born to sit in tents and connect himself to the Torah. However, taking on Eisav’s avodah, in addition to his own, had forced Yaacov into galut. When he finally returns to Eretz Yisrael, having built the family his father and grandfather had dreamed of, Yaacov thought he would have the opportunity to relax into his essential avodah. And then, Yosef disappeared, and with him many of Yaacov’s hopes and dreams.

It was not just that Yaacov had lost Yosef, although that would have been bad enough. Yaacov knew that the future of the Jewish people hinged on his having twelve sons. He had a nevuah that as long as none of his sons died in his lifetime, he would not see Gehenom. Then, at exactly the time that Yosef disappeared, the presence of the shechina left him. What was Yaacov to think? Rashi, quoting the midrash, (Bereisheit 37:2) calls this test “rogzo shel Yosef, the troubles of Yosef” but Rav Schorr points out that rogez also means anger. This was the test where it appeared that Hashem was angry at Yaacov. R’ Bunim of Peshischa points out how astonishing it is that Yaacov maintained his avodah through this long test. For twenty-two years, without his beloved son, without any certainty that he had succeeded in his mission of building the Jewish nation, and without the presence of the shechina, Yaacov persisted and succeeded in his avodah of maintaining emunah when Hashem’s presence was hidden. 

This last test of Yaacov’s is the maaseh avot siman l’banim for the galut we now find ourselves in. Like the troubles with Yosef, our galut, too, began with lashon harah and hatred of one Jew for another. Like Yaacov, we live in a world without nevuah, and the galut feels like it stretches along endlessly. We too live with a reality that could be wrongly interpreted as Hashem being angry at us (this is, in fact, what the Catholic Church has been telling us for centuries.) And like Yaacov, our mission is to maintain our emunah, our knowledge of our relationship with Hashem, through it all.

Rav Schorr explains that we have the strength to get through all this because Yaacov planted it within us.  Maaseh avot siman l’banim would be meaningless if it were just a way for us to know what will happen in the future from what happened in the past. Instead, it is a spiritual reality that the Avot implanted within us. Their actions, their avodah, impacts us spiritually today. When I want to understand this on a more personal level, I think of my grandparents, a”h. They had a loving and joyful relationship, and a vivacious, youthful old age, Baruch Hashem. That reality gives me both the desire and the ability to build the same for myself. On a national level, the spiritual seeds the avot planted so many years ago are still inspiring us and keeping us going. Yaacov’s strength, his ability to hold onto his emunah for twenty-two years, is our strength as well.

Rav Schorr explains that the prayer that Yaacov uttered for himself and his sons is a prayer for us as well. The essence of that prayer lies in the name E-l Sha-dai. The meaning behind this name is given in Chagiga 12a which explains that when Hashem created the world it began to expand, becoming more and more physical. As it did so, Hashem’s presence became more and more hidden in the world. The physical expansion of the world needed to be limited so that the physicality of the world would not obscure the presence of Hashem. The name Sha-dai expresses Hashem’s ability to define the moment of perfect bechira, when the ability to see Hashem in the world and the ability to hide Hashem in the world were evenly matched, and to say to the world, at that exact moment, “Dai, Enough.”

Rashi (Bereisheit 43:14) says Yaacov’s prayer was, “May He Who said to His world, “Enough!” (שֶׁאָמַר דָּי) say to my troubles, “Enough!” The tefillah was an expression of emunah for himself, and also for us. Hashem is a creator who knows when to say “enough.” He knows that moment when the troubles have served their purpose as mechanisms for growth. At whatever moment the word “enough” needs to be said, Hashem will say it and everything will turn around. If Hashem has not yet said it, that means there is still room to move forward in our present situation. And we can draw on the strength we got from Yaacov to keep us moving.