Parshat Vayeishev

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The Young Ox in the Room

This parsha opens up with a picture of a young Yosef. Specifically, he is described as a “na’ar, a youth” (Bereisheit 37:1), and at first glance this doesn’t seem to be a particularly flattering assessment. Rashi elaborates that Yosef would fix up his hair and his eyes to look handsome. Maharal adds that Yosef would act without thinking through the consequences, doing things like telling his dreams to his brothers.

And yet, Rav Schorr invites us to look at this idea of “na’ar” from a different perspective. “Na’ar” is connected to the idea of hitorerut, the idea of being awake to the changing spiritual possibilities of the moment. We can look at this idea of “na’ar” as the idea of a young Yosef trying to fit himself into the circumstances of the moment.  What may seem to be negative or neutral in the moment are the seeds of what will later become his greatness.

Rav Schorr describes Yosef’s derech as the derech of the mind. When he is young, he is guided on what he knows to be right, and he acts on it, regardless of the consequences. He brings reports about his brothers to his father, and he shares his dreams of kingship with brothers who are jealous of him. However, as he matures, we begin to see a different form of Yosef emerge. The Yosef who confronts his brothers at the end of the story is cool, calm and collected. He is clearly thinking through the consequences, nevertheless, he remains steadfast in his commitment to act on what he believes is right.

As a young man, the firstborn of Rachel, and the beloved of Yaacov, Yosef had dreams that were prophecies about being a ruler. And, in fact, this is exactly what he would later become. But this aspect of himself had not been fully developed yet. It expressed itself in interesting ways. Rav Schorr explains that it was actually the deep feeling of kingship within Yosef that motivated him to spend time on his appearance.

Yosef is not the only king in the family. Yosef’s story is  intertwined with the story of Yehudah. This is the story of two kings with two very different paths. Yosef was the king that was compared to an ox, but Yehudah was the king that was compared to a lion. Yehudah wore his kingship more naturally, while Yosef was having some trouble fitting into his circumstances. And while Yosef, as we mentioned, followed the path of his mind, Yehudah followed the path of his heart.

Both sons face similar tests. Just before we learn about Yosef’s encounter with Potifar’s wife, we learn about Yehudah’s encounter with Tamar. Out of love for his son, Yehudah denies Tamar’s right to do the mitzvah of yibum. And then, at the expense of great personal embarrassment to himself, he admits that Tamar had been right. Yehudah’s essential trait, as expressed by his name, is his ability to admit that everything that he is, and everything that he has, comes from Hashem. He can begin moving in one direction, and then pivot and move in the other direction if that’s what Hashem wants. He is King, because he channels the kingship of Hashem.  His complete devotion to Hashem’s will is the starting point for the line of Moshiach.

Against this backdrop, we are given the story of Yosef in the house of Potifar. The wife of Potiphar would come to Yosef each day, not just with perfume, but with an argument. She knew they were destined to have descendants together. She knew this was part of Hashem’s plan. But Yosef’s path was not Yehudah’s path. Yosef was driven by his youthful ability to be alive to the spiritual potential of the particular moment, to stay true to what he knew was right, regardless of the consequences.

Both Yehudah and Yosef passed their tests, though they did it in very different ways.  Rav Schorr tells us that each of us is tested, again and again, in our essential middah.  All the different aspects of ourselves, however they are expressing themselves at the moment, are important. They are expressing who we are. Life gives us the opportunity to refine them. This is exactly what Yosef did. He was able to take the mantle of leadership because he had remained true to the aspect of kingship within himself, and refined it through the circumstances of his life.

Chanukah Day Eight

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Day Eight: Mesirat Nefesh, Finding the Real Center

As we mentioned yesterday, the nature of the world changed at the time of the Second Beit Hamikdash. The world was a different place when we could get direct answers from Hashem about what to do, and when we could walk into the Beit Hamikdash and experience open miracles. We had unbelievable access to spirituality. To counterbalance that, we also had a tremendous drive for avodah zarah.

Mostly, we don’t really understand what avodah zarah was all about. It’s too removed from our reality. However, there’s one aspect we can understand all too well. Chazal tell us that the core of avodah zarah was the desire to be the center of the world. Someone who makes their god an idol, and speaks for their god, gets to determine the parameters of the relationship. So we see that Pharaoh (Bereisheit 40:1) stood on his god, on the river, while Yaacov (Bereisheit 28:13) awoke to find Hashem standing over him.

As the world changed from a world of prophecy to a world defined by human intellect, many things changed with it, but our desire to be the center of the world remained the same. It simply took a different form. Chazal called it the heresy of Greek wisdom. The Greeks claimed that everything in the world could be understood and determined through our intellect. If we cannot understand it, if it doesn’t fit into our rational world view, then it doesn’t exist. For this reason, miracles can’t exist. Reality is only what we allow it to be. Existence is limited to the self.

This heretic may believe himself to be quite sophisticated. In reality he is simply expanding on an infant’s take on the world. A baby has no concept of reality outside of himself. We are born to believe that we are all of existence. The purpose of our lives is to expand ourselves and break out of that trap of living completely within ourselves.

The secret weapon of the Chasmonaim, in their battle against the Greeks was mesirat nefesh. Mesirat nefesh is our most powerful weapon for blasting away at the walls that confine us within ourselves, and opening ourselves up to a higher reality.  A person who is willing to self-sacrifice is a person who recognizes that he exists as a part of a higher and greater existence. Through mesirat nefesh we declare, “My existence is not reality itself. My existence is the way I reveal a deeper reality. Therefore,  if my existence contradicts that reality, I cannot continue to exist.” The opposite is true for a person who is trapped in themselves, who defines existence as himself. He cannot sacrifice himself. If he would, existence would perish.

Mesirat nefesh means that we move the center of our world outside of ourselves.  In this way we expand ourselves and our world. Any act we choose to do over Chanukah with mesirat nefesh, any tefillah we daven with more kavanah, any act of kindness we would rather not do, is a statement that we are connected to something higher than ourselves. Even with small acts of mesirat nefesh we open up our homes and our lives to the expansive, unlimited, joyous spiritual reality that is the world Hashem has given us.  

To explore this idea further in the sefer, see pages 164-168 and 174-187

Chanukah Day Seven

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Day Seven: The Light We Hold In Our Hands

There was an amazing aspect to the kedusha of the Mishkan in the desert. Unlike the Beit HaMikdash, where we had to travel to its place to experience its kedusha, the Mishkan had no place. It traveled wherever we traveled, and even dismantled, and in the hands of the Kohanim as they traveled across the desert, it was always halachically the dwelling place of the Shechina. As Hashem promised, we ourselves were the place where the Divine Presence rested. The Kohanim held its kedusha in their hands.

Aharon inaugurated this aspect of the Mishkan through the menorah and Hashem promised Aharon that the lights that he inaugurated would be eternal. Ramban (Bamidbar 8:2) tells us that this is the light that we continue to light in our homes on Chanukah. However, the light of the Chanukiah is the light of the Menorah in a transformed state. Chanukah marks a fundamental change in our relationship with Hashem. The figure that can help us understand this change is Shimon HaTzadik.

Shimon HaTzadik lived three generations before Chanukah, but he is credited by the Gemara (Megilla 11a) with paving the way for the defeat of the Greeks. Interestingly, he is also credited by the Gemara (Yoma 69a) for paving the way for the victory of the Greeks. The Gemara describes Alexander the Great marching on Jerusalem to destroy the Beit HaMikdash, and Shimon HaTzaddik coming out to meet him in the clothing of the Kohen Gadol. Alexander bows to Shimon, recognizing Shimon’s face as the image of victory he sees before him in battle.

How can Shimon HaTzadik be both the reason for the rise of the Greeks, and the reason for our defeat of them?  Shimon Ha Tzadik’s has a very specific place in our mesorah. He lived at the very end of the period of nevuah, and with him begins the period of Torah SheBa’al Peh. His is the first name in Avot (1:2), the first to have Torah given over in his name. This was the beginning of a new kind of innovation. From now on, the Torah would be carried in the hearts and minds of the Sages, and be brought into the world, not through nevuah, but through their innovation.

The rise of Torah Sheba’al Peh illuminated our world tremendously. For the purposes of free choice, there had to be a counterbalancing darkness. This came into the world through Greek culture, which affirmed the power of the human intellect and then divorced that power from Hashem. It was therefore Shimon HaTzadik, first of the Sages of the Torah SheBa’al Peh, who paved the way for Alexander the Great’s victories in the world.

Shimon HaTzadik was not just a sage, he was also Kohen Gadol. His mesorah was taken from Aharon, and carried on by his children, the Chashmonaim. They were tremendous innovators in the service of Hashem. After miraculously winning the war no Navi had told them to fight, they went back to the Beit HaMikdash and decided not to wait a week, but to use their one vial of pure oil to light the menorah. There was no navi, there was no clear halacha that told them to light. They innovated because Hashem inspired them, and their menorah stayed lit, because Hashem was with them.

Aharon inaugurated the idea that Hashem’s light and kedusha can travel with us and within us wherever we are, even when the mishkan is completely disassembled.  The Chashmonaim reinaugurated this idea and used it to illuminate a changed world. We continue the tradition. The form of the light may have changed, but we can still use it to rekindle our relationship with Hashem and illuminate our homes.

To explore this idea further in the sefer, see pages 86-92.

Chanukah Day Six

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Day Six: Defeating the Greeks through Gratitude

We say in Haneirot Hallalu that we light our Chaunkah candles not in order to use them, but in order to look at them, so that we can offer thanks and praise to Hashem. In other words, we light our Chanukah candles, so that we can thank Hashem. The avodah of this holiday is gratitude.

What makes gratitude so central to Chanukah? On the simplest level, gratitude is a strong statement against Greek ideology. The Greeks, who claimed that the world was eternal, denied that there was anyone who had ever given us the world. There was, therefore, no one to thank. Even a simple thanks to Hashem is a denial of everything the Greeks stand for.

But there is something deeper going on. As we mentioned in an earlier essay, Alexander the Great was turned away from the gates of Gan Eden. The pasuk that was used to turn him away (one which is very familiar from Hallel) is “This is the gate of Hashem, the righteous enter it (Tehillim 118:20).” The pasuk immediately before tells us what we have to do to enter: “Open up for me the gates of the righteous, I will enter them and thank Hashem. (118:19)” Chazal tell us that in the World to Come, there will be no more prayer as we generally understand it, because there will be nothing we need, but prayers of thanks will always remain.  The ability to thank is literally the entrance into Olam Habah.

Each chag has a unique spiritual composition which defines it, and which we relive each year. On Chanukah we get in touch with the essence of who we are. Our deepest sense of self is the awareness of our own existence, which is independent of any of our senses, or anything eternal. If we think for a moment, we realize that we exist as chelek Elokah mima’al, a portion of the Divine Above (Iyov 31:2), a single minute revelation of true existence, which is the Oneness and Unity of Hashem. If true existence is Hashem’s Oneness, then what am I? I am the one who recognizes it. I am the one who concedes to it. Our true self is our power to thank. This is what we have which is truly, completely, our own.

To truly express thanks is to come to a place where we recognize who we really are, and this is where we find unbridled joy. As Rav Shapiro puts it, “awareness of essence is the essence of joy.” Wherever our true self radiates, there is joy. The Greeks tried to cut us off from the recognition of our essence, and therefore our ability to live in joyous thanks to our Creator.

Being able to give thanks to Hashem is an amazing bracha. In fact, at the end of the modim d’rabbanan, in the repetition of the silent Amidah, we thank Hashem for the ability to give thanks. The triumph of Chanukah was the reinstatement of our ability as a world to reply to our own creation with a thank you to Hashem. The final victory over the Greeks happens when we perceive our thank you to Hashem as the depth of true existence.

Every day of the year we thank Hashem. But on Chanukah, a door is opened for reclaiming our ability to say thank you to Hashem in a deeper way. “These are days of thanks,” these are the days when we have the power to become thankful people, children of a thankful nation, descendants of Yehudah, whose name means to thank. On Chanukah we can reclaim our own identity, our own essence, as the people who express thanks.

To put this into practice, just after candlelighting, while everyone is together, we ask everyone in the room to name one thing they are particularly thankful for at the moment. We’ve found this to be a very meaningful addition to our candlelighting.

I first heard this idea in an amazing shiur by Mrs. Shira Smiles, Chanuka: Acknowledging and Acclaiming, which you can find on YU Torah. She quotes Rav Shapiro’s sefer. To explore the idea more in depth see pages 124-128, 135-136, 168-170, 184-187, 200-203, 207-209, and 213.

Chanukah Day Five

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Day Five: Menorah on the Left, Mezuzah on the Right

The tremendous power of the menorah to shine its light into the world comes from its connection to our inner space. For this reason, Chazal tell us that the best place for the menorah is at our door, on the left side, opposite the mezuzah. In this way, the two mitzvot work together. The mezuzah, on our right when we enter our home, is a message for us as we go into our home. The menorah, on our right when we leave our house, is a message for us as we go out into the world.

The mezuzah is a wake-up call, a message to be alert when we enter our home. Crossing from the public domain of the street to the private domain over our home is not simply a matter of walking through the door. It is a complete change of state. In our home, we are connected to higher worlds. The power of our private domain comes from our ability within our home to connect to the private space of our soul. When we see the mezuzah on our doorway, we encounter both Hashem’s Unity and His love for us. It’s a reminder that we are at one with that reality. When we enter the doorway to our home, but we are also entering our own higher reality, the part of us that is connected to shamayim. Because of that connection, the words of Yaacov (Bereisheit 28:17) apply to every Jewish home “It is nothing but only the House of the Lord and this is the gateway to heaven.”

Public space has an entirely different spiritual reality. It is useful, purposeful space, where humanity can come together. It is the realm of science, natural law and Greek wisdom, but it is also the realm of the lowest common denominator. Halachically, the space of our private domain reaches up to the sky. The public domain does not rise higher than 10 tefachim, beyond that the air is just considered empty space.

Today, the private and public is often blurred. We walk into our homes, and we bring the outside world with us. This is the opposite of what it says about the Navi Shmuel (Berachos 10b; Shmuel I 7:17), that wherever he would go, his home was with him. His “dalet amot” kept him connected constantly to a higher reality.

We were created to be individuals, and our true individuality lies in our connection to the highest part of ourselves, the place we reach alone, the place where no one can join us. The mezuzah is a wake-up call, reminding us to nourish this part of ourselves, to illuminate our private world. The menorah reflects the light that we nurture within and allows it to shine outward into the world. The message from the Menorah, when we leave our home, is to take our personal light with us.  This is our triumph over the Greeks. It is the triumph of the private light over the public domain.  

To explore this idea further in the sefer, see pages 71-74.