Sparks of Vayeishev

Posted on by Rebecca


Sparks of Vayeishev

The Empty Pit

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This is the parsha of dreams and also the parsha of harsh reality. Yosef dreams of being king, but instead he is stripped of everything, and thrown into a pit by his own brothers. This pit, the Torah tells us, is “empty with no water in it.” Surprisingly, we hear more about this pit in the Gemara, amidst its discussion of Chanukah. On Shabbat 22a, we learn from R’ Nosson bar Manyumi that if we light our chanukiya too high, if it is outside our field of vision, then it is invalid. The Gemara then brings another insight in the name of R’ Nosson. Why must the Torah tell us that the pit Yosef was thrown into had no water in it? Surely, we can discern this from the fact that the pit was empty? The Torah is hinting to us, teaches R’ Nosson, that although there was no water in the pit, there were snakes and scorpions in abundance.

The mention of this pit in the midst of the discussion of Chanukah seems almost random. But of course, there is nothing random in the Gemara. There is much more to this pit than is apparent at first glance. The Zohar (3:279a) teaches that this pit is the pit into which the ox, Yosef, fell (see Shemot 21:33 and Devarim 33:17). The description of Yosef in the pit is a description of us and our situation in the fourth exile. This spiritual pit we are in is filled with two types of evil forces: snakes and scorpions. The snake, the primordial deceiver, is called nachash in Hebrew. Nachash relates to the word chush, sensation. This is the voice that tells us to follow our physical desires and act in whatever way feels most pleasing in the moment. The Hebrew name for scorpion, akrav, can be read as a contraction of the two words aker rav, meaning uproot the Rabbis. This is an attack on the essentials of everything we believe in.

In Berachot 33a we learn that if we are in the middle of prayer and discover that there is a snake coiled at our heel, we should continue praying. But if we discover a scorpion at our heels, we must stop. Rav Shapiro explains that inappropriate thoughts and desires do not need to separate us from Hashem. But if we are plagued by scorpions, by heresy and doubt about whether Hashem exists, we need to stop, and address that. “One can stand before the Creator completely exposed but one cannot stand before Him and not stand before Him. (p.333)”

Our exile is an exile filled with snakes and scorpions, because our exile is a continuation of the third exile, the Greek Exile. When Alexander the Great conquered the known world, he not only conquered it physically, but he also spread the ideology of his tutor, Aristotle, to every place he went. If our exile is compared to a pit, the exile under Greece was compared to a flood. Greek wisdom and ideology flooded the world. As a result of this the true shape of the world was destroyed, just as it was at the time of the original flood.

Aristotle taught that only what we can perceive with our senses and our intellect is real. Human intellect is the bottom line, the determiner of everything real. If we can not feel it, or understand it, it does not exist. If we accept what he teaches, we wipe out the spiritual reality of our world. Our higher selves, our soul, and the soul of the world, are all erased. Greece, Rome and the Western Culture they brought into existence bring with them a spiritual flood as real and devastating as the flood in the time of Noach.

In response to the original flood, the generation of the Tower of Bavel went in search of a valley, which like a pit reflects the diminished status of man, and that is what they found (Bereisheit 11:2). Avraham, on the other hand, went looking for a mountain and that is what he found (Bereisheit 22:2). To be standing in a pit means to be standing in a place where we feel low. The flood of Greek wisdom, continued though the rulership of Rome, has pushed us into a pit where we often only see a limited version of ourselves and our world.  When our point of origin is a sense of lack, a feeling of lowliness, a pit of emptiness, our lives will fill up quickly with snakes and scorpions.

If we want to attain something more, our point of origin has to be higher. Noach’s flood only ended when the dove came back with the olive branch in his mouth. The Gemara tells us that at the time of the Greek Empire, we were like the dove (Berachot 53b) The dove, the yonah, has all the letters of Yavan, Greece, in its name, with the addition of the letter hey, which is a sign of Hashem’s presence. During the Greek Empire, we too were saved through the olive, in this case the oil of the Chanukah lights.

From the perspective of Western Culture, there was no sense in anything the Chashmonaim did. They had only enough oil for only a single day. What sense was there in lighting a continual light for only a single day? What sense is there at all in lighting a light that is hidden within the Bet HaMikdash, where no one can see it? Chanukah only makes sense when we see our reality as expanded, and ourselves as expanded. If we are standing in the pit that Rav Nosson tells us is filled with snakes and scorpions, our lifeline out is to light our Chanukah candles the way Rav Nosson tells us to, so that the light of the Chanukiah is in our field of vision and informs our perception of our world. The only way out of the pit is to reach for transcendence, and to illuminate our world with the otherworldly.

Western culture diminishes us. It is a pit that limits our existence to our bodies and minds and erases our soul. The Chanukah lights are a reminder that we can choose not to be diminished. Yosef, as we know, did not stay in the pit for very long. We are not required to stay there either. We can light our Chanukah candles and open ourselves up to experiencing the true beauty and transcendence of our world.

Sparks of Vayishlach

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Sparks of Vayishlach

Stepping Into The Future

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The story in this week’s parsha, of Binyamin’s birth and Rachel’s death, began in last week’s parsha, when Rachel takes the teraphim from her father, Lavan. Before we can even begin to speak about it, we need to answer a basic question. What on earth are teraphim? Lavan and Yaacov refer to them as “gods” (Bereisheit 31:30-32), which makes them sound like idols. And yet, there were teraphim in David Hamelech’s home (Shmuel I 19:13), so it seems unlikely that they were avodah zara.

Rav Shapiro explains that the word teraphim comes from the Hebrew rafeh yadayim, meaning weakened or slackened hands. This refers to the way the teraphim were made, which involved a process of effort followed by rest. They were used for the purpose of telling the future, and the weakened hands also refers to the way a person lives life when under their influence.

The future of the teraphim is the future of the past. We can understand this by imagining a botanist looking at a seed. An expert botanist can hold an unidentified seed in the palm of his hand, and confidently describe exactly what will unfold from that seed in three months, ten months, or two years. He is not a prophet, but he can predict the future because he understands the present so well. The teraphim were tools which predicted the future from the seed of the present. The future the teraphim foretells is the future that happens when we let loose our hands and allow whatever exists currently to naturally unfold.

This was the future the Lavan wanted, and the future the Rachel rejected. She was the first to respond, the first to agree that they needed to leave her father behind. And yet, she was still a daughter. Rav Shapiro tells us that Rachel took the teraphim from her father because she wanted to give him a future. As long as Lavan was following the path of the teraphim, his future was only the past and the present coming to their natural conclusion. By taking away the teraphim Rachel intended to give Lavan the opportunity to create a new future for himself.

Lavan, however, was less than pleased. We can probably relate. We like to plan our futures. We like to walk into what we know. The feeling of breaking away from the past, of facing an unknown and new future doesn’t always feel comfortable. When life does this to us, we don’t always feel like embracing a new future. We can understand Lavan, searching for his teraphim, trying to return to the path he was intending to take.

It was Yaacov, Rachel’s husband, who understood the power of breaking free from what we know. Yaacov was alive in every sense of the word. He grew up as Eisav’s twin, but he went in the opposite direction. Eisav, like Lavan, drew his strength from the natural world. He sold his birthright for a bowl of lentil soup. Lentils are the round circles that symbolize the natural cycle of life. One we are at any point on a circle, it is clear where we are going to go. Once we are born, we are inexorably leading toward death.  This is what Eisav gobbled up, and this is how he sustains himself. He draws his strength from a life that is leading toward death.

Yaacov had a different view. Yaacov stepped off the revolving wheel. For Yaacov time is not an endless circle, it is a path toward an ultimate future. Yaacov does not die. Yaacov originates. The birthright did not come to him because it was his due. He originated his connection to it. And Yaacov is the father that instituted for us Maariv, the prayer of the night. Night is the time when things are unclear. When we can’t see where we are going. When there is no sun, following it’s proscribed path, leading us in the right direction. We have a clear obligation to daven Shacharit and Mincha based on the path of the sun in the sky. At night, we obligate ourselves. We make our own path. We step into the path that Yaacov made for us, and we innovate.

The child of Yaacov and Rachel that was born after the incident of the teraphim was Binyamin. For Rachel, his name was Ben-Oni, son of my suffering. The shoresh oni is connected to aven (see Yeshayahu 31:2) and describes power and strength which is used in a way that backfires on the one who used it. In trying to give her father a future, Rachel lost her own. But that was not the end of the story. Yaacov called his son Benyamin, son of my right hand, son of my strength. Binyamin’s birth created a new reality for us as a nation.

Binyamin is the part of us that never did and never will bow to Eisav. He is the part of our nation, and part of our soul which refuses, against all evidence to the contrary, to ever be subjected to the predetermined. From Binyamin came Mordechai, who like his great-grandmother before him, was willing to trust in a future that could not be seen in the present. Mordechai’s seemingly suicidal refusal to bow to Haman created a rebirth for our nation and began the path toward our return to Eretz Yisrael and the rebuilding of the second Beit Hamikdash.

According to the Arizal, Kislev is the month of Binyamin. It is the month when the days are shortest, and the nights are longest. The nature of the world is darkness, but we create light. In Kislev the lights of our menorah illuminate our nights, and light the way for our future.

Sparks of Vayeitzei

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Sparks of Vayeitzei

Building Blocks Made of Stone

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There is a theme of stones which runs through this week’s parsha. Rav Shapiro points out that we begin with the stones that Yaacov places under his head, which then become a monument. Afterward, Yaacov rolls a very large stone off the well so that Rachel can water her sheep. Finally, the parsha ends with the stones that Yaacov uses to make his pact with Lavan. Rashi tells us that the Hebrew word for stone, even, is a contraction of av and ben, father and son (on Bereisheit 49:24). Stones are used to build continuation and permanence. In this week’s parsha Yaacov is putting together the stones that build the structure of Am Yisrael.

Maaseh avot siman l’bamim, the actions of the fathers are a sign for the children, is a big part of this. The Vilna Gaon, in his notes to the Tikunei Zohar Chadash (25a) tells us that the events of this week’s parsha, which include the birth of Yaacov’s family in Lavan’s home, and the subsequent escape from Lavan, are the events that paved the way the birth of the Jewish nation in Egypt, and our redemption from slavery.  This is the deeper reason why the Haggadah, quoting the text of the declaration of the bikkurim, begins the story of our slavery in Egypt with the words, “An Aramean (Lavan) tried to destroy my father, and he went down to Egypt.”

We can see striking similarities in the text of the Torah between the escape from Lavan and the escape from Egypt. Yaacov flees (barach) from Lavan, just at the Jews flee (barach) from Egypt. Lavan decides to pursue Yaacov, and catches up to him on the seventh day, just as the Egyptians pursue Bnei Yisrael and catch up to them on the seventh day. After the confrontation, Yaacov creates a treaty proclaiming that he will never see Lavan again, and the Torah tells us that we, as a nation will never see Egypt again (see Bereisheit 31:22-23 and 52-53 and Shemot 14:5, 9, and 13).

We can understand the connection between Yaacov’s encounter with Lavan and our exile in Mitzrayim more deeply when we take a moment to understand the nature of Lavan. Lavan’s name, quite simply, means white. Rav Shapiro tells us that his whiteness took the form of a perpetually blank slate, a white paper. White is the perfect background on which to write. The contrast of the black and white brings clarity and focus to whatever is written. Until it is written on, the white parchment is the expression of infinite possibilities.  We can write on it whatever we want, and it can be the expression of any message in the world.

It is the writing, the black, that brings limitations. The black writing limits the parchment to being the expression of just one message, whatever is already written on it. Unless you are Lavan. Lavan refused to allow any limitations. His slate remained always white. The essence of Lavan Ha’arami, Lavan the trickster, is that whatever he said left no permanent mark. “What? I signed? No matter. That was before. Now, the paper is white again. We can start again, as if it never happened.” Lavan had no problem promising one daughter in marriage, and then switching for another at the last moment. He had no problem changing Yaacov’s wages ten times. As soon as he writes on the blank slate of his life, for him, it is as if it immediately becomes blank again.

This quality, of refusing to be limited by any truth, any form, was a quality that Lavan shared with Egypt. It is the quality of chomer, unformed matter. Yechezkel (23:30) tells us that the flesh of Mitzrayim is the flesh of the chamor, the donkey. The donkey is an animal which expresses the nature of chomer because it’s versatile nature can be used for almost anything. This was an essential aspect of our slavery in Egypt. The Torah tells us (Shemot 1:13-14) that the Egyptians enslaved us with chomer and levanim, which means bricks and mortar, but which are also the words for unformed matter and whiteness.  

Rav Shapiro tells us that the birth of the Jewish people took place twice. First, we were born in our original form as the family of Yaacov, which emerged from the womb of Lavan’s home. Second, we were born 600,000 strong, as we emerged from the womb of Egypt. The nature of the womb is that it is the opposite environment to what is needed after birth. None of the conditions of life that we need after we are born are present in the womb. So too, the complete Israel was born from an environment that was very different from what we would need once we were born. Being faced with the opposite of what we stand for can give us the opportunity to crystalize who we are.

Yaacov emerged from Lavan’s home with the middah of Emet, absolute truth. Truth gives form to the world, and it is limiting. Once we know what something is, it cannot be something else. If we know that water consists of hydrogen and oxygen, we can not say that it is really nitrogen and potassium. Truth negates falsehood, and  real truth is not one option among many. Rav Shapiro tells us, there is no ‘maybe true’, ‘possibly true’ or ‘seemingly true’. As long as truth is perceived as one option among many, it has no value (p.169).”

What Yaacov built for us, what emerged from the womb of Lavan’s home, was a connection to absolute truth. When the Hagaddah tells us, an Aramean tried to destroy my father, it is speaking about the end of this week’s parsha, when Lavan chases after Yaacov. Lavan tells him, you can’t leave, everything you have is connected to me. You built your family in my home. You can be one truth, one vision, among my many truths. But Yaacov, along with Rachel and Leah, reject this completely. Truth is truth absolutely, and the parsha ends with complete separation from Lavan.

The real power of unformed matter is that it yearns for form. White is the power to yearn for and to accept true form. This is what we took with us out of the crucible of Mitzrayim, and it was the power which gave us the ability to receive the Torah only 51 days after leaving Mitzrayim.

Instead of the white of Lavan, we have a different white. Our white, the white we carry with us, is the white of the Torah scroll. Every Torah scroll must be written in black letters on white parchment. The halacha is that no two letters can be touching. The letters are only kosher when they are surrounded by white. This is because the white is integral to the essence of the Torah. The black letters of the Torah define truth, and they are limiting, because they negate all other options which are not truth. However, the words of Torah, even after they are written, remain connected to the realm of the infinite, the limitless. Every letter of Torah is connected to endless, infinite depth. It is true that halacha gives structure to and defines our life. As Jews, we trade in the world of endless, meaningless possibilities for a world of infinite, limitless depth.  

Sparks of Toldot

Posted on by Rebecca


Sparks of Toldot

Some Salt at Sunset

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Yitzchak is the father of the future. Even his name is in the future tense: “he will laugh.” The chachamim point out that the letters of Yitzchak’s name can be arranged to spell keitz-chai. At the end, you live. And this is, indeed, how Yitzchak lived. In the middle of his life he was offered up as a korban. He willingly returned himself to his Source, and in some sense spiritually his ashes remain on that altar (see Zevachim 62a and Rashi to Vayikra 26:42). From that place, he moved forward with his life, viewing the world together with its connection to its Source. With this vision, Yitzchak married and had children. And with this vision, Yitzchak had a relationship with Eisav, a relationship the Torah describes as, “And Yitzchak loved Eisav” (Bereisheit 25:28).

Apparently, Eisav was quite lovable in his youth. The Gemara calls Eisav an apostate of Yisrael (see Kiddushin 18a). This clearly connects Eisav to the name Yisrael, which is the name given to Yaacov when he battled the Archangel of Eisav. What connection does Eisav have to the name Yisrael? Rav Shapiro explains that in Eisav’s youth, he fought the same angel as Yaacov. He fought his own yetzer hara, and he vanquished him for many years. In Eisav’s youth he was Yaacov’s twin, both physically and spiritually.

Eisav had tremendous potential, and Yizchak saw it. The Torah tells us, Yitzchak loved Eisav because “that which he trapped was in his mouth” (Bereisheit 25:28). Rashi explains that in Eisav’s mouth were the questions he would use to entrap his father. For example, he would ask about how to give ma’aser with salt. The Zohar tells us that what Yitzchak saw in Eisav’s mouth was the Oral Torah, which the Arizal explains refers to the souls of the converts, leaders of the holy Torah, like Rabbi Meir. Rav Dessler, taking a slightly different approach, explains that that when Eisav was in the presence of his father, his better side was actualized. He actually was his better self, but that self was stuck in an external place, “in his mouth.” He couldn’t internalize it or maintain it outside of his father’s presence. 

Rav Shapiro takes this idea in a slightly different direction. Yitzchak was the product of the akeidah. Akeidah means binding. What happened at the akeidah is that Yitzchak took the essence of who he was, and he offered it up to Avraham, to be bound. As we know, each of our Fathers is connected to a  specific middah. Avraham is the middah of chesed, and Yitzchak is the middah of din. At the akeidah, Yitzchak took the essence of who he was, the middah of justice, and allowed himself to be bound by Avraham, by chesed. This was a reflection of Hashem’s actions when he created the world, which He originally thought to create with din, but then created with a combination of din and chesed. Yitzchak, in his life after the akeidah, is the middah of din as it exists when it is bound up by chesed. Yitzchak is our model for the middah of submitting ourselves entirely to Hashem’s kindness and Hashem’s plan.

This middah impacted Yitzchak’s relationship with Eisav. Both when he is “on the derech” and when he is “off the derech,” he is always on Hashem’s path. Eisav always has an important role in Hashem’s world. Yitzchak understood that Eisav asked about salt, because Eisav is like salt. He is the salt of the world. The essence of salt is that it has a dual aspect. On the one hand, too much salt negates life (see Devarim 29:22 and Yeshayahu 17:6). On the other hand, the taste and flavor of food is the vitality and the life of the food. And the salt is what gives the flavor. Salt is not food, but it gives flavor to food.

Rav Shapiro explains that the real flavor of anything in this world comes from the lack of it. When we first lack something then we can taste it and enjoy it when we get it. The more we lack it, the more we enjoy it. Nothing is more delicious than cold water at the end of a hike on a really hot day.  It is the lack, the absence, that gives it the flavor. This is why salt, which is the lack of life, has the ability to give life and flavor to our food.

Eisav is that which is lacking in this world. He lives by his sword, by killing, and he draws his life from death. The root of that lack is the ego, the point where we remove ourselves from Hashem, the Source of everything and turn into ourselves. Eisav is the yetzer hara, which is the point of our self-centeredness. Alone, this is the definition of evil. Integrated with our existence, he gives our lives flavor. The only way to tithe salt is for it to be combined with the food. This is what Yitzchak heard when Eisav asked to tithe salt. He saw Eisav in combination with his purpose in the world.

Our ego is important. The beginning of everything is the desire to do for ourselves. The joy and flavor in life is when we taste that we have expanded and done for ourselves. Everything begins with that point of ego, that “I,” which is why Eisav was the first born. However, just as we can not make the salt into the whole food, we can not stay in that constricted point of ego. As we grow, we are expected to expand our concept of “I.” We include our family, friends, culture and society into our concept of self. Ultimately, in the greatest Tzadikkim, the concept of “I” expands to include all of humanity, and the entire world. We never stop doing things for ourselves, we just have a much truer picture of who we are.

In this world, pleasure comes from filling lack. We enjoy eating the meal, but once we are stuffed, we can no longer enjoy its flavor. In the spiritual world, pleasure comes from our connection to Hashem, and from our sense of being. We call this Oneg, and we can experience it on Shabbat. Our physical work during the week is what enables us to experience it, but in itself it is the pleasure of existing in connection to Hashem. Oneg is the end game, the living at the end.

The space Yitzchak bequeathed us in our daily lives is Mincha, as the Torah tells us, “Yitzchak went out to pray in the field toward evening time” (Bereisheit 24:63). Although we may daven the same shmoneh esrei, Mincha is a very different tefillah from Shacharit. In the morning, as the day begins, we pray for expansion, and for the strength to accomplish in the world. We walk into Avraham’s space of newness, and endless possiblity. In the evening, things begin to contract and move back into their rightful spaces. Yitzchak is the father of returning home. He gave us space to step into where we can ground ourselves. Mincha is the recognition that there is more than just expansion in this world, more than just our desires in this world. At Mincha, we pray that things reach their true place. We close the circle. We return ourselves and our energy to Hashem.

Yitzchak lived through being offered as a Korban. He moved forward even though his ashes remained behind. He was the one who was able to uplift Be’er Lechai Roi, the well where Hagar davened for Yishmael, by instituting Mincha after he visited there. At the end of Avraham’s life, he buried his father together with Yishmael. And he was the one who saw the value in Eisav. At the end of the day, as the sun sets, and everything returns home, we pray the prayer of Yitzchak. After our work is done, we stand in the afternoon, and we move forward from the reality of wherever we are. Our tefillah at Mincha is a recognition that everything emerges to do its avodah, and that after it fulfills its mission, it returns home to its source. We can allow this to brings us joy. If we take a moment to center ourselves at Mincha, we can catch a little piece of Oneg. We can feel the joy of being connected, and of always having a spiritual home to return to.

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.