Parshat Chukat

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Earth and Ashes

In this parsha we begin with the mitzvah that is at one and the same time the most incomprehensible and also the one which gives us a path toward facing our worst fears. I am talking, of course, about the mitzvah of parah adumah, which deals head on with the spiritual and emotional results of coming into close contact with death.

The tumah of death is the gravest sort of tumah. In the face of death, our emotional and spiritual reaction is almost always despair. It is so final. We retain hope to the last second as long as someone is drawing breath. Even at the very edge of death, we will storm the heavens in prayer. But at the moment of death, we stand with no hope. We pray no more. We stand cut off.

Rav Schorr explains that tumah a blockage of our life force. The Hebrew word tumah is connected to the word atum, meaning impeded. The laws of tumah reflect this. That which is alive, like a plant connected to the earth, cannot become tamei. However, a plant which is picked from the ground becomes tamei with ease.

We were originally created completely tahor. Tahor is connected to the word tzohar, which means a translucent object that lets the light through. Something which is tahor is something which is connected to and expresses its life-force. This was our state in Gan Eden. Our bodies drew their life force perfectly from our souls. Every aspect of our bodies, up to and including the most external aspect, our skin, radiated that light. It was only after we sinned that we created a blockage between our life force and ourselves, between our bodies and our souls. After we sinned our skin became the covering it is now, which does not allow us to see our neshama radiating through.

We returned to a state of complete connection at the time of matan torah. Then, we were connected to the highest aspect of the Torah, the part that is beyond this world and connects us to eternal life. The Torah point out to us that words of the Torah were engraved on the luchot. Our Sages point out that this was an expression of the way our souls were connected to our bodies. Words which are engraved, unlike words which are written on paper, are words which are completely connected to the medium that holds them. At Matan Torah we were completely and inseparably connected to our souls. The result was a complete state of taharah. In the words of our Sages (Avot 6:2), “don’t read engraved, read freedom.” The complete connection to our souls freed us from death.

That was true until we sinned again and the luchot were broken. Mostly, we have lost our ability to be connected to the Torah at the level we were on at Har Sinai. However, we retain one impression of the level of the first luchot. That impression is parshat parah. The mitzvah of parah adumah begins with the words, “this is chukat hatorah.” Ramban connects this language to the word mechukak, which means carved out, or hollowed out. Parah adumah is a mitzvah which is carved out from the very essence of the Torah. It is a vessel for the life force of the Torah.

Parah adumah remains incomprehensible to us because it remains on the level of Har Sinai. It did not descend to our level, as the other mitzvot did. For this reason only Moshe Rabbeinu, who had no part in the chet haegel, was able to fully understand this mitzvah. Parah adumah remains connected always to Moshe and to his level. In every parah adumah there was always a bit of the ashes from the one that Moshe made.

Even though we can’t understand it, however, this mitzvah still it speaks to us. Specifically, it speaks to us through its ashes. What is ash? Ash is the burnt-out end from which nothing more can grow. In order to purify someone with the parah adumah we burn the heifer and sprinkle its ashes. However, when the Torah describes this process of sprinkling in Bamidbar 19:17, the word the Torah uses is not ashes, but soil. Which is a little odd, because soil is the opposite of ash. The Gemara specifically defines soil as the medium that cultivates new growth (Chullin 88b).

By using the word soil the Torah is sending us a message about the way we experience death in this world. We experience it as ash, as an end, as a state of being completely cut off. But that is not the truth. Life is eternal. Our soul is eternal. We cannot comprehend it, but we can experience it and know it. In every situation, there is a place for growth and moving forward. As Rav Shapiro explains, “The fearsomely novel insight of the subject of the Red Heifer is that even those parts that were worn out in the struggle, even those parts that seem to have transformed into ash—they too will bring about growth (Refections and Introspections on the Torah, Volume 5, p, 30).”

The chachamim tell us (Chullin 89a) that we received the mitzvah of parah adumah in the merit of Avraham, who said “I am but earth and ashes.” Parah adumah is a response to a world that is both earth and ashes. There are times that we feel cut off, and times that we feel connected. But our ability to give ourselves over to Hashem’s plan is the ability to reconnect to the eternal part of ourselves, and to move forward from any place, regardless of how hopeless or cut off it may seem.

 

 

Parshat Shelach

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Seeing Good

This is the parsha of the spies; the parsha of seeking out, scouting and spying. Essentially, this is the parsha of the Hebrew verb “tur.”  Of the 15 times that this verb appears in chumash, 13 of them are in this parsha. But not the first one. The first time the verb tur is mentioned in the Torah is in last week’s parsha, Beha’alotecha.

As we mentioned last week, according to Rebbe what we call Bamidbar is really three separate books. The first book, from the beginning of Bamidbar to perek 10, is the story of the how Bnei Yisrael began their journey after receiving the Torah. This journey was supposed to move us quickly into Eretz Yisrael, but never came to its intended conclusion. Instead, starting in perek 11, we have the third book of Bamidbar, which details the journey that actually occurred, which involved wandering in the desert for 40 years, and ultimately led to all the exiles we have endured. In the middle of these two journeys is the short book, only two verses, that details the journey of the aron kodesh.

It is at the very end of the first book of Bamidbar that we find the first use of the verb “tur”. Pasuk 10:33 describes how the Aron containing the broken luchot would travel ahead of the nation “latur lahem menucha, to prepare for them a place to rest.”  Tur here is a process of searching out, of seeking and seeing, but only for the purpose of spiritual preparation. This is what tur is supposed to be.

When Hashem commands, in the second pasuk of this week’s parsha, “Send forth men, and they will ‘tur’ the land of Canaan,” these men are being sent on a spiritual mission. Their forty days of spying out the land are parallel to the forty days Moshe spent on Har Sinai. Moshe brought the Torah from shamayim down to earth. The job of the meraglim was to bring the Torah from the desert, where we lived in a world of miracles, into the land of Israel, where we could live with the Torah in a system of nature.

How were they meant to do this? Rabbi Moshe Shapiro (Reflections and Introspection on the Torah, Volume 4, p. 460) explains that their mission was actually the mission of each and every one of us, from the moment of creation. We were all formed in the image of Hashem, as creators. Specifically, we create as Hashem created on most of the days of creation, but not the way He created on the first day of creation. On the first day of creation, Hashem brought all of existence into being from a state of nothingness. This is, of course, entirely beyond our comprehension. We can’t do this at all.

However, for the next five days of creation Hashem formed the matter he had created on the first day into a usable world. The Torah tells us the process he used was a process of saying and then seeing. For example, “G-d said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. G-d saw that the light was good (Bereisheit 1:3-4).” Hashem used speech to form the world, and then that reality became perceivable as “good.” What does it mean that it was good? It means that after Hashem spoke, the world became a place that could be perceived to be fulfilling its purpose. The world was a place that was visibly moving toward its intended destiny.

On the sixth day, Hashem created mankind, and gave us the power of speech. This is the power to form the raw material of our world. We each create the world around us with our speech.  Rav Shapiro tells us that our creation begins with speech and ends in sight. We speak the reality we perceive, and that becomes the visible form of our world.  

The job of the meraglim was to use their speech to prepare Eretz Yisrael for us to live in.  They were meant to perceive the world through the lens of what Hashem had promised us in the Torah. Then, the meraglim were supposed to use their words to form that perception into reality, so that we could all look at Eretz Yisrael and see that it was good, meaning that is was the place that we were destined to be.

What the meraglim actually did was the exact opposite. They lost the vision of Eretz Yisrael as our destiny, and they used their words to create a perception of Eretz Yisrael as a place that where we did not belong. The result was that we, as a nation, cried. Our vision became blurry and confused with our tears. And we lost our connection to Eretz Yisrael.

The Maharal (Netzach Yisrael Chapter 8) tells us that we were supposed to acquire Eretz Yisrael eternally and unshakably. But when we refused to perceive Eretz Yisrael as the place we were meant to be, that changed the form of the world, the reality of the world. With our words, we created the possiblity for Am Yisrael to live outside of Eretz Yisrael. This is why the weeping of that first Tisha B’av echoes through the generations. It was what made all future exiles possible. As Rav Shapiro says, “Our entrance into the land is no longer imperative. We can be there or not, and consequently, even when we are there, we are not there absolutely; we are not entirely there. p.467.”

This was a national failure, but it was not the end of the story. As we said, this is the parsha of the word tur. There is one more use of the word tur in the parsha after the story of the meraglim. The parsha ends with the mitzvah of tzitzit, where we are told, “lo taturu acharei levavchem v’acharei eineichem, do not explore after your heart and after your eyes (Bamidbar 15:39).” Rav Shapiro tells us that this mitzvah is a response to the disaster of the meraglim. In this constant reminder not to explore incorrectly. And it gives us a path forward.

The essence of the mitzvah of tzitzit is the techeilet, the blue string that is interwoven into the white strings. The Gemara tells us (Chullin 89a) that the blue string is meant to remind us of the sea, the sea is meant to remind us of the sky and the sky is meant to remind us of the Throne of Glory. Rav Moshe explains that these are progressive levels of understanding of the limitlessness of Hashem. The blue string is woven into the white strings, just as the expansive power of Hashem is meant to be woven into the fabric of our lives.

When we stand by the sea, and breathe in the salty air, and watch the waves rolling off into eternity, we can feel the expansiveness of Hashem’s creation, even though we know that ultimately that the sea is limited. We can carry that feeling with us as we look up the sky and experience its expansiveness that appears to have no limits at all. We can take that feeling and remind ourselves that Hashem has no limits at all.

Grounded in this understanding, we can weave the blue string into the white background of our life. If there are no limits, there is no event too small or too big for Hashem. He is with us in the tiny moments of frustration, when we are searching for a parking spot, and He is with us in national moments of crisis as well. The parsha begins with national failure, but it ends with personal redemption, which we create moment by moment in our lives. We expand and redeem our lives when we open ourselves up to experiencing the awesome, infinite power of Hashem. When we speak that truth we can see that reality, and we can experience the good that is our world.

Parshat Baha’alotecha

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Is Bamidbar a Broken Book?

From one perspective we can look at Bamidbar and see a broken book, both physically and spiritually. Physically, Bamidbar is split in two by psukim 10:35-36. These psukim are set off from the rest of the Torah by a flipped letter nun on each side. They describe the way we would carry the Aron HaKodesh in the desert, and Rebbe considers them an entire sefer on their own (see Shabbat 116a). This would make Bamidbar one book, broken into three separate books: the book up until these verses, these two verses, and then the end of the book.

These verses mark a breaking point spiritually and thematically in the Sefer.   At the beginning of Bamidbar we, as a nation, are at Har Sinai, connected completely to Moshe. Our journey from Har Sinai was meant to be a short process, culminating in entering Eretz Yisrael together with Moshe and living in a miraculous state that was almost like Gan Eden. The end of Sefer Bamidbar is another journey entirely. It is a journey of wandering in circles in the desert for forty years while an entire generation dies out. The first path which led so clearly to the spiritual fulfillment of history was shattered. The second path brings us to where we are today.

Bamidbar is therefore the story of two generations: the generation of the desert and the generation that went into the land of Israel. The Midrash Rabbah looks at Bamidbar through this prism, teaching that the five times that light is mentioned in the creation story relate to the five books of the Torah. The fourth use of the word light, which relates to Sefer Bamidbar, is in the sentence “And G-d separated between the light and the darkness.”

Bamidbar is the story of the separation of one generation from the next, one level of spiritual connection to Hashem, and another. Rav Shorr explains that the light here is referring to the way that Hashem guided the generation of the desert under Moshe. Their path was lit with the clarity of the Written Torah and Moshe’s nevuah. In the desert Hashem’s guiding presence was clear and obvious: we ate bread from the heavens, drank water from a traveling well, and were constantly accompanied by a pillar of cloud or a pillar of fire.   The darkness of the pasuk refers to the generation that came into the Land of Israel. Compared to the generation of the desert, this generation saw Hashem in a more hidden way. In Israel, Hashem’s guidance was hidden behind the veil of nature, and the system of Written Torah became the system of Oral Torah.

It is immediately after the verses that describe the traveling Aron HaKodesh that we can begin to see this shift start to take form. The very first pasuk describes the people complaining. This lack of spiritual closeness quickly becomes reflected in reality. Moshe’s leadership is now shared with 70 elders. Eldad and Meidad prophecy that Moshe will not lead Bnei Yisrael into the land. And the people, as per their request, are given birds to eat, instead of bread from the heavens. It is not long after this that we sin with the spies, and are forced to wander in the desert for forty years.

              What started us on this path? Tosafot tells us that we left Har Sinai like children when the bell rings at the end of a school day (Shabbat 116a). Somehow, we were okay with a certain level of separation from Hashem. And as we began to travel, we did not see completely past the physical discomfort to the spiritual good that lay within it. Hashem rushed our journey, in order to bring us into Eretz Yisrael faster. We could only see that this was hard. We could not see that it was good. The result was that our physical reality began to match our spiritual reality. Hashem began to guide us in a different way.

And so, yes, Bamidbar is a broken book, a book that starts out on one path, but is forced into another path altogether. But it is a book, Rebbe tells us, that is broken by a specific message. Just at the moment when our dreams are about to break, Hashem inserts into the Torah a short, but complete sefer. And this sefer is introduced by a flipped nun. Rav Shapiro (Reflections and Introspections on the Torah Volume 4, Bamidbar) explains that the “nun” is flipped in a very specific way. It is flipped in such a way that if we were sitting on one side of the text, and someone was sitting on the other, the “nun” would be facing them. Hashem uses the letters of the Torah to express eternal spiritual truth to us. In general, the letters of the Torah are therefore pointed toward us. But these two “nun”s are pointed toward Hashem. They are his letters.

These two psukim, this short sefer, is expressing something more that what we can see. It is the story not only of how the Aron began to journey, but also how it came to rest. It is an assurance to us, that despite what we may or may not be able to see in this world, there is a purposeful end for every beginning. Just at the point when our clear path is interrupted, at the point when we are forced into a darker and much longer path, there is the assurance that this too will ultimately lead to our destiny. We are on a different path, but we are still moving toward the same place.

Returning to the creation story, we see that while it is true that Hashem separated between the light and the dark, at the end of the day, “It was morning it was night, one day.” Both the darkness and the light are part of one whole. There are times when we look around our world and we see light. There are times when we see darkness, suffering, lies, and anti-Semitism. Every path, no matter how long, no matter how dark, is leading toward our destiny.

Parshat Nasso

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The Wonder of Reacting by Acting

I was tempted to begin this post with a comment on how the events of the last week have been so overwhelming. Then I realized that it’s not just the events of the last week. It’s also the events of two weeks before and all of last year, and even the year before that. I don’t think there are any of us who have not been impacted by current events—and that gives us something in common with the nazir.

This might sound a bit far-fetched, seeing as how the nazir is someone who chooses to take a vow to abstain from wine or grapes, cutting his hair, and coming into contact with a dead person.  However, Rashi points out that the passage describing the nazir appears immediately after the passage of the sotah because the process of the sotah was so impactful that whoever saw it would respond by taking a vow to become a nazir.

This nazir was not related to the sotah. He was not privy to the meaning behind everything that happened to her and could not have known why her life unfolded the way it did, or what the deeper meaning was. But seeing her had an impact on him, and that was part of the plan. The things we experience are meant to impact us, even things not directly related to us. Hashem is aware of all the peripheral effects of everything that happens in this world. And He intends them all.

Rav Schorr tells us, in the name of the Ba’al Shem Tov, that everything we see is intended for us. It relates to us in some way. We therefore have the opportunity to pause and to react purposefully and individually to every event we experience. This was the greatness of the nazir. He allowed himself to be moved spiritually by the events he witnessed.

Specifically, the nazir’s response was one of action. At first glance, that action might seem extreme, even harsh. But Rav Schorr points out that the Torah uses a very specific verb to describe the way the nazir takes his oath (Bamidbar 6:2). The verb comes from the shoresh “Pey-Lamed-Aleph” and is related to the word pelah, a wonder.

We might be familiar with this verb because it closes the asher yatzar bracha. Each time we relieve ourselves, we thank Hashem: Blessed are you, Hashem, Who heals all flesh and acts wondrously. The wonder we refer to in asher yatzar  is the continuous connection that Hashem creates between the body and the soul. Pelah is a verb that expresses the connection of the spiritual to the physical.

We find this verb again in this week’s haftorah, when an angel appears to Shimshon’s parents before he is born to tell them that their son will be a nazir. When they ask him his name, he answers, “Why do you ask? It is peli (literally, a secret, but from the root pelah).” And then the angel proceeds to perform a miracle, causing a fire from above to consume the goat offering brought by Shimshon’s parents.  Of course, that miracle is described as “mafli la’asot” (See Shoftim 13:18-19). The angel brought the fire of heaven to touch the physical korban on earth. 

We think of the nazir as someone who denies his physical desires. But Rav Schorr explains that what is happening is something much deeper. The avodah of the nazir is an echo of what we experienced at kriyat yam suf. We sang to Hashem (Shemot 15:11), “Who is like You, mighty in holiness, too awesome for praise, Who does wonders (pelah)?” The Meshech Chochmah explains that the wonder of kriyat yam suf was that even though Hashem is beyond anything in nature, completely indescribable and incomprehensible, as we stood at the sea we were able to point to the vision of Hashem and say, “This is my G-d.”  It was the tremendous miracle of the spiritual expressed in the physical.

This is what the nazir accomplishes. He separates himself from his physical pleasures by revealing and connecting to the spiritual power that is within him. His ability to overcome his physical desires is drawn from his strong connection to his spiritual will. The wonder of the nazir lies in his ability to fully express his spiritual will in his physical body. This is what makes him holy.

 We do not need to mimic the nazir’s exact actions in order to follow his example. Each of us have a wellspring of spiritual strength within. We can find our own path to holiness.  We can choose to connect to our own spirituality and give it expression in our physical lives in whatever way feels meaningful for us.  The wonder of the nazir is what we see all around us: the great beauty of many different individuals finding meaning in the events of life by expressing their own personal connection to spirituality.

Behar Bechukotai

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The Fruit of the Tree is Wheat?

This week, I want to focus on a bracha; specifically the bracha that is spelled out in the first 11 pesukim of Parshat Bechukotai. It’s a beautiful bracha which starts by blessing us with rain that comes at the right time and produces bountiful crops. It includes peace and serenity, protection from wild animals and the ability to vanquish our enemies. It closes with the promise of Hashem dwelling among us. This section naturally comes out each year just before Shavout, and was also decreed by Ezra HaSofer to be read at this time. There is something meaningful here for Shavout.

This bracha describes a world which is so idyllic, so spiritual, that Ramban tells us that it has never been actualized fully. For example, when Hashem promises us, “I will quiet the wild animals from your land (Vayikra 26:6),” Ramban explains that this describes a complete change in nature. When the world was created all animals ate only plants (see Bereisheit 1:30). This was their original nature. It was only after Adam sinned that some animals began to prey on each other and become dangerous. In the future, when we are unified nationally, living together in Eretz Yisrael and following Hashem’s Will, the entire world, and the animals along with it, will return to its original state. Wild animals will no longer be dangerous.

Similarly, the Rama MiPano tells us that when the Torah promises (Vayikra 26:4) that the “tree of the field will give fruit,” the promise is not just that apple trees will produce apples. The promise is that all trees, even trees that today do not produce fruit, will become fruit bearing. The fruit they will bear will not be like the fruit of today. Today, we are only able to eat bread after we have put in a lot of effort to plow, plant, harvest, grind and form the grain into bread. This is a result of Adam’s sin, as Hashem told us, “by the sweat of your brow, you shall eat bread (Bereisheit 3:19).” But there was a time when things were different, and they will be different again. According to Rebbe Yehudah the fruit of the tree of knowledge was wheat (Sanhedrin 70b), because in Gan Eden wheat grew just like the fruit of a tree. Additionally, according to Rabban Gamliel, in the future the soil of Eretz Yisrael will produce fully formed bread (Shabbat 30b).  

Even though wheat clearly does not still grow on trees, we retain a connection to this ideal, even today. Shavout is the new year of the fruit of the tree (see Megilla 31b). The Korban we bring, for the purpose of bringing bracha to the fruit of the trees, consists not of fruit but of two loaves of bread. There is still a connection between wheat and the fruit of the tree, even if we don’t experience that connection in our fields today.

The bracha at the beginning of our parsha is an ideal. But it is an ideal that we retain a connection to. The Midrash points out that our bracha follows the order of the aleph-bet. It begins with the letter aleph and ends with the letter tav.  The aleph-bet is the order of creation. When the Midrash tells us that the bracha follows the order of the aleph-bet, it is making an important point about the nature of our world. This bracha is the original, intended, nature of the world. Bracha is not a chidush in the world; it is the essence of what this world is meant to be.

When we read through the parsha, what often strikes us is that the brachot are followed by a very long list of klalot, that seem to go on forever. But the Midrash points out that the klalot begin with the letter vav and end with the letter hey. They are exactly backward, the inverse of the purpose of creation. We have the ability to flip them around and turn them to good. Our world was created with the letter “bet,” the letter of expansion and bracha. Our natural state is to live in a world of bracha.

Why do we read this message just before Shavout? Because when we talk about Shavout being the new year for the trees, we mean this on two levels simultaneously. On the one hand, the yield of the trees is being determined for the next year. On the other hand, when we speak of a tree, we are also speaking of ourselves. As we read in Devarim 20:19 “for man is like the tree of the field.” Shavout is a new beginning for us as well. It is a beginning when we return to our roots, and to our true self.

We live physically by bread, but spiritually through the Torah: “man does not live by bread alone, but rather by whatever comes forth from the mouth of Hashem does man live (Devarim 8:3).” Once, both Torah and bread were easily available to us. Now, outside of Gan Eden, we have to work to attain these things. But we are meant to do this work in a specific way.

The nature of a tree is very different from the nature of a field. Each year, in the field, we begin again, plowing, sowing, planting. We have to tear down in order to grow. In contrast, the tree stands tall, year after year, and produces fruit from within itself. Yes, it needs to be tended to, and cultivated. But it never needs to be torn down in order to grow. The new year of Shavout is the new year of the tree. It is when we reconnect to our source of life, the Torah. It is the time when we reconnect to our original nature. We have no need to recreate ourselves in order to grow. We already have tremendous spiritual strength within. Our avodah is only to refine ourselves, for the purpose of allowing our inner strength to reveal inself naturally.

May we be blessed to succeed in finding the joy and tranquility of connecting to the Torah, and to our own inner strengths.