Listen to tonight's class, "Torah Speech & Torah Thought," here.
Follow along with the sources here.
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Torah Speech & Torah Thought
Listen to tonight's class, "Torah Speech & Torah Thought," here.
Follow along with the sources here.
Wednesday, April 29, 2020
Yom HaAssmaut: Celebrating the Present
Celebrating the Present
Thoughts on Yom HaAssmaut 2020
Click here to view as PDF
Many have argued
that it is inappropriate to celebrate the establishment of the State of Israel
prior to its “final redemption” by Mashiah. Indeed, even we who celebrate Yom
HaAssmaut rejoice only the athalta de-ge’ulah – “the beginning of
redemption,” as we admit that there is actually more to come. Imagine a
prisoner celebrating their freedom before leaving the grounds of captivity. How
premature! Since anything might still happen, everyone would agree that the
prisoner should only rejoice once out and away from the prison gates. Why,
then, do we celebrate a state of independence which is still incomplete?
Several thousand
years ago, Am Yisrael sang shirat ha-yam as they left Egypt. When
exactly did they sing? Owing to the pesukim’s ambiguity, the Hakhamim
disagreed about whether the people sang as they traversed the sea or only
afterwards.[1]
It is easy to understand why they may have sung only after crossing the
sea. It was, after all, a song of thankfulness to God for His redemption from
their oppressors. Singing during the splitting of the sea, however, is
hard to comprehend. Why would the people sing before experiencing a complete
and final salvation?
Avivah Gottlieb
Zornberg suggested that the fear and anxiety felt by Am Yisrael as they
crossed the sea, with their sense of fate hanging in balance, underwrote the
song that they then sang. “The meeting of terror and joy, destruction and
birth, takes the people beyond the normal places of speech,” she wrote, “It
takes them…into silence.” And it is from that emotional constriction upon
ordinary speech that the song was then conceived.[2]
While singing after keriat yam suf is a rational decision, singing during
the crossing is emotionally charged.
In 1954, Ezriel
Carlebach, the legendary editor of the Israel newspaper Maariv, traveled
to India. He later summed up the difference between Western and Eastern
mindsets, recalling a brief conversation with the prime minister of India at
that time. As the two discussed the diplomatic complications of the time, which
seemed difficult to overcome, Carlebach remarked, “Well, the question is what
to do.” The prime minister gazed at him for a while, and then said, “You see?
That is a typical question for a European.” “How so?” Carlebach asked. “Well,”
he replied, “an Indian would have asked ‘What to be?’”[3]
If shirat ha-yam
was sung after splitting the sea, it answered “What to do?” If it
was sung during the crossing, however, it addressed “What to be?”
We tend to live our
lives focused upon the past and future, in total neglect of the present. The
“past” and “future” are easy to wrap our heads around. We can remember history
and reflect upon its various lessons. And we can speculate about the future and
prepare for its arrival. Appreciating the present, however, is a daunting
challenge. It is difficult to seize a time that fleetingly shifts from one
moment to the next.
Instead, we plan.
We focus on how achievements at school will affect our future, how success at
work will build income, and how proper investments will support retirement. And
in so doing, we neglect the experience of life itself. Avoiding the emotions of
fear, excitement, anguish and joy which make up “the present,” we hand over our
most basic expressions of humanity to the stable and stoic states of
predictability and complacency.
Medinat Yisrael has a long road ahead to its
“final redemption.” The concerns regarding its state of politics, religion and
security abound. But Yom HaAssmaut doesn’t celebrate the past, nor does it
rejoice over the future. Instead, it embraces the present. We gather together
as a nation on this day, ignoring “What to do?” and asking instead “What to
be?” We celebrate the current reality, tapping into its wellspring of emotions
and using them to draw closer to God.
[1] See Sotah 30a and Mekhilta:
Beshalah 82. See R. Meshulam Dovid Soloveitchik, Meorei HaMoadim vol.
1 (Jerusalem, IS, 1997), pg. 75-76 and Meorei HaMoadim vol. 2
(Jerusalem, IS, 2001), pg. 52-54. And cf. R. Barukh Epstein, Torah Temimah:
Shemot 14:22.
[2] Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The
Particulars of Rapture: Reflections on Exodus (New York, NY, 2001), pg.
216-218.
[3] Ezriel Carlebach, India:
Account of a Voyage [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, IS, 1986), pg. 266. Cited by R.
Yaakov Nagen, Be, Become Bless: Jewish Spirituality between East and West
(New Milford, CT, 2019), pg. 1-2.
Tuesday, April 28, 2020
Sunday, April 26, 2020
Friday, April 24, 2020
Tuesday, April 21, 2020
Yom HaShoah: Choosing Freedom
Choosing Freedom
Thoughts on Yom HaShoah 2020
Click here to view as PDF
Viktor Frankl, the well-known Holocaust survivor and psychotherapist, observed that many of the men whom he encountered in the concentration camps were singularly focused on retrospective thought. Attempting to escape from the ‘trapped present,’ they obsessed over the days and years prior to their imprisonment with dreams about their ‘free past.’ “But in robbing the present of its reality there lay a certain danger,” Frankl wrote, “It became easy to overlook the opportunities to make something positive of camp life, opportunities which really did exist.” Laying before them was an opportunity to “make a victory of those very experiences, turning life into an inner triumph.” Mistakenly believing that the “real opportunities” of life had already passed, however, many of the men ignored the challenges that lay in the present, tragically vegetating in the deadly atmosphere of the concentration camps.[1]
Frankl later founded the psychological field of logotherapy, which guides people to finding a sense of freedom even as they suffer.[4] He distinguished between responsibility – which is imposed from the outside, and responsibleness – which is freely chosen. “Responsibleness means inner discipline,” Joseph Fabry explained, as “we respond not because we are forced to, but because we so decide.” And while our lives often feel predetermined by hereditary genes, drives, emotions, and early childhood experiences, coupled with specific environment and economic conditions, logotherapy asserts that we may still retain a source of freedom – the ability to choose how we respond to our particular situation.[5]
R. Isadore Twersky z”l
likewise wrote, regarding the missvot, “The objective act is
standard and unchanging; the practice is various and multifaceted.”[7]
Although the laws and strictures of halakhah impose responsibility upon us, they likewise invite us to discover the freedom of responsibleness, by recognizing our internal feelings and expressing them in the performance of missvot.
[1] Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (Boston, MA, 2014), pg. 67-68.
Viktor Frankl, the well-known Holocaust survivor and psychotherapist, observed that many of the men whom he encountered in the concentration camps were singularly focused on retrospective thought. Attempting to escape from the ‘trapped present,’ they obsessed over the days and years prior to their imprisonment with dreams about their ‘free past.’ “But in robbing the present of its reality there lay a certain danger,” Frankl wrote, “It became easy to overlook the opportunities to make something positive of camp life, opportunities which really did exist.” Laying before them was an opportunity to “make a victory of those very experiences, turning life into an inner triumph.” Mistakenly believing that the “real opportunities” of life had already passed, however, many of the men ignored the challenges that lay in the present, tragically vegetating in the deadly atmosphere of the concentration camps.[1]
The experiences of camp life show that man does
have a choice of action…Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom,
of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and
physical stress...Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such
circumstances decide what shall become of him – mentally and spiritually…It is
this spiritual freedom – which cannot be taken away – that makes life
meaningful and purposeful. [3]
Frankl later founded the psychological field of logotherapy, which guides people to finding a sense of freedom even as they suffer.[4] He distinguished between responsibility – which is imposed from the outside, and responsibleness – which is freely chosen. “Responsibleness means inner discipline,” Joseph Fabry explained, as “we respond not because we are forced to, but because we so decide.” And while our lives often feel predetermined by hereditary genes, drives, emotions, and early childhood experiences, coupled with specific environment and economic conditions, logotherapy asserts that we may still retain a source of freedom – the ability to choose how we respond to our particular situation.[5]
Feelings not manifesting themselves in deeds are
volatile and transient; deeds not linked with inner experience and soulless.
Both the subjective as well as the objective components are indispensable for
the self-realization of the religious personality.”[6]
Although the laws and strictures of halakhah impose responsibility upon us, they likewise invite us to discover the freedom of responsibleness, by recognizing our internal feelings and expressing them in the performance of missvot.
[1] Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (Boston, MA, 2014), pg. 67-68.
Monday, April 20, 2020
Sunday, April 19, 2020
Tuesday, April 14, 2020
Pesah: Light from the Darkness
Light from the Darkness
Thoughts on Pesah 2020
Click here to view as PDF
The last three
plagues which were leveled upon the Egyptians shared a common theme: darkness.
The eighth plague, the locust, “darkened the ground” as it rained down upon
Egypt, making it “impossible to see the earth” (Shemot 10:16, 5). The ninth
plague’s “darkness over the land of Egypt” was so strong that “no one saw his
fellow and no one rose from where he was three days” (21, 23). And the tenth
and final plague, makat bekhorot, took place at “about midnight” (11:4)
– a time of absolute darkness. Whereas the previous seven plagues seemingly happened
in the light of day, these last three were pronounced by a blinding darkness.
Why?
At some point
during these last three plagues, a peculiar encounter took place between Moshe
and Pharaoh. Responding to Moshe’s demand that the entire nation accompany him
in leave of Egypt, Pharaoh said: “May God only be with you the way I would send
you off with your little ones! For evil [ra’ah] is before your faces”
(10:10). What did Pharaoh mean by the “evil” that lay ahead? Was he actually
looking out for the safety of the nation? Citing from a midrash, Rashi
suggested that Pharaoh was in fact referring to the Egyptian sun god, “Ra,” and
warning that Am Yisrael’s departure would end in doom, at the hands of
the “all-powerful” Ra, god of the Sun.[1]
Throughout ancient
Egyptian history, the sun god was considered the head of the pantheon. “It was
regarded as the first king of the land from whom all the pharaohs were
descended,” Nahum Sarna wrote.[2]
The Egyptians believed that Ra was the “creator god.” They understood creation
as an act of differentiation, naming and definition. And since light allows the
distinction of one thing from another, they considered light to be the creative
power that maintains the world.[3]
“Thus, the last three plagues should be seen as an attack on the Egyptian’s
most central beliefs,” R. Ari Kahn wrote, as they “were direct attacks on the
Egyptian sun god.”[4]
Fascinatingly, in
the very midst of what the Egyptians had experienced as the dread of darkness,
“All Bnei Yisrael had light in their dwelling places” (10:23). And a similar
scene repeated itself at Yam Suf – “And there was the cloud and the dark, and
it lit up the night” (14:20). While the Egyptian’s vision at the sea was
obscured by the pillar of cloud at night, Am Yisrael marched forward to
the light of the pillar of fire.[5]
Furthermore contrasting the Egyptians’ experience of the their god’s demise, it
was specifically at Yam Suf that – finally – “Yisrael saw the great hand that
God had performed against Egypt” (14:31).
What emerges, then,
is that Am Yisrael’s first national experience of God’s illuminating
light arose in the context of a pervasive darkness. Whereas the Egyptians
instinctively understood darkness as utter destruction, Am Yisrael experienced
it as the perfect setting to behold God’s emergence.
Jewish mystical
tradition maintains that God’s initial creation of light “emerged from the
darkness which was hewed out by the strokes of the Most Secret.”[6]
He first surrounded the world with darkness, “until light emanated, split the
darkness, and radiated.”[7]
The kabbalists explain that the “light from darkness” is in fact a concept
which underlies the whole of existence: “There is no light except that which
issues from darkness…There is no worship of the blessed Holy One except from
darkness, and there is no good except from evil.”[8]
The great
psychotherapist Wilfred Bion followed this notion of drawing forth light from
darkness in his clinical practice. He would first “cast a beam of intense
darkness”,” by allowing the
client to obscure their issue by means of incoherent thoughts and
misunderstanding. Bion would only then chime in, suggesting a thought or
insight which could “glitter in the darkness.”[9]
And while contemporary psychotherapist Estelle Frankel admits to feeling
threatened at times in her life and practice by “the challenge of not knowing,”
she finds consolation in the wise and humorous words of actress Naomi Newman:
“Nothing natural or interesting goes in a straight line. As a matter of fact,
it is the quickest way to the wrong place. And don’t pretend you know where you
are going. Because if you know where you are going, that means you’ve been
there, and you are going to end up exactly where you came from.”[10]
Our current lives
feel increasingly threatened by the “darkness of Egypt.” We are overwhelmed by
a world of uncertainty. Unable to predict tomorrow’s news and events, we are
driven to panic and stress. Learning from our history, however, we should
instead be reminded that our greatest discoveries have emerged from the very
depths of darkness.
Our tradition teaches
that there always exists a light, flickering ever so dimly, in the distance. We
might only catch sight of it, however, by first enduring the darkness. Remembering
that Am Yisrael found hope in the same darkness that led the Egyptians to
despair, we must dispel our current anxiety and courageously march forward into
the darkness. We will do so, of course, in anxious anticipation of the illuminating
discoveries that loom therein.
[1] Commentary of Rashi to
Shemot 10:10, s.v. re’u.
[2] Nahum M. Sarna, Exploring
Exodus: The Origins of Biblical Israel (New York, NY, 1996), pg. 79.
[3] Racheli Shalom-Hen, in The
Koren Tanakh of the Land of Israel (New Milford, CT, 2019), pg. 58.
[4] R. Ari D. Kahn, Echoes of
Eden: Sefer Shemot (New York, NY, 2012), pg. 84.
[5] Commentary of Rashi to
Shemot 14:20, s.v. va-ya’er.
[6] Zohar I:31b. Cited and
translated in Gershom Scholem, Zohar: The Book of Splendor (New York,
NY, 1967), pg. 6. See, as well, Commentary of Rashi to Bereshit 1:4,
s.v. va-yar.
[7] Zohar I:30b. Translated
by Daniel C. Matt, The Zohar: Pritzker Edition vol. 1 (Stanford, CA,
2004), pg. 183.
[8] Zohar II:184a.
Translated by Daniel C. Matt, The Zohar: Pritzker Edition vol. 6
(Stanford, CA, 2011), pg. 33.
[9] See James Grotstein, A Beam
of Intense Darkness: Wilfred Bion’s Legacy to Psychoanalysis (New York, NY,
2007).
[10] Estelle Frankel, The Wisdom
of Not Knowing: Discovering a Life of Wonder by Embracing Uncertainty
(Boulder, CO, 2017), pg. 165.
Monday, April 13, 2020
Sunday, April 12, 2020
Wednesday, April 8, 2020
Pesah: Perspective
Perspective
Thoughts on Pesah 2020
Click here to view as PDF
On most years, I speak
from the pulpit at the end of Arbit on the first night of Pesah, briefly reviewing
the various requirements for eating and drinking at the Seder. Finishing the
definitions of kazayit and revi’it, I remind everyone that the
importance of these shiurim notwithstanding, the primary focus of this
night is on the shared involvement of all family members in the reenactment of yessiat
Missrayim. In other words, the measurements of the food and drinks do
not represent a “means to themselves,” but rather make up the necessary
ingredients for an exalted experience. Let us, this year, delve deeper into
what that means.
The task of
sublimating our human desires into spiritual realities is one of Judaism’s central
challenges. Malbim, the great 19th Century exegete, likened our
life’s duty to that of the alchemists of old, who sought to transform base
metals into precious silver and gold. “Man, throughout his life, must undertake
the process of alchemy to change [his physical self] into a transcendent
spiritual entity,” he wrote, “This process is achieved through thoughts and
actions, for through them, [man] can separate from physicality and become a
transcendent spiritual entity.”[1]
It has long been
noted that the tunes of many of the traditional Syrian pizmonim were
adapted from non-Jewish songs of festivity and passion. In addition to a
broader halakhic analysis regarding the permissibility of doing so, several
rabbinic authorities pointed to a particular beauty in the transfer of the
melodies from a “realm of impurity” to one of “sanctity.” [2]
By channeling tunes once composed in praise of hedonistic passion to a context
of divine yearning, many of the Syrian pizmonim characterize this
specific ideal of our worldly endeavors.
Jewish mystical
tradition furthermore maintains that God’s light shines most in our world of
relative darkness, in contrast to the Upper Worlds of manifest light. “The purpose of the soul entering this body is
to display her powers and actions in this world, for she needs an instrument,” the Medieval kabbalist R. Moshe
de León
z”l wrote, “If she is not fulfilled both above and below, she is not
complete.”[3]
R. Adin Steinsaltz likewise explained that “matter can be a vessel to contain
the Infinite, which the spirit, with its greater vulnerability, cannot be.”[4]
I have always felt that
many of the missvot performed on the first nights of Pesah are exemplary
features of bringing forth holy sparks from a material world.
Why do we drink
four cups of wine at the seder? “The rabbis lived in a world where
people regularly drank wine at festive occasions, and those who could afford
it, even more regularly,” Joshua Kulp wrote. Basing himself on a scholarly
proposition that four cups of wine was once considered the appropriate quantity
of wine for a ritual celebration, Kulp suggested that the ritual role of the
cups familiar to us at the Seder is the Rabbis’ adaptation of an already
accepted practice of festive drinking.[5]
Our practice of structuring the Seder around the four cups, then,
represents the repurposing of drinking wine from an act of self-indulgence to
one of religious significance.
Our mention at the
Seder that one must state and explain the reasons for the missvot of Pesah,
massah and maror is likewise telling. HaRambam’s recording of this
law in the context of sipur yessiat Missrayim teaches that these foods must
be used as props for our colorful “restaging” of the Exodus from Egypt.[6]
It emerges, then, that food – the icon of pleasure-seeking – encounters
sanctity at the Seder.
“You can mend the
cosmos by anything you do – even eating,” the great kabbalist R. Yisshak Luria
(the Ari) z”l once remarked, “Do not imagine that God wants you
to eat for mere pleasure or to fill your belly…the purpose is mending.”[7]
The food at the Seder is transformed even beyond fulfillment of an eating-missvah;
it is entirely reappropriated to
serve as an entry-key into the transcendent experience of leaving Egypt.
Raising the massah and maror, pointing at them and mentioning their
significance transports us to a spiritual time and place far beyond that of our
present-day situation.
We are currently
living through a particularly turbulent time period. What relevant message can
we incorporate from this understanding of the Seder to our contemporary lives?
Perspective.
Consider the
context of our “relived” experience of freedom after more than two centuries of
servitude. Instead of madly storming into the open-access pleasures of the
world, we approach them with a careful search for latent sanctity. We
sensitively craft a general perspective that meets the challenges of a life of
freedom.
The lesson of
perspective is ever-important today. Open your eyes and search for the potential
positive that is nestled away in our world now transfixed on misery and gloom.
Discover the personal growth awaiting your solitude, realize the family members
awaiting your attention and find the suffering people awaiting your kindness.
Shift your perspective,
ignite the “sparks of light” from within, and let them radiate this world of utter
darkness.
[1] R. Meir Leibush b. Yehiel Mikhel
Wisser, Commentary of Malbim: Bemidbar 19:1. Cited and translated by R.
Aryeh Leibowitz, The Neshamah: A Study of the Human Soul (Nanuet, NY,
2018), pg. 161.
[2] See R. Jacob S. Kassin,
Introduction to Shir UShevahah Hallel VeZimra (New York, NY, 1964), pg.
9-10. See, as well, e.g., R. Ovadia Yosef, Yehaveh Daat vol. 2
(Jerusalem, IS, 1978), no. 5 and Yabia Omer vol. 6 (Jerusalem, IS,
1986), no. 7, and R. Meir Mazouz, Bayit Ne’eman vol. 1 (Bnei Brak, IS,
2015), no. 35. And for a brief English survey, see R. Shlomo M Brody, A
Guide to the Complex: Contemporary Halakhic Debates (New Milford, CT.
2014), pg. 174-176.
[3] R. Moshe de León, Sefer HaRimonim, ed. Elliot R. Wolfson (Atlanta,
GA, 1988), pg. 106.
[4] R. Adin Even-Israel
Steinsaltz, The Long Shorter Way: Discourses on Chasidic Thought (New
Milford, CT, 2014), pg. 255.
[5] Joshua Kulp, The Schechter
Haggadah: Art, History and Commentary (Jerusalem, IS, 2009), pg. 171-174,
and Shamma Friedman, Tosefta Atiqa Pesah Rishon (Ramat Gan, IS, 2002),
pg. 405-411. Listen to our class on this topic, “The Four Cups: A History,” at http://www.rabbiharari.com/2020/03/the-four-cups-history.html.
[6] HaRambam, Mishneh Torah:
Hilkhot Hamess UMassah 7:5. Listen to our class on this topic, “Pesah,
Massah & Maror,” at http://www.rabbiharari.com/2019/04/pesah-massah-maror.html.
[7] Translated by Daniel C. Matt, The
Essential Kabbalah: The Heart of Jewish Mysticism (New York, NY, 1995), pg.
149.
Friday, April 3, 2020
Thursday, April 2, 2020
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