Rosh Chodesh, and Becoming Legend

ראשי חדשים לעמך נתת, זמן כפרה לכל תולדותם" - מוסף לראש חודש"

This phrase from the Mussaf prayer for Rosh Chodesh poetically describes the beginning of the Jewish months as a special time for renewal. But we need to "learn it up" to appreciate its beauty, particularly the wording at the end "לכל תולדותם." The word , תולדות (toldot or toldos) is primarily translated in one of two ways: either offspring, or chronicles. It's root is ולד, baby, as in the word הולדה, birth, and יום הולדת, birthday. It's also found as in the verse:

"אֵלֶּה תוֹלְדוֹת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְהָאָרֶץ בְּהִבָּרְאָם בְּיוֹם עֲשׂוֹת יְקוָק אֱלֹקים אֶרֶץ וְשָׁמָיִם"  

(These are the chronicles of heaven and earth upon their creation, on the day Hashem the Lord made earth and heaven.)1

The connecting line between the word's two meanings is something profound. Briefly, it is the incredible power human beings have to produce something eternal in this world. When a person bears offspring, he is in a sense extending his life in the world. His children carry on his legacy, and so do their children after them and so on. But that is not the only way we live on. Our actions also take on a life of their own and become immortalized. One source for this idea is a Rashi on the following verse:

"אלה תולדות נח. נח איש צדיק" 
(These are the offspring of Noach. Noach was a righteous man):

Rashi: "To teach you, that the main ,תולדות of the righteous are good deeds."2

The offspring, the main thing which comes out of a righteous person that lives on forever are his good deeds. The actions he does daily, and the way he uses his time in this world takes on an independent existence that endures.

That's what we want to renew on Rosh Chodesh. The word Chodesh, חודש, comes from the word חדש, new. So Rosh Chodesh is a time given to the Jewish people to create the world anew.3 The source is  the verse:

"החודש הזה לכם ראש חדשים"
(This month is for you the head of all months.)4

The Rabbis expound upon this verse's words "for you" as the source for the halachic obligation to declare the first day of each month based on astrological observation. As opposed to the days of the week, and Shabbos, which initiate automatically, the new month does not start unless it is declared by the Jewish people.5 That means, the 7 days of the week are Hashem's creation, but the monthly cycle of time is the Jewish people's creation. That's why our verse, "This month is for you the head of all months," is referring to Nissan, the month when the Jews left Egypt. It marks the birth of the Jewish Nation.

Rashi startlingly says on the first word of the Torah, בראשית, that if it were not for certain lessons for all people from the beginning of the Torah, it should have started instead with החודש הזה לכם ראש חדשים "This month is for you." Until then there was Hashem's history. From then began another time line, the chronicles of the Jewish people.6. 7.

It's nearly impossible to express in words where or how these actions become legacy. Even the smallest deeds which seemingly go unnoticed, uncelebrated, and even forgotten to memory. Who can say where they keep the stuff of legend. Those untold stories, and stories that even once uttered by human lips leave so much lacking. As for me, I venture to say we know, somehow. 

And so says the Mussaf prayer, as we face our creator each month and declare...

"ראשי חדשים לעמך נתת, זמן כפרה לכל תולדותם"
(Heads of the Months You gave to Your Nation, a time to start clean for all of their תולדות.)


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1. בראשית ב ד

2. בראשית ו ט

3. על פי מה ששמעתי מרב משה שפירה זצק"ל. וכן התיחס את זה למה שדרשו רבותינו אין כל חדש תחת השמש; אבל למעלה יש, על ידי תורה ומצות
4. שמות יב ב

5. ראה ס’ "שבת מלכתא" על קבלת שבת, שמסביר ההבדל בין הכנסת שבת לי"ט

6. מהרל, דרוש נאה לשבת הגדול

7. הזכיר לי חבר בן תורה) בן עזאי אומר זה "זה ספר תולדות האדם" זה כלל גדול בתורה)
    [ב"ר כ"ד ז]

A Very Pesach Quarantine

Let's try to learn something about Pesach that can help us in our current situation. The most basic message of the Pesach story is: Hashem wants something from us. Indeed, this point is so crucial that Hashem first so to speak 'introduces' Himself to the Jewish people as a whole at Har Sinai by the title of "I am Hashem your G-d who took you out of Egypt."1 That was Hashem's choice, as opposed to Creator of the universe, or the King of Kings, or The Omniscient. He wants to be known as the one who miraculously broke through nature to set us free from the worst situation. Why? because our mission is more important than all of creation.2

And there is a Mitzvah to relive the redemption once a year, and to recall it every day. It cuts to the core of our humanity and requires constant reinforcement. Everyone, without exception, feels that it's easier to believe Hashem is out there somewhere, in an abstract sense, than when it comes to our personal lives and the way we use our time on this earth; there it's a different story.

But we are supposed to have this issue. Man was created to experience his personal world as hidden from Hashem's objective reality. That personal space is undetermined, giving a sense of power and independence, and also of longing or even desperation. It is what drives us to create.

Here's one source for this idea. In Bereshis,3 after each day's creation, the Torah says "it was good", טוב. Only after the creation of Man something is added: "Behold, it was very good" והנה טוב מאוד. The Torah doesn't use the word "very" too often. When Hashem calls something good, it means exactly and absolutely good as much as it's possible for the subject described. So when He does say "very good," it requires extra explanation. The Midrash says the following:4

 'והנה טוב מאוד' - זה יצר הרע. וכי יצר הרע טוב מאוד. אתמהה. אלא שאלולי יצר הרע לא בנה אדם בית ולא נשא אישה ולא הוליד ולא נשא ונתן
('And Behold, very good' - this is the evil inclination. Is the evil inclination really very good? Rather, the intent is, if it were not for the evil inclination, Man would not build a house, Man would not marry and have children, Man would not engage in business...)

Perhaps as perplexing as it is explanatory, the Midrash says that the words "very good" appear after the creation of Man, not because of his intellect, talent, or sociability, but because of his יצר הרע, commonly translated as "evil inclination."

The root word יצר means to create. So יצר הרע actually means a creative power in Man for evil. As we began to explain above, Man's desire to create comes from the unique experience of his personal world as something undetermined and independent of everything else. Without conscientious direction, this limitless freedom to create leads to evil. In a world totally open to influence, you can change any rules or priorities, put yourself in the center, etc.

But it's actually a double-edged sword.5 We create our own reality, so it can be virtual and ephemeral, or sublime and heroic. That's what is "very" about Man. In Man there is more, so to speak than the good solely from Hashem's creation because there's also room for Man's creation.

The key to using this sword the right way lies in the message of Pesach. The Jewish people had been enslaved for several generations, immersed in a culture that negated their most fundamental principles, under circumstances where it was impossible to see Hashem's guiding hand. In that world, Hashem peeled away every layer of the screen that separated us from Him and clearly demonstrated His complete investment in us.

But we have a choice. We can choose to see our personal world as impenetrable, that given our issues we can't be held responsible or be expected to rise to the occasion, and that what matters for us is only relative to our perspective. But we can also consider the consequences of those choices, and we can ask what the significance of our little personal world is if it's isolated from the bigger picture.

We are taught that the word for man, אדם is purposefully the same letters as the word for very, מאד. In addition, אדם in gematria is 45, equivalent to the word מה, meaning 'what'. To be "very," to be מאד is essential to being human.6 But in order to live up to our mission, we must ask, as Hillel does in Pirkei Avos,7 כשאני לעצמי מה אני, "When I am just to myself, what am I?" When Man sees his independence and his power to create with humility and asks "מה?" what am I, what significance does my little world have? Hashem tells him, I am Hashem your G-d who took you out of Egypt, I am invested in you. And then he can truly create.

Rather than scrambling to ask 'Why is this happening?' 'What does Hashem want from me?' and becoming anxious and ineffective (or whatever your tendency for dysfunction may be), let us ask 'Does Hashem want something from me?' and כשאני לעצמי מה אני, "When I am just to myself, what am I?" The stronger our answers to those questions, the more we'll use our quarantine to become a different אדם.
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1. שמות כ ב
2. מהרל דרוש נאה לשבת הגדול/כוזרי
3. בראשית א לא
4. בראשית רבה ט ט
5. "עיין מהרל באר הגולה, באר שני "חרב שתי פיפיות
6. מהרל דרוש נאה לשבת הגדול
7. אבות א יד

Where Are We Headed These Days? (Purim)

Many people think life is simple and easy as a religious Jew. You've got all the rules set up for you black on white, and if you'd like to know G-d's plan, or why bad things are happening... Your Rabbi will conveniently throw down some Torah wisdom for you to naively accept on faith.

Nothing challenges this point of view more than the Purim story. At first glance it sounds like every other Jewish story: They tried to kill us, we won, let's eat! But when you really line up the facts the complexity of the Megillah is almost unbearable. For example, while Esther and Mordechai go down in history as the righteous who brought about the redemption of the Jewish people, they themselves lived tragic lives. Esther was orphaned as a child, married to Mordechai according to one opinion, and then forced to marry a merciless cutthroat politician who was not Jewish, Achashverosh, and bear a child from him who would also never consider himself Jewish, while Mordechai watched and assisted her. And Mordechai was scorned by other leading Rabbis of his generation for his involvement in politics after the events of the Purim story. And the national experience likewise carried tragic elements. For one, those elders who had been alive to see the First Temple in its splendor cried upon seeing the Second because of its notable lack of Heavenly Presence and miraculous intervention. The Jews were very far from complete redemption and would only continue to drift further for over a thousand years, to this day.

This complexity is part and parcel of the miracle and message of Purim: The individual's utter joy and connection to the Jewish People's destiny and to Hashem even amongst the darkest of times. The Megillah begins with the words, ויהי בימי אחשורוש, and it was in the days of Achashverosh. The Midrash says the words ויהי בימי connotes anguish. The Maharal explains (אור חדש פ א) "and it was in the days..." is the experience of time passing without past or future. It is painful because it means constant change without certainty or direction. It is in this setting that the story takes place, from start to finish. Purim was established as a holiday for all generations because it reveals a masterful hidden design of events within darkness and confusion. Through the Megillah, the Jewish People received a supernatural strength to experience complete confidence and happiness on the inside amidst apparent lack of hope and direction on the outside.
שניתן לחוות את זה שהזמן עצמו הוי זימון והכנה לקראת תכלית בלי הוספה של דעת ליעד מסוים כמו אצל שאר מועדים

The life of a Jew is sublime, but not simple in practice. Although we believe there is always a direction and an answer, to see it and understand it is something else altogether. However, what we can and must do is look around at the chaos and darkness and courageously say "I don't know," while we rejoice like a disoriented drunkard on the inside as we witness the secret workings of Destiny, to which our role is absolutely essential.


   

אהבת חסד Loving Kindness

Rav Eliyahu Dessler elucidates something counter-intuitive in the nature of human relationships. Normally we think love happens when you find common ground with someone and identify with them. Only after that you love them and automatically give to them. But it's actually just the opposite. Love which is stable happens through giving - meaning, when you give to someone, you identify with them because of the investment you made in them, and then you love them in a stable way. This concept, says Rav Dessler, is expressed in the word אהבה which can be broken down in Aramaic to א - meaning "I", and הב, meaning "give". 

But we learn from the Chafetz Chaim that חסד, or giving, is about more than being an investor. He points out that the Torah's requirement of חסד is different than other Mitzvos. While we don't find it saying anywhere that you have to love tefillin or love matzah, when it comes to חסד the prophet Michah says Hashem requests אהבת חסד, to love giving.

Truly expanding your self-love to include someone else takes more than "investing." That would still be selfishness, essentially, and it may not produce the effect Rav Dessler wants. Part and parcel of genuine giving is אהבת חסד, loving חסד and being happy about the fact that love works this way.

The human need to identify and connect with others, which must be fulfilled by becoming other focused and giving, reveals that giving and goodness are built into the foundations of the world - עולם חסד יבנה. It shows that the world Hashem created is fundamentally good. That's why a real giver doesn't just love the feeling of expansiveness he gets from seeing all the people he has contributed to, rather he loves to see anyone give to anyone because it reveals this beautiful secret about the world.

It's built into every aspect of life, psychologically, economically, etc. that it is not good for Man to be alone לא טוב היות האדם לבדו. But once Man rises above living only for himself, it not only gets rid of the לא טוב, the "not good" of being alone and having unfulfilled needs. It becomes "And God saw all that He had made, and behold it was very good" "וירא אלהים את כל אשר עשה והנה טוב מאוד"

Discover Happiness in the Sukkah

People think the pursuit of happiness justifies everything. As long as you're not obviously hurting someone else, liberal ideals say go right ahead, as long as it makes you happy. It's an inalienable right, and our misfortune is that we can't get it without having to pursue it. As Will Smith's character  reflects in the in the movie The Pursuit of Happyness, 'how did the founding fathers know to call it the "pursuit" of happiness, and not just happiness?' Perhaps this misfortune exposes the randomness of humanity - pursuing happiness makes us competitive, constantly having to strive for more. It's like we're chasing a carrot on a stick, and the evolutionary advantage of it makes it natural even if noone knows what's so great about this carrot and why we're always chasing after it.

From this point of view, the festival of Sukkos is utterly unintelligible. It's all about being happy - it includes a special mitzvah to constantly be happy for 7 days and it is called the "time of our happiness." But instead of rewarding ourselves with a luxury vacation or reminiscing on the good times when we were settled in our land or something like that, we build frail huts and live in them for 7 days and remember wondering in the desert. All of the eating and drinking and family time is not the central Mitzvah of the holiday, only living in a sukkah and shaking a "Lulav". It even says the festival of Sukkos lands at the beginning of winter as opposed to spring just to clarify that we're not doing it to enjoy the weather (even though originally the Jews actually started living in Sukkos in spring, when they left Egypt).

Happiness, which is called "Simcha" שמחה in the Holy Tongue, is the experience of something called שלימות, or completion. You can have a limited kind of Simcha in any completion of a goal, but real inner Simcha is in the completion of your purpose for living. You have to know the purpose of being Jewish is very big. Because there is no end to a Jew's potential your completion is by definition outside of yourself. You cannot reach it. But what you can do is much greater. You can be a dreamer. You can set yourself up to be in a state of going beyond your nature and reaching for your purpose. And if you do that, the process becomes just as special as the end goal. 

That is what Sukkos is. It's not our right to just have happiness, it's our job and privilege to pursue completion and recognize how our heart finds happiness in that. Wandering the desert for 40 years was no piece of cake, even with miraculous protection. We could never get comfortable, ready to move at a moments notice to be with the divine presence. Encampments spanned everywhere from years to just days. The Mitzvos of Sukkos in all their halachic detail imprint on the subconscious of the Jewish soul the need to avoid being lazy and stagnant in order to jump on opportunities for completion as soon as they arise. And in that mode, you can realize happiness is not a carrot on a stick. Happiness is there in your heart when you notice the crazy stuff you do for a higher purpose.    

("מהר"ל ע"ז דף ג; ספר החינוך; ר' ירוחם ,שיבבי דעת "עליון שמתה מעונך)

  

Back to Eden: Days of Judgment

The 10 days of repentance can be the most intense time of the Jewish year. From Rosh Hashanah until Yom Kippur we stand before our Creator in judgment which determines our fate for the coming year. Life and death hang in the balance.

For the unlearned onlooker, it may seem like this is not a ritual of spiritual growth, but of backward thinking and extreme self-punishment. What kind of god is this that cruelly demands his people to lower themselves and beg for their lives? 

Let us understand.

In Jewish thought, strictness and judgment, what's called מדת הדין always follows loving-kindness or מדת החסד. The world at its point of inception is pure חסד. Hashem had no reason whatsoever to create the world, other than to have an "other" to give to. And all of life flows outward from that source. In the deeper holy books it is called the "River that goes out from Eden (as in the garden of Eden)". But in order to protect this heavenly flow of life and goodness, Hashem created דין in the world so that we should not be embarrassed by receiving free gifts and so that the light should not be tarnished. (ועיין דעת תורה בראשית פז' שכל הדינים בתורה הם ככלי זיין ששומרים לחסד)  

Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the year, is called "Rosh" which means "head" because just like the rest of the body follows the head, the rest of the year follows this initial power of thought. Every year is a microcosm of creation, and its inception parallels the initial thoughts and deliberation with which Hashem created the world: Pure עיין מביט, קמה) חסד). Like we say in Davening זה היום תחילת מעשך זכרון ליום ראשון This day is the beginning of your actions, a remembrance of the first day. 

On Rosh Hashanah we read the Torah portion about Sarah Imeinu miraculously giving birth in old age after having become barren. The Shaarei Orah ('שער ט) says that we see in this portion a hint to the concept of Eden as a source of renewal in Sarah's words, "היתה לי עדנה" meaning that my menstrual cycle returned to me. Notice that she uses the word "עדנה," like Eden. Connecting to the source of life from its inception means no boundaries can limit the power of renewal.

Since דין has to be there to protect the חסד, the closer you get to the boundless חסד at its source, the stronger the דין has to be. In Jewish life, wherever you see intense judgment, you know there is a special opportunity for closeness. For example, when the Holy Temple was destroyed, the Gemara says the Babylonians found the two angelic figures that usually rested on the arc, which would normally either face toward or away from each other depending upon the Jewish nation's relationship status with Hashem. Amazingly, they found them embracing!

In halacha, those appointed to inflict punishment are required to be physically weak and exceedingly wise. Physically weak to reduce the intensity of the punishment, and exceedingly wise because they must understand that the punishment is only a secondary means of expressing the love and concern for the person being punished, and those intentions should be palpable in the punishment as well! (רמבם פ' ט"ו, סנ", ועיין פחד יצחק ראש השנה קונת' החסד מאמר ג' פ' ב-ג). 

These days are about going back to the love and kindness behind judgement. That's why this time of judegment is extended for 10 days and the easiest time for forgiveness. More than us begging Hashem, Hashem is begging us to wake up and allow Him to give to us.     

Choosing Life

I took a class in college called "social constructionism," that ironically ended up being one of my best experiences there. The theme of the class was that the way we relate to what is normal, real, or essential, is determined by social framing and custom. I say "ironically" because the take-away for most of the students was that everything is subjective and relative, and people can't be held responsible by any particular standard.

We watched some of the videos probably everyone with a liberal-arts education has seen - the Stanford Prison Experiment, hidden camera footage of unsuspecting subjects facing socially unsusual situations like people facing the wrong way in the elevator, and other similar footage. We spoke about things like Einstein's theory of relativity (without much scientific understanding of its content), nature and scientific classification, gender and gender roles.

It struck a chord. Subjectivity and social convention really play a central role in the way we relate to everything in our lives. But instead of sherking responsablitiy and casting doubt, I felt that if so much is relative then I'd better be careful about choosing the framework things are relative to. I felt relativism was the beginning of free-will, not the end. For example, if my perception of a prison gaurd will automatically influence me to behave in a certain way in that role, I have to decide carefully what that role means to me. If advertising can get me to think something is cool, I have to decide how I will relate to advertising. But how will I know I'm choosing the way things should be and not just falling into another predetermined kind of fallacy?

Years later, I discovered how the Torah reveals the depth of this question. Rabbenu Yona, a contemporary of Maimonides, wrote in his famous exposition on repentance, The Gates of Teshuva, that free will is among the higher qualities people can reach in spiritual growth. A puzzling statement, considering that free-will is a basic axiom of all Jewish thought. How can there be reward and punishment for average people if free-will is a special higher quality?

The answer is free-will itself is also relative. You can be an average person that mostly follows what is socially constructed, except for a small area that is left ambiguous for you to determine for yourself, or you can be a social constructionist and challenge the frames your society has set up. And  to rise above 'norms' and be an adjent of your own life you have to be more conencted to something which is higher than where you are at.

The way the Torah describes free will is much more than choosing between good and evil. It says "See, I have placed before you life and good, death and evil... Choose life." (Devarim 30, 15-16). Normally we think of "life" as something that just happens to us, not something we choose, and its defined by a period of time between birth and death that we don't control. But as usual, the Torah boldy teaches something we would not fully grasp otherwise.

The Maharal says "life" really means something fresh that constantly renews itself. The term Mayim Chaim, or "living waters" always means a water source which constantly renews itself because it's directly connected to its source. Our life comes from the Source of Life, and its by definition fresh and never just there because it was there before.

But Hashem empowered us to choose: Follow physical instincts and social influences, or choose life, base life on a chosen reality and not a circumstantial, passive one. With free-will you align your personal perspective with a Torah framework and G-d's vision for the world so to speak. And because Torah goes beyond any local paradigms, there's no pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps, and there are levels upon levels, as infinite as anything.

Trust your Wife

Every Friday night, at the start of the Shabbos meal, Jews have the custom to sing the song אשת חיל, or "Woman of Valor," an excerpt from Proverbs written by King Solomon praising the Jewish Woman. The custom may be in part to praise the woman of the house for preparing the Shabbos table, but we still sing it even if there were no women involved. What are we singing about if it is not the woman of the house?

The answer is the Torah is also called an אשה, a woman or a wife. The Gemara in Kudishin (30a) learns that the use of this word for "wife" in a verse in Kohelet (also by King Solomon)  refers either to the obligation to teach one's son Torah, or to help him get married. (ראה חיים עם האשה אשר אהבתה, קהלת ט,ט).

In a certain respect, Torah is a wife. Just like a wife brings out a man's full expression in the physical world by bearing children, Torah also is essential in bringing a person out into the world.

Following this line of thought, the Vilna Gaon explains the verse in בטח בה לב בעלה" ;אשת חיל" (Her husband's heart trusts in her). He says it refers to trusting in the Torah that it will straighten a person's "מידות" (Middos) or character traits. Middos are much more than habits, or even temperament, they are the way a person expresses himself in this world, and they are essential in bringing out his hidden potential. Even Hashem has Middos. We can't conceive of what Hashem is in his essence - that is entirely beyond us. All we have is how he chooses to reveal himself to us through certain modes of expression. Similarly with people, although our essence is not entirely beyond understanding, the only way we know each other is through the way we express our selves in the world, and that depends on Middos.

But character traits are very complex and deep. Even a person who is conscientious and hardworking will find it beyond his reach to truly understand the psychological and spiritual underpinnings of his character and perfect them to allow a genuine and full expression of himself. Who knows if I am only going this way because of my biases, or maybe I'm missing something? Says the Vilna Gaon, that's what King Solomon's praise of the Torah is about. If a person is dedicated to learning and living by the Torah, he does not have to completely understand himself to know he is moving in the right direction. He can rest assured that his efforts will not go in vain because the Torah encompasses the whole spectrum of Middos in the original perfection and order with which Hashem created the world. So long as he is vigilant, the process will take him where he needs to go in actualizing his potential and bringing himself out. The man who makes the Torah as his "wife" experiences that security in his heart.

I Want You To Like Me!

My Parents told me what it used to be like before there were cell phones. To meet up with a friend, you had to set up a time and place in advance, and then you would go and hope the other person would show up. And once you were there, you were there. You couldn't text up your other friends to meet somewhere else, or show your friend a viral video, or check your email. You just had to look the other person in the face and talk. The same thing with job interviews, dates, break-ups. I can just imagine how nice that must of been, or how boring, our worry about whether I would have been able to do that.

Our way is much more convenient and flexible, and we share more information, even personal information, than ever before. But I wonder if communication is about more than facts and signals.

The Rambam delineates several laws of speech in the laws of perspective (hilchot de'ot) section of the Mishnah Torah. There is one law that forbids lying - transmitting facts through speech that don't correspond to reality. This is called שקר (sheker) or falsehood. There is another law that forbids speaking in a way that the heart is not aligned with the mouth. This second law is said to be more severe than the first. Even fetuses, says the gemara, that have not come into the world and are not affected by the distortions of falsehood, curse such a person. This second kind of false speech is called חניפה (Chanifah), or flattery. Why should flattery be more stringent than regular lying if it can even be objectively true? What is this strange way of expressing the stringency of חניפה, and what does it teach us?

A fetus has a unique relationship with speech. It says that while he is in the womb, he learns the whole Torah, and with his pure wisdom can see to all ends of the earth. But before he is born, an angel hits him on the mouth and he forgets the whole Torah. It's explained that this hit on the mouth gives him the power of speech, and it is the very power of speech that causes him to forget.

This is no bed-time story - it's higher wisdom clothed in earthly terms. It means a person comes into the world having an inner connection to a higher truth that he cannot express until he "remembers" - learning Torah is called remembering because you find the words for that which was always close to the soul. In a nutshell, a fetus is born into the world to "bring out" his inner potential by learning to express and act on his ideals and partner in the creation of a world that reflects the Torah that precedes the world.

So back the the Rambam. There is one kind of speech that is about sharing information, and for that there is the prohibition of שקר. But there is a second kind of speech that is essential for a person sent out into an external and confused world to reconnect upstairs and make it real here. For that kind of speech there is the prohibition of חניפה, a way of speaking that only pretends to connect from the inside but is really just playing nice. This kind of transgression may seem less severe - after all, it can be objectively true. But the Torah teaches that it damages the platform that supports the reason for a fetus to leave his pristine pre-world, all-spiritual existence. It makes this world lonely because people don't expect to hear the speaker when they hear his speech. It makes a world where people can be together externally and share all of there personal information, but can't really connect because the medium does not support it.

We are accustomed to praising the benefits of individuality and freedom, and the sensitivities of political correctness. To tell someone else he is wrong is mean and colonial. But where does that leave us? The opposite of חניפה is called תוכחה (Tochachah) or rebuke. It means more than just suggesting to reconsider or change. It is a special power we have to reveal to someone else something in our internal world that obligates him to change. Shlomo Hamelech in Proverbs calls the Torah itself תוכחה. In order to be connected it must be understood that what one person thinks is right and wrong carries weight for others. Isn't it a core part of hope for humanity that we can do more than just tolerate each other and get along? The Jewish hope, at least, is that we live in a world that is united spiritually, that my inner sense of what is right and wrong, and how the world should be, really means something to you and has consequences and vice-versa. A world where our speech is more than an exchange of information and more than white noise and flattery; where speech is a medium for genuine expression.

It might be risky and uncomfortable, but have to learn to be real and handle the rough and tough with each other face to face, learn to relate to the speaker behind the speech. I'm not saying we should be insensitive and say what ever we feel like, or assume that we know what's right and no one else does - on the contrary. I'm just saying, I wonder if when people say we live in a post-truth world, they've given up hope. And when we pour all that personal information out there, are we connecting or saying "I want you to like me?"

Is Marriage Private?

It may seem a little funny for hundreds of people to gather in celebration of one couple's marriage. After all, the decision to marry is arrived at through a very private, internal process that can only be appreciated by the man and woman themselves. And the experience of married life is also extremely personal. Why does Jewish tradition celebrate marriage communally? Does it emphasize communal life at the expense of privacy, and the delicacy of personal experience?

The Torah actually stands out, as a drama, for the importance and power it gives to private experience. Whereas in Greek drama the climax takes place in the presence of a chorus, Torah's heroic moments take place hidden from the public eye, when Avraham Avinu tells his servants to stay behind as he climbs up Mount Horiah to sacrifice his son Yitzchak, or when the Cohen Gadol enters the Holy of Holies alone on Yom Kippur. These moments when we're alone with Hashem can be the most defining.

But while the quality of the experience of marriage may be defined by what goes on in private, it cannot be initiated without witnesses. In fact, marriage, specifically, requires witnesses for the event to carry any halachic significance, as opposed to other kinds of agreements where witnesses only serve to prevent lying. No matter how committed they are, and how extensive and poetic their vows, a couple is not married unless there were two kosher witnesses involved.

The concept of private connection in Judaism is encompassed by the term קדושה "Kedushah". Weakly translated as holiness, it means a special, private and all-absorbing kind of connection. Kedushah always includes two aspects, like two sides of a coin. The first is a complete and total separation and removal from everything, and the second is a unique and specific connection formed by virtue of that separation. It's a theme that appears throughout all of Judaism, most apparently in the relationships of man and woman, and Israel and G-d. For example, Marriage is made up of two parts, the first is called "Kiddushin," which is a commitment of fidelity, today customarily an exchange of a ring, and the second is called "Nissuin," which is the first official private co-inhabitance of the married couple.

A Jewish home is compared to the "Mishkan," the holy temple. The Mishkan was a microcosm. Every part and every vessel paralleled different parts of the world, from the stars to the earth. The Mishkan is the place where Hashem's presence is most palpable. The Jewish way to establish a relationship is to make it more than an important part of our life - it has to be a whole world unto itself.

Kedushah is the true way to be totally connected and present in the world of the relationship created solely for that purpose. It is because marriage is founded on Kedushah that there is nothing shameful about it and it's not an excuse to close the doors so no one will intrude. Even though it is essentially a private world, Kedushah is also the secret of all Jewish life and continuity. The Jewish people as a whole live and thrive on Kedushah, and each individual soul thrives on its connection to the eternal collective.

L'Chaim! 

Where Do We Belong?

The Exodus from Egypt was the birth of what is called the 'עם ה “Nation of G-d.” Before then, the fathers of the Jewish people, their spiritual and genetic predecessors, did not have national status. Avraham Avinu was honored and recognized as a unique and influential individual, who swam against the current. He was called העברי Ha’Ivri, which means the one who was עובר, who crossed over, because while he stood on one side, the world stood on the other. And Jewish converts are called "ben Avraham," son of Avraham. He represented, in a sense, something like counter-culture.

The funny thing about counter-culture is it has a certain power and attraction by virtue of its very marginality, while at the same time its goal is to proliferate its ideology and gain acceptance in established society. Meaning that paradoxically, the very success of a counter-cultural movement entails its downfall. Many music fans feel disappointed when their beloved niche band lands a hit song, despite their desire for the art of their heroes to be appreciated and their disdain for the popular radio-station’s playlist. And many revolutionary movements whose leaders once boasted of equality have ended up seizing dictatorial power once the establishment had been overthrown, lest the movement’s organically strong following meet resistance from new counter-cultural dissidents.

To understand a little better, lets learn about the Torah's description of displaced, or marginal people. The word Ger (גר) literally means a person who has left his birthplace, and it comes from the word לגור, which means to live in a place. There is a particular kind of pain and vulnerability a person feels he does not belong. He feels he cannot depend on what he is used to, or the resources of his established network. There can be a certain humility in this that anyone can appreciate.

When a Jew loves his fellow Jew who is a convert, he fulfills two Mitzvot with one stone – To love your fellow Jew, and to love the Ger. The verses’ reason for the second mitzvah is “because you were Gerim in Egypt.” The early commentators explain that there is a certain quality in a people that empathize with someone who has left his place of origin to join the Jews that is befitting of a Nation of G-d. Everyone admires this quality and it merits a special connection with G-d. The reverse is also true – it is shameful for someone who has גרות in his origin to disrespect a Ger and act as if he were not similar to him. (מום שבך אל תאומר לחברך, ב"מ נח)

The גרות of the Jewish people is more than circumstantial. It is גרות in olam hazeh, in this world (גר אנוכי בארץ, תהילים קי'ט). A true student of Torah wisdom is connected to his spiritual origin, and feels a certain strangeness in being in this world. גרות in Egypt represents being a foreigner to the physicality that Egypt represents. The deeper significance of this is hinted at by the Sefer HaChinuch, who says that the Torah compares the love for a Ger to the love of “המקום” literally, “The Place,” which is one of G-d’s names, as it says “ואהבתה את ה' אלוקך,” And you shall love the Lord your God. It is essential to Jewish identity that we were slaves in a foreign land from inception, and that our roots were nurtured by wandering in the wilderness of the desert looking only to Hashem for sustenance.

The Maharal says that the Jews received the Torah in the desert so that it should not merely be a tool for promoting the well-being of society, rather it should be received as the eternal Good that comes from beyond this world (מהרל ג"ה פ' כ'ג, ת"י פ' כ'ו). But the Torah also had to be given to a "nation" so that Torah would be established in this world and become more than merely a marginal faction or individual ambition. Hence, the Jewish Nation receives the Torah as a nation of Gerim. That's why the Torah portion in which we receive the Torah is named "Yisro," after the first Jewish convert (עיין סדר היום קל'ה). It's a society that is neither settled nor anti-establishment, whose sole purpose is the integration in this world of something which is entirely beyond it. In this way, it is comparable to a counter-culture that does not lose its power by proliferating its ideology. Its strength of otherness remains, even when it becomes mainstream. 

This is why the Jews have been able to survive and retain their identity throughout a long and bitter exile. Any nation that is founded on having an established, comfortable place in the world would have quickly disintegrated and assimilated. We are unique because this world is not really our place. "המקום" is our place and He is our security. Even the Land of Israel is not our comfort - it is a place for us to carry out our special mission. We are constantly under attack and disproportionately examined by the nations of the world because we are not meant to be like everyone else.

But we are not alone. If we embrace our strangeness, the shame of our vulnerability will be our greatest pride, and then we will rest safely in our borders, and our purpose will be universally appreciated.  

Never be Bored

Probably one of the biggest guilty pleasures today is drama binging. Download or record your favorite TV series and watch the whole season, 10 or 20 hours, in one sitting. For a little while, you escape to this alternate reality, your mind flooded with scintillating images, every breath holding on for the next step of the plot - who will win, who will die, who will reveal his super-power or his hidden plan, how will he get out of this one... 

You identify with the hero, his ambitions, his desire to survive, and the evil of the antagonist. You want to know what happens next, but the pleasure of it isn't as much in finding out what happens as being immersed in the world of the story. And the way you experience that immersion is identifying with the struggle of "good" and "evil," however they may be defined by the story.  

There are different kinds of desire. One kind is wanting to getting a satisfaction of some pleasure, like the physical pleasue of icecream, for example. Another kind is a desire to be totally immersed and connected in something. 

I think what pulls you in to drama is what the Torah calls רצון. It could be translated as desire, but it's really much more than that. The Torah uses the word נפש, or soul, (אם יש את נפשכם Genesis 23) to mean רצון. It means a person's ability to connect. The נפש connects a person's body to his soul and links him up to his life source. To desire something with ratzon is like putting your very soul into it - it is a much deeper desire and pleasure that makes you feel life is exciting. Kind of like being in love. Love is more than just having a physical attraction - your whole sense of self is immersed in it and connected. 

The fulfillment of רצון is called "good." When life is exciting you feel there is a bigger picture your plugged into and things fit together and have meaning. That's "good." That's why drama is immersion in a struggle of good and evil. Evil is when things are disconnected and everything is meaningless. Good is when things come together, and that's what you want.

Of course, we know that once the binge is over, you can't do much to keep it going besides joining a fan-club and reminiscing with other geek-fans. The whole world you were immersed in was a fantasy. If the only way you get this kind of pleasure is through fantasy, you're likely to get bored, and be nostalgic, and possibly even get addicted.

But there is a way to engage your רצון in real life in a way that doesn't crash after. That's what Purim is about: the drama of real life. A drama feeds you a series of events in a certain order, and from a certain perspective to draw you into the story and a struggle of good and evil. Megillas Esther is a revelation of how a series of mundane events were actually an epic struggle of good vs. evil. Mordechai and Esther were able to follow the story and connect the dots. They were able to bring the bigger world of "Good" vs "Evil" without open miracles that defied nature, or a climactic finish you only see in the movies. Even after the triumph of Mordechai over Haman, the world remained in a state where the Torah reality was hidden. Esther was still married to the non-Jewish, corrupt king Achashverosh, and Achashverosh still maintained his seat of power over the whole world. The world was still complex and dark. But they brought out the drama and showed there was a battle of a connected, meaningful world view vs. a nihilistic, random world view, even without seeing a clear and total triumph of good vs. evil.  

From Purim we learn to tap in to the epic struggle of "Good" and "Evil" that's going on in the world when things can seem random or chaotic. The ideals and the driving force that's connecting everything is the Torah, and Purim inspires us to accept the Torah with love because its the only way we can really engage our רצון that is sustainable. 

The message of Purim to carry away is: Train your eyes to see the drama of "Good" and "Evil" in your life. There's no such thing as boredom. With Torah, real life is a riveting experience that you can put all your heart and soul into if you're looking through the right lenses. You can get a profound level of pleasure from just being alive. You just have to be open to it, search with wisdom, and listen to the inner desire to immerse yourself, body and soul. 

      

Heaven On Earth

"Says Rava: A man is obligated to drink (on Purim) until he doesn't know the difference between "cursed is Haman" and "blessed is Mordechai" (Megillah, 7a).

Here we are, celebrating the miraculous salvation of the Jewish people, wherein the evil Haman and his supporters are killed as the saintly Mordechai rises to power, and the way we celebrate is... by getting too drunk to recognize the difference between the two? Granted, it's not unusual for people to get drunk at a party, but this is supposed to be the spiritual opportunity that the Ari'zal says is greater the Yom Kippur! (The Ari'zal famously says Yom Kippur is called "Yom HaKippurim" in the Torah because "Keh-Purim" also means "like Purim." In other words, it approximates Purim in its greatness.)

The answer follows my previous post. On the inside, we know the external world we live in doesn't really reflect what we know inside to be true. Enjoyments are temporary and weak, people are given credit they don't deserve, and there is even evil in the world. 

At the same time, we have this need to build and grow, actualize our potential, and tell right from wrong. Some philosophies attribute this to "ego." Not so in Judaism. The same אני, the "I" that senses the strangeness of our existence also demands that its reality be actualized and honored. The same thing that says we live in transition also says we should have a home.

Inorder to bring that world that is beyond externality here, we need revelation. The Torah that was revealed at Sinai is called תורה מן השמים, Torah from Heaven. The word שמים, heaven, can also be read as the plural of the word שמ, which means "there," or a destination. שמים is the "place" of destinations or ends. The word for land or earth, ארץ comes from the word רץ which means to run. The Jewish soul that doesn't ignore the inner conflict of transience and permanence demands that there be some way of having heaven on earth. That is Torah. The only way we can be in a world that is constantly running and vanishing and still have the permanence of true existence.

But why can't we just skip to the true existance part and forget about this whole existential conflict? Why did G-d make us this way?

This world is a transition to the world to come. But the world to come is not just a removed concept or fantasy - it is a world of Truth where nothing gets in the way of experiencing who you really are. Eternity means it doesn't depend on circumstances or time - everything just is what it is essentially and that's it. It's purely experiencing the destination. But it has to happen through this world. Like it says in Pirkei Avos (4,22), "one moment of returning to reality (teshuvah) and good actions in this world is more beautiful than all of life in the world to come, and one moment of serenity in the world to come is more beautiful than all of life in this world." Only by creating ourselves in this world can we experience the Truth of who we have become, or of our becoming. But those who are attentive can sense that supernal light seeping through special people even here in this world aswell.

The happiness of Purim is accepting Torah out of love. It means appreciating that the Torah gives meaning to a transient world and that we're here to be a part of something way bigger than what we can possibly understand right now. So we drink until Haman and Mordechai, good and evil, external falsehood and internal truth, all blend together until the life that reaches beyond all of it shines through.     

The Perfect Moment (?)

Why did the chicken cross the road? To post it on facebook of course! What other reason could there be for crossing the road? Getting to the other side just isn't as exciting or arousing. And things are always supposed to be exciting and arousing... aren't they?

If you look around, you see attractive looks, impressive titles accolades. You see a series of idyllic freeze frames with just the right smiles and just the right lighting, HD, the music just right in the background. Perfect.

Perhaps, amidst all of this, a nervousness shuffles inside, rumbling and foreboding. If it would speak, it would say, "Why can't I be like that? Why am I different?" As much as you want to get into it, the perfection of the moment you anticipated doesn't really land the way you feel it should.

The Gemara (Nedarim, 9) tells of a young shepherd with beautiful eyes and locks of hair who is praised for being a rare case of appropriately becoming a nazarite (a vow to abstain from wine for a limited time and shave your head). He saw his reflection in a well, felt his creative powers aroused, and said to his evil inclination "Evil one! Why do you pride yourself on a world that is not your own?" Whereupon he immediately made a nazarite vow to distance himself from the falseness.

The lesson of this gemara is not necessarily about abstinance. Even for your average person who doesn't take on extra restrictions, it's important to know the world of appearances is a world that is "not his own." We don't live in freeze frames. Everything we see in this world is gone in the blink of an eye, every moment in time is gone as soon at it has come and we are constantly evolving. But there is a part of us that feels that our existence really has more permanence to it, and that things should last forever. If that's not "my world" than what or where is it? When we look to "kodak moments" for an answer, an eerie kind of feeling says why isn't this working?

We live in a transitional world. We are all "crossing the road," so to speak. Embracing the impermanence of this world is conuter-intuitive to the western mind, but it's actually not depressing with the right approach. And logically, it shouldn't be depressing, to the extent that it's just a fact of life. Jewishly, any fact of life has to have some purpose to it. We don't live in a cruel world or a meaningless world where happiness comes from ignoring reality. That just doesn't make sense.

And  a concientious Jewish person is also uncomfortable with a philosophy of total impermanence and doing away with the self. We want to know where the permenence that we so deeply desire can be found - and it has to be more than a far-removed notion of life after death.

This post is meant to bring up the question of impermanence as something everyone has to deal with. Just accepting that its a question worth adressing is a big step. G-d willing I'll give some insight into the Jewish approach to the answer in the future. But in the meantime, Rav Chaim Volloziner's metaphor: The world is a rapid river that will drown you in its current, and the Torah is a solid boulder - would you not hold on for dear life?

Hulk Smash!!

After my temper wears off, it feels a little like I'm waking up with a hangover. What did I do? What was I thinking? How am I going to clean this up? Even if I didn't literally turn into a green monster, it wasn't that far off. I got the destructive, overreactive, babbling idiot part down pretty good.

The Gemara in Nedarim (22) says that when a person is angry all kinds of hell overpower him. הסר כעס מלבך והעבר רע מבסרך Remove anger from your heart and remove evil from your flesh (Ecclesiastes 11). And the Gemara says רע (evil) also refers to Hell. A person literally suffers greatly, even physically when he's angry. But that doesn't stop him. Its one of the wonders of being human.

Anger really comes from the sense that one's personal desires or vision for what should be is the ultimate authority. When things don't go your way... Hulk Smash!! But we're not talking about an unusual kind of delusion. In fact, there's a good reason to feel this way. One of the words for soul, נשמה, is called a "portion of G-d above" That means that one's deepest desires and sense of self-worth come from an extremely holy place and demand great respect. The catch is, one only has access to that holy place by recognizing he is placed in the world to make a positive influence, and not to gratify oneself or make oneself worshipped. (Just to be clear, of course, in no way does this mean a person is G-d by virtue of his soul. G-d created souls and is prior to and beyond them)

The Holy Zohar says that when a person gets angry, his connection to his נשמה, his higher source of self, is replaced with something called אל זר, a "foreign god." The full meaning of this is beyond us, but there is something we can take away. False gods are called "foreign" because they are "foreign" to their worshippers. They seem on some level to satisfy a need, but ultimately leave the worshipper empty handed and disconnected, feeling a stranger to his own life. Anger brings this kind of power into the world.

We think that by getting angry we can force our will and claim our position of authority. Many times we fail, and even when we get our way, we don't get love or respect. On the contrary, we look silly, lose respect, and create distance. The Gemara Kedushin (41a) says רגזן לא עלתא בידו אלה רגזנותא "An angry person is left with nothing but his anger." We become strangers to our "worshippers" and to ourselves when we choose anger over relationships.

The opposite of anger is called סבלנות, which literally means the ability to carry a burden (and weakly translates as patience). It's holding onto a personal sense of what-should-be, together with the reality that there is another person here, with their own psychological infrastructure and their own baggage. As opposed to being a stranger, סבלנות is using your lofty sense of self to be a positive influence and work with a complex world.

It's kind of like dealing with beauracrocy. Everyone knows what it's like to have to deal with all the delays and complications of a beaurocratic goverment office. Their are a whole bunch of systems and employees that have to play a role in processing your request, even if it's simple and necessary. But you sit through it because you want the results, and you value a functioning goverment despite its inneficiencies. Just like you don't apt for anarchy or the black market, you shouldn't explode on your friend or give up on him. Everyone has their own psychological beaurocrocy.

One way that Jewish wisdom suggests integrating סבלנות is to meditate on the phrase I mentioned above, "An angry person is left with nothing but his anger." Consistently, a few minutes a day, say it out loud until it fits naturally on your lips, and reflect on what it means to you, how anger hurts you and how things could be better without it. In addition, when you feel yourself getting angry, recall these words of wisdom and your reflections. Through this process you can become more aware of how anger feels when it starts coming up and what makes you angry, until the "Hulk" stays in Marvel Comics where he belongs.

Where's the drama?

As I gazed at the Chanukah candles this year and soon had to look off to the side because my eyes started aching, I couldn't help but feel it was... anti-climactic. If I think about everything that goes into Chanukah, all the doughnuts, and gift cards, and parties, and music - a story of a war of the few against the mighty Assyrian Greek army. And I make two blessings and light the candles and then...
And then nothing. Nothing happens (that I can see). No orchestral crescendo, no particularly interesting lighting, no explosions. What's missing?

The Gemara says that the Maccabees were able to win due to the merit of the Cohen Gadol 200 years earlier, Shimon HaZadik. In an epic meeting between him and Alexander the Great, Alexander demounted his horse and bowed down to Shimon HaZadik, to everyone's surprise, and his army's dismay. The explanation: before every victory in his military campaign, Shimon HaZadik appeared before Alexander in a dream in his holy and pure Yom Kippur attire, to foretell his victory. That means that even while the war of the Maccabees was taking place, the real power of the Jews and the nature of the conflict was hidden, and even the rise of the Greek empire was brought about by something Alexander the Great himself, warrior and student of Aristotle, only saw in a dream but did not really understand.

The Jews who fought the Greeks understood this. That's how they had the courage to fight, knowing very well that their weak figures didn't stand a chance against professional soldiers with the latest technology. They understood that despite what it looked like, there was much more there than what met the eye. They placed in their hearts that they are a people who Hashem took out of Egypt with miracles that defied every aspect of nature, and who received the Torah, and its mission to unite Hashem's vision of the world with their own personal experience. And they knew that inside the Holy Temple the Greeks desecrated, there lies a place called the Holy of Holies, where "Heaven and Earth Kiss," the "Kiss" we live for.

For Greek eyes, the candles are missing the drama, and the Jewish kid on the block is merely the only one without a shiny Christmas tree (but has Adam Sandler's list of Jewish celebrities to make him feel better). But Jewish eyes remember a history of tears of pain and tears of joy and visions of light born from darkness. If we use our minds to direct our hearts, we'll find our eyes can reveal the miracle of what's really there. A subtle glow. Warm, persistent, happy. A power to build and overthrow empires, and more.

We Know How to Party

How do you explain Jewish holidays to non-Jews?.

"What are you celebrating this time?" 

"Well, we were bitterly enslaved for over 200 years and then we got to be not-enslaved" 

"Isn't that what you celebrated last time?" 

"No, last time, we were almost all murdered on the same day, but then we weren't." 

"And what about that booths one? What's that about?" 

"Yeah, that's when we left slavery to wander the dessert for 40 years. Woohoo!"

"What about the party you had 8 days after your baby brother was born, that was just celebrating the new addition, right?"

"Umm, not exactly..." 

We Jews are a strange bunch. We don't celebrate Moshe Rabbeinu's birthday (like christians celebrate Easter), or the day we landed in the land of Israel (like Americans celebrate Thanksgiving).

The Torah's vision of a "chag" is much deeper than a "celebration". The foundation of all the chagim is the exodus from Egypt. That's when we became the nation that would go on to accept the Torah and embrace the mission of fulfilling the world's purpose. For that to happen, we had to experience the worst that slavery to physicality could offer in order to rise above it. What we are "celebrating" is the process we went through that enabled us to have a real connection with the divine in our daily lives, and yeah, that includes both hard times and humility, and miracles and triumph.

Interestingly, the themes of Emunah (faith) and Cheirus (freedom) are both intrinsic to the exodus. As much as we are supposed to tap in to the freedom we achieved, we are equally required to internalize the perspective of seeing how, in the ten plagues, Hashem runs the world on every level. A person who can't approach the world knowing that whatever happens, there is always a purpose and direction, is bound to fall prey to life's traps. He'll turn to temporary gratification and ephemera to get him through the day. Only someone who is "enslaved" to the notion of purpose and connection in every situation is truly free. 

We eat and drink and sing (in short, party!) when we get the chance to do something extra-ordinary. That's the beginning of the journey, and the birth of the Jewish Nation.  

   

Dramatic Twist

The gemara טענית כט says that just as we reduce our happiness when the month of Av begins, we increase our happiness when Adar begins. Oddly enough, Rashi says that we celebrate not only the miracles of Purim that happened in the month of Adar, but also Pesach, which is in Nissan. Why is Adar a time for celebrating Pesach? Rav Moshe Shapira זצוקלל explains that Purim is the אחרית, the end of Pesach. Pesach was full of revealed miracles that set the stage for the existence of a nation beyond the limitations of nature. But that reality was not sealed until Purim, when we saw a shakespearean drama on steroids, hidden miracles upon miracles, within nature, that saved us from destruction.

The word אחרית is used in seemingly very different ways. On the one hand, אלוהים אחרים means other gods, referring to idol worship, and the Tanna who infamously used his Torah knowledge to go against the Rabbis is called אחר. On the other hand, the coming of Moshiach is called אחרית הימים, the end of days. The point that they have in common is that אחר means something that is secondary to the primary thing. The Tanna is called אחר because he made his external knowledge, which is supposed to be secondary, into the main thing. Other "gods" are really just powers in the world that don't have any dominion from themselves, a small part of the army of the One director of all the powers.

אחרית הימים doesn't actually contain a new idea - Hashem revealed how he directs the world on every level through the exodus from Egypt. What it does do is it brings that reality into the lowest places. Much like יעקוב  came out of the womb holding on to the heel, the עקב, of his brother Esav, trying to bring the Yud, which represents thought, all the way down to the most physical part of the body. Expressing ideals within a physical existence is the purpose of world history, and the culmination of that is the kind of hidden revelation we experienced in Purim. That's why Purim story is such a dramatic twist - it reveals the light from within the darkest place.

Following my previous post, I would like to suggest that the proliferation within secular thought of moral relativism sets the stage for exactly this kind of twist. Philosophers cringe at the logical problems that arise when you try to consistently argue that different moral perspectives are correct even when they blatantly contradict each other. At worst, moral relativism is a way of justifying doing whatever you want. But a more careful look shows that the ideology of relativism surfaced amidst an increasingly un-empathetic, technological world, where universal standards and public eyes invade privacy and psychological stability. Its proponents are moved in part by empathy and individuality. In short, the voice of moral relativism, has a genuinely moral ring to it, despite its untenable logic.

If moral relativism is an emphasis on the individual world, an internal world which is not subject to universal standards, not even logic, it may be the עקב that is coming to be united with its Yud. Perhaps the corresponding idea that is to come out from the Torah world is that the personal בית, which is perceived as something independent of the Higher reality, is our generation's goal.

Bring It Home

What does internal growth mean? When I was growing up, my parents used to make little marks on the wall as they measured how I grew. I would look back after a few years and say 'wow, I only came up to there!?" But when it comes to internal growth, there are no marks and no wall and no getting taller. If your doctor tells you that you have an internal growth, its probably not a good sign. So what are we talking about!?

One way of speaking about internality in Lashon Hakodesh is the word בית as in the phrase מבית שמות כה יא) ומחוץ), inside and out. It means both "home" and "inside." To understand their interrelation, see the gemara Berachos 11a which discusses the verse in Shema ודברת בם בשבתך בביתך ובלכתך בדרך (and speak them while you're sitting in your house and you're going on the way). The Rabbis learn from the word בביתך that the Torah only obligates you in as much as you are free, so to speak, in your own domain. In other words, בביתך, in your home, means a place that is there for you to be under you're own jurisdiction, as opposed to being obligated by the commands of the King, under the dominion of the "Kingdom of Heaven." I think this is what we mean when we say "internal." It is a place that we perceive as being personal, not necessarily subject to any external forces or truths - a private reality that may or may not correspond to a reality outside of us.

A home is a place hidden from the outside, where you establish your own norms and expectations. The Rabbis (Berachos 4b) built a "fence" by obligating us to say the Shema before midnight out of concern we might say 'I'll just go home, eat a little bit, drink a little bit, sleep a little bit,' and then fall asleep until the next morning." They saw that home is a place where a person doesn't feel the imposition of heavenly obligation, in particular the obligation to accept upon oneself the Higher Reality. (Also, see the Remah in the begging of Shulchan Aruch, that says the way a person behaves in his home is not like he behaves before a king)

Internal growth is how to integrate the Higher Reality into "home." The Alter of Kelm says there are two ways of conquering the evil inclination - by subduing it from the outside, meaning controlling it with the intellect, and destroying it, meaning making your lower self desire the good from within itself. The Alter says that is what it means that on Purim the Jews re-accepted the Torah out of love. Seeing the way Hashem watched over the Jews and planned their salvation in a hidden way (without defying nature) inspired the Jews to accept the Torah in the hidden part of themselves. Much like a persons activities at home, they accepted to keep the Torah willingly and not only out of a sense of obligation.

Rav Elyahu Dessler says every person's free will is relative. While one persons challenge might be not to steal and murder, another's challenge may be to come to morning prayers a little earlier and give a little more of his time to the needy, and it would never cross his mind to hurt someone. The goal is always to move the 'battle-front" a little further, so that what was once an impossible sacrifice becomes a matter of course. This is part of the same idea. A person can see the realm of theft or even murder as a place that is not subject to objective truth, so that his personal feelings decide whether to take another's money or even his life. That can also be his "home." On the other hand, Avraham Avinu's home, his tent, was open on all four sides to receive guests. He dedicated his private domain to the world at large entirely!

Just Can't Wait to be King

What do you think of when you think about the glory of a king? Probably about the luxuries of royalty, a private chauffeur, the finest delicacies, honor, women, and, of course, the royal crown. Well, the Gemara Brachos (17a) has a different idea of what comes along with a crown: "Rav used to always say, the world to come is not like this world. In the world to come there will be no eating, no drinking, no reproduction, and no business dealings" and then he continues "rather, the Tzadikim will sit with crowns on there heads and take pleasure (and sustenance) from the radiance of Hashem's presence." Very nice Rav, but do I still get a chauffeur?

Obviously, Rav sees something in the concept of a crown that we're not getting. A crown is not something that happens to be associated with being a king because of some historical fashion fluke that caught on. A crown is part of the very definition of being king. In Kabbalah, their are ten levels of creation, or of Hashem's expression (and therefore, also the expression of Man who is created in the image of G-d). They are called Sefiros. The bottom Sefirah is called מלכות Kingship, or royalty, while the top is called כתר, crown. מלכות, being at the bottom is always receiving a flow from above, while כתר is the original, unbridled expression. Interestingly enough, every set of ten sefiros is followed by another set, in a long chain of expression from on high all the way down. The bottom sefira of the higher chain (מלכות) is also the top sefira of the bottom chain (כתר). In other words, every כתר is also מלכות.
Lehavdil, if you remember the scene from the movie Inception, where they walk up the stairs and as soon as they get to the top they're at the bottom again... That phenomenon that we experience in our dreams is actually a very really part of the way the world works spiritually. (Penrose Stairs)

A true king is someone who's entire identity is a ruler of his people. The role he takes on is much greater than his own personal life, even if his personal qualities make hime suitable for the job. He wears a crown, which lays on top of his head, but does not surround his head like a hat, because the fact that he is living for something beyond his own existence is what makes him king. The crown is higher than him. But its a paradox - because he nullifies himself to the crown, he actually elevates himself and becomes royalty and honored by everyone. He makes himself a receptacle (מלכות), for the higher purpose of his role (כתר).

Every person has the sense that there is something about him that is not from him. Its the experience of this paradox, that I am something more than just what I am for myself. That's what Rav is talking about. A Tzadik is someone who lives for this higher part of himself, the part that connects him to something much greater than what he is for himself. And that is what gives him the greatest pleasure and vitality. Rav is saying that there will come a time when the true nature of a Tzadik will be revealed, and we'll see that their creative energy, their life force doesn't come from gratifying their personal desires at all. It comes from wearing a crown like a king.

The Rabbi's say, the servant of the King is a king. I think they were also hinting at this idea. When a person subjugates himself entirely to the higher part of himself, the part that wants to give, that wants his lower self to follow his higher self, he becomes identified with the crown that he is serving, and that becomes the real 'him'! May we merit to see this reality come to be, both internally, and revealed in the world we can see with our eyes, speedily in our days.