A thought on Parshas Vayigash
"...Anochi ered imcha...gam aloh...""...and I will do down there with you...and ascend..." (46:4)
It may seem "obvious" to us that this verse means what it says: HaShem assured Yakov that He would accompany him down to Egypt during our first national exile. After all, we are familiar with the concept of golus HaShechina - the Divine Presence goes into exile when our nation does. We are all familiar with the concept of immo Anochi ba'tzara - I am with you during hardship - and our verse simply means that HaShem goes with us and returns with us wherever our sojourn may be. Simple enough.
"Obviously", however, nothing that magnificent and majestic can be so simple, nor should it seem so easy to understand. The Shechina is not a substance or entity which can travel, nor does the Shechina "need" to travel. HaShem is Omnipresent, incorporating all and encompassing everywhere in a manner which is metaphysical and transcends even the best metaphor. Moreover, the standard statements in Chazal regarding those lofty concepts about golus HaShechina do not even cite our verse, which would seem like an "obvious" source upon which to anchor the notion of a migrating Presence.
The Recanati offers a better perspective for us. He produces a verse (Zecharia 4:2) which says, "V'hinei menoras zahav kula v'gula al rosha" - "and there was an image of a pure golden light with a gula over it." The Recanati then cites a midrash (VaYikra Rabba 32:8) -
"gula" means "gola" (exile). Above the image of light is a symbol that the Divine light also contains an "exile" component, as it is written (Yeshaya 43:14) - l'manchem Shilachti Bavela - for your sakes I have sent Myself down to exile.
There is an eternal Divine Presence yet within that Presence is a facet "fit for exile." What are the theodyamics (I believe I just coined that term) of this? The Recanati explains further:
Early on in the Torah, during the days of creation, we read (1:4) va'yavdel Elokim bein ha'or u'bein ha'choshech - HaShem separated between the light and the dark. Taking light and separating it from dark is not the most complicated activity in life. We do it all the time. So, it is "obvious" that what took place in the early moments of creation was not that simple.
The Recanati sees here an allusion to the light which we have talked about in earlier parshios this year. With light as a metaphor for the endless power which emanates from Above, HaShem separated light into light-light and dark-light. This separation represents the seeming accessibility of that sense of the sacred with which we seek to encounter HaShem in our deeds and minds and feelings, and the more faint sense of the Beyond which we struggle with in the dark of exile. We can understand darkness as being the absence of light, but we can better understand that darkness is a different view of light. When it is dark outside, the light is still there but we cannot see it. When we are in exile, the light is still there but it is experienced in a darker manner. This is the "separating" at creation. This is the gula hovering above the golden menora in Zecharia's vision. And that is what HaShem assured Yakov. Rather than a foreboding sense that the descent into exile would bring a darkening over the spirit, HaShem assured Yakov that there is a form of light called darkness. That is the light which is accessible during golus.
That light form would go down into exile with us, but gam aloh - it will also ascend with us. The return from exile will not herald a permanent diminution of the sense of Presence, for the Presence never changed. The light will once again be perceived and experienced as light. The gula over the menorah will become the geula.
Good Shabbos. D Fox
It may seem "obvious" to us that this verse means what it says: HaShem assured Yakov that He would accompany him down to Egypt during our first national exile. After all, we are familiar with the concept of golus HaShechina - the Divine Presence goes into exile when our nation does. We are all familiar with the concept of immo Anochi ba'tzara - I am with you during hardship - and our verse simply means that HaShem goes with us and returns with us wherever our sojourn may be. Simple enough.
"Obviously", however, nothing that magnificent and majestic can be so simple, nor should it seem so easy to understand. The Shechina is not a substance or entity which can travel, nor does the Shechina "need" to travel. HaShem is Omnipresent, incorporating all and encompassing everywhere in a manner which is metaphysical and transcends even the best metaphor. Moreover, the standard statements in Chazal regarding those lofty concepts about golus HaShechina do not even cite our verse, which would seem like an "obvious" source upon which to anchor the notion of a migrating Presence.
The Recanati offers a better perspective for us. He produces a verse (Zecharia 4:2) which says, "V'hinei menoras zahav kula v'gula al rosha" - "and there was an image of a pure golden light with a gula over it." The Recanati then cites a midrash (VaYikra Rabba 32:8) -
"gula" means "gola" (exile). Above the image of light is a symbol that the Divine light also contains an "exile" component, as it is written (Yeshaya 43:14) - l'manchem Shilachti Bavela - for your sakes I have sent Myself down to exile.
There is an eternal Divine Presence yet within that Presence is a facet "fit for exile." What are the theodyamics (I believe I just coined that term) of this? The Recanati explains further:
Early on in the Torah, during the days of creation, we read (1:4) va'yavdel Elokim bein ha'or u'bein ha'choshech - HaShem separated between the light and the dark. Taking light and separating it from dark is not the most complicated activity in life. We do it all the time. So, it is "obvious" that what took place in the early moments of creation was not that simple.
The Recanati sees here an allusion to the light which we have talked about in earlier parshios this year. With light as a metaphor for the endless power which emanates from Above, HaShem separated light into light-light and dark-light. This separation represents the seeming accessibility of that sense of the sacred with which we seek to encounter HaShem in our deeds and minds and feelings, and the more faint sense of the Beyond which we struggle with in the dark of exile. We can understand darkness as being the absence of light, but we can better understand that darkness is a different view of light. When it is dark outside, the light is still there but we cannot see it. When we are in exile, the light is still there but it is experienced in a darker manner. This is the "separating" at creation. This is the gula hovering above the golden menora in Zecharia's vision. And that is what HaShem assured Yakov. Rather than a foreboding sense that the descent into exile would bring a darkening over the spirit, HaShem assured Yakov that there is a form of light called darkness. That is the light which is accessible during golus.
That light form would go down into exile with us, but gam aloh - it will also ascend with us. The return from exile will not herald a permanent diminution of the sense of Presence, for the Presence never changed. The light will once again be perceived and experienced as light. The gula over the menorah will become the geula.
Good Shabbos. D Fox
posted by Rabbi Dr. Fox at 4:04 PM
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