Wednesday, January 30, 2008

A thought on Parshas משפטים

"...va'yechezu es HaElokim va'yochlu va'yishtu...""...and they looked toward the Lord, then ate and drank..." (24:11)

There is a midrash which cites two opinions on this verse in interpreting the meaning of looking, eating, and drinking: one view is that the noble people awaiting the Presence of HaShem looked and feasted their eyes on the awesome sight. The second view is that the verse definitely means eating (achila vada'is.)

You may recall my parsha email two weeks ago (Parshas BeShalach) when the Recanati enlightened us about the spiritual quality of eating Heavenly bread (the manna.) It was known as Angel's Bread because it was experienced with a rush of higher senses, empowering those highest human faculties which, like the angels, are "plugged in" to a sense of the Sacred.

This week, the Recanati takes a similar position, even deepening the idea, in a manner which actually reconciles both of the midrashic opinions into one profound meaning.

The people feasted their eyes in that sense of vision of the Divine Presence. That is what the verse refers to when it speaks metaphorically of seeing, eating, drinking. The second view is explaining things for us. "Eating" is not done merely as a means of getting rid of food. Rather, we eat in order to vitalize our bodies and invigorate our functional faculties.

The soul longs to "eat" too. It feasts on stimulation of the highest human faculties, our morality and integrity, our awe and joy, our compassion and generosity, our sense of justice and purposefulness. When the soul is fed in that manner, it connects with the Higher realm. This is the real oneg which our prophets and our tradition talk about and plead with us to aim for in our serving HaShem.

So when the verse tells us that there were those who looked and ate, the first midrashic view explains that they were looking towards the sense of the Presence, which is a form of "eating." They feasted their eyes. The second view adds that this is in fact what eating is all about. It was more than a feast for the eyes: it was a feeding of the soul, a nourishment of what really matters in the realm where matters are real.

As we may have done with our Shabbos challa after learning the Recanati on Parshas BeShalach, let us now extend this to all of our oneg Shabbos this week. We can eat to make the food disappear, or we can eat with the realization that while we feed our mortal senses, our higher recognition of what matters and why we are supposed to enjoy the Shabbos meals can be the catalyst for the invigoration of the holiness within.

Good Shabbos. D Fox

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

A thought on Parshas Yisro

"...im shamoa tishmy b'koli u'shmartem es brisi..." (19:5)"...and if you will listen well to My voice and observe my covenant..."

The Recanati helps us grasp more about the "voice and covenant" aspects of HaShem's Torah.

HaShem is the Source of Compassion, rachamim, as we have discussed in a number of places this year. The Written Torah is given through, and composed of, the attributes of Compassion and Divine Kindness. It is broad. It is deep. It has infinite facets for us to study and interpret.

The Oral Torah appears to comprise the Divine attribute of Judgment, din. It is studied with precision. It includes precautionary measures, gezeiros, and is the explicit source of formal laws and their corollaries.

However, the Oral Torah is inextricably melded with the Written Torah for our Torah Sh'b'al Peh derives its entirety from the Written Torah. This is why we find our great sages looking for reference places in the Chumash upon which to append so many Rabbinic rules and practices. This is also why the Oral Torah was meant to be Oral, as in not-written-down, in order to proclaim that the Oral Torah has no "place" or identity of its own: its identity and place is none other than the Written Torah Sh'b'ksav.

And that, declares the Recanati, is what the kiss is all about.

Recall that in Shir HaShirim (1:2), the verse proclaims, "Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth!" What is a kiss other than a connection between two creatures, coupled deftly through contact between the most delicate of parts? Breath and passion are exchanged and shared in a kiss. It is a most intimate encounter. And in the supernal cosmic realm, the kiss is the connection between the Written and the Oral Torah. They share the same breath, because every element of the Oral Torah is infused with the Source Wisdom of the Written Torah.

And this is why we must study both the Oral and the Written Torah. One without the other is like a groom separated from his bride. Together, asserts the Recanati, when one is able to learn in a way which literally weds the dinim of Talmudic study with the rachamim of Scriptural learning, that "din" becomes subsumed within the sacred sense of HaShem's great kindness to His people.

There is no joy as great as the joy of those who learn Torah.

Good Shabbos. D Fox

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

A Thought On Parshas Beshalach

"...va'yomer HaShem Hineni mamtir la'hem lechem min ha'shomayim...""...and HaShem said, "Behold, I am showering them with bread from Heaven..."
(16:4)

The manna which nourished us in the desert was "bread from Heaven." The Talmud (Yoma 75b) cites the verse (Tehillim 78:25) "lechem abirim achal ish" - humans ate the bread of angels - which further depicts that notion of Heavenly bread. It was Heavenly in the sense that it was actually "the food of angels." Now, what does that mean?Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Yishmael debate this. Rabbi Akiva contends that the manna was the food eaten by the malachei ha'shares - the angels who carry out Divine will. Rabbi Yishmael argues that angels don't eat, just as Moshe did not eat when he ascended above Mount Sinai. Rather, he contends, the manna had a supernatural property of being absorbed within the body with no residual waste, unlike regular food.

The Recanati explains: Rabbi Akiva also knew that angels do not eat. He meant that angels are sustained by the emanations of primeval light (we have discussed this in earlier parshios) which are the supernal aura of the Divine Presence. The manna was simply a tangible reformulation of that light. In the desert, we humans were sustained by the Divine light, by apprehending a sense of the Divine Presence. The manna was created as a physical form or manifestation of the Light. Thus, people were sustained by the same Source as are the angels. This is why it is called bread from Heaven or angel's "bread."

Rabbi Yishmael argued that angels are not tangible or physical creatures and are not really "sustained" in the physical sense in which people need sustenance. Angels are vehicles for the Divine Will and exist because the Highest Light wills their existence. So when we ate manna in the desert, which is called "bread from Heaven" and "angel food," this referred only to the property of the manna which was that it left no physical trace after being ingested. After we ate it, there was no residue, representing that angelic-like feature that we ate only for the purpose of serving HaShem, each person ingesting only and exactly what he or she needed in order to function. It was real food, or bread, but with an angelic motif.

With this better understanding of the nature and function of the manna, the Recanati adds that we can now better grasp one other property of that angel food. Chazal also tell us that the manna tasted like whatever a person wanted it to taste. That is a very supernatural property but nonetheless one which needs to be explained. Why was it necessary or why did it happen that the manna had infinite taste possibilities, each according to the whim of the one eating it?

The Recanati offers that this is precisely because manna was angel food, as explained above. It was not regular food, according to either opinion. It was an emanation of the Divine light of creation, the force which empowers the administering angels as they carry out the Divine will. That spiritual quality of the manna, not a physical quality, nourished the soul more than it fed the body. The soul is the highest level of human functioning, a spark of the sacred contained within each individual. Whatever was going on in the mind of each person shaped that person's experience of ingesting the manna. Angels are not emotional. They are not mortal. They have no body sensations. They operate on Will Power, I guess. That is a highly developed and transcendent plane of functioning. When people ate manna, it stoked that higher plane of functioning within each one. It did not make them "full," no one had indigestion, no one had hunger either. Rather, their consciousness connected with that higher sense within which was invigorated by that internalization of emanations of higher light, which is what empowers angels. That boost of higher consciousness meant that whatever was taking place within the mind of each person became intensely present within the self. Hence, whatever taste, or fragrance, or sensation was on a person's mind became powerfully present within that moment of encounter. (This might be compared to monosodium glutamate, MSG, which does not flavor food specifically but which broadens the sensitivity of the tongue's tastebuds so that whatever is being tasted suddenly tastes much more intensely so. The manna had that type of effect on the soul and the mind, rather that on the physical body.)

When we eat challah this Shabbos, commemorating the manna, think of this angelic aspect of the bread. We can eat and savor it at a gustatory level, but we can also envision our Shabbos meals as encounters with a trace of the Divine light with which we seek to empower our selves in making His Will our own will. Good Shabbos. D

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

A thought on Parshas Bo

"...v'achaltem oso b'chipazon...""...and you shall eat it in a rush..." (12:11)

One of the rules governing the eating of the korban Pesach was that we needed to consume it in a hurried, rushed manner. Many of us make mention of this during the commemorative Pesach seder each year. Later in the Torah (Devarim 16:3), we are reminded that we went out of Egypt "b'chipazon" - in a rush.

The question is: what was this "rush" all about? Seemingly we were busy in Egypt for many long years and we were not stagnant or in limbo. We were probably rushing around in a hurry to do the slave labor day and night. What does it mean that we ate the sacrifice, and we left the land, in a rush (limbo hardly describes our status prior to our departure)? What rush? Whose rush? How was this rush different than all the other rushing during that exile?

The Recanati offers a teaching from the Mechilta: "Aba Chanun said in the name of Rabbi Eliezer: It was the Divine Presence which was in a rush."

Remember all of those verses in Shir HaShirim which speak about the Beloved's voice which hides behind walls and then comes forth, and recall Dovid HaMelech's imagery about skipping mountains and prancing hilltops? These are allusions to the rushing Shechina which was pushing and prodding to our people to purify themselves from the dark stain of Egyptian bondage and to get ourselves out of there!Why the rush? It was not only for our sake that HaShem urged us out. The image of a Presence which "rushed and agitated" had to do with the Egyptian's failure or refusal to recognize HaShem. That place was not fit for that sense of the Sacred to tarry. After four hundred years, the Egyptians were no more ready to accept HaShem's Unity and Majesty than were their pagan ancestors. There was no further need to be Present there. When people are not in search of HaShem then HaShem's greatness is not manifest and revealed. Hence, the Shechina was in a rush, and we commemorated this by finishing off our meal in a rush, emulating the message from Above.

And this is why in Yeshaya 52:12, the prophet foretells that in the End of Days lo b'chipazon te'tzeu - there will be no "hurry" Above because all of the world, every individual and nation, will recognize His Presence everywhere and at all times. All people will have the sense that the Sacred hovers, tarries and is always Present.

What a vision for us: imagine that our existence will no longer be a frenzied rush. What a life! Good Shabbos. D Fox

Again, I sent this early because I am away in Jerusalem.

A thought on Parshas Vaera

"...va'era el Avraham el Yitzchak v'el Yakov...""...and I appeared to the Patriarchs..." (6:2)

HaShem explains to Moshe how He was known to each of the Avos but in a more limited manner than in which He was revealed to Moshe. The Name of HaShem which was known to the earlier Patriarchs was a name associated with limitedness, which is known in kabbalistic thought as din rafa or "faint justice." Anything Divine which is manifest with a sense of limitation or precision is associated with the attribute of Din.

In contrast, HaShem was known to Moshe with the Name associated with Rachamim. HaShem's attribute which we experience as kindness is not restricted. It is expansive.

The Recanati explains that Moshe's own mission was an expansive one. His was the task of leading a nation. While the Avos shepherded their family and clan, Moshe was the ruler of a multitude. Many were the challenges and trials which he was tested with in that role, yet the Torah was given to them through Moshe, and it was given with that same Name of Kindness. Moshe's avoda was one of kindness and compassion like a merciful shepherd.

The manner in which a person lives in the lower world is mirrored in his or her relationship with HaShem in the higher world. Moshe dealt with his flock in an expansive, loving, kind and gentle form of leadership. He was a humble man, and the seat of compassion and kindness is in the heart of the humble person. HaShem reinforced, validated if you will, the kindness in His servant Moshe by revealing His Presence through the attribute of Divine Kindness, which also knows no limits. The Recanati observes that if you apprehend a sense of how HaShem deals with a person, you have an idea of how that person deals with others.

Not long ago, I was driving to console a friend who had lost a parent. On the way, a block or so from my house, I saw an old man sitting in a wheelchair in the dark, with a large dog next to him. He was on the sidewalk and it seemed odd to me at that late hour.

When I returned home and was parking on the street outside my house, the man was now sitting in front of my house, next to his wheelchair, the dog standing guard. I sat in my car, observing, and I confess that I thought of calling the police to investigate what was probably a drunk man or a culprit of some sort. He just sat there, and I gingerly got out of the car, mindful that the large dog was a strong German shepherd. I called out, "Do you need help?"

He replied in a faint, rather gentle voice, that he had an electric wheel chair but the motor had died. He was stuck and did not have the energy to go further. I told him that I could not fit the dog in my car but that I would gladly call a taxi, and pay for it to bring him where he needed to go. I went in to call a taxi, and my daughter said that she would get him some hot tea, for the night was windy and cold. As we waited for the taxi to arrive, another homeless man with a dog came by and commiserated with the older fellow. Meanwhile, the older man said, "This is the only time in four years of having to live this way that anyone has offered to help me."

I got him into the cab, and it turned out that he lived in a facility for the elderly just a few blocks away. The second man, the homeless one, said to me that most of the cab drivers are Moslems and they won't allow dogs in their cars. I told him that I would handle it, and it turned out that the driver was an African American, I don't know what his religion was, and he was willing to take the dog once it was identified as a "service dog" needed by the old man. They drove away and the homeless man and his dog disappeared into the night.

I can't help wondering if this opportunity to show some kindness, and spend some money helping someone, was a chance to try counteracting other activities where money is used less noble ways, and in ways which fail to set the Jew in a position of perceived kindness and integrity. A kind act is a drop in the bucket yet it can sometimes make a kiddush HaShem in places where there has been a desecration of kovod Shomayim. As the Recanati tells us, the way in which one wants to travel is the way in which HaShem travels with him.

I am sending this parsha mail, and next week's one, early since I am about ready to depart for Jerusalem for a while. May our travels be with HaShem. Good Shabbos. D Fox