open to criticism

The Baal Shem Tov explains Rashi's explanation: "Their tent openings weren't opposite one another."

As many explain, the tent refers to Bnei Yisrael's Torah study. Openings are their mouths. When they opened their mouths in Torah study, they didn't do so just to contradict (say the opposite of) one another, rather they sought only to refine their common understanding of the Torah.

the perfection of the plan

This past weeks parashah (Balak) outlined a plan described in the midrash to undermine the root of Mosheh Rabbeinu's power. Balak, King of Moav, consulted with Midyan, the place where Mosheh hid until he returned to Egypt, to understand what made Mosheh so powerful. The answer: It's all in his mouth. Mosheh's voice is where his power lies. So Balak sent to Bilaam, whose speech was also the source of his power, (but his was rooted in the dark side) to come and counteract the power of Mosheh. (The Gemara [Berachot 7a] relates that Bilaam could determine the split second of HaShem's anger, and in that moment curse someone and gain God's consent.)

There was of course a fatal flaw in Balak's plan. (There's always a fatal flaw in the evil plans.. they're evil.) Rebbe Nachman teaches in Likkutei Moharan I:34 that HaShem brought Bnei Yisrael out of Egypt of His own desire, but once He gave Bnei Yisrael the Torah, they now can bend His Will, figguratively, to their own needs. This is because God's will is intimately bound up and clothed in the letters of the Torah. When Bnei Yisrael learns Torah and utters words of Torah in prayer, the more perfect their speech, the more they draw out HaShem's Will.

So it seems to me that Balak's plan might have worked, before Bnei Yisrael received the Torah, but since Bnei Yisrael received the Torah already, Bilaam really no longer had any power over them. Even in the moment of HaShem's anger, His Will would still be influenced by the Torah of Bnei Yisrael.

We can see how telling this is, by looking at the perush of the Ohr HaHayyim, (whose yahrtzeit it is today) who explained most if not all of the final blessing of (the three blessings of Bilaam for) Bnei Yisrael in relation to their Torah learning. He explains the four levels in Bnei Yisrael's commitment to Torah learning: 1) Those who travel itinerantly, like Shmuel HaNavi, amongst the people of Israel in order to teach them Torah. 2) Those who sit in the Temple and teach a very high level of Torah, who sit in an established place and let their Torah spread outward. 3) Those who each learn Torah in their own place, primarily for their own spiritual development. And lastly, 4) those who financially support the Torah study of others. R' Hayyim explains how each of the four praises of Bilaam's last berachah relate to one of the four types of engagement the Jews have with the Torah.

It is no wonder that R' Akiva relates that Torah is the source of a Jew's life, their very existence, in his parable about fish who cannot leave the water. [Berachot 61b]

An interesting side note is that I saw in shivchei Ohr HaHayyim that it is said he was a gilgul of the RaMaK, who was in turn a gilgul of R'Akiva. [Since these are not simple matters, and the technical complexity of them dwarfs many complex scientific systems, I wouldn't delve too deeply into this statement.]


[But why did all this take place? Not only to teach us that HaShem's plans are one step ahead of the evil doers. Rather to teach us that HaShem's plans totally transcend those of all the evil in the world: The real reason why this is in the Torah and why this whole plan even took place (according to me, upon the basis of the teachings of the Talmud, Berachot 7b) is so that Balak could earn enough merit that Ruth should descend from him, that she might eventually convert to Judaism and give birth to David HaMelech's (the Moshiah) grandfather.]

Why people aren't Kosher

[Warning: this is a little morbid, but I think it is instructive of how flexible the Torah can be, and how many ways there are to look at any problem, even a gruesome one.]

Someone at lunch today tried to convince me that people are kosher..to eat. (Or at least, if one were to be accidentally schechted l'halachah, then they would be. [He claimed to have asked the Lubavitcher Rebbe about it once. We'll have to clear that up at some point.]) His argument was based on the fact that Man isn't an animal.

I thought of two strategies to disagree: [aside from bringing up the heter for babies to drink mother's milk.]

1. There are four levels of created entities: 1) lifeless, 2) vegetative, 3) living, 4) speaking. When Man was created, HaShem initially gave him permission to eat of the lifeless and vegetative levels of created entities. (lifeless would be like water & salt, neither of which is it clear we make a berachah on, btw) Even in the case of eating vegetative things we know their are limitations. (at least for Jews re: destroying fruit bearing trees) Later HaShem loosened the rules a little more (Noah) and allowed man to eat also of the 'living' entities, but only once they were dead. So the first thing we notice is that God's rules were initially more restrictive and become a little more permissive, but there was never a time when eating 'speaking' entities (people) was permitted. So the argument that "people are not animals" does not strengthen the argument that people might be permitted to be eaten, in effect it weakens that argument.
2. God forbade Jews from contaminating their souls by eating all manner of vermin. These vermin also impart impurity. A dead person's body also imparts a much higher level of impurity, by this connection, perhaps one could see also that intuitively eating people is clearly forbidden. You might want to say that the holier animals if they are properly slaughtered do not impart impurity and so since Man is holier than animals, perhaps a person properly slaughtered might be permitted. The problem is that we see that the body of someone who dies in Eretz Yisrael, even though according to R' Avraham Azulai they are considered to be "slaughtered with a kosher knife," imparts impurity the same as the body of someone who dies outside of Israel. So the argument that a properly slaughtered person might be permitted doesn't appear to be the case.

neither fight nor flight

We are about to read the parashah Hukkat this Shabbath. It is inevitably pointed out that the Parah Adumah or Red Heiffer is known as the most arcane of mitzwoth, the least accessible to logic and meaning.

We tend to think this mitzwah is arcane because when you think about it, it doesn't seem to make very much sense. But, I'd like to present an alternative understanding.

The mitzwah of Shiluah HaKen, of sending off the mother bird before taking the eggs from the nest, seems equally arcane. You might at first say, "well, it teaches you to be merciful and considerate of animal's feelings." We already have a mitzwah for that, it's called Tza'ar Ba'alei Hayyim, it is forebidden to cause undue suffering to living things. So what is Shiluah HaKen about, it seems equally arcane.

Let's try and learn about this mitzwah in an unorthodox (in the original sense of the word) way: Let's try and do this mitzwah and see what it teaches us, rather than try to understand it without knowing what it really is. After all isn't that what we committed to when we said, "We will do, and [then] we will hear (read: understand)"?

This week it so happened that I needed to convince a family of pigeons that they couldn't build their nest in my stairwell, well they couldn't keep their nest in my stairwell, they'd already built it, and it was a snug home to two white eggs. Wow, as scary as it may be, I get to do a mitzwah! 

I assume it was the father that flew off almost as soon as I started to make some noise to scare the birds. Presumably the mother bird didn't budge. As I tried to cause her to panic and make her fly away she did something amazing. She hid her head and ignored me. No matter how big and scary I was, she didn't try and fight me off, she knew she wouldn't win. But, she wouldn't abandon those eggs, even though her own life was in danger. I begged and pleaded, told her I didn't mean to offend her, tried to drive her off, eventually having to physically push her with a stick (the nest was located in an unreachable position) very gently to avoid hurting her, even so, it took about a half an hour until I managed to push, scare, and irritate her (all without causing her any physical harm) into leaving. I was totally exhausted, very thankful for being able to do a rare mitzwah and blown away by what I had witnessed.

The way the mother bird acted goes against any understanding I had of animal's drive to self-preservation. She knew she couldn't save the eggs, but it was like she didn't want to live if she couldn't. It was an amazing testament to the mothering instinct. I have no desire to ever witness a more direct exhibition of this instinct, what I saw was overpowering itself. 

So now, armed with the knowledge of actually having performed the mitzwah (the hard way) what is this mitzwah all about? To me it teaches just how committed the Shechinah is to staying by our side no matter how far or deep we fall into galut. No matter how scary it may be. Even in the darkest places this world has ever sunk to, the Shechinah went down with us into exile. It's heart-rendingly beautiful to know of HaShem's endless love for us.

What can we learn from this about the Parah Adumah? Why was it so complicated to understand what the mitzwah was about? Perhaps because even after they did the mitzwah, they still couldn't begin to understand what it meant.

you are special, just like everyone else

Regarding the last post: being better without being better than.

An implication of the Baal Shem Tov's words teaches us that feeling better than other irreligious people because you are religious actually taints your religiousness.

If you believe yourself to be better than a non-religious person, you are fundamentally damaging that very religiousness of yours which you prize so much. The only proper outlook for a religious person is to recognize that you are no better than those less religious than yourself, or even those who aren't religious at all.

being better without being better than

Even in the days of the temple, the mitzwah of Parah Adumah, the Red Heiffer, was rarely performed. So what can this rare and eccentric mitzwah teach about our daily service of HaShem?

The Baal Shem Tov (Parashath Hukkath) explains that the mitzwah of Parah Adumah is rooted in hubris. In order for a person to begin his journey towards truly serving HaShem s/he must start by pursuing Torah and Mitzwoth for secondary reasons, reward, prestige, or the like. This is the hubris, that a person who is so powerless and insignificant could be doing 'favors' for HaShem who is boundless and all-powerful, such that they should be deserving of any reward. Later, when one is well on his or her way to serving HaShem we need to flee from any hubris which might taint our true and earnest service of HaShem for its own sake. This is the nature of the Hubris, like the nature of the Parah Adumah that it purifies the impure, those far from HaShem, and causes those who are pure and close to HaShem to become impure.

Similarly in our daily mitzwah practice, the Baal Shem Tov, goes on to explain, we must overcome the initial resistance of the evil urge in order to perform a mitzwah. The Yetzer Hara says: "You aren't worthy to perform such a lofty mitzwah." You must reply with hubris and assert your worthiness, and undertake to do the mitzwah anyway. Once you are involved in the mitzwah, (and this is the key point) any hubris will taint that mitzwah. We must be careful lest we think that our mitzwah makes us better than those not involved in the mitzwah.

It's clear to see how easy it is to mess up a perfectly incredible mitzwah by letting it go to our heads -- but if we didn't have a little ego when we started, we would never have taken the first step. What was impure becomes pure, and what is pure can easily become impure, through the very same mechanism.

That's the root of the Parah Adumah in every mitzwah.

the way to your soul is through your understanding

The Baal HaTanya makes a very unusual point: The Godly soul resides in the intellect, while the animal soul resides in the heart.

There is a powerful lesson to be learned from this: We desire what is of value to the animal soul whereas we merely understand the importance of what is of value to the Godly soul, we don't feel an internal drive to pursue it. The life's work of a person is bring your Godly soul down from the intellect into your heart, to the point where we crave that which the Godly soul values.

This might even be the very crux of free will. The heart/mind divide.

One of the early lessons of the Kuntres HaTefillah (written by the Rebbe Rasha"b, a descendant of the Baal HaTanya) is that because of this discrepancy the tactics that work to awaken a desire in one's heart don't work to ignite one's soul with spiritual yearning. He says because the Godly soul is of an intellectual nature, only an intense intellectual pursuit in great depth of detail has the ability to truly awaken one's Godly soul to the point that it awakens deep feelings even in one's heart. It's a compelling argument and there is no question that within the body of Chabad Chassidut this is the essence of the service of God. Even outside of the body of Chabad Chassidut I think there is a powerful point we would do well to internalize. The author (Rebbe Rasha"b) goes into greater detail in the Kuntres explaining that as long as our kavana, our intentions in tefilla, are not focused and detailed, the effect it has in awakening us to impassioned service of God is limited at best.

This probably is limited in scope depending on one's personality and spiritual inclination, but at a basic enough level it applies across the board: In any discipline, in any field, anything but a serious and focused investment of energies will reap little accomplishment. As a spiritual expert the Rasha"b is saying, the way to have a lasting impact on your soul is through intense and earnest meditation on Torah principles that make up the foundation of the universe and one's place in it, or as he calls them: "Divrei Elokim Hayyim" (God's living words.)

a standing argument

The Mishna (Avot 5:17) says there are disagreements for the sake of heaven that will stand forever. When you hear that, it sounds like a stubborn argument on a matter so complex that neither can prove its correctness completely.

I suggest an alternative understanding, one which we can wrap our minds around. In the past I have suggested looking at a disagreement for the sake of heaven as the work of complimentary muscle groups like the biceps and triceps which work against each other but together achieve very fine motor coordination. Today I'd like to provide a very simple logical example of how this works based on a nice self contained piece of Gemara:

[Brachot 13a:] Can we read Shema Yisrael in a language other than Hebrew? There is a disagreement between Rabi and the Hachamim. Rabi says we learn from the word והיו they should be, they should be as they are, unaltered into another language. The Hachamim say we learn from the word שמע understand, we should say Shema Yisrael in any language we understand.

Simple enough, each one has their opinion, each supported from the text. However, the Gemara goes on to analyze some of the results of their opinions: If each were to be examined in a vacuum we would find some very interesting results: According to Rabi, we would be considered to fulfill the mitzwah of learning Torah by reading it in any language whatsoever. Otherwise, why would the Torah need a special case here to emphasize that Shema Yisrael must be read in hebrew? According to the Hachamim, we would only be fulfilling the mitzwah of Torah learning if we learned Torah in Hebrew, otherwise why would the Torah need a special case here to emphasize that Shema Yisrael can be read in any language?

But these opinions don't exist in a vacuum. We can't learn from here that Rabi says learning Torah can be done in any language, and conversely we can't learn that the Hachamim say learning Torah must be done in hebrew. Why not? Because Rabi can say the reason the Torah specifies here that Shema Yisrael must be read in hebrew is because one might have understood like the Hachamim understand and thought Shema Yisrael could be said in any language. And the Hachamim's answer? It isn't such a surprise. They could say that the reason the Torah specifically allows Shema Yisrael to be said in any language is because one might have thought like Rabi that the Torah seems to imply Shema Yisrael must be read in Hebrew.

You see? Neither of these opinions stands on its own. They require the existence of the counter-opinion for their own stance to be self-consistent and logical. The existence of the argument allows both points to have a degree of subtlety and specificity that would be entirely lacking if no argument existed.

Perhaps this is the depth and the strength of a machloket (a rational struggle) for the sake of heaven.

to an innocent child's eye

(1) The Hassidim, especially Rebbe Nachman espoused the importance of being simple rather than intellectual.  They also emphasized having a youthful outlook on the world, one in which every day is new and full of promise.

(2) The souls of the Jewish people are the letters of the Torah. This is a basic teaching from the Zohar. It has number of really interesting implications I hope to get into one day, for now just a simple insight.

(3) There is a very basic halachah. When there is a doubt regarding the validity (kashruth) of one of the letters in a Torah scroll, we ask a child, not an overly intelligent child, nor an overly simple child, but an average child who doesn't yet know how to read but has already learned the alphabet. We ask that child what letter the letter in question looks like, if the child answers correctly, then the letter is kosher, and Torah scroll can continue to be used to learn and read from. If the child says it looks like a letter other than the intended letter, then the Torah scroll is not kosher to be used until it has been corrected.

Taken together, these three pieces of information seem to imply something very deep and very special about Hassidut. The Baal Shem Tov and all those who followed him aspired to be the simple child who could correctly recognize the hebrew letter (soul) hidden within each one of us. If the Rebbes were simple and 'childish' (in the relevant sense mentioned above) then they could bring any Jew over to the side of 'Kashrut' simply by recognizing the Jewish soul hidden within him or her.

actions clothed in beauty

When you eat with at least two other men, it is proper to bench on a cup of wine. The cup should be rinsed out, and washed on the outside as well. The cup should be full but not in danger of spilling. Someone else should fill it and hand it to the leader of the meal with both hands. You should receive it in both hands, and then transfer it to your right hand. The right hand should then hold it for the remainder of benching, the left hand should not aid the right hand while holding it. Upon completion of benching, the blessing should be made and then one should drink the cup of wine. It is proper to save some of the wine for one's wife, even if she wasn't eating/benching with you. [Ben Ish Hai - parashath Shelach L'cha]

It's so easy to see such a thoroughly proscribed ritual and think it is ridiculous or that it bears no relation to the modern day society in which we live. Regardless of the deep Kabbalistic meditations that are the basis for this action, many people would look at this ritual as outdated. It's easy in our post-modern mentality to say that, yes the mystical intentions are perhaps of value, but the proscribed actions are pedantic, outmoded, no longer in order. (We'll ignore for a minute that such thought is indifferentiable in any significant way from the cardiac Jew syndrome. eg. I'm a Jew in my heart.)

I think of myself as ascribing great importance to the Torah and the Halachah along with it. It is the basic foundation upon which all my other value judgements are made. It is the primary lens through which I see the world. Yet, when I read a description of ritual such as the one above, I, being a good sefaradi, file it away as the "theoretical ideal," but not necesarily the practicable version of Judaism which defines my daily life.

Today at lunch I was thinking about it. Why? Why can I take the halachah of what berachah to say when so seriously and spontaneously dismiss the ritualistic behavior brought right alongside it?

The answer is that I have it all wrong.

Look at all of the ritual in the Beit HaMikdash. (The best place to look is in the Rambam where all of the rituals are described in great detail. Hilchot Beit HaBechirah (english translation) (partial link)) Clearly, it isn't there for HaShem's sake. He doesn't need to eat, doesn't need our offerings. Yet, there is great intricacy in all of the performance of each of the offerings in the Temple. Why? Each offering involves two parties: The one who brings the offering, and God who receives the offering. If the offering isn't for HaShem's sake, then it's clearly there for ours. We get something out of offerings we bring to HaShem. All of that ritual is there for us.

[As an aside, according to the opinion that says animal offerings will not be practiced in the Third Temple our point is even more integral: If at one point animal offerings were relevant to us, we brought them. At another point in our history, when animal offerings may no longer be relevant (again to us) we no longer need to bring them. God doesn't change, we do. But, to return to our point, there is no opinion that there will not be a Third Temple, likewise there exists no opinion that ritual worship will not be part of the Third Temple. The ritual is still there (the grain offerings will still be brought) which means the ritual is still important to us, not only now, but even in that (hopefully near) future.]

Ritual is vitally crucial to our spiritual growth. It's pretty simple to understand when you think about it. Imagine you buy your wife a beautiful bouquet of flowers, but when you walk in the door you throw the bouquet on the table, head for the couch and switch on the lakers game. Contrast that with getting home before her, turning off the lights, lighting some candles, and leaving the flowers, bound in a nice ribbon, to be discovered with an envelope containing a short letter you wrote just for her. In short, its all in the delivery.

The flowers are just some flowers, they might have cost some money, but in the scheme of things that money is fairly insignificant. The few minutes it took to set the mood are also infinitesimal, but it sent a very different message. The planning and the thought invested in the act made every minute detail of the execution that much more meaningful. The ribbon, the few dollars on the flowers, the candles, the paper, the time, it's all transient, it all has little economic value, but suddenly it has been invested with something else, something that's harder to define, but something that touches on the infinite. The card or the ribbon might be saved for years and whenever it pops up, it brings back all the feelings evoked by that moment when she first discovered the flowers.

It isn't only special because you showed your wife that you love her. She knows you do. But, you had to consciously reawaken those feelings of love in order to show it. You reminded yourself how much you love her, and then you shared those feelings with her. That's what she appreciates most.

The ritual of our mitzwoth are the beauty, the hidur. The mitzwoth themselves require a particular outcome, an action. We're required to cause an effect in the physical world. But the ritual with which we surround that action, that's timeless, infinite. It enriches our lives. It makes the act more important for us. It brings us closer to HaShem by reminding us how central He is in our lives.

HaShem always loves us, is always giving to us, but we can only receive when we are open to HaShem. It's the ritual that awakens us to how we feel, that allows us to make room for HaShem in our lives.

the mettle of your soul, the measure of your flesh

Is the soul infinite, pure, and beyond harm or can our actions blemish our souls?

Yes, the soul is a literal piece of Godliness, but in order to descend into this world, it needs to be clothed in a vessel, a body. Like water, the soul takes on the "shape" of its container. When the body is holy, the soul is holy, when the body is twisted, the soul becomes twisted.

We each have a fragment of infinity within us, but how it manifests is entirely dependent on our thoughts, our speech and our actions.

[based on the Pri Ha'aretz, parashath Beha'alotcha and Shelach L'cha.]

overcoming distractions

Two sources I happened across during the Omer regarding distracting thoughts during prayer: (Machshavot Zarot)

When is the time in Tefillah to sacrifice oneself [ie.mesirut nefesh] before HaShem? When you have a distracting thought. Through sacrificing oneself you can raise up that thought as an offering to HaShem. [paraphrased ~ Likkutei Moharan I:26]

Each thought is a life, complete in itself. Dispelling a thought rather than raising it up is akin to killing it. How do you tell the difference between those thoughts you can raise up, and those you should push away? If the thought comes along with a feeling of being overcome with one's own smallness, then you can raise it up. If, on the other hand, the thought comes with a feeling of hubris, push it away, as it is said, "one who comes to kill you, kill him first." [paraphrased ~ Notzer Hesed (Avoth) 4:3]

In light of this earlier post: Unidentified flying thoughts, we have two more opinions to round out the mix:

Baal HaTanya - Beinonim have no business in raising up these thoughts, it's only a job for Tzaddikim.

Noam Elimelech - Tzaddikim need to shine the light of their awareness on these thoughts to raise them up.

And for good measure:

Rebbe Nachman's next teaching Likkutei Moharan I:27 also goes into why it is the Tzaddik who is most capable of raising up these thoughts and again in I:30 explains how these thoughts end up at the Tzaddik's proverbial doorstep.

In short, there seems to be a consensus opinion that the best way for our generation to do away with distracting thoughts is to ignore them. So, rather than wasting time trying to figure out why a thought distracted you, get back to whatever it was you were praying for before it distracted you!

This is very good news in an age where (1) there are already too many stimuli in one's daily life pulling at your attention every minute, and (2) we're so very good at ignoring things!

Ps. If you are the kind of person who anyways is going to try and elevate these distracting thoughts, I think Rebbe Nachman's advice is best, bitul and mesirut nefesh. It seems the safest route, and also seems to coincide with what the Komarna Rebbe was saying. In fact, if you read the sources carefully, they're all essentially in agreement about this point.