Rabbi Zeitlin

The gematria (numerical equivalent of the letters of the word) for V’Etchanan (ואתחנן) is 515, which is also the number of special prayers, actually more kabbalistic meditations, composed by Ramchal, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzatto in his book תקט”ו תפילות (Taktu Tefillot)–the gematria of Taktu also 515.

We learn that Moshe prayed 515 times for a reprieve from the decree against him entering the Holy Land, before he stood down. We’re told that God told him to not ask again even one more time, because if he did make that one more request God would have had no choice but to grant his wish. Various answers are proposed to what great negative for Bnei Yisrael and humankind in general would have occurred had he led the Jewish People into their land. Perhaps he understood that he had to choose between his own fulfillment or the fulfillment of the nation (there are textual hints that either he could have entered or the people might have entered, but not both). Another idea is that Moshe, leading the nation into Eretz Yisrael, would have immediately assumed the role of Mashiach, thrusting the world into Olam HaBah, the world-to-come, the final and stable reality-mode, but at an “inferior” state of perfection than were it to occur in its proper historical context (for which we still await and pray). In either event, Moshe chose for Bnei Yisrael rather than for his own benefit.

There is something very unique about Judaism. Unlike many other religions, we don’t elevate our greatest prophet to an unrealistic pedestal. We don’t declare Moshe Rabbenu, Moses our teacher, as “the perfect human being”, as “god”-like or in any way divine. Rather, the highest praise The Creator gives to Moshe is, “The man Moshe was very humble, more humble than any man on the face of the earth.” (Bamidbar 12:3). His very greatness was his profound self-understanding that as a human being, by definition, he was imperfect. Perhaps the one quality that is shared by every single person who has ever lived and who ever will live is imperfection. As such, Moshe was the most effective teacher and prophet because his commonality with all humanity was always in the front of his consciousness.

515 is a unique number. “5”, at the right side, represents the ה׳ חסדים, the five elements of love, while the “5” on the left represent the ה׳ גבורות, the five elements of strength and awe. Between them, nourishing both as well as supported by both of these “wings”, is “1”, אחד (Echad), the One God Who unifies all reality.

אחד יחיד ומיוחד (Echad, Yachid U’Meyuchad), One, Alone  and Unique.

Hillel famously states (in Avot 1:14), אִם אֵין אֲנִי לִי, מִי לִי. וּכְשֶׁאֲנִי לְעַצְמִי, מָה אֲנִי. וְאִם לֹא עַכְשָׁיו, אֵימָתָי, Im Ayn Ani Li, Mi Li, “If I am not for myself, who is for me? U’k’sheAni L’Atzmi, Mi Li, And when I am (only) for myself, what am I? V’Im Ayn Achshav, Aymatai, And if not now, when?”

We usually interpret this as a balanced approach to life, keeping all three principles in mind at the same time. Perhaps we should also see it as describing the two modalities of existence, Olam HaZeh, today’s world as we know it, and Olam HaBah, the enlightened world we know is inevitable.

Although God’s Reality never changes, (אני ה′ לא שניתי (מלאכי ג:ו, “I, God, never change (Malachi 3:6)”, our realities and our perceptions of reality do change. Living, as we now do, in a world where most people have no conception that The Creator m’lo kol ha-aretz kvodo, fills the entire world with His Presence, His totally benign, endless light and energy, where He is Ha-m’chadesh b’tuvo b’chol yom tamid ma’ase b’reishit (daily liturgy), “The One who renews, from His Goodness, every day, the act of creation”, the fact that we, indeed, realize that life is far from a “zero-sum game” or, worse, a “negative-sum game” (that illusion that resources are limited and dwindling while the population, i.e. demand for those resources, is soaring out of control) forces us to live as if that nightmare were true. In other words, even though we know that God’s Shefa, Bounty, is endless, there are many people who are convinced that whatever we have is at their expense and the only path for them to acquire what they want or need is to take it away from someone who has already acquired it. Our vision of the ultimate reality and our confidence in it, however, doesn’t permit us to live above the fray. Throughout human history to date, the Jewish people have had to protect our very lives as best we can as many have perceived us as the obstacle to their own success. In this still-current paradigm, we, therefore, exist in the same state of perpetual strife and warfare as the rest of the world and to survive we must defeat our enemies at every turn. “If I am not for me, who will be for me”, indeed!

However, as we gradually and eventually succeed in truly being Ohr L’Goyim, that Light of wisdom to all the nations, revealing to them that The Creator really has provided for all everyone needs and that rather than stealing or despoiling the wealth of others, they can create and generate their own, we find ourselves moving into Olam HaBah, that world of the future which, indeed, will come one day. No longer necessary to fight and scramble, all mankind can finally realize the truth of “If I am (only) for myself what am I?”. Rather, we can begin to join together in Absolute Unity with The Creator and His Creation, to be at one with all.

Although it’s dangerous, foolish and counterproductive to pretend that we’re farther along the path than we indeed are, our impatience is in order. Our years of suffering (both as the Jewish People, but also, more broadly, as Humanity) have been endless. “If not now, when” shall we at least start to work towards Geula, the ultimate redemption from the very real, but ultimately false nonetheless, world of conflict?

I, along with a number of contemporary rabbis (Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo and Rabbi David Bar-Hayim to name just a couple), have remarked and written extensively on the two modes of contemporary Jewish life, Diaspora/survival-oriented and Sovereign-in-Eretz-Yisrael/Redemption modes. The Babylonian Talmud, along with Rashi and other commentators, also make this distinction (Avoda Zara 22a and following, also many other places), as well as the distinction of when we are living in our land under either foreign domination (lo b’tokef) or Jewish/Torah-based sovereignty (b’tokef).

A basic assumption those of us who explore Torah make in viewing the world is that it is anything but a “zero-sum game”. Rather, it is, in fact, an infinitely-“positive-sum game”. M’lo Kol Ha’Aretz K’vodo, (He) fills the entire universe with His Presence (Isaiah 6:3), as well as M’chadesh b’tuvo b’kol yom tamid ma’ase bereishit (daily liturgy), “He renews, with His Goodness, every day, eternally, the acts of Creation”, are repeated twice daily in our prayers. We acknowledge and celebrate that God unceasingly pours His Infinite Light, infinite energy, into the universe. There is no limit to His Bounty and, therefore, to even suspect that what I have is at your expense or that what you have is at mine verges on atheism. There is and always will be plenty, and increasingly more, for each of us, if we only open our eyes to the non-superficial reality that monopolizes today’s dominant world views.

This radical realization, however, is of very little utility until it’s universally known and acknowledged. Until then, as long as even one person acts as if another’s wealth and other resources are entirely at his own expense, rather than trying to generate the bounty which is out there waiting just for him, he will try to take away from someone else. This mean-heartedness, what our rabbinic tradition calls Ayin Rah, an evil/defective/deceived eye (perception of reality) will continue to fuel war, hatred and crime until everyone finally awakens (Uri, uri, “Wake up, Wake up!”, as we recite in L’cha Dodi, entering into Shabbat where we, hopefully, awaken from the illusions of the weekdays) to the realization that rather than envying each other we should celebrate everyone’s success and see it as proof that our own is just around the corner.

The idea of the Tenth Commandment, V’Lo Tachmod and  V’Lo Tit’aveh, specific injunctions of what not to envy, is really an affirmation of God’s ultimate power, to rain His Shefa, bounty, on all of us all the time. Eyn atar p’nui minay, there is absolutely no corner of existence where God and His Infinite Light are absent. It’s all there for us to make the connection through the keys given to us, Torah and Mitzvot.

Perhaps our mandate to become Ohr l’Goyim, the proverbial “Light to the Nations”, is to, through our assigned work of Torah and Mitzvot, bring illumination of the transcendent, ultimate reality of this unlimited bounty, to replace the horrid illusion that all wealth is at the expense of another.

No need to steal, no need to plunder, there is nothing to envy except, perhaps, open eyes, hearts and minds (our neshamot, souls, are already, by definition, open). Rather, let’s each of us go out and earn our own.

Even an elementary approach to Parshat Balak demonstrates that, in the long run, our enemies are unable to curse us because The Holy One will always turn these curses into blessings, (even if the blessings don’t manifest until much farther down the road).

The story is well-known. Balak, the King of Moab, fearing the approach of Bnei Yisrael on our way through the desert to the Promised Land, hires Bilaam, the evil prophet whose level of prophecy approached that of Moshe (although at the negative end of the spectrum) to curse Israel, weakening us so we’d become vulnerable to Moab’s military attack.

Overcoming first the resistance of God, Himself, Who explicitly told Bilaam to not accompany Balak’s entourage (BaMidbar 22:12), and later the refusal of his own ass to bring him to meet Balak himself, warned once again by The Creator to “not curse the people because they are blessed (BaMidbar 22:12)”, Bilaam, nonetheless, attempts to curse them. His words, however, are overcome by and replaced with the words “God placed in his mouth (BaMidbar 23:5 and others)” and, much to Balak’s displeasure and fury, he proceeds to bless Bnei Yisrael instead.

Familiar and reassuring, this is still just the “first-grade” lesson we all learned in grade school. Yes, God will protect His People from ultimate harm, but there are deeper and more profound lessons here.

We say “Yisrael v’Oreita v’Kudsha Brich Hi Chad Hu”, Yisrael, Torah and The Creator are all One. The Torah is not just a collection of words and letters, a quantity of ink on treated animal hide, not just the history of the Jewish People, not limited to a code of laws, but the entire Torah, all 600,000 letters that comprise the Torah (including those letters which don’t even appear in ink on parchment but which we are taught exist anyways and contribute to the Torah) is, itself a unique Name of God. Chained together to provide semantic meaning or experienced as a string of letters (each of which is a combination of ink-strokes), taken together, all of the letters in the Torah, all the words as well, are a part of the “meta-Name” and, as such, are filled with infinite light and holiness. When we, Yisrael, study and read the words of Torah, we chant and invoke aspects of God’s Holy Name.

Thus, even the words of klalah (cursing), as well as the horrific words of warning, hochachah, elsewhere in the Torah (Parshat Nitzavim, for example), beneath the simple semantic meaning of the words, are, nonetheless, names of The Creator and, as such, filled with blessing and light.

With this insight, the words of Bilaam take on an even deeper power of blessing than is already apparent. Curses, warnings, history and halachot are all part of the great blessing we receive whenever we engage with Torah.

Parshat Korach is the archetype of Jewish self-destructive behavior. A naked power play, couched in terms of holiness and halacha (the back story is that Korach presented a bogus question about talit and tzitzit to Moshe), Korach tried to leap over Aaron and seize the High Priesthood. Not content to challenge God’s structuring of the Jewish People, Korach just had to add ad hominem attacks against his own cousins.

As if we hadn’t, in the previous parsha of the meraglim, spies, learned the consequences of narcissistically insisting that we “know better” than The Creator, Korach, our very own biblical narcissist par excellence, gathers a group of supporters, including the yes-men (or, in relationship to Moshe, the no-men), Dotan and Abiram, a crowd of two hundred and fifty “princes” as well as an additional fourteen thousand seven hundred men, all of whom perished. Remember, this was from a total Jewish population at the time of six hundred thousand!

It’s not that Israel and the Jewish People cannot tolerate challenges. As we all know, Jewish tradition, beginning with the Mishna, has always been transmitted through debate. But we learn from Avot (5:17) which explicitly distinguishes between makhloket, debate, aimed at clarifying reality and makhloket aimed at personal power or belittling another, that there is a difference. One strengthens us all and leads us closer to Geula, Redemption. The other, for which the Mishna intentionally chooses Korach as example, leads to plagues, to destruction (as we know, the Second Temple was destroyed and our people exiled for two thousand years which is not yet completely over, for the sin of sinat chinam, pointless fratricidal hatred), chaos and death.

A famous story is told of the late Satmar Rebbe, a leader, I must say, I had little fondness for (because he actively discouraged his followers before the Shoah from escaping to Palestine). When Hubert Humphrey ran for President in 1968, he visited many leading religious leaders. On his way to visit the Satmar Rebbe, his advisor told him to not mention Israel to the rabbi. Humphrey was shocked and asked him what that was all about. “Aren’t all rabbis and Jewish leaders great supporters of Israel? Isn’t Israel always at the top of their political agenda?” The advisor merely said that this was a different kind of rabbi and that he should just ask about his local community.

The moment Humphrey walked into the Rebbe’s presence, the Rebbe asked, “So, what’s your position on Israel?” Humphrey was dumfounded and replied, “My advisors told me to avoid all mention of Israel, that you were a different type of Jewish leader. And the first thing you ask me is my position on Israel! I don’t understand.”

The Rebbe replied, “In the family, we argue among ourselves. To the outside world we are one.”

Would that Satmar of today, as well as the Jewish Left of today, as well as the American Jewish community and their communal organizations of today remember the critical place that Israel occupies for all of us, religious and secular, affiliated or not, and furthermore understand the vital need for Ahavat Yisrael, our mutual love for each other. If we only focus on this, imagine how much Jewish blood might not be tragically shed.

There are so many attempts to define what it means to be a Jew. Is it genetic? Consensual? Opting-in? Participatory-Only? Are you a Jew because you eat bagels and cream cheese, or, as we’re in the midst of Shavuot thoughts, cheesecake? Do you experience being a Jew by studying Torah? By acting “ethically” (whatever that might mean)? Does not driving a car on Saturday qualify? Do you need to wear the uniform of a black suit and an oversize hat? Is daily prayer non-negotiable? Can watching tv or going to movies disbar you? What about on Saturday? Are we a people, a race, a religion, a country?

These are all old questions, addressed, answered and re-answered countless times.

As Shavuot approaches this year, my working definition is that to be is Jew is to be married to God (not in the same sense, of course as Catholic nuns and priests who renounce marriage with other humans, but rather, in the sense that applies to our people it’s a matter of “as above, so below”–our “Olam HaZeh” (this world) lives mirroring the reality of the higher realms). Of course, there is the Aggadata that God held the mountain, Har Sinai, over our heads, as a Chuppah when giving us the Torah (actually the pshat (simple meaning) of the story is a little less romantic–He gave us the choice to accept the Torah, in which case the mountain was, indeed, a Chuppah, but if we refused we’d be buried beneath it. (This image of coercion, combined with our laws of relationships, removes, as it were, God’s option of ever divorcing us!)). And, as the second chapter of Hosea (2:21-22) has God saying to us, “And I will wed you forever……”

Of course, in our day, the concept of eternal marriage and commitment sounds to many of us as fantasy. But even in the “good old days” when divorce was the exception rather than the rule, an eternally ideal marriage was never on the menu. Since, by definition, we humans are not perfect and complete within ourselves, we  have, and always will have, needs. No matter how loving one or both of a couple are, the combined individual needs, no matter how small they might theoretically be, doesn’t allow us to be permanent givers, concerned only with our mate’s happiness and not with our own. As humans, everything will be flawed and the best we can do is to minimize those flaws.

A Jew’s marriage with The Creator, on the other hand, is of an entirely different order. God is, by definition, complete within Himself, lacking nothing. In His simple Unity as One Who creates and creates for the benefit of others, His “Agenda” is to fill each of us with precisely what we individually need, both in terms of quality and quantity. God is never “in competition” with us over any supposedly “rare” resource since, to God, the Creator and Source of All, not only has no needs nor desires for any”things”, but how could any conceivable resource possibly be “rare” to Him?

Since, in His Wisdom, He understands that a necessary component for human satisfaction is a sense of independence, He provides a modality for us to earn our satisfaction rather than giving it to us without any effort on our part, accompanied by the unavoidable shame of feeling undeserving. This “modality” the Torah, both guides us, step-by-step, to earning fulfillment, and is, itself, that fulfillment.

The Ketubah (the marriage contract), with which The Almighty betroths each of us as individual elements of His beloved, in other words, the Torah, is an ingenious “interface” in which He embeds those aspects of Himself that he gives us the potential to experience, bond (devekut) and interact with, the 613 mitzvot (as well as the historical and moral tales of our ancestors). Moreover, he creates each of us with an analogous structure that allows us, by following these mitzvot-directions, to fully engage with the 613-faceted interface to Him that He provided.

Imagine an earthly marriage where not only can good intentions be assumed, but where an opportunity to express our love and to deepen our connection with our lover is provided every single instant! Here is that marriage where our Lover never puts Himself before our needs, where counsel and encouragement and explicit instructions are lovingly offered every moment. (By the way, this is a different approach to the multitude of halachot–rather than being intrusive and controlling, they keep an always-open door for us.)

Just as with a material marriage, there is both much to prepare in advance, and also much to review and revisit after experiencing such an intensely transforming moment. In addition to the fellowship, the happiness and, yes, the cheesecake, may we all experience, and continue to experience the primal transformation that is Shavuot.

One of the great tragedies of the modern Jewish State is that the Zionist movement, which birthed it, was (and still largely is) dominated almost exclusively, both mainstream and Revisionist, by committed secularists, most of whom were ignorant of, if not antagonistic towards, having previously rejected it, our shared rabbinic/spiritual tradition. Additionally, the choice by most of Europe’s rabbinic leaders to not participate compounded the resulting crises. Many of these crises, due to the narrow, to put it charitably, interests of today’s charedi leadership, persist to this day, including the glaring near absence of any Jewish deep-values or traditional wisdom in the public forum.

Perhaps the most familiar discussion in Talmud, one a first-year student learns well, begins the tractate Baba Metzia. Known as Shnayim Ochazim b’Talit “Two people claiming a Talit“, it teaches that if one person lays claim to an entire piece of property and the second, by only claiming the half he currently holds, thus effectively granting the crook possession of the half he just usurped, the first person, the crook, is rewarded that half which he “claimed”. The ‘disputed’ remainder is then divided between the two claimants. In other words, by relinquishing one’s claim to half of what’s really yours, you end up with just a quarter of it.

This tragic precedent was set in response to Churchill’s White Paper of 1922, stripping away more than three-quarters of the original British Mandate for the Establishment of a Jewish Homeland in Palestine, in order to create a brand-new and completely judenrein country, TransJordan. Although Zionist leaders both in Europe and the Old Yishuv (pre-independence Palestine (when the term “Palestinian” referred only to Jews)) were far from happy with this development, all accounts report they accepted it without effective and coordinated protest.

In terms of our Talmudic model, when they acquiesced to Arab sovereignty of what should have been our land, at least passively acknowledging the Arab claim to that more-than-half they stole, we opened the door for their next assault and so forth. As they repeated their claim for all of the former mandate as Arab land, judenrein (free of all Jews) for eternity, and we granted them half of it (all that land east of the Jordan River) the best we could hope for was about one-half of the land west of the Jordan, pretty much what happened at the armistice of 1949 when Yehuda and Shomron, renamed the West Bank, was taken from us.

Even after recovering much of that land in 1967, but, especially, by refraining to annex and apply sovereignty to it, we’ve only encouraged the Arab sense of ownership and the international perception that their criminal claim was, instead, legitimate.

Any Yeshiva Bochur could instantly tell us that if we now cede the lands of Yehuda and Shomron to the “Palestinian Authority”, we will then be left with only approximately one-half of what’s left “inside the ‘Green Line'”. And, as there will be an immediate assumption of Arab sovereignty over that land, the following claim/land-grab will leave us holding merely one-quarter, and then one-eighth, until, as has been their plan all along, Israel would cease to exist.

Of course you can object that Halacha, specifically Jewish Civil Law, holds no sway anywhere in the world except in very few isolated communities. If you don’t find Halacha central to your life, at least enough to have ever internalized it, you probably have no idea that Halacha is not merely prescriptive, it is actually quite descriptive. With or without a  formal legal structure based on halacha, this is pretty much the way any process of constant retreat and surrender inevitably develops in the “real world”.

There’s no doubt that secular Israelis love Eretz Yisrael just as fiercely as do religious Israelis (although many secularists no longer extend their sense of identity to the eastern half of the country (Yehuda/Shomron/East Jerusalem), except, perhaps as a military/security imperative). While it’s more likely that a religious Israeli will experience and declare the Kedusha of Yehuda and Shomron as equal to that of “inside the (infamous) “Green Line”, those with even superficial knowledge and experience of Talmud will also understand that giving away any land in an effort to diffuse and appease will directly lead to Israel’s disappearance on the land of our destiny.

Which is exactly what our enemies count on.

(Just to clear, these thoughts came to me spontaneously while davening. I doubt if you’ll find any rabbinic sources–I haven’t looked because I’m not proposing the premise to be the case. I’m speaking rhetorically and, to emphasize, I do not in any way suggest, propose or believe that God is anything but One.)

The Unity of God, Whole, Single and Unique (Echad, Yachid U’M’yuchad) is not only a fundamental principle of Torah, it is, perhaps, the most revolutionary innovation of Judaism. Ethical Monotheism is often said to be Israel’s greatest contribution to civilization. We emphatically proclaim it at least twice daily and it’s often defined as “the cornerstone of our faith”.

While davening over Shabbat, the question struck me, “What if God isn’t One?” Would it make a difference in our actions? Theoretically speaking, if the 613 mitzvot are good actions, filled with virtues and beneficial for mankind, would it make a difference if they were the words of a single being or the consensus of a million? One question, perhaps, might be whether the value of the mitzvot is their source in The Creator or in their own content. Of course, from a mystical rather than a purely ethical/moral viewpoint it makes all the difference in the world since, mystically, the ultimate purpose of each mitzva is to mold ourselves as well as the larger world, to meld perfectly into the One. But vast amounts of Jews, even among that minority of us who are committed to fulfilling the mitzvot, have little awareness and no interest in our mystical insights. (Ironically, it is these very same mystical insights which reveal the many seemingly distinct facets of God, easily misunderstood and misinterpreted (often misused as well) to mistakenly deny God’s Oneness!)

If it might seem that God’s Oneness, or our belief in His Oneness, has little direct effect on our daily actions and values, does the assumption of God’s Unity teach us anything? Apologizing for the overly-rhetorical methodology, I want to propose that the purpose of our insistence on God’s Oneness, Unity and Uniqueness, along with the other qualities we know about Him such as His Perfection/Independence, His Eternality, His Absolute Simplicity, and His Necessity, is to constantly remind ourselves that no created being, including ourselves, manifests completely even one of these qualities.

In other words, when we recite the Shema, “Listen Israel, HaShem is God, HaShem is One”, we’re also declaring that we are none of those. While, of course, we each are comprised of a Neshama, that holy extension of God Himself which, of course, does manifest those special qualities, in our material, “everyday” existence we are not unique, complete, perfect, omniscient, omnipotent nor, except in our freely-made decisions and actions, not much different, certainly neither superior nor inferior, to anyone else.

Of course, to be a human, and within humanity, a Jew, is a great honor and privilege. One which comes with responsibilities, to be sure, but more important than that, also with the uniquely human capacity of Bechira, free will. But we’re not inherently, but rather only by our decisions and actions, very important in the interplay of the universe.

A recurring theme, especially in Chassidut (but based in the Talmud—Mishna Berachot 5:1 and TB 31a) is whether we should approach God (i.e. mentally prepare for Tefilla, Prayer) focusing on the humble state of mankind or the greatness of God. Only when we’re able to set aside that major obstacle, our arrogant self-opinion, by experiencing the vast gap between ourselves and the Uniqueness, Perfection, Simplicity, Omniscience, Omnipotence, etc. of God, can we begin to recognize where to aim ourselves. Similarly, when we contemplate the transcendent Perfection of The Creator, our own limitations become obvious.

The first, essential, step to forming a relationship with God is the realization that we are not Him.

And that is why we regularly proclaim God’s Oneness. So each of us will hear our own voice and be reminded, once again, who we really are.

Anything which we not merely occasionally mention, but repeat daily must be important, twice or thrice daily and it’s absolutely crucial. Pretty much buried in the discussion of the Ketoret, the twice-daily incense offering in the Temple (which we recite (or, as too frequently is the case, speed-skim or skip altogether), in the preliminary descriptions of the sacrifices and later, after the Ein Keilokeinu which follows the Amida), is a discussion (from Gemara Kritut 6a) of the ingredients, including the purposes of those non-spice elements which are, nonetheless, required.

One of these is Karshina lye, Borit Karshina, which we’re told improves/refines/ages the Tziporen (usually translated as cloves). Curiously, the Braita quoted in the Gemara mentions that mei raglayim, urine (yes, you read that correctly, urine!) would (chemically, at least) produce the same effect. However, the Gemara passsage also tells us that we not dare bring urine into the Mikdash because it would be, obviously, highly disrespectful. Yes, we twice (and those who repeat the karbanot before mincha, three times) daily remind ourselves that urine, however effective in the manufacturing process, is unfit to be used in Kedusha!

The point, of course, is that the “how” is just as important as the “what”. So vital that we’re reminded of this twice or thrice daily and in a very graphic way! When dealing with important issues, we dare not cut corners, especially when we approach the Holy. And as the Torah instructs us to make ourselves holy (Kodeshim Tiheyu ki Kodesh Ani,“Become holy because I (God) am Holy”), we mustn’t take even a single shortcut for the sake of convenience, neither in our own spiritual journey nor when mentoring another. Going further, expedience is never a Jewish value or a valid excuse.

Is Judaism merely just one of many “opiates of the people”, as Karl Marx infamously described religion? Even if we stipulate that it goes beyond merely offering succor to otherwise bleak lives, how far are we willing to go? Does it offer a unique prescription to make our lives at least slightly less bleak? Even if we stipulate that Torah presents a blueprint to eliminate all the bleakness, to bring joy, peace, brotherhood and love to our world, to create an ideal society, are we seeing Judaism in its fullness or merely a single facet?

Is it possible to fully embrace an authentic Judaism while rejecting core principles such as belief in a non-corporeal, omnipotent, omniscient, omni-present God, the other-worldliness of Torah, the possibility of prophecy, a Mashiach-based future and the ultimate Resurrection of the Dead? Does Judaism open a door for us to a non-empirical reality, Olam HaBah, which transcends our everyday physical or is that merely wishful thinking and delusion, at best just more of the same-old same-old succor? Is this world, Olam HaZeh, really all there is? Can they coexist?

Starting with at least a provisional acceptance that there is a deeper reality, you soon reach a point where the gap between these worlds becomes irreconcilable. The goal of perfecting this world for its own sake increasingly leads to our shirking our responsibility as Jews to prepare the conditions in this world to actualize the transition into the next. This exclusive focus ultimately denies the reality of the world to come, and thus our primary purpose which is to enable its attainment. On the other hand, Olam Hazeh is not unimportant. It is, after all, the only arena we have in which to work. We’re not an ascetic, pleasure-hating people, but at the same time we cannot be allow ourselves to become so attached to the pleasures of this phase-of-being that we’re unable to let it go at the proper time.

Of course, this reflects the frequent conflict between the two goals of maximizing the material present or planning for a future promised to be exponentially better. It can also be seen as a clash between the competing world views of a zero-sum (your gain is my loss) game versus a positive-sum (m’lo kol ha’aretz b’kvodo–He (continuously) fills the entire universe with His renewed and renewing energy–we can (and do, eventually) all win) game. Ultimately, it’s a test of belief. Are only those things we can experience with our physical sensory apparatus “real” or is reality infinitely richer than that with the inclusion of a spiritual realm, as yet unrealized, that The Creator reveals in His Torah?

While there may be situations where, if we’re clever and have finesse, we can act to maximize both goals, most times we must make a decision and choose only one.

Torah provides the fundamentals of a civilized ethical system, the seven Noahide Mitzvot. Assuming we follow them, for the most part we’re then trusted to fully develop the potentials of This World. Most of us are equipped, to one degree or another, with a complete physical/neural/cognitive package (our sensory organs), to experience the visible world, as well as the “software” (our brain) to process these observations. We can, and must, independently develop science, medicine, technology and also the social structures such as a market economy and a justice system, that make our bodily lives not merely survivable, but pleasant and which are necessary for people to live together cooperatively and in peace. At the very least, we create a positive feedback reward/punishment system to encourage our moral and ethical behavior. Surprisingly, we can do all of this without the Torah (beyond these seven mitzvot) at all, even though it often feels hopeless to build an equitable world on our own. However, can we honestly declare ourselves completely Torah-based if we venture no farther than Olam Hazeh? What can possibly be the purpose of the other 606 mitzvot?

Granted, we only have Olam Hazeh in which to live and work–it is also all we can perceive. But even if we accept the future possibility of Olam HaHabah, do we assume (or require) that there is a continuous transformation from this world to it? In other words, is Olam HaBah merely a fully developed version of Olam HaZeh or is it something entirely different? Perhaps when we reach a certain stage while working in this world (and not necessarily the maximized one!) we are taken on an entirely new path, totally different and disconnected from Olam Hazeh (except for this single point of transition), and enter a completely new reality.  In other words, it might well be that applying our ideas and values of what is ideal for this world, and trying to physically transform it into that ideal, we might never see and, therefore, entirely miss that new path. Instead of branching off at this perhaps otherwise unremarkable point that can lead us to actualizing Olam HaBah, preoccupied with our false preconceptions of “perfection”, we completely miss it! This is the  classic fallacy of “missing the forest for the trees”, but this time with catastrophic results.

In our contemporary world where a large segment of Jews see little value in mitzvot and Torah, but rather join the currently popular bandwagon-definition of “Tikkun Olam” and proclaim this, largely unrelated to actual mitzvot (except by painful stretches of logic), to truly be “Jewish Values”, there appears to be just a tiny minority of us who take the opposite view. Most “humanistic” dreams of Olam HaBah are limited to the material world because that is all they acknowledge. Greater prosperity and more “equitable” distribution of material, consumer goods, become the end, rather than a provisional, goal. While these values will likely make things much more pleasant in Olam HaZeh (and perhaps we do need a relatively stable and peaceful Olam HaZeh in order to focus on our more holy work) we don’t want to become too comfortable lest we become so invested in the empirical that we forget that there are other, much more transcendent realities open to us. In many ways, this is a restatement of the Chanukah conflict–the clash between a culture which rejoices in a complex world which contains both the material and the spiritual, and a culture which admits only the empirical.

Merely acknowledging this balance, however, is insufficient. Gloating over recognizing that there is a spiritual dimension of no positive value. The real challenge is to navigate the tension between these poles. It’s inevitable that conflicts will arise when faced with real decisions of how to behave. If we brutally ignore the value of the material world, just as much as if we brutal deny the very existence and priority of Olam HaBah, either way we’re on a path to disaster. Is there a real-world opportunity to explore tipping the balance towards the future?

The starkest illustration of this distance between the short-term (assuming that Olam HaZeh is all that exists) and the long-term (faith that another reality, Olam HaBah, awaits us) is Bayit Shlishi, the Third Temple. (There are other, perhaps less drastic, primary steps we can take in the meanwhile such as migrating from our current, Galut (diaspora)-centric, largely defensive, halachic practice to a Geula (Redemption)-centric, largely transformative one. While this also guarantees substantial resistance, it would be on a “local” inter-Jewish scale.)  Quite obviously, neither can we build nor can a Third Temple descend from Heaven (a mystical vision of how it might come into existence, but one that nevertheless requires a physical structure on a physical geography) while that specific real estate is occupied by another buildings. Likewise, no one can deny that the mosques currently standing on Har HaBayit, The Temple Mount, are very important to Muslims. Nor can one deny the centrality of an actual, real-time Bet HaMikdash, within the parameters of our tradition, to enable the transformation of this world to its highest possible state.

I have no doubt that any Jewish attempt to clear the site for the Temple, “a House of Prayer for All Nations“, would be met with world outcry, opposition and, most likely, explosive violence. I also have no doubt, and our entire tradition leaves no room for that doubt, that if the Temple were, indeed, in place and functioning as intended, the entire nature of the world would be transformed to the benefit of all of Creation–in other words we would have transitioned (or would transition soon) to this new reality, Olam HaBah.

One’s willingness to even consider this requires a literal “leap of faith”. Is our tradition really true, that beyond our visible, predictable, Olam HaZeh world there is a higher reality where all that has up to now been created truly exists at its highest potential, waiting for us to usher it in?

While there are no direct empirical techniques, no Olam HaZeh tools, we can utilize to test beforehand if Olam HaBah is real or just an insubstantial dream, perhaps there is a “baby step” to test the water. Unfortunately, this would also provoke international outrage and probably violence as well–but enabling Tefilla and Torah-study to resume after two millennia, on Har HaBayit could function as an effective “lab experiment”.

I, for one, am not satisfied with mere survival, although that itself will be a great thing. The return of the Jewish People to Eretz Yisrael, wonderful as that is, must be more significant that mere refuge. Perhaps it’s time to tip the balance to the ultimate future.