Rabbi Zeitlin

Last Motzash (Motzei Shabbat, a time for a traditional Malave Malka–accompanying the Queen as She returns to Her heavenly realm after joining us as we weekly celebrate Shabbat. A Melava Malka usually involves music, dessert-type food, sharing Torah insights, usually in a small, intimate group, extending the special energy of Shabbat, into the week for just a bit longer), I went with a friend to hear my current favorite musicians here in Jerusalem, Nigun Quartet.

It might seem strange, inappropriate even, to enjoy a concert while we’re in the middle of a war. While, thankfully (Baruch Hashem, Bless/Thank God), Jerusalem has remained relatively safe and secure, others haven’t been so fortunate–much of the rest of the country has endured almost endless air raids, many ending in actual rocket strikes, deaths and injuries. But outside the realm of military response, the best we, ordinary Jews (stam yidden) and citizens can do is to, as massively as possible, add to the positivity of the universe, and that was exactly both the stated intention of the band, (as it’s leader and bassist, Ophir Schneider) explicitly stated when welcoming the audience to the tiny, but intimate Jerusalem venue, Mazkeka, a converted water cistern behind the former main Post Office in the downtown area, and the message of their first song, Berditchiver Melody sings, “The Entire World Is A Very Narrow Bridge–But The Secret Is To Be Completely Unafraid”.

While Israel, the nation, is forced to defend itself with the latest and most powerful military technology it can invent, create and gather, Israel, the Spiritual Nation combats ultimate evil as it always has, by bringing the greatest light. With our music, our Torah insights, our paintings and our songs, with loving smiles including yesterday’s political or social rivals at our tables and feasts, marches and memorials, we increase God’s presence which banishes all evil and eventually transforms it to Light.

In this week’s parsha, Vayechi, after giving individual brachot to each of his sons, Yaakov dies in Egytian exile. The brothers, primarily Yoseph, fulfil their final promise to their father to redeem him from exile and bury him in Israel, in the cave with our ancestors Avraham, Sara, Yitzchak, Rivka and, awaiting Yaakov, his wife, Leah (Rachel, who died earlier, is buried alone a few miles north in Bet Lechem). After this final act of unity and love, all the brothers, the entirety of  Am Yisrael, The complete Nation of Israel, voluntarily return to Egypt, to a certain future of slavery. Reinforced by their unity and devotion, by their faith if the deeper words, spoken just beneath the superficial meanings of their father’s comments and promises, they are fearless and know they will not merely survive what will be a horrific future of slavery, stripped of all power and personal dignity, save what they save from their holy tradition, perhaps just their familal names and holy language, they will eventually be ready to become a true nation, bearers of Light, the eternal Light to the nations, able to battle every evil and disasters, even through today, with the total faith and confidence that we will not merely survive, but thrive, and after the greatest horrors will rededicate (remember, the recent war included the time frame we, even in war, celebrated Chanukah) the world to the greatest light.

B’Yachad NeNetzach,

Together we will be eternal, together will our light overcome all darkness

VaYerah Aylov Hashem, And God appeared to him. VaYerah means much more than merely appearing, God filled Avraham with His Holy Light, Ohr, אור, His very Presence, what we often refer to as Shechinah. Everyone who has ever studied and taught this parsha points out that this was on the third day after his brit milah, self-circumcision, the most painful day of recovery. In fact, God made the day especially hot in order to discourage travelers so Avraham wouldn’t be disturbed by passersby. Avraham, of course, motivated primarily in his life by Chesed, love, the will to give, felt bereft–not only was he in terrible pain, but his greatest comfort was being withheld, so God also sent him some visitors so he could share hospitality.

There are those who attack Judaism from its very foundation, arguing to ban brit milah. Such were the Greeks in antiquity. Today’s enemies, too often misguided folks from within, think the purpose of life is to avoid pain. And then there are apologists who talk about newborns not yet developing the nervous system to truly register pain at all, as if making the brit a passive experience that the baby won’t even be aware of somehow makes it ok.

The fact is that it does hurt, although it’s true that for most eight-day-olds the pain is transitory. But if it were only cosmetic, giving all Jewish males a common look, conformity, although mostly hidden, it would be a waste of time rather than holding the position of the first mitzvah every Jewish boy participates in. It hurts to remind us, as we mature and grow into love and its physical manifestation of sex, that this organ, intended to give, to create new life, also has the potential to hurt and punish, and thus must always be used with care, with holy kavannah (intention/focus), with love.

Timely, as the Torah always is to contemporary life, falling just a few weeks after the outrageous massacre by Hamas and other Gazan palestinians, characterized by brutal rapes and abuse, the negative potential of the penis cannot be ignored. Must not be ignored. This reminder of how Avraham entered into the covenant with God, how he dedicated himself and his descendants to only engage in sex if it is motivated by love and the desire to give life, tells us what we need to know about what it truly means to be a Jew.

Sublimating selfish and self-directed pleasure, any temptations to dominate another, to equal cooperation to create new life should be the goal of all humanity. Modeling that is our first step as Jews to be Ohr l’goyim, a Light to the Nations. When all mankind reaches this level of awareness and of just being civilized is when we have made room for God’s Light, always waiting in the wings for the opportunity, to enter the world with overwhelming blessing to all. Such a great light as to equalize the cosmic lights of the sun and the moon, Bimhayra b’Yameynu, Soon, in our days.

Shabbat Shalom

A year or so ago I spent a couple years focusing on the Sefer Aish Kodesh by Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, The Piacezna Rebbe, rebbe of the Warsaw Ghetto. Beyond the profundity of his Torah, and it’s some of the most profound chassidut one can find, and his insistently urging us find God’s authentic voice within our own neshama, to always tease out what is Ratzon Hashem God’s Will, what The Creator is urging each of us personally to do to raise our souls to ever deeper Unity with His Essence, I, and everyone I’ve ever learned this with, is struck with the complete absence of discussions or descriptions of the horror the rebbe‘s day-to-day life was. Surviving the brutal death of his entire family, instead he wrote inspiring and eternal insights based on each weekly parsha. Just from reading his words, you’d have no idea what and his community endured.

I’m reminded of his holy teaching as our people have just now been thrust into the worst horrors since his time. I’m neither a reporter nor a journalist….. nor a fundraiser, and I will take my cue and inspiration from his holy example.

The Meor Eynayim discusses God’s promise to Avram while charging him to leave behind everything he knows and to venture, with only his trust in The Creator to protect him, into a new land, the Land of Israel, Eretz Yisrael, to where we, just seventy-five years ago, have miraculously returned after two millennia of tortured exile.

One of God’s conditional promises to Avram, then, is that He will “enlarge”, “greatly enlarge” his name. In a literal sense, God added a heh, ה, one of the three separate letters in the transcendentally holy tetragrammaton, four letter name of God,  spoken aloud only once a year in the Holy of Holies of the Temple, at the height of the Yom Kippur service, “enlarging” Avram’s name, אברם, to Avraham, אברהם.

The Chernobyler Maggid does’t leave it at that, but teaches us that we all have two names. First, the name we’re given by our parents at birth, which is the true name of our neshama, and, as such, connected directly with the root of all life-energy. It is totally and purely good.

However, since we’re all made of matter and not just spirit, we have another name that reflects that duality, a deep, but not the deepest, essence that is mixed of good and evil. Avraham, and we by extension, are invited to participate in a life of mitzvot, not merely commandments or instructions, but opportunities to join, לצווה, Kadosh with Kadosh, Holy with Holy and, step by step over a lifetime, purify ourselves and, thus our names, so that when we finish our journey, only the purely good name, imbued with God’s Holy Essence, remains.

This is why, for the Jewish People, Am Yisrael, Eretz Yisrael, The Holy Land is special, because this is our field to refine our names through our actions,  binding ourselves to the Holiness of the Land and the Holiness of each other, lifting the essence of the entire concept of Name, Identity, not only for us but for all mankind.

Departing for a moment from the example of the Holy Piacenza, I want to share the observation and experience during these last three war-weeks in Israel, that the level of unity and communal love is so far beyond anything I had ever even imagined. Somehow, even if we didn’t choose to be, we are here now involved in this process where we refine Name, Identity far beyond where it’s ever been before.

Although, still living in the material world as physical beings and, as such, working in the arena of actual warfare, may we bring this refinement and elevation through our actions and interactions to the very highest.

Shabbat Shalom

There’s a Bracha, blessing, we say on new fruits, on inaugurating a new holiday, when we buy new clothes. It’s called Shehechiyanu and the body of it goes, Shehechiyanu v’Kimanu v’Higiyanu La’Zman Hazeh, That we have lived and been sustained and have reached this moment.

There is a lot of Talmudic and Halachic discussion and disuputation on when this prayer is required, when it’s permitted. And anyone who has followed these Torah thoughts of mine, or who has studied text with me, or even had a casual conversation with me (since I’m not very good at avoiding my obsessions about Torah in present day Israel), knows I strongly feel that halacha is dynamic and, at this point in time and place, is changing faster than anyone can keep track (even if the official pronouncements by the “powers-that-be” rarely reflect this reality.)

Anyhow, for the past two weeks I have been forced to realize and appreciate just how precious each an every moment of life is. To be alive and enjoy a mundane cup of coffee, to have a meal, to awake to a new morning, I notice that I’ve been using Shehechiyanu as a mantra. I can’t but give thanks for each and ever moment, for the privilege of each sip of my favorite drink, each lesson or insight in Torah I’m granted, each conversation with a friend, every second with a loved one.

Repeat it to yourself, Baruch Ata Adonei Eloheynu Melech HaOlam, Shehechiyanu v’Kimanu v’Higiyanu La’Zman Hazeh.

Just as the world was renewed after The Flood, when Noah emerged from the ark, I must give thanks.

And then I can only reply, Amen.

Shabbat Shalom

Over the millennia it has been taught that the gematria, numerical of V’Etchanan is 515. We also learn that after pleading with God exactly  five hundred and fifteen times to complete his mission by leading he people into the land, God silences Moshe with the admonition that if he were to ask even one more time God would have no choice but to grant him his desire. Moshe then stands down and is silent.

Why, when so close to realizing his dream, to fulfilling the very reason he was created, would Moshe yield?

In previous lears I answered that Moshe realized that had he entered the land, could only have done so leading the Jewish People into our land as Melech HaMashiach, the Ulimate King, building the permanent Beit HaMikdash, never to be destroyed, Am Yisrael never to be exiled, veritably Olam HaBah, the Eternal Wolrd of Perfection. What’s not to love, to desire, to work to achieve? How on earth could he have just said, in effect, “No, thank you”?

In years past, I merely continued by saying that while perfect, this Eternity would be, somehow, a lower order of perfection and, furthermore, being eternal, would lock all humanity into a permanently defective reality, never to be improved. I would have marveled a the concept of there being orders of perfection, similar to the different orders of perfection that theoretical mathematicians mean when they talk about aleph-null, aleph-one, aleph-two and beyond. But I never really speculated about what would have made these “perfections” defective.

This year I think I have a clue fo begin speculating, hopefully a small insight which can help us really understand not so much the historical anomaly, but our task today to build towards and lead to a more perfect Perfection.

Much is made of the nature of Jewish wisdom which is based on disagreement and debate. The entire Talmudic tradition is in the form of Rabbi So-and-So says the rule is such-and-such while Rabbi says such-and-such. As the question is debated over generations as we try to determine exactly what is reality as reflected into the material world in terms of what actions maybe be mandated, others prohibited. Underlying this Talmudic technique is the plain reality that, as the Maharal from Prague long-ago stated, Since on God is perfect, everything else is necessarily imperfect. In other words, no matter how well studied or experimentally explored an idea, not individual man is capable of containing its truth in its entirely. Which means that any view of reality which hasn’t undergone the full development, so to speak, from the Written Torah through the Oral Torah, the experience of the first two Temples before the seemingly endless Exile which led to the development of this conversation-based reality, is inferior to the later stage of knowledge.

To use another metaphor, it is through the give-and-take of not-knowing requiring questioning and then receiving answers, the giving and receiving and giving and receiving which is also the essence of a fully mature relationship between the masculine and the feminine, which, itself, is the inner narrative of the Zohar and the remainder of our mystical, Kabbalistic tradition.

Had we entered the land with only the Torah received by Moshe at Sinai, without the maturation process, led only by a King, without allowing for the full development of a mature Feminine, although seemingly perfect and eternal, we would have found ourselves condemned to eternal childhood, to Mochin K’tanim, to a limited and smaller consciousness.

And Moshe, no matter how he longed to have fulfilled his individual “destiny” and ambition, embodying the ideal of humility, would never have imposed his selfishness on all future generations. So, a mere hairsbreadth from his desire, obeyed the Creator who told him to cease praying.

May we merit to continue to maturation, to first admit our own inadequacy and incompletion, to allow the other to complete us, and to in the perfect marriage envisioned in Shir HaShirim, Solomon’s immortal love poem, of fully equality and collaboration, Amen Ken Yehi Ratzon

The Meor Eynayim of the Chernobyler was the first hasidic text I was ever exposed to, having grown up in Denver, close to the Twerski community. I’ll never forget the first time the Rabbi taught from last week’s parsha, Matot. Today, maybe fifty years later, it remains the best expression of my understanding and practice of Torah and Judaism. Of course, my understanding has evolved with the years of life and experience, as well as further and deeper studies. But, at essence, its pshat, literal meaning remains my guidepost.

It’s very easy to understand the desire to continue a status quo–just imagine the tremendous effort it has already taken to reach our current status. Will any progress be worth the effort to improve things further?

Our current reality as we know it, with all of it’s shortfalls, is the result of the hard-won collaboration between radiating the energy of Creation and then containing each “particle” is just the right place in the universe to allow for stability and a day-to-day continuum we can rely on. Kabbalistically, this can be seen as Shvirat HaKelim, the bursting of vessels inadequate to contain the infinite energy of Ohr Eyn Sof, tjhe 

I often think about cycles. Are they merely spinning in place and what if something does no more than that, endlessly going around and around, can I really condemn it as worthless. Well, maybe it can define a position. Or, maybe, it can establish a sort of gravity, a sense of permanent place and a relationship to that place.

And as an object circles and circles, who am I to say that it’s merely staying place? Perhaps there’s other movement at a scale to small and subtle for me to detect. Maybe repeated circular is very different from the inside than observed from the outside. From the inside one sees an infinite array of vistas, one changing into the next and into the next. And from the outside, perhaps the exterior only appears to be unchanging because, again, our scale is so vastly different, we don’t see in time each individual appearance.

We experience weekly cycles, each marked by a Shabbat, very much like all other Shabatot, but each with its unique parsha. The monthly cycle we experience, also based on the periodic shift in the moon’s brightness and how much of it we can even see on a given night. And these months cycle into a year and each year cycles through it’s Chaggim, Holy Days. And as we cycle from one Pesach to the next to the next, do we merely repeat our actions and thoughts and insights from last year? Is there an inherent need to bring something new each year? Perhaps just the accumulated experience, year after year, is enough.?

Are the words, simply repeated, three times a day in our regular tefilla sufficient to fulfill our obligation to pray, or do we need to innovate something new each time? Can we be required to bring something new every day? Have we neglected something of critical importance if we miss a day? A week? A year? A lifetime?

On Purim and Chanukah we talk about B’Yamim HaHeym B’Zman Hazeh, “at those days in our time”, and at least every other rabbi’s sermon urges us to not just stand still, but to keep moving. Even if one were faultlessly fulfill every mitzvah every day, has one lived a good life? Is that enough? Are we in a circle or a spiral, always rising, staircase or ramp?

Cosmically, we are part of the grand drama of God’s Hiddenness and then Revelation in this world. Less obviously, but perhaps even more importantly, the Kabbala tells the story of the moons diminishment, both once and forever, and monthly as it works itself back to equality with the sun.

(See Kabbalistic Writings On The Nature Of  Masculine And Feminine by Sarah Yehudit Schneider for an in depth study of this process and concept.)

A fundamental concept, perhaps best presented by the Meor Eynayim, as I hinted in the introduction, is that The Holy One, through the phenomenon the Shevirat HaKelim, the Shattering Of The Vessels–God filled them with more light, since any light from the Infinite spectrum of energy is, by definition, infinite and, therefore, more than any vessel can possibly contain, and these shattered remnants, pure energy themselves, also called Netzutzot HaKodesh, Holy Sparks, embedded themselves in the primordial matter. Thus, in a very real way The Holy One seeded all reality, the entire universe as we know it, and beyond, into the ground of Malchut, also known as the Shechinah, the Holy Divine Presence. And our holy task as humans is to retrieve, redeem and return them to their Source, yet another action of seeding and receiving. All this is in order to activate the highest state of being of the Eternity in contemplation of the Infinite.

Do we ever complete a Holy Cycle or do we continue to grow, from one Holy Completion to another, Madrega al Madrega, climbing stepwise? Can we ever actually reach God Himself? That seems an obvious No, but if so what do we make of our traditions of Geula, Redemption, Mashiach and the like?

Perhaps it’s more like our usual experience that one generation finds a perfect equilibrium, a perfect relationship, a perfect conversation, exchange, a seeding and receiving/nurturing, giving birth to a new generation, just as imperfect and out-of-synch as were its parents, who repeat the holy dance towards liberation and equality, containing rupture, repair and realignment, in order to seed and receive/nurture a further ideal of perfection?

Would that imply that The Creator, the Holy One, the Eyn, Norhingness which precedes the Ohr, the Pure Light, which precedes the Ohr Eyn Sof, Infinite Light, is merely playing an unending, pointless game with us, or are we given the opportunity to engage with God in this Infinite Cosmic Dance of simple and familiar steps, the 613 Mitzvotrevealed and generated by the Torah, where we approach, recede, approach and recede the ultimate holiness.

Will the Holy Temple, v3.0, be everlasting? Will we, God-Willing, dance together at this universal House Of Prayer For All Nations or will this goal, which seems so close now, finally, finally, finally……… recede again for yet another year?

We’re told that the keys are in our hands. Can we set them to work in an Ever Growing, Ever Improving, Ever Loving way or will we, once again, let them bring darkness and destruction for another year?

May we have the wisdom to use them wisely.

Perhaps counterintuitively, it’s much harder to conceive of something infinitely large than it is to think of nothingness at all. Many people confuse the terms Ohr Ein Sof with Ein, the Infinite Light, light/energy without end, with complete absence, and assume that something which is infinite, by which they imagine infinitely large (which is the source of their mistake) is “infinitely” the biggest.

Kabbalah, on the other hand, places the realm of Ein above Ohr Ein Sof. Likewise, our sages have long understood that the laws of the Para Adeumah, The Red Heifer, are the deepest expression of Torah. While the instructions themselves couldn’t be clearer or more precise, the entire concept defies our understanding, perhaps more than any other concept in the entire Torah.

First of all, with death perhaps the most common occurrence in the natural world, why does a human who comes into contact with it become so spiritually diminished that this state is contagious and that it disqualifies one from even approaching the precincts of divinity? A Kohen’s, priest’s primary holy duty is simply to eat, to literally internalize, the meat from a karban, “sacrifice”. The very beginning of the Oral Torah, Torah Sh’Ba’al Peh, the first mishna of Brachot, compares (in many deep ways) the daily recital of Shema, our daily declaration of our special Jewish relationship with The Creator, at night (when the halachic day begins) with a Kohen who had become tamei, impure, has excised this spiritual flaw and requalified himself to eat this holy food? Nonetheless, it takes a week-long detailed process to re-purify himself.

More than that, why does water (the most common material of this world), into which an extremely rare cow’s (so red that it contains no hair of any other color), never even scratched or ever put into service, which had been slaughtered and then completely burned up, ashes been mixed, when splashed on someone thus impure, instantly remove this impurity? Furthermore, why does the one who sprinkles become impure (but at a much less serious level of impurity) while the one upon whom the water is sprinkled become pure? And, once a person has been sprinkled with the extremely rare water (the Para Aduma has, according to the Mishna, only been performed nine times in all of Jewish history up to now!), need to then immerse in a mikvah, a gathering of “living waters”? How does this very common ritual complete what the special water couldn’t, apparently, complete?

Halachic literature is filled with even more questions on this topic.

The Meor Eynayim explains that this set of laws attains the spiritual of Eyn, of nothingness, because Eyn Tefisah Ba, there is no grasping it, that it is L’Ma’ala Min HaTa’am, above all reason. While these laws, like all in the Torah are made up of letters, vowels, musical notes (punctuation) as well as the mysterious ornaments on certain letters written in Torah script, their inner light, their Divine Essence, transcends all material reality. Through the medium of these letters and then their sounds and linguistic meanings, all physical and material, they somehow connect us to God. And while most Torah laws, as demonstrated by the vast halachic discussions about them in the Mishna, Gemara and later commentaries (up to our own day), provide us with the illusion that we can, to some extent at least, understand them, this one, the Para Aduma defies any understanding at all. Thus, it is our paradigm of the Ein.

We hold Moshe Rabbenu, Moses, by far our greatest leader and our greatest prophet (Navi). Of him alone does God declare he is freely welcome to all His Mysteries, Ne’eman Baito (trusted with His House). God also praises him as the most humble of all men, (Bamidbar 12:3). Moreso even than Avraham who describes himself as Dust and Ashes, Afar v’Efer (Bereishit 23:17).

Only by seeing yourself as even less than nothing, less than dust and ashes, can one possibly ascend to being able to grasp, to have intimate knowledge of and with, the Ein, the holiest essence of God. And from there, to bring only brachot, Blessing, to the world.

Shabbat Shalom

Once we experience, even just a hint, that God exists at all in any situation we find ourselves in,  it’s a short step to understand that He is everywhere. From the most exalted heights we might imagine a proper abode for God, however we individually might conceive of Him, the distance from those heights to our world is infinitely larger than any distance in our created world. Once “here”, there are no boundaries preventing the All-Powerful from going everywhere. When Isaiah declares (6:3) M’lo Kol HaAretz Kvodo, He fills the entire world with His Presence, we can assume the Zohar’s understanding of that concept as meaning Eyn Atar Penui Minay, There is No Place from which He is absent.

No matter how dark and deep a place may be, how deep into despair and depression we might occasionally fall, exactly as The Creator compressed and diminished Himself (צימצום) to dwell in our world, He further reduced himself to fit into even greater depths. Thus, even at our lowest moments, we’re really not alone and it’s never bereft of light.

One of the Meor Eynayim‘s frequent themes, based on the verse in Mishlei, Proverbs (24:17), is that (even, possibly especially) a Tzaddik, a fully righteous person falls seven time, AND RISES, that no longer how often and deep one might fall, and this also includes depression and despair, one fell, or was sent to a hard and dark mental/emotional state, it is only because a remnant of fallen holiness, a Netzutz HaKodesh, which only he can rescue and re-elevate, is waiting for him. And we all, somewhere in our innermost core, the potential of a Tzaddik.

And since it is the highest, most selfless and heroic act one might ever achieve, The Holy One is already there, waiting to help him/us with our task and journey. Bnei Korach Lo Meytu, Korach’s descendants didn’t die (with him) (Bamidbar 26:11). David HaMelech, cries out to God “Mima’akim“, from the depths, Karaticha Hashem (Tehillim 130:1).

We’re never alone, and even at our worst moments, we’re not just randomly thrust into them, but with a purpose. And that purpose is to rescue fallen holiness and to restore it, and by doing so restoring the world, at least in part. We’re never placed beyond our abilities, albeit it might require our maximum efforts and courage, not to mention our deepest faith, Emunah and trust, Bituach, the ultimate help we need is always there, holding us in Divine Embrace.

And maybe we’ll find that the one we rescue with our descent into the depths is ourselves! That, indeed, is a very good thing.

Shabbat Shalom

Once we experience, even just a hint, that God exists at all in any situation we find ourselves in,  it’s a short step to understand that He is everywhere. From the most exalted heights we might imagine a proper abode for God, however we individually might conceive of Him, the distance from those heights to our world is infinitely larger than any distance in our created world. Once “here”, there are no boundaries preventing the All-Powerful from going everywhere. When Isaiah declares (6:3) M’lo Kol HaAretz Kvodo, He fills the entire world with His Presence, we can assume the Zohar’s understanding of that concept as meaning Eyn Atar Penui Minay, There is No Place from which He is absent.

No matter how dark and deep a place may be, how deep into despair and depression we might occasionally fall, exactly as The Creator compressed and diminished Himself (צימצום) to dwell in our world, He further reduced himself to fit into even greater depths. Thus, even at our lowest moments, we’re really not alone and it’s never bereft of light.

One of the Meor Eynayim‘s frequent themes, based on the verse in Mishlei, Proverbs (24:17), is that (even, possibly especially) a Tzaddik, a fully righteous person falls seven time, AND RISES, that no longer how often and deep one might fall, and this also includes depression and despair, one fell, or was sent to a hard and dark mental/emotional state, it is only because a remnant of fallen holiness, a Netzutz HaKodesh, which only he can rescue and re-elevate, is waiting for him. And we all, somewhere in our innermost core, the potential of a Tzaddik.

And since it is the highest, most selfless and heroic act one might ever achieve, The Holy One is already there, waiting to help him/us with our task and journey. Bnei Korach Lo Meytu, Korach’s descendants didn’t die (with him) (Bamidbar 26:11). David HaMelech, cries out to God “Mima’akim“, from the depths, Karaticha Hashem (Tehillim 130:1).

We’re never alone, and even at our worst moments, we’re not just randomly thrust into them, but with a purpose. And that purpose is to rescue fallen holiness and to restore it, and by doing so restoring the world, at least in part. We’re never placed beyond our abilities, albeit it might require our maximum efforts and courage, not to mention our deepest faith, Emunah and trust, Bituach, the ultimate help we need is always there, holding us in Divine Embrace.

Shabbat Shalom

Rashi famously scans the first two words (after the initial “And God said to Moses, saying”) of Parshat Shelach, Shelach Lecha, Send yourself, l’da’atcha, to your own wisdom. Traditionally, we always explain this to mean that God leaves it up to Moses’ initiative whether he wants to send the spies. If that was really the intention, though, wouldn’t Rashi have said l’ratzon’cha, to your will?

Rather, let’s explore that Moses was directed to use his wisdom and experience, the products of his inspiration (and who in our history has been even close to Moses’ inspiration?), Chochmah and his highly trained analytical skills, Binah, which regularly produce our wisest conclusions. Not offered a choice to send the scouts if he wanted to, but rather to send them with the greatest intellectual skills he could impart to them so that they will be able to honestly and accurately assess the nature of this holy land and to report back with deepest insights just how we would be able to enter, conquer and become one with this land.

Eretz Yisrael isn’t a mundane chunk of land like any other. Nor is Am Yisrael any old people and our mission to live here even goes beyond establishing an ideal society here, a model for all mankind (although that is both mandatory and important for us to do. The entire mystical narrative, uncovering deeper levels of meaning of Torah, focuses on the processes of Creation, which included almost from the very beginning, the concept of Shevirat HaKelim, the Shattering of the Vessels, the very matter of the universe exploding and scattering throughout Creation.

Rather than seen as a great tragedy, an unsolvable problem which will eternally curse mankind, we actually see it as the great gift it is, Mankind’s opporunity to directly and personally engage as we partner with The Creator to complete Creation by bringing it to it’s highest potential.

The methodology that this side of our tradition developed involves Netzutzot HaKodesh, Holy Sparks. Bits and pieces of primal reality, directly formed, as it were, by God’s own Hands, physical reality not degraded by coming into contact with any sort of spiritual impurity. Although they’re the shattered bits of a fuller perfection, and they’ve been cast into the earth, as it were, this is not by anyone’s misdeed, but part of God’s primal intention in creating only good, U’vatuvo M’Chadesh B’Kol Yom Ma’aseh Breishit.

Each of us, each of the primary 600,000 Jewish Souls, combined and recombined, comprising an entire Torah, reflecting back to The Creator His very own perfect essence, is assigned a set of these Netzutzot. Our job is to first identify them, to somehow extract them from their surroundings and, finally, to bring them to their own ideal essence where they are, by definition, united with all the other Netzutzot in perfect harmony and unity, uniting in love, just as does an ideal couple, to create the future.

Our assigned tool is Da’at, which is more than just intellect, more than just inspiration, more than just analysis. It also combines the major poles of consciousness, Ahava, Love and Yirah, structure, Love and Respect, Male and Female, enthusiasm with restraint, the extreme opposites which make up our souls and give us the ability to be, to become, fully human.

And that is our task, those of us fortunate at this time to actually live in Eretz Yisrael, and those of us who will, in the future, be drawn here to life the fullest lives we can. To set patterns, to serve as examples and inspirations to all mankind of what we are capable when we operate at our highest consciousness, our deepest and most burning love.

Shabbat Shalom