Rabbi Zeitlin

It’s not hard to find wonderful sermons and drashim (Torah Lessons) emphasizing the urgent need to repair our relationships with others and with The Creator in preparation for the Yomim Noraim (Days of Awe, Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur).  The high visibility of these topics in no way diminishes their importance.

We also have to examine our relationship with ourselves.  I don’t mean here “are we taking care of our happiness, self-esteem and health, both emotional and physical?” since I assume that we’re already aware, often too aware, of these needs.  Rather, I want to focus our examination to our spiritual lives, specifically how we employ our special technology, halacha (religious rules, laws, obligations and prohibitions) for its intended purpose: bringing us closer, step by step, to our ultimate goal of approaching and uniting with The Creator.

No, this isn’t a plea to add new mitzvot to our current practice (even though none of us do all we can).  It’s also not advice on how we can perform mitzvot in order to feel better about ourselves, although that might actually be a partial meter of how well we’re doing (more on that in a later article).

Rather, while we’re taking our “regular” cheshbon nefesh (literally, accounting of the soul), let’s examine each of the mitzvot, both positive/mandate and negative/prohibition, that we’re currently aware of at least attempting, to ask if the way we’re performing them, including our kavvana (intention), style (the strictest way or most lenient or balanced), effort and more,  is bringing closer or farther from God.  That’s really the point of it all.

As I’ll discuss in detail in upcoming articles, this is an impossible measurement to make with precision.  Nonetheless, just asking the question, ideally with a friend and/or mentor but even on our own, as we examine our current practice, mitzva by mitzva,  is a first step many of us have yet to take.  Hopefully it will give us a systematic tool to help us take this journey farther rather than merely walk in circles.

Ketiva v’Chatima Tova

Elul, the month before Rosh HaShana, arrives and everyone talks of Tshuva, the concept of being able to fix things, to hit the “reset” button, to make a clean start on the upcoming New Year.  But when we get down to tachlis, we generally hear yet another year’s repetition of the “same old same old”.  At the very best, we might be able to get ourselves back to where we were a year ago, but the opportunity to build momentum for more than a “new start”,  for a major breakthrough, will likely elude us one more year.

Unless we take matters into our own hands and demand more of our rabbis, more of our teachers, more of our loved ones and, most of all, more of ourselves!

It’s not enough to trot out the old workhorse אלול = אני לדודי ודודי לי, Elul=Ani L’Dodi V’Dodi Li, showing that the spelling (in Hebrew) of the month, Elul, in an acronym for “I am for my beloved and my beloved is mine” (Shir HaShirim, Song of Songs, 6:3).  Rather, we need to discuss and contemplate the experience of passionate love and how to apply that experience to The Creator and, through Him, to the entirety of Creation.  Merely saying that I love God and God loves me, even repeating it endlessly, at best gets us up on the porch but leaves the front door still closed to us.

All the discussion about how the tshuva process is limited to our relationship with God, but that we must personally make amends for our sins against other people is merely a platitude unless we include serious discussion of how to mend the damage we’ve caused in our relations with them.  Just making a list of those we want to approach is a beginning.  How do we make an opening with someone who is still so angry, still in such acute pain from our previous actions, that they’re not even willing to hear  “I’m sorry” from our mouths.  Likewise, we need to be reminded that not only must we honestly apologize, we also need to honestly accept apologies and learn to let go.  Doing so is much more than saying it and vastly more than merely thinking or wishing it.

We need to force ourselves to lay aside all of our wonderful insights gathered over the past year and to look far beyond them.  It’s not enough to merely be open to new insights as they might arise, but we need to actively pursue them.  We need to build on yesterday’s wisdom without being limited by it.  We need to play with our egos in such a way that we do acknowledge our achievements so far but realize that we’re still beginners with a vast distance to cover.

The prayers and meditations in the Machzor, the High Holiday prayer book, are subtle, finely crafted and, at times, seemingly endless.  It does us very little good to open our machzorim for the first time on the evening of Rosh HaShana.  Much more than the usual, tired, refresher course on the various restrictions and obligations of the holidays, perhaps we need to decide exactly which prayers, out of the multitude, we’ll focus on this year.  Even the simple exercise of marking every other, or every third or fourth paragraph with the intention to concentrate on the when we actually enter the holiday, gives us a manageable assignment–I surely lack the strength and ability to give each prayer its just kavvana (intention).  It’s even better if we can really look over some of the prayers, and even better than that if we can do it with a group of people all attempting to enliven this year’s upcoming opportunities.  If we have a rabbi or teacher who can add to our repertoire of associations and insights and ask us relevant and searching questions all that much the better, but the last thing we want is a rabbi or a book which tells us what we’re “supposed” to think and feel.  We’re about to enter a poem, where everything we say and do represents deeper thoughts and feelings which, themselves, represent even deeper thoughts and feeling, and these are necessarily unique for each of us.  We need the courage to discover our own truth and not to mimic another’s–if two people pray and perform mitzvot in exactly the same way as each other, at least one of them is doing something wrong!

Like most things in life, you get out what you put in.  Soullessly “going through the motions” will gain us very little (although, of course, it might be better than nothing at all).  Just verbalizing our hopes and expectations is a good first step:

“I don’t want to be the same person coming out of Yom Kippur as I was coming into Rosh HaShana!”

These thoughts are inspired by a courageous article by Rabbi Aryeh Ben David of Ayeka as well as by the weekly Parsha, Sh’lach we read several weeks ago.  I strongly recommend reading this excellent article before continuing with my offering.

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There is so much to say……

One important message we learn from the incident of the spies is the price we pay for meek and fearful leadership.  The men  charged to scout the land are explicitly labeled רָאשֵׁי בְנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל, Roshei B’nei Yisrael, heads of the Jewish people.   Achieving their positions of leadership during the period Israel was enslaved in Egypt, they radically underestimate the capabilities of the Jewish people.  They assume our inadequacy and, by focusing on their perception of our inability to operate at any more than a minimal level, cause us to lose our self-confidence, our faith in God, our faith in ourselves.  (Although I really don’t want to tackle politics, does this sound familiar to our current situation in Israel?) Only two of these men, Yehoshua and Calev, exhibit the bravery and boldness to lead and to inspire us to the greatness which is within our grasp.

With too few exceptions, much of today’s traditional rabbinic leadership runs on fear, insecurity and cowardice or else out of political megalomania and greed and we both need and deserve much more.  Yes, there are some real leaders out there, rabbis who both challenge and inspire.  But as the recent Chief Rabbi election demonstrates, all too painfully, there is a strong self-propagation/preservation momentum embedded in those with power, regardless of how their policies effect those they are supposed to serve, and all too often the courageous rabbis are banished to various fringes.

Democracy, which I do believe is the best system of governance yet evolved, presents special challenges.  A disturbing trend, recently popularized in American politics, is “leading from behind” which really means extensive polling and then trying to deliver whatever is popular, i.e. whatever will keep current leaders in power.  But another, perhaps much more accurate description, contains the words “pandering”, “cynicism” and “cowardice”.  Too many rabbis today view their job largely as marketing, attempting to attract Shabbat attendance (not to mention enthusiastic financial support) by tailoring “Judaism” to what they think will be popular.  Often (mostly in non-traditional settings) that takes the form of editing out “offensive” passages in our liturgy and Torah, based on what is deemed “correct” or “palatable”–and usually this is done by people who seem unaware of any but the most superficial, literal facet of their/our tradition (in other words, by people who whatever their other qualifications might be, lack a central qualification of the rabbinate, deep knowledge of Torah!).  On the other end of the spectrum, this pandering consists of adding baseless chumrot, stringencies, flattering their followers with the illusion of piety, at the same time demonstrating their own ignorance of basic Torah principles such as דְּרָכֶיהָ דַרְכֵי נֹעַם, Darcheha Darchei Noam, Her paths are routes of/to pleasantness (liturgy for returning the Sefer Torah to the Ark), and וּבָחַרְתָּ בַּחַיִּים, U’bacharta B’Chayim, and choose life (Devorim 30:19).

We’re taught from a number of sources that each generation produces “Thirty-six hidden Tzaddikim (saintly individuals).  Unfortunately, not every generation merits even one of these Tzaddikim becoming visible and public.  I fear that our generation has become one of those bereft of true leadership.  On the other hand, we’re also taught in the well-known tractate, Avot (2:5), ובִמְקוֹם שֶׁאֵין אֲנָשִׁים,  הִשְׁתַּדֵּל לִהְיוֹת אִישׁ, Ub’makom Sh’Eyn Anashim, Hishtadel L’h’yot Ish, And in a place where there are no men (grown-ups?), strive to become a man.  We need to search out our potential leaders, remembering that they’re likely far from public view, and then encourage/nurture them to “come out”, to teach us how to fulfill the deep truths of the Torah in our day (and not how it was done in totally different circumstances!).  Of course, we can see our present lack of real leadership as God’s mandate to each of us to develop the “leader” within each of us, but the sad fact is that given the analogous hiddenness  of Torah wisdom in our generation, we’re severely limited to just how much any of us can develop.

As Rabbi Ben David wrote, “the time has come for more”.  We need more.

When I first began maintaining the Tisha B’Av‘s restrictions, including the fast, for only a half-day, I caught a lot of flak.  When I “outed” myself as only keeping the half-day, the flak greatly increased (“How can you, a rabbi, lead Bnei Yisrael to such a grave sin?!?!?!”).  Now that I’ve refined my ideas, only reinforcing my decision to both personally observe and also teach others about holding the half-day, I almost expect an avalanche.  There are, of course, occasional compensations for being so obscure….

The original insight that brought me to question the full-day fast, eventually to reject it, was that by maintaining such a severe process (not to mention the additional complications of contemporary frumkeit, which yearly adds burdens on top of burdens), we were willfully refusing to see, acknowledge, give thanks and properly respond to the miraculous chesed, Divine Love, that God rained upon us by bringing the modern State of Israel into being and then, as if we actually earned even this first miracle, allowing us to reclaim Jerusalem, including Har HaBayit, the Temple Mount, in 1967.

Our tradition is based on concepts such as Bina, analysis, the capacity for which we thrice-daily pray.  After every Shabbat and Chag, holiday, we bless and give thanks for our ability to discriminate between obvious differences (the Havdalah service).  And we begin each day’s cycle of mitzva obligations when we are able to distinguish between  the blue and white threads on our tzitzit (ritual fringes).

It’s not such a feat of analysis to recognize that even though slightly more than half the world’s Jews (myself, sadly, included) choose to not live in Israel and that Israel and Jerusalem aren’t fully restored, our current reality is nothing like Jewish reality for the previous almost two millennia.  It is, however, a feat of monumental ignorance and arrogance to refuse to acknowledge these miracles, childishly holding out for an all-or-nothing “total” redemption before responding to reality and evolving our religious observances accordingly.

Like an increasing number of Jews, I was shocked to read recent polls of the indifference, not to mention antagonism, many Israelis (with one significant demographic exception, the “National/Zionist Religious”, but don’t get me started on denominationalism…) feel towards Har HaBayit, the Temple Mount itself.  Perhaps the greatest failing of Israel’s leadership in 1967 was not the returning of absolute control to the Waqf, the bitterly anti-semitic Moslem authority, based in the previous Jordanian usurpation by force of this site in 1948, but, rather, the complicity of the Israel’s religious establishment in this surrender.

Yes, there is no argument that without the mechanism of the פרה אדומה, Parah Aduma, red heifer, which, in ways beyond human understanding, has the ability to fully purify Jews (I’m sure all are relieved that I’m not digressing to here discuss the concepts of טהרה/תאומה, Tahara/Te’Uma (ritual purity/impurity)), Jews are religiously forbidden from full access to all areas on the Mount. But the restricted areas have long been well-known, leaving the rest of that expanse open to our presence and, certainly, to our prayers. Many of our talmudic sages are known to have visited this holy place, so no, this is not some kind of modern, anti-orthodox /rebellious “innovation”(remember, I, myself, am orthodox).  In contemporary times, Rabbi Shlomo Goren, zt”l, the late former Chief Rabbi of Israel, carefully mapped the Temple Mount expanse, clearly indicating where, halachically, we can go.

Political sovereignty and possession of Har Habayit, indeed of the entire Land of Israel, is not a colonialist privilege, but, rather, a very serious responsibility, filled with obligations.  It always has been, when we’ve been able to fulfill it or not.  Our miraculous recapture of this real estate wasn’t and isn’t for the purpose of our building a theme park, a tourist site or a shopping mall on its holy grounds, but, rather, to administer it as a holy place, the past and future home of a “House for all Nations”, not a sectarian shrine relevant to and accessible to only a single religion as is now the case (The Kotel, Western Wall, where we have, perhaps unwisely, transferred our devotion, is, with admitted glitches, still open to people of all faiths, both to tour and to pray).  Thus we evade our responsibilities and ignore our blessings.

And yet, on the ninth day of the Jewish month of Av, every year since 1948, since 1967, we fast and mourn and beseech God to return us to the Land of Israel and to Jerusalem its capital and to rebuild the Temple, all as if nothing has changed in the almost two thousand years of our exile.  That we have, over the last several generations, not only witnessed, but experienced the חן, Chen, Divine Generosity that has enabled Jews to even visit the land, let alone live in it, that has, after almost two thousand years, restored Jerusalem to the Jewish People.  No, the job is far from finished and yes, there is much yet that needs doing.

And, perhaps, this is the point after all.  Maybe God has, in the last sixty-five years, completed His part of the miracle.  He now presents us with the loving opportunity to do our part, to partner with Him to bring things to completion.  With God’s help and support, of course, we must make the brave decisions, undertake the efforts, do the work.

Yes, we’re not yet at the final goal, so we fast and mourn and read Lamentations, while sitting on the floor, beseeching God’s help.  But then, at midday, perhaps it’s time to stand up and get ourselves to work.

A microcosm of the greater world, the Jewish people are polarized, shattered, filled with acrimony and anger.  Israel literally surrounded by enemies who seek its annihilation, we stubbornly insist on retaining our championship as our own worst enemies, while the situation in most diaspora communities is just as terrible.  Every year about this time we hear and say and read and write all the proper clichés about Sinat Chinam, baseless hatred, as the cause and something called Ahavat Chinam, baseless love, the cure.

This is all very good, but it masks any realistic path for progress behind yet another feel-good slogan.  If it were as easy a singing a few choruses of “The More We Get Together” and “Kumbaya” together, the world would have long ago settled into a thriving harmony, our Temple, “a House of God for all nations” would be pouring ever-stronger love and beauty, vitality itself, into our world and no one would be fasting tonight and tomorrow.

Before getting to details, I want to emphasize that while I’m talking about making peace within the Jewish world, that is only a beginning.  Nonetheless, we have to start somewhere and it’s always more effective to begin at the center, create a strong foundation and move outward from there.  Really, each of us needs to begin with ourselves, refining ourselves and reconciling the seeming opposites within our own nature.  Then we work outward to include our family and close friends, our community, our nation, our people, all of humanity and all of creation.  And no, we don’t expect perfection at each intermediary stage before progressing to work on the next–many of our efforts need to be repeated over a lifetime and beyond, but we do need to always consolidate our gains and growth within each circle before moving to improve the next outward ones.  And we need to look and move both forwards and backwards, inwards and outwards, simultaneously, somehow avoiding complaisance while not foolishly (and often narcissistically, thinking we’re already greater than we really are) over-extending ourselves into a crash-and-burn disaster.  We need to make peace at home before we have the slightest chance to achieve peace in any larger realm, no matter how frustrating and humbling that little fact is.

So, within our first circle, we need to seek out the person we most disagree with, who angers us more than any other, whom we genuinely hate.  We need to approach that person, not with the goal of vanquishing them, convincing them, defeating them, straightening them out, making them see the light or any of the other phrases we use to mask our own aggression and egos.  No, we need to seek them out in order to find the shared core between them and ourselves, even if it’s so tiny and buried that all that remains is the basic fact that we’re both Jews (and, when we have developed the skill to work in larger circles, that we are both human, that we are both fellow creatures in this complex environment known as Earth, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves!).  And we need to expect that we might be repelled, with anger and resentment, and quite possibly more than once.  Nonetheless, unpleasant and unrewarding as it is so far, we still need to persist.

Once we succeed in creating an opportunity to actually talk, we need to leave our personal agenda, beyond rebuilding the bridge, at home.  We’re not interested in changing their opinions, convincing them of anything except our genuine, and it must be genuine within us, desire to end the feud.  It’s not easy, but it is necessary to say the simple, yet difficult words, “I apologize for everything I’ve ever said and done to hurt or insult you,” and we especially need to leave out the word, “but….”.  And no, this isn’t easy and it can be painful.  Even if we’re convinced our position is/was “right”, that’s irrelevant right now when our goal is to merely create a relationship where dialogue will be possible in the future.  Eating crow, as the cliché goes, can be excrutiating.

I’m not bragging or trying to present myself as some sort of tzaddik, righteous person, because I’m not.  But I have followed this procedure more than once and I can say that it can work.  Once in a while, if we’re lucky, our former rival really can turn into a close, beloved friend.  Once in a while, again if we’re lucky and persistent, the best we can do is disarm the rivalry and create a neutral indifference (“you go your way, I’ll go mine, but in peace”).  At the very least, we can put out into the universe our efforts and will and kavana, inner spiritual intention, to make things better and that is also a powerful, even if not particularly satisfying, contribution.

We probably won’t inspire a mass sing-a-long, but step-by-step, the only way we really can function, we can improve the world and that’s really what it’s all about.  And if enough of us do it often enough, perhaps this will be the final Tisha B’Av (ninth day of the Hebrew month Av, the universal day of Jewish mourning over the destruction of our holy Temples, our exiles and all the other disasters we’ve endured) we’ll be required to fast and mourn, having finished our authentic tikkun olam, repair.

I’ve never understood the body-building culture, unbalanced over-exercising only certain muscles (and often abusing steroids and other dangerous drugs) in order to achieve a look that most people would describe as freakish and muscle-bound.  It’s not just an aesthetic or cultural issue, since there is also a very high premature death rate associated with this distortion of the normally-healthy activity of exercise.  Utilizing the same tools, in this case weights, one can either apply them towards enhancing life or tempting death.

Although it might sound an exaggeration at first thought, applying his model to religious expression, in other words mitzva (commandment) performance, reveals disturbing parallels.  There are generally-accepted, long-standing ways of fulfilling our obligations and there are extreme approaches which, like body-sculpting weight-training, seem more directed at enhancing a “macho” self-image of SuperJew than it does with complying with God’s stated goals for us.  The result, I can’t avoid saying, are freakish, a distorted self-definition of “piety”, mostly driven by a combination of narcissism (literally seeking that good-old “holier than thou” feeling), ignorance (of both the purpose of halacha and what is the actual halacha and not the חומרה, chumrah, excessive severity (actually based on the work חמר, chomer, which, ironically is opposed to נבדל, nivdal, transcendent/spiritual, means worldly/non-spiritual)), and fear (perhaps the most common motivation for blind allegiance whether in religion or other aspects of life). Not only is it counterproductive for the practitioner, but repulses that majority of our people who are not thoroughly “observant”, actively discouraging them from even beginning to participate in the spiritual culture we share together.

What, you may say, of the vast literature and tradition that generates and advocates stricter interpretations of halacha?  What (a question I find in this context hilariously ironic) about religious pluralism?  Obviously, this principle is usually invoked to accept less observant styles of Judaism, but is it just as applicable to those who pile chumrah on chumrah, promoting ever stricter and more extreme interpretations of halacha?  Should that also be endorsed, let alone promoted, just for the sake of an external concept such as egalitarianism?  (Remember, if you’re open, by principle, to the extremist left, you must also be equally open to the extremist right!)

I’m not going to offer my own preferred mode as having, somehow, greater validity than others.  As it evolves it does increasingly works for me, but we each have uniquely configured neshamot/souls.

However, I’m as sure of this as I am of anything in this world:  The Divine Will, ‘רצון ה, Ratzon HaShem, does NOT desire, let alone mandate, our neuroses and compulsive behavior.  Although it doesn’t always appear this way in every expression and manifestation, Torah is a path of mental health.

Although much of Oral Torah dwells on exploring the extreme cases of mitzvot, I don’t think that it thus recommends, let alone mandates, these extreme interpretations. Rather, as part of the healthy training Torah study provides for our minds and hearts, these are the interesting and challenging areas to explore, the “advanced calculus”, as it were.  Although we live our lives in the realm of Newtonian physics, most of that model has long been filled in so that truly exciting physics study and exploration now resides in the realms of quantum mechanics and astro-physics, neither of which really impinge our daily perceptions or decisions.  That’s where, in physics, we need to visit in order to challenge our minds, just as in Torah we expand our abilities by analyzing the extremes. But this is not necessarily the neighborhood where we should live our day-to-day lives. I’m not sure I can definitely say it, but I strongly suspect that at least until a certain time period, all of our Talmudic and Halachic masters understood this as the Jewish people, immersed in our tradition, already knew and lived the common-sense, moderate, definitely-observant but healthy, elements of our religion such as kashrut, tefilla, Shabbat, Holidays and other commonly practiced mitzvot.

We need to remember that God wants our love, not our misery, our humility and not our showing-off.

I’ve always wondered about the catalog of sins, some I’ve committed, some I’m pretty sure I haven’t, that I recite on Yom Kippur as well as the smaller version                      ….אָשַׁמְנוּ, בָּגַדְנוּ , גָּזַלְנוּ, which precedes תחנון, Tachanun (a portion of the daily prayer service immediately following the Amida) the rest of the year.

We usually explain this on the basis of כל ישראל ערבים זה לזה, Kol Yisrael Aravim Zeh l’Zeh, All Jews are responsible for each other.  We make these formal ודוים, Viduim, confessions, as a people and not as individuals, and since some of us have transgressed in ways that others haven’t, we collectively mention them all.

I have an additional thought to offer.  We are aware of only a tiny bandwidth of reality.  We are able to see our actions and their effects on the world in just a very few dimensions.  Nonetheless, we truly exist and effect reality in many planes.  While one of our actions might cause “visible” damage in say, the אָשַׁמְנוּ, Ashamnu “channel”, it simultaneously plays out in those dimensions now hidden from us along the parameters of בָּגַדְנוּ , גָּזַלְנוּ, Bagadnu, Gazalnu and so forth.

It’s important to take care of how our actions affect our world, but it’s arrogant as well as ultimately ignorant to think that what we can perceive is all there really is.  And we have no way of directly knowing the overall good or damage we do throughout the infinite universes.  Some things we need to take on faith.

(There is an irony/synchronicity of the previous article posting just before the Shabbat we read Parshat Balak, as well as the Mussar Workshop itself occurring that day.)

Not only are this Torah portions’s first words (BaMidbar 22:2), וַיַּרְא בָּלָק, VaYa’r Balak, And Balak saw….  (he sees Israel), followed in the very next verse (verse 3) by וַיָּגָר מוֹאָב מִפְּנֵי הָעָם מְאֹד, VaYagar Moav Mipney Ha’Am M’Od, and Moab was greatly frightened by the Nation (Israel)….

A little later in the story,  Bilam, the blind sorcerer summoned to curse the Jewish People, and his donkey have an unearthly adventure.  A fiery angel with drawn sword blocks the road.  Suddenly,(BaMidbar 22:23) וַתֵּרֶא הָאָתוֹן אֶת־מַלְאַךְ יְהֹוָה נִצָּב בַּדֶּרֶךְ וְחַרְבּוֹ שְׁלוּפָה, And the donkey sees the Angel of God, standing in the path, sword drawn.  The donkey, in a panic, veers  from this terrifying sight, crushing Bilam’s leg.  Next (verse 31),           וַיְגַל יְהוָֹה אֶת־עֵינֵי בִלְעָם וַיַּרְא אֶת־מַלְאַךְ יְהוָֹה נִצָּב בַּדֶּרֶךְ וְחַרְבּוֹ שְׁלֻפָה בְּיָדוֹ וַיִּקֹּד וַיִּשְׁתַּחוּ לְאַפָּיו, And God revealed/opened Bilam’s eyes and he saw God’s angel blocking the way, sword drawn, and he bowed down and fell on his face….

We all intentionally limit our vision to one degree or another, refusing to see reality as it is.  We become complacent and develop for ourselves very comfortable ways of viewing the world.  The more self-indulgent our fantasies become, the more terrifying it can be to have them suddenly stripped away, leaving us to see things as they really are, to confront reality in all it’s dimensions.

Yes, reality can be terrifying after we’ve refused to recognize it.  But as we open our hearts as well as our eyes, beauty and peace can also enter our vision.  Each time Balak brings Bilam to a new vista, in the hopes that sharing his jaded view of Israel will allow Bilam to curse Israel, Bilam, increasingly sees the true reality of Israel and, instead, blesses them.  Finally, seeing the modest respect for each others privacy and integrity, symbolized by their orderly tents, he opens with וּנְאֻם הַגֶּבֶר שְׁתֻם הָעָיִן, U’n’um HaGever Sh’tum Ha’Ayin, and so speaks the man of the shut/open eye, and continues with the famous blessing (BaMidbar 24:5),  מַה־טֹּבוּ אֹהָלֶיךָ יַעֲקֹב מִשְׁכְּנֹתֶיךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל, Mah Tovu Ohalecha Ya’akov, Mishkanotecha Yisrael, How good are the tents of Ya’akov, the dwellings of Israel.

Once our eyes have been opened and reality, however frightening at first, is accepted, greater clear vision brings greater blessing.

(This is another of the series of Mussar workshops I assist with.)

וּרְאִיתֶם אֹתוֹ וּזְכַרְתֶּם אֶת־כָּל־מִצְוֹת ה’ וַעֲשִׂיתֶם אֹתָם וְלֹא תָתוּרוּ אַחֲרֵי לְבַבְכֶם וְאַחֲרֵי עֵינֵיכֶם אֲשֶׁר־אַתֶּם זֹנִים אַחֲרֵיהֶם

(במדבר  טו:לט)

And you shall look at them (tzitzit) and recall all of God’s mitzvot and do them; and don’t turn away after your heart and after your eyes after which you prostitute yourselves.  (Bamidmar 15:39)

יֵרָאֶה כָּל־זְכוּרְךָ

  (שמות כג:יז)

All of your men shall be seen….    (Shemot 23:17)

וְלֹא־יֵרָאֶה לְךָ שְׂאֹר בְּכָל־גְּבֻלְךָ

(דברים  ט”ז:ד)

And leaven shall not be seen throughout your borders. (Devarim 16:4)

(רַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן אוֹמֵר, הָרוֹאֶה אֶת הַנּוֹלָד  (אבות ב:ט

Rabbi Shimon say, the one who sees the consequence  (Avot 2:9)

(in response to the charge, “Go out and see what is the path that a man should attach himself”)

*   *   *   *   *

יראה, Yirah, awe/fear/awareness is based on the three-letter root, ראה, which means to see.  When we talk of Yirat HaShem, “fear of God”, we should remind ourselves that we consider this type of fear as positive, which is contrary to our secular understanding of the word (“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”, FDR’s first innagural address).  We’re not talking about the shock/emotional reaction to a frightening scene in a horror movie or even of threats voiced by other people.  We also don’t mean to imply that God is some sort of scary monster (a gross misunderstanding of the verse, “No man can see Me and live” (Exodus 33:20) nor that the primitive Jewish People were frightened of the thunder and lightening at Sinai.  The goal of God-fearing is not that we live in paralyzing, quivering terror.

Rather, the key is our quotation from Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) urging us to always examine the consequences of our every act and decision.  The certainty that no act goes unaccounted instills in us proper caution, respect and awe of the moral universe created and embodied by God.  It inspires us to live at the level of קְדשִׁים תִּהְיוּ כִּי קָדוֹשׁ אֲנִי, Be Holy because I am Holy (VaYikra 19:2).  Belief in God is more than accepting an anonymous first cause, a Creator who then walked away, but rather God who is always involved.

The mitzva of Tzitzit culminates in looking at the strings.  Originally, one of the eight strings at each corner was dyed a special blue to remind us both of the sky/heaven and the Heavenly Throne, pointing us in the direction of actions that create positive effects, using our spiritual eyes.  The verse continues to describe the danger inherent in following only the superficial, using only our physical eyes.  In other words, acting on the basis of there truly being consequences, i.e. with Yirat HaShem.

Our obligation to attend the Temple services during the שלש רגלים, the three pilgrimage festivals, is presented as the charge to be seen.  Interestingly, the Gemara (Chagiga), discussing just who is obligated for this mitzva, excuses the blind because they can’t see.  It’s not our mere presence in a physical location at a specified time that’s important, but that we open our eyes to what is really occurring–not merely a party complete with mixed-grill, but the presence of the Shechina, the Divine Presence.  We become God-fearing by becoming God-aware!

Proper Yirah also has to do with where we direct our attention/awareness.  We gaze at our tzitzit which leads us to the eternal presence of Heaven and of God’s involvement in our lives (the imagery of the Heavenly Throne is that by sitting on it, God descends into our world).  Just as we don’t follow our eyes into self-degradation, we don’t focus on our own narcissism, our chametz, so, at least over the Pesach holiday we take a break from living in awe of our own egos.

These mitzvot lead us to look beneath the surface and the immediate into how consequences will unfold.  They are designed to have us anticipate those good outcomes and fear the negative ones our actions bring.  They direct us to respect and live in awe of the Infinite God and not of any lesser ideal.  They train us to                                                      (כִּי אִם־עֲשׂוֹת מִשְׁפָּט וְאַהֲבַת חֶסֶד וְהַצְנֵעַ לֶכֶת עִם־אֱלֹהֶיךָ  (מיכה ו:ח, to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8).