Sfat Emet on Hanukah

We say over Hanukah candles each night, “We are only allowed to look at the candles, and are forbidden from making any other use of them.”  Thus we are commanded to look at the candles.  The meaning of the commandment to look at the candles is because the candles illuminate every Jewish soul, and allow us to look deeply into ourselves in the way that every person should. 

This commandment of looking deeply is related to the statement in Ethics of the Fathers, “Look deeply into these three things and you will not come into the power of sin.”   Behind the miracle of the candles is illuminating the eyes of those whose vision has dimmed.  It says in the Gemara with reference to searching for leavened stuff the night before Passover, ‘The light of a candle is beautiful for checking.’  Proverbs 20 also says, “G’d’s candle is a person’s soul; He searches every chamber of our insides.” 

We can understand ‘checking the chamber of our insides’ as a search for the point of life from G’d that is within every soul, as it is written of the creation of Adam in Genesis 2, “G’d breathed a living soul into his nostrils, and Adam became a living creature.”  We search with a candle and feather in a person’s soul; perhaps we will find a space where this divine soul can spread out further and shine.  Such a process of spreading out the divine soul is literally like that of a candle, which seeks oil from the wick. 

In the Midrash we interpret the word ‘Seeking’ or חיפש like the word for freedom, חופש… because the divine point of life banishes concealment.  Even if a person is completely enslaved to his negative desires and can’t sense the truth, that person can with the candle’s help search within himself for the divine… 

The Gemara teaches that the mezuzah should be on the right side of the door, and the Hanukah candles on the left side.  Proverbs 3 teaches, “A full life is in G’d’s right hand, and riches and honor are in G’d’s left hand.”  The Mezuzah, which speaks of a full life coming from obedience to G’d, represents one who clings completely to the source of life, and is already connected to the world that is all light.  A Hanukah light, on the left side and connected to worldly honor and riches, is for even the one who has no connection to G’d and is saturated with darkness.  For even such a person, the Hanukah candles provide illumination… The candles on the left side help reveal the truth to such a person, and give him strength to return home.

How do we Light Chanukah Candles? Mei Shiloach on Ma'asechet Shabat

The dispute between the School of Shammai and the School of Hillel regarding the manner in which G'd's will be clarified is the same as their dispute as to how we light Chanukah candles, as the manner of lighting hints at the revelation of G'd's will.

• The School of Shammai thinks that we should start with eight candles and reduce the number each day, as we do with the number of cows sacrificed on Sukkot.    So too is clarification of G'd's will; one should reduce non-holy things so that they shrink until holiness is revealed.  
• The School of Hillel things we should start with one candle and increase each night.  This is because they believe that the essential matter is to spread holiness at all times and non-holy things will automatically be annulled.  

Drash - Parshat Vayishalach

I've led lots of text studies, but it has been a while since I've given a more formal 'drash'  or sermon.  Here's an advance copy of one I will give this coming Sabbath.  

Jacob, for some mysterious reason, decided to be alone after supervising the transportation of all of his goods across a river.  Once he is alone, Jacob has a famous struggle with a man or ‘Aish’  in Hebrew.  This ‘aish’ is generally thought to be an angel, as it states after a stalemate that Jacob has struggled with both people and divine creatures, changes Jacob’s name to Israel, and refuses to divulge his name. 

Why did Jacob decide to be alone at that moment?  I looked at the classical commentators, and found some answers that aren’t terribly compelling.  Rashi, for example, says that Jacob decided to cross the river alone because he left some small bottles behind.  Jacob was a wealthy man – surely a servant could have done that for him!  There must have been a more important reason. 

Why did Jacob wrestle with an angel?  Radak says the purpose of the struggle with the angel was to give Jacob a boost of confidence for his encounter with Esau.  A stalemate that left Jacob slightly crippled doesn’t seem like a compelling way to make someone optimistic. 

Rather than rely on the commentators, I’m going to share some of my own thoughts on these questions. 

Jacob had an awful life.  His father wasn’t so into him, his brother wanted to kill him, his wives tricked him (imagine marrying someone who conspired to get you to marry someone else!).  His sons tried to kill each other.  He wasn’t a passive victim, though.  When he summarized his life before Pharoah, he said  “Few and hard have been the years of my life, nor do they come up to the life spans of my fathers during their sojurns.”  This is probably one of the most eloquent kvetches in the history of our people.  He was also far from a passive victim – his trickery with his father, brother-in-law, and brother shows that he gave as good as he could get. 

I think that he took some time alone because he is feeling doubt.  Imagine the feelings evoked by a new, uncertain chapter in such a life journey.  Perhaps, rather than confront his estranged brother that he so feared, he was tempted to run away to some other land.  Maybe he even thought about ditching his wife and children, and going it alone.  Elsewhere he would be anonymous rather than immediately hated.  He was also probably anxious about confronting the consequences of his first trickery, deceiving his father and taking his brother’s birthright.  Perhaps he had not explained what he had done to anyone else before; imagine the shame and guilt he might have experienced.  Of course, had he gone elsewhere, our people’s history would be very different.  Perhaps we would have inherited some of those oil fields, for example!  At the same time, Jacob knew that his destiny lay in the land of Israel, down the path of continued trouble and strife.  What should he do?

In such a bind, an angel appears!  I propose that the angel gave Jacob more than just an ego boost for an upcoming confrontation.  Rather it provided him with a greater breadth of vision .  I’m going to support my argument with a couple of remarks about angels, and then conclude.

Angels have a special role in Judaism.  I would argue that they are, among other things, a symbol of the ability to transcend our reality when we feel trapped, and especially when our future seems foreclosed.  Hagar encounters angels twice, both times when it seems her chance to have descendents is threatened.  An angle interrupts the Akeda’s bloody conclusion.  During Israel’s domination by the Phillistines, our liberator Samson’s conception is announced by angel.

Beyond the Chumash, angels in Jewish mysticism are thought of as messengers who live in higher planes of existence.  The world we live in, according to the Zohar, is where G’d is most obscured.  As we travel closer to the divine, where angels live, the infinite becomes more visible; language, divisions, boundaries fade and we approach the ‘Ain Sof’, the characteristic of G’d that is without limit and beyond understanding.  In the Zohar’s Idra Zuta Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai on his deathbed described the highest parts of these worlds as ‘Uncountable, beyond general categories or calculation, and only captured by the heart’s unspoken desire.’  Angels allow us to transcend the world as we see it. 

I think Jacob’s struggle with the angel represents his own struggle with his journey.  His world, were he to continue on the path to Eretz Israel, seemed bound to continue to be confrontation and pain.  Contact with an angel allowed him to see beyond the narrowness of this vision of the future.  There was something to his journey, probably beyond his immediate understanding, which had to continue.  As far as he could tell, his life was all about deceit, limits, and betrayal.  The angel showed him the greater possibilities and perhaps even our people’s difficult but miraculous and glorious history that would emerge from his continuing this journey.  As the psalmist said, “I called to you from a narrow place, and G-d answered me with wide open spaces.”

I bless us that, when we feel trapped by life’s circumstances, we have the courage to refuse to be hemmed in.  We should remember that, in a world perhaps beyond what we see, these limits can fade away and we can triumph.  We should have the strength to remember that, even as darkness increases, our connection to the divine gives us access to infinite light. 

Shabat shalom!

Netivot Shalom on Shemini Atzeret

“On the eighth day you will have an assembly/Atzeret.”  Behold, our sages of blessed memory taught (Rosh HaShanah 4b), “The eighth day is a holiday on it’s own.”  We have to explain why, if this is so, everywhere in the Torah only three pilgrimage holidays are mentioned, rather than four.  Also we must explain why the Torah does not provide  a reason for Shemini Atzeret, like it does for the other pilgrimage holidays:  Passover for the exodus from Egypt, Shavuot because of the first fruits, and Sukkot so that “Your generations will know that I made the children of Israel live in Sukkot.” 

Behold, we find in the substance of the holy holiday of Shemini Atzeret three special characteristics:

It is a day of clinging to G’d with special intensity, as our sages of blessed memory said (Succah 55b), “It has an aspect of ‘make me a little meal that I may enjoy time with you.’”  In the Zohar it is written, “From here onwards you and I will enjoy a day together.”  The day also has an aspect of “One who sits with the king will be given whatever he wants.” 

It is a day of completing the sealing of judgment for the New Year, as is written in the Zohar and the Arizal. 

We also find the Jewish custom of Simchat Torah, where we finish the torah with song and dancing.  As it is said in the Zohar, ‘Israel had a custom of rejoicing with her, and it was called Simchat Torah, and they crowned Simchat Torah with her crown.”

One can say with regard to all of this that we the level of this holy festival has an aspect of eight, which hints that the day is above the seven days of building, as the Maharal explains, “Eight is above all other aspects and natural things, for the number seven encompasses all natural things.  For all maters of natural things are included in seven days of construction, and eight is above nature and the world.  Eight includes all matters that are above nature.”  Our master R.  Avraham  teaches that “On the eighth day” means that we completely awaken from all matters of this world.  Thus we have written in the Torah with regard to the number eight,

“On the eighth day” the Tabernacle was completed.  Our sages of blessed memory say that on that day ten crowns were taken, that is that such intense glory was revealed that the Tabernacle was filled with G’d’s glory, a matter surely above nature.

“On the eighth day [the boy’s] foreskin will be circumcised.’  On that day, the child awakens from the state of ‘I was created in sin and in sin my mother bore me.’  Only after the eighth day is the child ready to cross over the border into holiness and to pull down for himself a holy soul through brit mila.  We have a hint of the matter of eight in that such a change is only possible on the eighth day, when there is an awakening from all matters of this world.

Thus we have too the matter of ‘On the eight day you will have an assembly/Atzeret.’  For the holidays of Passover and Sukkot are each seven days, which are limited to this world… while Shemini Atzeret has no relationship to this world.  It is a hint of future redemption when there will be the final repair of the world, in the world to come, as it is written “Then your L-rd will rejoice about you like a groom rejoices about his bride.” 

…. There are three holidays that have the aspect of eight.  Shavuot is after the counting of seven weeks.  Yom Kippur also has the aspect of eight because the High Priest, during the service Temple, splattered bloods one time above and seven times below, with the one splatter above hinting at eight.  They would count the splattering as ‘One and one, one and two” for when the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies the entire process was above nature and thus needed this aspect of eight.  We also find this is the reason why the high priest was isolated for seven days before Yom Kippur…  Yom Kippur is distinct from Shemini Atzeret in that Yom Kippur one achieves nullification of the ego through prayer, self-affliction, and penitence while on Shemini Atzeret nullification is done through joy and dancing, through which one completely nullifies themselves before G’d.

One can further understand the holidays of Shavuot, Yom Kippur, and Shemini Atzeret through our holy teacher Avraham’s statement that there are holidays that are ‘Bind me as a seal on your arm’ and others that are ‘Bind me as a seal upon your heart.’  There are three holidays that are have positive, physical commandments.  On Passover we eat matzoh, on Rosh HaShanah we sound the Shofar, and on Sukkot we sit in the Sukkah and shake the four species.  These are all holidays with the aspect of ‘bind me as a seal on your arm.’  However, the holidays with this aspect of eight have no positive physical commandments associated with them, and are on the level of ‘a seal on one’s heart.’  These latter three holidays are on the level of ‘Love is as fierce as death.’  Thus on Shemini Atzeret we finish and begin the Torah, whose first and last letters are  בֹ and ל, which spell לב (heart), ‘A seal on your heart.’  We can explain these two kinds of holidays through a parable of our holy teacher Avraham, of a groom and bride who, due to their love and desire to come closer to each other send each other gifts, and adorn themselves, and only afterwards approach each other from the depth of their hearts.  So to we come closer to G’d through positive commandments, but Shemini Atzeret has the aspect of upper, transcendent unification, ‘A seal upon your heart.’  

Tanya Chap 39: Hope for All

Rabbi Steinsaltz, in his commentary on the Chabad classic the Tanya, has the following statement.

The category of someone who is 'incompletely righteous' includes within it one who isn't completely righteous yet because they haven't' finished what they can and must do.  With this understanding, all Jews, even the simplest among the simple, carries within him the life force to complete this work.  However, not everyone has sufficient life conditions to finish this work.l  The matter depends on place and education; it depends on the garments of one's body and soul.  It depends on the long sequence of potential challenges.  However, all in all this possibility is found within everyone.  At special times, it is possible to break open this potential, to ascend to the heights of the upper Garden of Eden, where not even angels may travel.

Samson and Sex: Sotah 9b, 10a

Here are two stories related to Samson's sexuality.

Judges 13:24: "[Samson] the youth grew and G'd blessed him."  How was he blessed?  Samson's penis was blessed.  His penis was like a grown man's, and the seed poured out like a flowing river.

Delilah, after a long effort, convinces Samson to tell her the secret of his strength.  

Judges 16:16: "Finally, after Delilah nagged him and pressed him constantly, he was wearied, and confided everything in her."  Why does scripture say 'He was wearied?'  Rabbi Issac teaches in the name of Rabbi Ami:  At the moment of orgasm, she pulled  away from him [and asked him again].

Exile by Stages: Rosh HaShanah 31a

This section describes how the Divine Presence slowly, by stages, left its home in the First Temple.  It is a beautiful but sad idea.  I think that it kept moving slowly away hoping that people would notice and change for the better, reversing the process.

The Divine Presence made ten journeys: From the ark covering to one cherub, from one cherub to the other cherub, from the second cherub to the threshold of the Holy of Holies, from the threshold to the Temple courtyard, from the courtyard to the outer altar, from the outer altar to the Temple roof, from the Temple roof to the exterior wall, from the exterior wall into the city of Jerusalem, from the city of Jerusalem to the Mount of Olives, from the Mount of Olives to the wilderness, and from the wilderness back to its place.

Making Trouble: Rosh HaShannah 16B

Rabbi Issac said: Three things cause a person's sins to be remembered in Heaven: [Walking under] an unbalanced wall [i.e. going to dangerous places] careful intention in prayer [where one is sure one's prayer's will be answered], and invoking divine judgment upon one's neighbor.