Above-Below

It's been awhile. But that shouldn't surprise.

For one, I haven't exactly been inundated with responses!

Secondly, once the election got going, the pattern was getting all too clear. What else was there to say when Big Brother O was taking over?

No - it was no more time for ranting. The Unbee Yid needs to know when t be quiet and ride the waves of history and wait for the appropriate Torah portion for responding:

"Habet na", G-d tells the first patriarch in last week's portion as he takes him "outside" to view the stars. The phrase means to gaze DOWN upon, like in looking at the starts from a position ABOVE them.

"So too will be your progeny", the Alm-ghty continues. We're all imbued with this capacity of getting above it all.

Each and every Jew.

Really now. Just contemplate this a bit. THIS is our spiritual root. Habet na... which leads up to that first great Mitzvah for the Chosen Nation: Circumcision.

To fully access it, however, you must first have a proper translation.....


MILA


A Translation
for the Perplexed



*
Dedicated to

FELIX ben SHOSHANA NOOMI

a very precious, young cousin

who I hope will one day

read this

*


בס " ד

They called it "the Covenant of Circumcision". No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't come up with a better translation for Bris Mila for the life of me!

Suddenly I was shaken from my reverie as a young man with flowing hair and stud earring strode past and began speaking, animatedly, with the Mohel[1]. I raised an eyebrow and was told by a guest, in a whisper: "hair dresser!"

Perplexed, I observed that even after the Sandak[2] was called, positioned himself on the appointed throne, accepted the holy infant on his lap, held him firmly and began to exude an awesome radiance (as only Sandak's do)… the exchange continued! Soon the Mohel is nodding to the hairdresser and placing his right hand over his. Next these two sets of hands are slipping the Mogen[3] over the startled baby's outstretched Orla[4] while the Mohel's free hand is picking up the Izmel[5]. He then turns squarely to this man, whom I now figured must be the father, lifts up the Izmel and asks aloud, with a wry smile:

"Are you suuure?"

"Yesss," he intones, closing his eyes.

The nearly fifty friends and relatives who were increasingly crowding themselves towards the center let out a nervous chuckle. Soon they're silent. Awestruck is probably more accurate.

The Mohel now puts the knife into his right hand and repositions the father's hand above it. With his left hand he picks up a laminated card containing all the blessings in transliterated English and indicates, urgently, for the father to begin.

Dad, ashen-faced and eyes aflutter, proceeds to recite the blessings, gasping to hold back tears. The Mohel, oblivious to the emotional outpouring, deftly leads his "upper hand" through the cut.

"Bris KOIdesh!"

"MAZAL TOV!," the crowd responds, in wild joy.

Hair-dressing Dad is now sobbing.

"What can I say?", he tells me shortly afterwards, though a mixture of tears and ecstasy, as he's removing his Yarmulke. "I'm an emotional guy."

I didn't believe him.


*

Since then, for about six months now, I've been a student of Mila, taking particular note of deeply moved parents (even when not so directly involved) who have very little connection to Judaism. There are plenty. I have come to the conclusion that it's not so much due to the holiness being stamped onto the body of their precious progeny, rather the unique connection to the heart that the whole ordeal provides. As we learn in the weekly Torah portion Ekev[6]:

Therefore Mal
the Orla
of your heart
and your obstinacy
shall Be rigid No longer

And as stated a few portions later, Nitzavim, usually associated with the Messianic era[7]:

And G-d shall Mal
Your heart And the hearts
of your offspring
to love the Etern-l your G-d
with all your heart
and with all your soul
that you may live

Furthermore, I have become profoundly inspired to discover that the above verse is brought down into LAW that once a year, for an entire month, every single Jew is treated to the Holy One's very own heart-Mila! As stated in the Kitzur Shulchan Arukh[8]:

"And G-d shall Mal
Your Heart And the Heart of your offspring"
(Es Levavkha V'es Levav zareikha)
contains the head letters
E.L.U.L.
(…) an allusion to
repentance
(during this month)

Now let us make no mistake. How the exclusive activity of the Alm-ghty alludes to the repentance of an individual is a paradox best left for the mystics to contemplate. Once it's legally applied to a particular time of year, however – that's a different story; one that should get even the simplest Jew thinking about the nature of Mila.

Hence I've done some research.

According to Rabbi S. R. Hirsch's classic study of the fine nuances of the Torah's language[9], Mila has four cognates: Mul, Malei, Nimal and Mallel, which roughly mean oppose, fill, cut away and meagerly express. The latter is particularly relevant as it first appears in a scene directly after the original Bris Mila[10]:

The aged Matriarch Sarah has just given birth. Though it was way past her natural bearing age, her husband had prophetically heard, some seven months earlier, the imperative to not only perform Mila on himself but on the boy who would be born through her, on his eighth day in this world, and to pass on this tradition, eternally, to his descendents.

Thus she exclaims, as she's cuddling this miraculous newborn yet to receive his Mila: "Mee millel to Avraham that Sarah suckled sons…".

The plural in sonS is key, explains Hirsch. She's totally in awe over the fact that this little guy is going to be the father of so many great people. Unbelievable amounts of Tsaddikim! WHO can possibly express her gratitude…

Similarly we find in one of the psalms in the Slichos prayers said during this month[11]: "Mee Yimallel the might of G-d?" WHO can truly express His power? Anything we say will barely scratch the surface…

Or how about another psalm, from the Shabbos prayers[12], in reference to the accomplishment of man: "In the morning it blossoms and is rejuvenated; in the evening yimollel v'yovesh, it crumbles and withers. Through the agency of mallel (The Creator's humbling reality-check) the initial boon of man's affect on the world has barely left an impression.

So too the core meaning of Mila. Our first holy grandparents knew that no matter how wonderful a Divine Signature they were about to impress upon their child's physical being, it would be a meager beginning. From there would need to emerge a very long, determined process of learning (to use the other cognates) how to "cut away" and "oppose" that which obstructs him from ful"fill"ing his Maker's Will.

The Mitzvah of Mila thus has NOTHING to do with the surgical technique of a circumferential incision, known as circumcision! To say so is to scandalously divest it of its spirit.

As for Orla, according to Rav Hirsch, it is referring to an "unruly, intractable" energy[13]. NOTHING specifically about "foreskin"! The fact that it is used in relation to lips[14], ears[15], unseemly characters[16], trees [17] and of course the heart [18]should make that resoundingly clear. That its letters also spell raal, poison, and l'raa, towards evil, should close the case! It's all about a spiritually contrary force which is particularly concentrated around the male reproductive organ but by no means limited to it.

In a word, the Mitzvah of Mila is to battle against the "conscience deadening" forces all around us, wherever and whenever they present themselves[19], and a crucial momentum for succeeding in this battle is begun with physical Mila.


*


The problem with this illuminating definition is that it flies in the face of a few, seemingly contradictory traditional ideas.

For one, while the classic Kli Yakar Torah commentary[20] concurs that "the reason for external Mila is to come by way of it to the purity of the inner heart," he asserts that this was not needed by the first recipient of Mila as he had already achieved his heart Mila (as plenty of previous verses attest). If so – how could he have gotten there without the assistance of physical Mila??

For another, if Mila is so important to kick start the spiritual refinement process of mankind, then why wait so long to institute it? At the least, shouldn't it have been given at the first moment that the patriarch was chosen to be the progenitor of the Chosen People, at the age of seventy five, instead of in his ninety ninth year??

Finally, if Mila works as a constant antitoxin to Orla, in its various manifestations, how does it apply to the messianic / Elul version which only refers to Mila of the heart without any mention of Orla whatsoever??

I believe the answer to all of these important questions emerges exquisitely from something I heard recently from a great and righteous scholar in our community. Someone had asked him how a common Jew could be expected to remove all the Orla from his heart, which according to most interpretations is composed of all of one's desires for forbidden pleasure, when in fact we know that some of the most righteous people struggle to rein in such feelings their entire lifetime? Conversely, if it was a matter of gradual purging, then why use the same language as that of physical Mila and Orla, which imply an elimination of something very real!?

The Rav thought for a few minutes.

Finally he looked up, eyes ablaze, and shared that he recalled seeing in a rare Hebrew translation of Maimonides' Guide to the Perplexed[21] that the secret of Mila is gamishius b'nefesh – a novel concept which roughly translates as spiritual flexibility, buoyancy or what I prefer: resiliency.

Pshhh… Now THAT's a purpose in life worth making a covenant over, I thought.

"Perhaps that's why the numerical value of Mal is seventy, as per the tradition that there are seventy different dimensions to Torah?", I asked.

He profoundly smiled, nodding at the folks all around, indicating that we were onto something. Indeed we must have been, as I found myself subsequently overwhelmed with the following insight that was much bigger than anything I could have cooked up on my own:

The importance of totally removing physical Orla, as soon as possible, is not because Judaism is fanatically at battle against Orla, on all levels, at all costs. The problem is that the physical manifestation functions as a kind of anchor holding back a ship from even leaving the dock! Emotional Orla, on the other hand, is a much finer reality which allows for certain interplay with the individual's growth process, kind of like a sea bound ship with delinquent sailors. If the captain attempts to "straighten them up" in one fall swoop, he might lose his whole ship!

On the other hand, the ship can only stay afloat so long without a functioning crew. At some point some serious sobriety needs to kick in if the ship is to survive the tumultuous waves ahead (the Judgment of the High Holidays and the End of Days).

So too, our first patriarch could be said to have begun his religious odyssey with this basic concern: Perhaps there's an Eternal Source of life that is not only good but gamish, resilient, in the way He cultivates goodness?

Indeed the Sages teach[22] that Avram's first philosophical inquiry was about how a burning palace (an idolatrous world) could be ownerless. Shouldn't there be some-One to intervene?? After agonizing over this issue for quite some time, says the Midrash, the Creator suddenly "peeked out at him and said: 'I'm that Owner'" – but nothing more. Nothing whatsoever about how to squelch those fires!

The present Slonimer Rebbe, shlit"a, explains[23] that the Midrash conveys the tradition that while the patriarch began his career with incisive claims on the cosmos, as it were, he was Answered in a supremely dismissive manner, saying in affect: If you can believe the simple fact that there is a singular guiding force to this world, then you can trust that your role in squelching those fires will be revealed to you – in due time.

And so the young philosopher-cum-theologian began Teshuva, Repentance. He searched long and hard to learn how to divest himself of all his subconscious claims on his Creator. Finally, one bright day at the ripe age of seventy five, he had a break-through.

"I need guidance," he prayed.

"Are you suuuure?," came the Reply.

"YES!," he rejoined.

"Then Lekh-lekha (Get going!)… towards a land which I will show you"[24].

"Land", say the mystics, is an allusion to physicality; the context for the coarsest of Orlas.

And thus was born the first disciple of Mila. He placed his hand over his Mohel's, as it were, patiently following His every move with total tomimus – wholehearted, unquestioning devotion (as per the Kli Yakar). Eventually, by the time he reached his ninety-ninth year, they were ready to BEGIN. That's when he was informed of an upgrade.

"Walk before Me and BE tomim"[25], his Mohel Commanded. Time to become the LOWER hand.

To be sure, making such a shift requires major resilience. Upper hands don't like becoming lower ones! Thus the Creator's hesitancy in informing mankind of physical Mila. For while there always were devotees of spiritual restraint, exemplified by Noach, who was noted for being Tsaddik tomim, wholeheartedly righteous in his walk "with G-d"[26], only ninety-nine year old Avraham was ready to walk before Him and BE tomim – to internalize the wholeheartedness and actually lead the process of impressing gamishius b'nefesh, spiritual resilience, onto the heart of the world.

We can accordingly explain why our messianic/Elul passage of G-d performing heart Mila makes no mention of Orla and emphasizes the importance of connecting to the next generation. It's because it's talking about a period of time when the need for spiritual resilience is already so impressed on the hearts of an entire nation that the world's struggle will no longer be to achieve it but to expand it.

The lower hand now becomes the upper hand in the guidance of others.

Your heart And the hearts
=
E . L . U . L .

*


To bring all this back to real-life, this amazing connection between the Mila and the challenge of spiritual resilience could be said to reflect the tension that many among our holy people feel between being called "Jewish" versus "Jew."

Undoubtedly, every child born to a daughter of Israel is as Jewish as the next, no matter if he's had a Bris Mila or not (that's the law!). The big question is our JEW-ness. Physical Mila is a crucial means for getting there, comparable to severing the ish from Jewish! Once that happens, the soul of the Jew (and those who are intimately related) begins to SOAR…

That's when the Mitzvah of emotional Mila kicks in. The unshackled, ish-less Jew is now beckoned into the eesh {person}, if you'll pardon the pun, deeper and deeper, towards a place where no Orla can exist, whatsoever. Now it's just you and your Maker.

THAT's scary!

It's the point when many of us take off our Yarmulke's…

Until those special moments when we realize that the Captain of the ship, the Owner of the palace, has caught onto our game. Suddenly we sober up and pray: May we start anew, joining the nation known for Mila, "as one entity, doing Your Will with a complete heart"[27].

A heart gushing with eternal, spiritual resilience.

~~~~~~~~~~~~


[1]Circumciser
[2] holder of the baby
[3] shield-clamp
[4] foreskin
[5] the traditional double edged knife
[6] Deut. 10:17
[7] Ibid 30:6
[8] Laws of the Month of Elul, 128:1, based on the Tur commentary on Deut. 30
[9] now neatly compiled in Clark's "Etymological Biblical Dictionary of Hebrew", Feldheim publ.
[10] Gen. 21:7
[11] Ps. 145
[12] Ps. 90
[13] Hirsch on Deut.10:17; 30:6
[14] Ex. 6:12
[15] Jer. 6:10
[16] Hab. 2:16
[17] ??
[18] see also Lev. 26:41
[19] Hirsch on Gen. 17: 10
[20] end of Gen. 17:10
[21] a medieval classic of Jewish philosophy
[22] Midrash.Rabba on Parshas Lekh-lekha, Gen. 12
[23] Darkhei Noam I:1
[24] Gen. 12
[25] Gen 17
[26] Gen. 6:9
[27] High Holyday prayer Book

Brother's Keeper becomes Savior!

I told you he was pandering the unbelievable! Now if you want clear cut evidence, ck out this link: http://obamamessiah.blogspot.com/

Once again, I can only emphasise that while this blog is far from political, we ARE following world patterns that might be offering encouraging Signs for the importance of unbelieving. The point with Obama is that we must assume he's doing what the Kabbalists refer to as a kind of draining of holiness over to the other side. Apparently there IS a real need for "a change we can believe in," as his motto goes. But this change is not in politics! In happens within the soul of every one who accepts upon himself to serve the Creator with renewed sincerity and vigor.

Their wisdom, but NOT their Torah!

As mentioned in the last post, the Sages have long warned against believing a gentile who tries to enlighten Jews about Torah. That they can teach us wisdom - yes. But not Torah.

What really is the difference?

We must be exacting in the words. They say BELIEVE gentile wisdom and DON'T BELIEVE gentile Torah. What does belief have to do with this? Say: learn from. Or: look into. But simply b-e-l-i-e-v-e whatever wisdom they have to promulgate?

Conversely: What happens if they're teaching something in Torah exactly as per the sages? Let's say, for instance, a gentile Biblical Scholar reads the verses about Sabbath observance and starts teaching Jews how much their Torah wants them to keep Shabbos properly. Shouldn't we believe that?

Of course. But not on the level of normal belief. Rather, we should now read "don't believe" as UNbelieve! If you have to hear from a gentile about the importance of Shabbos -- what an UNbelievable Sign of how much H' wants you to renew your relationship with Shabbos. Not that you should let him instruct you about Shabbos, per se, but that you should take his words as a brand new opportunity for doing Shabbos on a new level.

Like many wandering Jews have reported from their experiences in India or Japan and some American indian tribes, they've been told to stop searching "out there" and get back to the Source within their own tradition!

Now, in Obama's case, it's more complicated. Because he really believes he's got the gospel: being his Brother's Keeper. Hmm. As said, our gut Jewish instinct should be never to believe him but at the same time we shouldn't mis the opportunity for using this idea to further our un-belief.

So let us think: When Cain posed that question, G-d never actually responded to it... Rather He shot back: "What have you done? Your brother's blood is screaming out at me..."

A truly UNNNbelievable response. Cain's sarcastic assumption was that we must take total responsibility for our brethren. But that is far from the Creator's way, and he knew that. We are all born as individuals and must learn to survive as individuals. But that doesn't mean to ignore or be cruel to the other. Rather, we should be asking each other our Creator's question: "What have you done?"

I.e. have you done anything in this world of merit?

To actively build a society that stimulates each and everyone to answer that question is the job of the unbelievable Jew.

Our Brother's Keeper?

bs"d

The following two excerpts were taken from the NY Times February 12th report of the speeches of the frontrunning candidates for the American presidency.

Please refer to Genesis 4:1-17 when reading the first of said speeches. Then compare how the "brother's keeper" metaphor sizes up with the speech of his counterpart on the same day; a counterpart who just happens to contain the name of the author of that statement within his name!

I.e. could the upcoming McCAIN-Obama duel be somehow a replay, or perhaps correction, of mankind's original social conflict? Obama does, after all, portray himself as supremely ABLE to atone for America's sins (as per Abel being the first human to offer a successful sacrifice)!!

G-d Willing, I'll offer more inside-Torah perspective in a coming post. In the meantime, bear in mind while you peruse these speeches the saying of the Talmudic Sages:

"If someone says to you there's wisdom among the gentiles -- believe.

Torah among the gentiles -- don't believe!"

(Midrash Eicha Rabba 2).

I.e. when a major gentile politician quotes Torah, every believing Jew should begin to question. And certainly the UNbelieving Jew...

(bolds and three-dots are mine)

******


Obama

"That is our calling in this campaign: To reaffirm that fundamental belief – I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper – that makes us one people, and one nation. It's time to stand up and reach for what's possible, because together, people who love their country can change it.

"Now when I start talking like this, some folks tell me that I've got my head in the clouds. That I need a reality check. That we're still offering false hope. But my own story tells me that in the United States of America, there has never been anything false about hope.

"I should not be here today. I was not born into money or status. I was born to a teenage mom in Hawaii, and my dad left us when I was two. But my family gave me love, they gave me education, and most of all they gave me hope – hope that in America, no dream is beyond our grasp if we reach for it, and fight for it, and work for it.

"Because hope is not blind optimism. I know how hard it will be to make these changes. I know this because I fought on the streets of Chicago as a community organizer to bring jobs to the jobless in the shadow of a shuttered steel plant. I've fought in the courts as a civil rights lawyer to make sure people weren't denied their rights because of what they looked like or where they came from. I've fought in the legislature to take power away from lobbyists. I've won some of those fights, but I've lost some of them too. I've seen good legislation die because good intentions weren't backed by a mandate for change.

"The politics of hope does not mean hoping things come easy. Because nothing worthwhile in this country has ever happened unless somebody, somewhere stood up when it was hard; stood up when they were told – no you can't, and said yes we can…

"Yes we can reclaim that dream.

"Yes we can heal this nation."

******

McCAIN

"Hope, my friends, is a powerful thing. I can attest to that better than many, for I have seen men's hopes tested in hard and cruel ways that few will ever experience. And I stood astonished at the resilience of their hope in the darkest of hours because it did not reside in an exaggerated belief in their individual strength, but in the support of their comrades, and their faith in their country. My hope for our country resides in my faith in the American character, the character which proudly defends the right to think and do for ourselves...

"When I was a young man, I thought glory was the highest ambition, and that all glory was self-glory. My parents tried to teach me otherwise, as did the Naval Academy. But I didn't understand the lesson until later in life, when I confronted challenges I never expected to face.

"In that confrontation I discovered that I was dependent on others to a greater extent than I had ever realized, but that neither they nor the cause we served made any claims on my identity. On the contrary, I discovered that nothing is more liberating in life than to fight for a cause that encompasses you, but is not defined by your existence alone. And that has made all the difference, my friends, all the difference in the world.

"I do not seek the presidency on the presumption that I am blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save my country in its hour of need. I seek the presidency with the humility of a man who cannot forget that my country saved me. I am running to serve America, and to champion the ideas I believe will help us do what every American generation has managed to do: to make in our time, and from our challenges, a stronger country and a better world.

"I intend to do that by fighting for the principles and policies I believe best serve the interests of the American people: for a government that takes and spends less of your money and competently discharges its responsibilities; that shows a proper respect for our rights and values; that provides a strong and capable defense; that encourages the enterprise and ingenuity of individuals...

"As I have done my entire career, I will make my case to every American who will listen. I will not confine myself to the comfort of speaking only to those who agree with me…

"I will fight every moment of every day for what I believe is right for this country, and I will not yield.

"Thank you and God bless you."

***************

Soaring Souls

Here's another ode to this unbelievable double-month of Adar, as kicked off by parshas Truma and Tetzaveh. I wrote it back in 2003 / 5763, two double-Adars ago, in response to the traumatic death of the first Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon, in the horrifically eery destruction of his spacecraft on its way down to Earth.

Though the world had thought he was a typical secular Israeli Jew who, while being proud of his nation had no particualar relationship with Judaism, he proved us all wrong.

UNNNNbelievably wrong.

As just a couple of examples (there were really quite a few, as indicated below), earlier that week he had declared in response to the media's question to him about the new year, that "Jews had a different New Year: Rosh HaShona!" He also proudly displayed a miniture Torah Scroll that had been salvaged from the Holocaust by a Jew who had promised his Rabbi to keep it near the heart of the Jewish people.

Now can anyone consider such a Yid "secular??"

I, like many religious Jews, was deeply touched by this story and mourned for him. But then something occured in my family that made me reflect on this experience on a much deeper level. Much deeper than I can ever express. But I did write a poem about it, which I now feel is time to launch into a different space...

WHEN HEAVEN

TOUCHES


EARTH



A reflection on a parallel loss



*

It all happened in a flash.

A hero was being born.
An Israeli; a scientist; a humanitarian;
a Jew.
A hallower of six million
sacred martyrs.

We heard about him, suddenly,
over the last couple of months.
Expectations sky rocketed
along with his spaceship.

Then, on his way down,
he’s whisked away.
As if snatched back
by a heavenly hand.
In a flash.

Who was this masked man?

Streaking out of the inferno
of our holy people’s degradation,
he plodded the path that so many cherished
and prayed
was the Purpose of it all:
A fighter; a mensch;
accepted
as among the best
of mankind.

He broke completely out of the mold
of Jew
as stranger
to the world.

Until
the moment of truth
when he courageously claimed
that his heretofore neglected religion
transcended all.

Not just a flag, but Kiddush.
Not just a drawing, but a holy scroll
no bigger than the heart which held it close
throughout the fires
of Hell.

When wished a good New Year
he stood straight and declared
that Jews have their own
Rosh HaShona.

His response to viewing Jerusalem
from on high
was nothing less
than praying: SH’MA YISRO’EL!

This was one Jew
who discovered his heavenly roots.


*


It all happened in a flash.

A child was being born.
A pure soul;
a defiance to our fading youth;
a blessing.
His presence graced us
suddenly
over the last two months.

High hopes thrilled our hearts
as we began to feel his.
Then, on his way down,
he’s whisked away.
As if snatched back
by a heavenly hand.

In a flash.

My unborn child has come and gone.
We’ve waited for eight long years.
Not in desperation,
thank G-d,
as we’ve been blessed
with other wonderful children.
But when that direct, heavenly input ceased,
the loss was felt
within the depths of our soul.

Where have you gone,
Oh precious one?
What did you find
during your brief time down here
which scared you so?
Are you, too, mourning
or are you relieved
that your brief sojourn with us
did not imprison you
within the confines
of this world?

I can’t shake
the parallel.

What would have been
if this newly awakened Jew
would have returned
to earth?

How could he have translated
his taste of heaven
into the language of man?

Perhaps he too
was only meant to be with us
for a mere wink
in time?

Perhaps he too
would remain a Jew
best
while straddling the heavens?

Don’t get me wrong.
I’m not so quick to let go
of either of them.
I believe their lofty souls
brushed past this world
at exactly the same time
for a Reason.
I’m just not quite sure
who was not ready for whom.

Indeed
when Torah enters the fray
it’s no coincidence:

“Make for Me a Temple
and I will Dwell amongst them,”
the weekly parsha instructs.
Dwell where? Not in the Temple?!
No – amongst them.
The people.
The Temple is the prism
through which each and every Jew
finds G-d
within his heart.

Got it.

We had been hoping that our heroes
would do all the work.
Our ambassador in space
and my miracle child
would be the Temples
through which we’d escape
our personal confrontations
with G-d.

But now I know
that Jewish unity and youth
are not invincible
commodities.

Now I know
that even the holiest Temples
can crumble
if not inhabited first
within our hearts.

May we be ready,
dear Father,
next time.






* * *

Between ShOVaVYM and Adar

bs"d

There's a wonderful new saying flying around the Torah world these days. It's transpiring behind all the fanfare of political posturing and slick advertising that characterizes so much of Western society, certainly within the American election year. It occurs far beyond the intellectual power struggles driving the typical Yeshiva scene; far beyond the subtle self-pity and illusions of grandeur that storm within so many praying hearts.

Aye, it's a saying with no known origin. It simply happened, sometime over the last few weeks as far as I know, tossed ever so humbly off the tongue of one Jew, slipping straight into the heart of another, singing its truth with such affectionate jubilance that you can be sure it's coming straight from Heaven. It came to me something like this:

"Shoilem. How're you?"

"Baruch HaSh-m {thank G-d}, doing well. And by you?"

"Couldn't be better!"

"Really."

"You didn't hear? {The Jewish month of} ADAR's here!"

"Ah, that's right. Thanks for reminding. 'When Adar enters, joy increases' {as per the Talmudic dictum}. And this year we get TWO of 'em {due to the leap year}."

"Hodu L'HaSh-m ki tov {praise G-d}…….

Y'hear the latest about two Adars (breaks out with bright smile)?"

"No (I smile back in contagious response), let's hear."

"Well, two months add up to 60 days. And the Halacha {Jewish Law} says, batul b'shishim {non-kosher food falling into kosher is 'nullified in %60' of the mixture}, so too it must be that this year atzvus {sadness} is batul b'Adar!!"

"Pshhhhhhh........."


Cute, right. But it really goes deep. When there's a leap year, the mystical period known as Sh.o.v.av.y.m. {after the first 6 weekly Torah portions read in the Book of Exodus} extends two more weeks, now known as Shovavym-Ta'T. The addition is in reference to the next two portions, Truma and Tetzaveh (Ex. 25-30:10). These particular Scriptural readings introduce the construction of the Tabernacle, the Mishkan, which is the desert model of the Holy Temple, the Mikdash. When we begin to understand a little something of the meaning of what our secular brethren often derisively refer to as the "Temple cult" aspect of Torah life, we begin to experience the power of serving G-d with joy.

So let us ask: How in the world are these readings about the Mishkan-Mikdash relevant to us who live in the age of learn-from-everyone-and-everything-at-the-push-of-a-button Virtual Enlightenment? To review humanity's classic narrative about how a meek people miraculously climbed their way out of an excruciatingly oppressive exile is one thing. We ALL have personal exiles about which we need liberation. But re-reading the details of how that weird structure for animal sacrifice and incense was constructed?? All that jabber about beams and curtains and hooks and cherubs and a dye of this color and a dye for that, and and and.

Isn't this a little anti-climax?!

The opposite. These parshas of ta't are THE time for applying what we've done (or hoped to do) during Shovavym. It's the time to translate all the incredible gratitude we feel about our personal Exoduses into building a HOME for our Maker. That means sanctifying our physicality, explains the Nesivos Shalom, which includes sacrificing the exilic mentality that is fixated on immediate gratification and sensational thrill. It means re-dedicating ourselves (a concept related to the root of Mikdash) to giving UP our entire beings.

"Make for Me a Sanctuary and I will dwell among them" states the famous verse in parshas Truma (Ex. 25:8). The Sages explain that we might have thought it should say among IT (the Tabernacle). But the Holy Torah is precise: Among THEM means each and every person involved in the construction. You build it, His Presence will animate YOU!

That's called "un-believing."

Believing in G-d is about receiving from Him; depending on His grace. He comes, dispenses blessings, and goes. But becoming an unbelievable Jew is about giving back. About blessing G-d. As virtually every Jewish prayer begins: "Blessed are You, L-rd our G-d."

When we do that, sincerely, all sadness evaporates.

ALL sadness.

Try it. Never fails. Giving back to your Creator means closing Eternity's circuit, about which a healthy soul feels no greater joy.

Especially when assisted by the parshas of Sh.O.V.aV.Y.M.-T.aT. and double Adars.

BLUR

Here's an unbelievable piece that's not mine. I saw it last yr on the Aish site and held on. A good one for leaving Chanukah. May the light we just took in shine bright throughout the winter... EVEN within the blur.

SEEING WITHIN THE BLUR
by Mandel

I used to think that life was about acquiring and creating and keeping things whole. But now, when my arm still reaches for four chocolate pudding treats on the shelf of the supermarket even though one of my four children is dead, I see that life is about learning how to see in the darkness.

Chanukah is also about learning a new way of seeing. The Maccabee's war against the Hellenists was a fight not just for territory but also for a worldview. The Greeks believed in the grace of beauty, the redemptive powers of humanity. For the Hellenists, beauty was holiness. For the Maccabees, holiness wasn't always visible -- but was the manifestation of the justice and goodness of God. For the Hellenists, the body was perfection. For the Maccabees the body was an instrument to be used for serving God.

The Macabbees insisted on giving tribute to God and his laws, and his temple. When the Macabbees were victorious and reentered the temple, there was just a little oil left to light the menorah, enough for one day. Nevertheless they kindled the flame and the oil lasted for eight days. Many people believe that this is the miracle of Chanukah.

But maybe it wasn't a miracle at all. Perhaps one vial of oil can always be enough for eight nights if we look at our lives as a place for God to dwell. Because God is infinite, when we approach the Divine, we leave the world where numbers circumscribe reality. Once we make a sanctuary for God, then the infinite possibilities of God dwell within us as well. Numbers become guides, instead of rulers.

Chanukah teaches us that what we see in this world is a glimmer of the truth. Our measurements in this world are imprecise, our ways of knowing limited. The world of truth is not one where the numbers we ascribe to reality are sufficient. One vial of oil becomes eight.

Thus it is fitting that Chanukah begins during the month of Kislev, the month of dreams and sleep. As we near the winter solstice, we prefer more and more to stay in bed. Many of the Torah portions of this month speak of sleep and dreams -- Jacob has his dream of a ladder and God speaking to him; Pharaoh has dreams that need to be interpreted.

Chanukah itself has the logic of a dream. In sleep we have access to a different world -- a world where what is impossible during the day becomes possible. In sleep, the few can become many. The light at night is a deeper light with a greater capacity for revelation. This is the light of Chanukah; the light of holiness.

It's not easy to see in the dark, but you don't need that much oil to fill the darkness. A small measure can easily expand to light the largest cavern. Kaballah tells us that we are like flames, the spark of our souls reaching toward the candle of God.

To see God in my life, I have to see in the darkness -- to see beyond what appears to be, to stop counting with ordinary integers of ownership -- to see what is blurred, undefined, beyond my ordinary senses. Chanukah tells me that what matters is not how old Koby is now -- I can't count him anymore with my daytime logic. But I can create a sanctuary inside of me -- a place of holiness where his death matters, a place where I consecrate the light of his soul so that it shines within me.