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Themes from
SEFER VAYIKRA
Translated from Hebrew by S.
NAthan
l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai
In the parshiot dealing with the Mishkan,
materials are given their Godly purpose and destiny. In the parasha
of the korbanot, materials are given their relationship to God’s
servant, man.
Materials have a wide scope and spread over a vast and
varied range. The mishnayot of “Bameh Madlikin” discuss flammable
materials. The parshiot dealing with tahara and tuma,
the purity and impurity of food substances, discuss man’s relationship to
the other creatures. The korbanot deal with man’s relationship to
the animals and materials that are at his disposal.
The purpose of the parshiot that deal with
materials and with their relationship to man is to place these in a moral
perspective – in order to teach you that nothing can be moral if it is
detached from the material. The attempt to etherealize, to distance from
the material, is not feasible. Even recoiling from it only causes excess
preoccupation with it. Best to make peace with it, in order to control it,
in order to use it as one’s servant – as an expression for the spiritual.
Even the spiritual cannot be sustained if it does not have a material
container. The Torah, by dealing with the various materials, is taking the
trouble to guide the manner of man’s use of them toward service of God.
Materials are arranged hierarchically – from materials
made by human hands, such as oil and wine, which can affect one in crucial
ways for better or for worse, down to materials that exist only in their raw
and primal form, and man’s relating to them can be problematic, and harm is
basically all they contribute.
Example: Impure animals, nevailot utraifot.
Their inclusion in the framework of halacha testifies to their
inclusion in human experience; whether one likes it or not, one must
recognize the fact of this inclusion.
Examples: Animals to which the categories of pure and
impure apply; wine used for idolatrous libation; kosher categories; trefa
categories; kodshim vetaharot – the categories of sanctity and purity
in the sacrificial offerings; kodesh vehol, the categories of the
sacred and of the secular.
There are animals whose value varies according to how
man relates to them; when he relates to them in order to sanctify them for a
sacred goal, and when the opposite is the case. Their value varies
according to their human framework, and according to their natural
framework.
The Torah has some specific purposes in relating to the
materials of nature. The first purpose is a simple and natural one. Man is
required to relate to the materials of nature, in that he too is carved of
material. This being the case, it would be best for him to merge with them,
in order to learn how to live among them. Distancing himself from them in
any way, exacts its price and takes its toll. It will revenge itself
against his very being – warping his image, intensifying his arrogance, and
distorting his role and his destiny in the world of the material.
He cannot view himself as superior, as detached from
them, else he could easily slide into the abyss; viewing himself as soaring
to lofty heights he risks a bone-crushing fall. The higher realms, he will
never reach.
This is the lot that befalls messianic visionaries,
hermits, and all other peculiar types. The source of their weirdness, which
steadily and increasingly consumes them, is their attempt to detach from
their material part.
A second purpose of the Torah’s is to teach one to see
and to discern the specific character of the materials in order to see one’s
own reflection in them, so that one might learn to extract from them the
benefit of recognizing the structure of one’s own specific strengths and
character traits: With some of these, one may merge; from some of these, one
must learn to withdraw; some, one must learn to control.
Gold and other precious metals that have a high
resistance, being resistant to oxidation and to entropy in general, serve as
a reminder of the dangers of oxidation that threaten one, that cause one to
atrophy and to age.
One must relate to certain materials in order to learn
the dangers that they pose to one’s body and to one’s soul. One must relate
to certain materials out of a sense of responsibility, being that they are
subject to one’s needs. Then there are materials that are wholly and
entirely influenced by, and their quality is entirely dependent upon oneself
– such as wine, and pure-pressed olive oil. The latter could avenge
themselves against one for using them in excess, for enslaving them to one’s
own egocentric needs.
Thus also salt: It holds the secret of preserving food,
which conceals the essence of water – which is life-giving and also
death-dealing. Thus also honey, and thus also the dough that rises because
of the leavening that is in it, as distinct from matzo that is in no danger
of oxidation and spoiling, and is not vulnerable to time’s grinding teeth.
Thus also the korbanot, which are ready and able
to serve man – but to serve his spiritual side. The destiny for which they
are intended determines their value. They receive value from the human
being who offers them; they take up their positions, saturated with his
sins.
Here the korbanot stand in for a man, taking his
place, serving as his substitute, replacing his own fat, and his own blood,
in order to absorb his sins and to separate him from them, and to purify him
from them.
At this point one should insist on asking: Does such a
close, mutually dependent relationship really exist between man and physical
matter? To the point that physical matter can be brought in place of man?
To the point that it can take his place and be his substitute?
Within the Torah’s answer to this question, a warning
is hidden. Physical matter can serve man, and take his place, as in the
korbanot. But it can also, to the same extent, take his place and blur
his spiritual image, and in this way cause man to become physical matter.
Indeed it is possible to witness very different levels
among human beings. There exist human creatures who sense themselves as
being no more than wood or stone, wholly subject to the rule of nature.
Then there are those who identify with the animals. Do dog owners not
change gradually, taking on a dog-like face over the course of time? Does
not the man of science attempt to control nature by descending to the level
of organic and inorganic matter, abandoning – with arrogant contempt –
whatever is left of his spirit? Does not the admiration for gold’s noble
qualities transform gold into a Golden Calf, and man into its slave?
Olah, Shlamim, and Hatat: Burnt Offering, Peace
Offering, and Sin Offering
The difference between these offerings demonstrates
what is permitted and what is forbidden in man’s relationship to the
creation: Man may only take from the creation if he knows how and is willing
to give to it as well.
Receiving is interpreted exclusively as a response to
giving. Yet human beings spread across a broad spectrum, from the modest
who would never stretch forth their hand to take, all the way to “the greedy
gorgers”. (Yuma 39, Kiddushin 53)
The modest, whether out of lack of self-awareness (they
do not deserve to have) or out of a sense that they have not given enough
(and others deserve more) or out of fear, which detaches them from
existence.
From the other extreme, “the gorgers”, dividing the
loot among themselves (grab all you can…) all quarrel over the same slice,
out of an ever-deeper sinking into the material, or perhaps out of the
selfishness of ani ve’afsi od, “nothing exists outside of me” – I am
the only one who deserves it – which comes very close to the heretical, to
denying the Divine reality.
Last but not least, and coming very close to mental
illness, are the misers, who do not permit themselves to indulge, who will
not take anything that is not vitally essential, to the point of strangling,
who if they belong to the modest, belong to those among them who have a
deficiency in their connection with the real world.
Miserliness
It is worthwhile to attempt to explore and understand
the phenomenon of miserliness. The miser demonstrates a retreat, a
withdrawal, a reluctance to merge, to share of his loaf with others, and to
cooperate with the group, with the other. A miser is not a part of the
group. Not only is he reluctant to give, he is even reluctant to receive.
This reluctance testifies to a flaw in his ability to accept himself.
It is not difficult for a person to attain
self-awareness, even if this trait is missing from his physical, emotional,
and mental make-up, as long as he accepts the reality of the group. After
all, he, too, is a part of the group, even if lacks the awareness of his own
uniqueness – of his own self. Stinginess, however, prevents him from
belonging, for after all in order to belong he would has to share his loaf,
he must share what he possesses with another – with the group.
The trait of stinginess thus detaches man from the
other and even from himself. He is so enveloped in this detachment from
himself that his sense of his own existence is flawed; is preoccupied
entirely with survival, with the sense of a fear of the cessation of his own
existence, and he feels that he must occupy himself exclusively with
self-defense.
The miser has no leisure to delve and to explore and to
merge with the reality outside of himself. There is no creativity in him,
because his view of the object in reality surrounding him is not one of
relevance to or interest in the object itself. First and foremost, he must
watch out for himself.
This being the case, there can be no positive or
negative stinginess. Being that it detaches and reduces, it is all entirely
negative.
The reference here is not to a person who suffices with
little, as long as he does not deny blessing to others, and as long as he
shares with them of his own with an open and broad hand, and takes pleasure
in their pleasure and joy in their joy. The experience of making do with
little testifies to a basic awareness of one’s own needs, and of the needs
of the group, who need what he has more than he needs it.
He views excessive use of what he possesses as being
wasteful and destructive – bal tashchit – since in such excess there
is no fulfillment of needs but simply waste. The trait of making do with
little is not a bad mida, in that it does not detach reduce one.
Miserliness raises its head when it is a mida of
ignoring one’s own existence’s needs. It pops up suddenly out of the
evil serpent’s lair when one exaggerates one’s own needs while ignoring the
needs of others. Such a miser is not mentally ill but rather wicked. The
midot of justice and honesty are not part of his portion in life.
His judgment is flawed. He does not pause to calculate or consider or
address the question of another’s lack, though it may be so much greater
than his own. Why are his needs so much more important than another’s?
This character flaw – the stinginess that originates in evil – drags all
other evil midot in its wake, as part of a single package deal. The
miser finds justification in the distortion of truth: “I do not have”, is
his feeling, when in truth he has; yet he brings upon himself the curse of
never being able to enjoy what he has. His stinginess persuades him that
what he has, he really does not have. Thus he feels poverty-stricken. Envy
consumes him voraciously over the fact that others have and he does not.
This is a miser’s punishment: His life is bound up in suffering and misery,
which he himself causes himself, by viewing himself as deprived. He is
consumed by self-pity, is filled with anger toward the one who has, and
comes to causeless hatred of his fellow in the end, and slander, and
talebearing.
The denial of all good to himself includes also the
people who are bound to him, such as his wife and children, who breathlessly
await the moment when he will finally leave this world, to that they will be
able to pounce on the spoils. All that interests them is their father’s
money and property, and they do not sense how, by their lust for their
father’s money, they are renouncing all connection to the world of
creativity. Ultimately, they are doomed to walk the same negative path as
their father, as they renounce the creative, brotherly ties of love and
peace among themselves – coming to quarrel and rift and hatred among
themselves, out of a grim watchfulness lest the other brother get more of
their father’s heritage than they, G-d forbid. Here we can understand the
popular saying – that there is no blessing in inheritance money.
The korban hatat, the sin offering atones, in
that it is all wholly and entirely signaled by giving. Similar is the
korban shlamim, the peace offering that is shared; it serves as a thanks
offering – to receive and to give: Let others enjoy along with him.
In their most concentrated – and brilliantly ingenious
– essence, these things are expressed by the GR”A in Mishlei (15:15)
regarding the pasuk: “All of a poor man’s days are bad, and a
good-hearted man is always partying and drinking.” As Hazal say: “Who is
rich? The one who is happy with his portion.” If so, the poor man is the
greedy one, who does not suffice with all he has, and all the bodies in the
world will not satisfy his mind, and therefore, all his days are bad, since
it is not feasible that he will attain all he desires, nor feel full at
heart, as it says: “No man dies having attained even half of his desire.”
“While the good-hearted man [someone who suffices with
what he has] ‘his heart is always as happy as the man who is holding a
drinking party in his home, whose heart is happy at the moment that he is
drunk with wine – to the extent that even the king is not his equal.
However, after his wine passes from him, he is not in happiness as he was
before, which is not the case with the good-hearted man. He is always as
happy as the drunkard’s moment of joy during his drinking revelry.’” (The
GR”A on Mishlei)
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