“ON THREE THINGS, THE WORLD STANDS.”

Im behukotai tailaichu, “If you will walk in My laws…”

Or HaHaim: This means that you should toil in Torah learning…(quotes Torat Cohanim)

A Mishna in Avot 1:2: “Shimon the Just was of the remnants of the Great Assembly.  He used to say: ‘On three things, the world stands: On Torah, on worship, and on performing generous kindnesses.’”

A Gemara in Avoda Zara 18:  “Our masters taught: ‘When Rabi Yosi ben Kisma fell ill, Rabi Hanina ben Tradion went to visit him.  He said to him: ‘Hanina my brother, don’t you know that this nation (Rome) has been crowned by heaven?  For it has destroyed His house, and burned His shrine, and killed His devotees, and destroyed His best ones, and yet it still stands.  And I have heard about you that you sit and occupy yourself with Torah and organize groups in public, while a Sefer Torah lies in your arms.’”  He (Rabi Hanina) said to him: ‘From heaven, They will have pity.’  He (Rabi Yosi) said to him: ‘I tell you relevant things and you tell me, from heaven They will have pity?  I wonder if they would not burn you and the Sefer Torah by fire.’  He(Rabi Hanina) said to him: ‘Master, how am I for the life of the next world?’  He (Rabi Yosi) said to him: ‘Did any good deed ever come your way?’  He(Rabi Hanina) said to him: ‘Once I traded Purim funds for charity funds, and I gave them out to the poor.’  He (Rabi Yosi) said to him: ‘If so, may my portion be from your portion, and may my fate be from your fate.’  They [our masters] said [further]: ‘Not even a few days later, Rabi Yosi ben Kisma passed away, and all the great ones of Rome went to bury him, and eulogized him with great pomp, and on their return, they found him, Rabi Hanina ben Tradion, as he was sitting and occupying himself with Torah, and organizing public gatherings, while a Sefer Torah lay in his arms.  They brought him and bound him in the Sefer Torah, and surrounded him with bundles of twigs and set them on fire and brought woolen sponges and soaked them in water and lay them upon his heart, so that his soul would not depart swiftly.  His daughter said to him: ‘Father, am I to see you thus?’  He said to her: ‘If it were such that I was being burned alone, the thing would be difficult for me to bear.  Now that I am being burned with the Sefer Torah with me – the One Who seeks the insult to the Sefer Torah – He will seek the insult to me.’  His students said to him: ‘What do you see?’  He said to them: ‘Scrolls being burned, and letters flying through the air.’  They said to him: ‘You too, open your mouth, so that the fire will enter you.’  He said to them: ‘It is better if the One who gave it would take it, and one should not harm one’s own self.’  The executioner said to him: ‘Master, if I increase the flame and take off the woolen sponges from upon your heart, will you take me to the life of the next world?’  He said to him: ‘Yes.’  ‘Swear to me.’  He swore to him.  He immediately increased the fire and took the woolen sponges off his heart.  His soul departed swiftly.  Then he too leaped and fell inside the fire.  A bat kol came forth from heaven and said: ‘Rabi Hanina ben Tradion and the executioner are immediately invited into the life of the next world.’  Rabi [Yehuda HaNasi] wept and said: ‘One buys his world in one moment, and another buys his world for years.”

One is amazed by the courageous spirit of Hazal, by their open and unflinching approach, in coping with questions of the most penetrating nature – of the sort that fathom the depths of the human life force, torn between its yearning to attach to its Creator and the provocations of existence.  This rift casts a heavy shadow over any attempt to lead a value-based qualitative way of life.  It is the rift between the dimension of height and the mechanistic / animalistic self-preservation mechanism.

Hazal show no tendency to evade a fundamental exploration of the problem.  One might see in this revelatory passage the accumulation of the essence of all the elements found in religion’s furnace.  Basic questions dealing with the relationship between existence and destiny – a relationship that appears contradictory to the eye – a limited transient existence opposite an eternal destiny that appears on the surface of things to be in inverse relationship to the transient.  One who sacrifices his life for death lives in death’s shadow: “How am I for the life of the next world?”  This question lends itself to tragic interpretation: Is one world instead of the other? 

Or is one the continuation of the other?  If so, what is the logical thread that leads from existence to destiny?  There is also the question of – until what point?  Where does one draw the boundary of the obligation to sacrifice one’s life al kidush Hashem?  It appears on the surface of things that there is a disagreement between the two sages.  Is it really so? 

The tendency does exist, in yeshiva circles, to make this distinction between the Rambam (Sefer HaMitsvot, mitsva 9) and the other rishonim.

Yet from the words of the Gemara, which are reinforced by the commentary of the Tosfot, it does not appear that any disagreement actually exists with regard to the obligation of the mitsva, but rather with regard to the distresses of the nefesh, the physical/emotional life force versus the distress of the terrible test: Perhaps one might not withstand the test, and in that case, would it not be permissible to take one’s own life with one’s own hands. 

On the surface of things, there is no discussion of the question of whether it is permissible to evade the fulfillment of the mitsva – it appears this way from Rabi Yosi ben Kisma’s position: Why not learn underground and not provoke the regime of wickedness?  Furthermore, what is intended by Rabi Hanina’s answer: “From heaven, they will pity.”  When has midat harahamim entered this tragic scene?  Does a person who takes his life in his hands by provoking the regime deserve midat harahamim?  As the Maharsha comments, is it permitted to rely on a miracle?  Why should every person given the opportunity to sacrifice his life not rely on a miracle instead?  Did Rabi Akiva too attempt to rely on a miracle at the moment that they were combing his flesh with iron combs?  Rather, he had prayed all his life for the privilege of fulfilling the mitsva of sacrificing one’s life.  Furthermore, if you see the wicked succeeding, isn’t it more appropriate to yield to them?  Isn’t their success an indicator of God’s will?  Question upon question.  What is the relationship between midat hadin, the measure of judgement, and midat harahamim?  Does the question of din versus rahamim, justice versus compassion even apply in any way to the class and rank of kidush Hashem, of sanctifying God’s Name by sacrificing one’s life?  Meaning, is kidush Hashem – din?  Is it possible that there is no reality of kidush Hashem within the framework of midat harahamim?  Or does the exalted rank of kidush Hashem perhaps fly high above this division of the relationship between midat hadin and midat harahamim, for after all, he is called saintly for he has merited eternal life.

It would seem that the accumulation of problematic questions in our piece of  Gemara here creates a cycle of contradiction that precludes even the logical continuity of believing rather than merely the logical continuity of rational thinking.  The dialogue between these two incredibly wonderful sages – takes place in the manner of a chain explosion, with every answer concealing the absurdity that is about to follow.  We may not suffice with ad hoc explanations.  There does not seem to be any room here for approaches that try to explain.  It is more fitting here to try to delve and discover the foundations of faith to be found in this astonishingly marvelous piece – which leads the explorer on an adventure that ultimately reveals the roots of the foundation of faith.

What do the sages of the Mishna intend by this statement?  “On three things, the world stands: On Torah, on worship, and on doing generous kindnesses.”  It would be appropriate here to point to the attempt (however unsuccessful) made by all the religions that have been founded upon faith in one God.  One of the supporting pillars, that of worship, they have attempted to copy and to imitate – for after all it is not difficult to recognize the need for a direct expression between a believer and his God: Through prayer, a believer creates the intimate connection with his Creator.  Doing generous kindness as well: One needs no great effort to present this as a supporting pillar of the world, for after all – “A world of generous kindness shall be built.”  For generous kindness expresses morality, without which the world has no existence, and this is understood and accepted by all.

The supporting pillar of Torah: Not one of the religions has been able to accept this.  It has been preserved as a rare and distinctive secret between the eternal Creator and the eternal people.  A prohibition against teaching a non-Jew Torah exists, other than those parts that apply to him directly.  One can only teach a non-Jew that part of Torah that deals with the “seven mitsvot commanded to the children of Noah”.

No sign has ever appeared of any attempt by any of the religions to learn the Torah.  Neither does logic encourage one to view learning/fulfilling the Torah as the powerful supporting pillar on which the world stands.

“He looked into the Torah and created the universe” is not one of those assertions that is sustained by logical-scientific probability.  What is Torah’s secret that it constitutes a supporting pillar on which the world stands?

Hazal’s disclosures – that the Torah is the formula that holds the key with which the Holy One created the universe – determine that any attempt to explore or understand the guiding lines and principles on which the universe is structured, any investigation of fundamental factors, will find that they are not secreted within physics, chemistry, and biology but rather within the laws of Torah.

It is true that the Torah does not deny the description of the “how” provided by the natural sciences – how they operate.  However it deals with the factors that relate to the roots and to those laws and principles that are incessantly hovering over and directly influencing the behaviors of nature.  These laws apply both to human nature and the nature of the universe, if only because the absolute unity that exists between matter and spirit, despite the essential antagonism that inheres between them, at least as it appears from the outside.

The fundamentals of Torah learning, the ways of Torah learning, the laws and dynamics of Torah learning – the ways of Torah learning, all these embrace one another inseparably, for separation does not exist between the Torah object and its learners.  The Torah object is the “scrolls burning”, and the “letters fly through the air” and await the learner, who will combine them anew, who will take part in the creation of the Torah, which them becomes his own.

Torah dilai hu, “Torah that is his own”, after he has toiled in his learning day and night.  Immediate, direct involvement, within the present moment, is the basis that constitutes the fulfillment of Torah – without any separation between learner and material learned, and even without any dependency upon the results.  In this context, the results that derive from the learning have no importance.  The value of the learning is imbedded in whatever arises from the examining and clarifying itself, on condition that one embodies the fulfillment of ‘intention for the sake of heaven’, and of extracting the maximal exertion that arises out of direct investment of effort.

Every conclusion that arises from the fulfillment of these conditions merits the endorsement of Divine truth.  Every understanding of the Torah’s processes includes with it an ability to see into the processes of creation; innovations within Torah learning are the very innovations of the universe’s own self-renewal.  The learner’s influence on Torah passes directly into influence upon the universe.  From here we derive the view of Torah as an active dynamic foundation and supporting pillar that upholds the universe.

The supporting pillar of Torah is the man who learns.  Here a new factor enters the picture: Differences in quality and in essence; these are determined by one’s soul’s root.  Every person has a uniquely original quality of soul, whose root is united and is at one with the root of the universe – as a derivative principle of monotheistic unity.  Hazal’s disclosures, in their statement that “on three things the world stands”, means that these three foundations send out their roots, and produce growth in the branches of creation.

Every servant of God has his root in one of these three things on which the world stands.  Here we find that the world stands on the man who serves his Creator.  The foundation of Torah characterizes the man of the spirit, who possesses an intellectual character, whose powers and talents draw from the supporting pillar of Torah.  He is magnificently effective in creative innovation in his Torah learning.  In principle, the prohibition against bitul Torah, wasting time from Torah learning, applies to him at every step and in everything he does, other than involvement with Torah.  As the Gemara states in Tractate Shabat 11b: “They did not teach [that scholars are exempted from praying] except for the likes of Rabi Shimon bar Yohai and his friends, for whom their Torah is their trade.”  This astonishing declaration by the Gemara begs explanation.  Would an a priori exemption from prayer occur to anyone, other than in a case where someone was absolutely prevented against his will from praying?

Apparently a prince of Torah such as Rabi Shimon bar Yohai constitutes a supporting pillar of Torah on which the world stands, and he is not permitted to abandon his sacred and exclusive duty even to fulfill another mitsva, let alone to engage in binyan olam, constructive worldly activity.  Thus Rabi Shimon bar Yohai, and thus too Rabi Hanina ben Tradion.

Our Gemara deals with the attempt to draw the boundaries that delineate the limits of the Torah world: How far would it reach in times of danger?  How deeply does the rule of exemption at a life-threatening moment penetrate, as opposed to the rule of “you will murmur its day and night”, and even of “whoever ceases from his study, and says, ‘how lovely is this tree’ – well, that one has forfeited his life force.”

Rabi Yosi ben Kisma, who seems to have been Rabi Hanina ben Tradion’s master, shows him the aspect of exemption in times of danger, and indeed, that is the law.  Rabi Hanina ben Tradion responds to him with a reply that appears rather bewildering: “From heaven they will pity…”  The answer does not fit the question, his master rebukes him.  “I tell you relevant things, and you tell me, from heaven they will pity?”

Our bewilderment only grows worse, and more entangled by Rabi Hanina’s response:  “My master, how am I for the life of the next world?”  Here, specifically, when the answer seems even more inappropriate, when it doubly does not fit the question, Rabi Yosi begins to relate to him seriously, and asks him if any mitsva has ever come his way.  Logic, already deprived, explodes finally, terminally, and irretrievably at this point: It seems that Torah learning by the prince of Torah, on whom the world is supported, is inadequate as merit for acquiring eternal life for its owner.  It needs to have a mitsva of any kind added to it – funds that he traded in and dedicated to charity – this prince of Torah who is exempt even from prayer so that he will not abandon his guard, on which the world stands.

This mitsva is then considered to have been decisive to such an extent that his master is overcome with wonder, to the point of wishing to have the privilege of participating with him in his portion in the next world.

Before us is a hidden treasure, that seems to hold the mystery of the:  Just as one who ceases his study and says ‘how lovely is this tree’ – forfeits his life, the prince of Torah is required to grant his duty exclusive priority and value, and to not mingle it with any side issue or occupation.  Yet on the other hand he forbidden to attribute importance to himself and to feel contempt for the other supporting pillars on which the world stands, to feel that he is – lechatchila, from an ideal starting point – exempt from relating to them, as if they did not exist for the likes of him.  Contempt for one’s own duty (‘how lovely is this tree’) on the one hand, and contempt for other ways of service (has a mitsva ever come your way) on the other – both of these are sufficiently grave to warrant the death penalty.  Involvement in Torah does not exempt one from one’s own inner obligation in the sphere of “being”.  Merit comes only by existing simultaneously in one’s learning, and in one’s involvement in practical halacha, in the “doing”.

…“Being”, that innermost unfolding whose purest expression is the principle of lifnim mishurat hadin, going beyond the requirements of the law…

…These profound inner essences that comprise the perfect Godly Presence…

The supporting pillars of worship and of hesed, generous kindness, without which the world cannot go on, are the world’s heart, while the supporting pillar of Torah is the brain, and the marrow of the world’s spine.  A prince of Torah who understands the relationship between the brain and the heart, between external reality and inner essence – it would seem only right that he too should merit a similar attitude on heaven’s part; midat harahamim should be heaven’s attitude to him: “From heaven they will pity”, because he himself has not sufficed with midat hadin, with pure justice, and has added on to his own duty, and never at the expense of his duty, having been always cautious and strict with the exactitudes of the mitsva of charity.

One who serves God along the track of hesed can occasionally enter into the framework of “one who is occupied with a mitsva is exempt from a mitsva”, as in the case of someone occupied with met mitsva, where the deceased has no one else to bury him, or someone occupied as an employee who has a duty to his employer – who is exempt from prayer, and can recite the Shma while standing in a treetop, in order to avoid entangling himself with the problem of robbing his employer of work time.  However, he cannot make use of this exemption lechatchila, by hiring himself out by choice in order to exempt himself, rather the exemption only applies when he is in the category of one who was coerced.  This applies as well to the relationship between midat hadin, the measure of judgement, and midat harahamim, the measure of compassion.  One cannot exempt oneself from midat harahamim and entrench oneself in midat hadin, as the Ramban says – for one might find oneself in the wretched and despicable position of naval birshut haTorah, “a degenerate with permission from the Torah”.

“Is the law really like that?” Rabi Bar Bar Hana asks his friends the judges, at whose head sat Rav, for he knew the law as well as they did, at least in terms of midat hadin.  “Yes”, he was answered, “for it says: ‘in order that you will walk in the path of good people.’”  Meaning that the court has the authority to obligate beyond the boundary of the law, by introducing it into the framework of the law. 

…To teach you that you may not suffice with a limited and reduced service of God according to the lines that you have previously set out for yourself.  Rather you are obligated by  personal law to make Godly Presence out of any reality that comes to your hand, and this obligation does not apply only along the main track that is destined for you by the fact and nature of your creation.

Lechatchila and bedi’eved, pre-facto and post-facto, ideal starting points and reality as it is – these distinctions do not apply to the gavra, to the subjective human being, to one’s own personal approach.  There is a personal difference, as it were, between one who suffices with little, and limits himself to his defined duty and no more, and one who aspires to broaden the boundaries of his service.  One who reduces himself, and removes from himself any act of mitsva that does not belong to his pre-determined boundaries – there are those who judge such a person harshly, calling him mumar ledavar ehad, “an apostate for one thing”.  God’s true servant sees himself as being subject to a perfect service of God, including all three of the supporting pillars of the world.  The determining factor is the immediate situation – and the existing possibilities in light of the “new [needs] that appear every morning” – rather than man, who does not decide these things.

“My master, how am I for the life of the next world?” Rabi Hanina asks his master Rabi Yosi.  To what purpose does Rabi Hanina take such an interest in his place in the next world?  Has doubt awakened in him?  Has his faith been shaken despite – or perhaps because of – his exaggerated self-sacrifice?  …which borders on suicide after he has been warned by his master, who rebukes him for transgressing the law of the regime and belittling the danger.  After all, everything is pushed aside to save a life.

If these were his doubts, what answer to them does his master give by raising the issue of whether a mitsva has ever come his way?  It seems that by exclusive preoccupation with one mitsva, while shrinking from another mitsva opportunity that presents itself, even if one’s exclusive preoccupation with one’s own mitsva borders on self-sacrifice, one risks losing one’s portion in the next world, of being a mumar ledavar ehad, “an apostate for one thing”.

His daughter said to him: “Father, am I to see you thus?”  It would be appropriate to mention here that his daughter was Bruria, the wife of Rabi Meir.  This woman occupied the category of talmid hacham; her disapproval was dreaded by the sages of the Talmud.  Hazal go to extremes in describing the high quality and the self-sacrifice for Torah demonstrated by her.  Her question: Is such the reward for this mitsva?

On the surface of things it seems he could have answered her in the spirit of our discussion: He had endangered himself more than the Torah expects one to do, and he had perhaps transgressed the prohibition, had perhaps violated the requirement to save a life.

Instead her father’s answer focuses on the character of Torah and of its learners: That the learner of Torah embodies the Torah in his own reality, as the Torah of his own life; that a Torah scholar rises to the rank of sefer Torah hai, a living Torah, and after all the Torah is the source of God’s inspiration, for “He looked into the Torah and created the universe.”

The universe, the creation of the universe, the purpose of the universe, is to realize the Torah – to make a reality of it.  The spirit of the universe, its inner content and quality are an expression for the quality of the Torah.  All of this is an expression of God’s part in the Torah.  His partner’s part – man’s part – is expressed in the learning of Torah, in creative learning that includes understanding, innovation and legal decision.  One who toils in Torah creates, and transforms the Torah into this world’s reality, into Godly Presence in this world.

It is worth remembering that the learner himself is himself transformed first and foremost into a central Torah reality.  Just as the Torah is eternal, so does the learner leave the limitations of the transient world and become eternity.  “Scrolls are burning and letters are flying through the air” until they are consolidated anew by the new learner.  Just as the Torah can never be erased, so can the learner of Torah never be ruled by death, for “his lips murmur in the grave”, even after his soul has liberated itself from the murky body.  Its concrete expression, and the Godly Presence that it has realized in him are not transient.

“It would be better if the one Who gave it would take it, and one must not harm one’s own self.”  But the hangman may ease his suffering, even though he will hasten his death thereby.  It seems that this halachic principle of prohibiting suicide finds expression with the prophet Yonah as well.  He requests: “Lift me up and cast me into the sea.”  At first glance, “lift me up” seems superfluous.  Yona should have simply said, cast me into the sea, and even more so – he could have cast himself into the sea, without bewildering the sailors who were God-fearing.  It seems that the prohibition against suicide prevented Yonah from casting himself, which is why even moving closer to the deck rail was forbidden to him.  Thus the sailors were required to deal with all the stages of his casting into the sea. 

One might think his entire request would be questionable, and included in the category of suicide.  However, Yona was in the category of the rodef, the homicidal pursuer, in relation to the sailors, and their obligation to save themselves at the expense of the rodef applied in this case.  However, Yona himself was forbidden to carry out his own death.  We see here how severe is the law regarding anyone who commits suicide.  Ve’haven, Understand this clearly…

The human monster is filled with such wondrous awe that he seeks to be joined to the portion of the saintly Rabi Hanina.  This seems to be a revelation of the extent to which the saint makes contemptible and ridiculous any existence that is devoid of Torah; that existence is empty of qualitative values, that existence lacks all enjoyment or purpose – in contrast with an existence that holds in its possession the value of the eternal qualities and inner content of the Torah.  Here we see how a human being, a transient creature of flesh and blood, can create of himself – can make of the futile existence of a lowly world, human quality which becomes partner to the Creator of the universe.  The repulsive human monster discovers the secret of the life of eternity, to the point that he is willing to give up his life of futility, to trade it for the life of eternity.

“Rabi wept and said: ‘One buys his world in one moment, and another buys his world for years.”  This appears on the surface to be a discovery of a new track – a short cut.  It would seem more appropriate to rejoice over such a discovery.  Why this weeping?

It seems that it is possible to understand from this weeping that the Jewish ideal prefers living a life that sanctifies God’s Name, rather than dying a death that sanctifies God’s Name.  Life unfolds in the present moment.  The life of eternity makes an eternal present moment out of the time factor.

Past, present, and future, these empty life of its quality and eternal value; these turn life’s sensation into a self-preservation mechanism of survival, made up entirely of limping and slipping and  skipping over the gambling surfaces of survival.  Such a survival system has only one chance left for meaning, and that is self-sacrifice.  To ignore survival itself: To sacrifice an empty life for the sake of an ideal that is outside of life.

Indeed, this perception has become the heritage of all the other religions – from the near east to the far east, to Christianity with all its corollaries.  This is the ideal of the martyr. 

“Not among these is the portion of Yaakov”, and it was for this that Rabi wept.  Martyrdom is not desired – as with Yonah’s protest at the Creator’s easy forgiveness of the non-Jews.  As in Yaakov’s lament: “Few and bad have been the years of my life”.  God’s people desires a life of awe of God and fear of sin; a life that incarnates perfect Godly Presence.

I tend to ascribe an existentialist perception to the Jewish perception – a positive existentialism that discerns eternal meaning in the life of the continuing present moment.  In contrast with the Christian perceptions that live off of death.  Their existentialism is ruled by a spirit of nihilism that denies any sort of real value to life itself; that believes that existence itself holds no value worth living for; that believes that suffering has no meaning.  Hence their perception, which separates efforts from results.  Efforts are in the present and results are in the future.  This future is not guaranteed, and is not necessarily determined by the efforts.  This future is a captive of random capricious chance.

A person imprisoned by this perception loses in both directions – kayrayah mikan umikan.  He is detached from his own self, from the source of the inner quality unique to his own personality, and he is detached as well from reality.  He controls neither himself nor the world.

In contrast, Rabi Hanina is gripped by and bound to the quality of the Torah, in the continuing present moment, whereas his future is in heaven’s hands.  “From heaven, they will have pity.”  He sees his world in his own lifetime.  He sees the next and future world in this – the present world.  His reality is here and now – with the exclusive guiding principle being his service of the Creator.  All the rest – meaningless.

“Happy is the one who teaches his son Torah, and woe to the one who teaches his son meaninglessness.”