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The Camoflauge
Thought, Intention, and Deed.
Translated from Hebrew by S.
NAthan
l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai
“Half a shekel – a soul’s ransom.” This is an external camoflauge,
representing man as a number, as a quantitative entity.
The cohanim are obligated to undergo purification, both in
clothing and in behavior that is not natural but is rather externally
imposed upon them from above – behavior according to an image that has been
pre-determined for them.
The incense, the annointing oil, the “spirit of insight and knowledge” in
all of Bezalel’s labor, these too are not his, but rather originate as an
intervention from on high, intended to create a heavenly model for human
behavior.
Shabat – Rest. “A sign.” A sign for creating an image, a symbol.
A sign, a signal. All these are expressions that come from the outside, or
from above.
The Calf: “And Moshe saw the nation, that it was wild…and…had made
a mask of a calf.”
Moshe distances himself, and distances the ohel, moving it outside
of the camp. And he conceals his face with a camoflauge.
Self-image is comprised of thought, intention, and deed. These three
components are created from different sources of influence.
Thought is comprised of images, imagination, stimulations and
feelings that awaken the inner self from its slumber.
Intention is the expression of thought consolidated around a goal
that is found outside of the personality. It is directed toward practical
execution.
Deed is behavior as a result of intention.
Among these three components, a diverse mixture can be formed, from
thought to deed, when man is not confused. “The final deed was in the
original thought.” And from deed to thought: “After the actions, the hearts
are drawn." And all the other combinations that lie between these two
extremes.
Organization of these components is vital for functional behavior. A
person is wild as a result of lack of organization, and this is what caused
the sin of the Calf.
Thought is formed through imagination, which creates self-image. This
self-image is what dictates the character and the course of one’s behavior.
Self-image is not merely negative or positive, but is dictated as well by
environment, education, tradition, and also by expectations and their
realization, and not merely by talent and ability that have been
actualized. Self-image determines morbid behavior as well, both emotional
and physical. One is the landscape of one’s birthplace. “Every man has a
name,” as the poem goes.
The role of the camoflauge is to regulate relations between outer and
inner. Distorted relations create the image of the “double”, the hypocrite,
“the degenerate with permission of the Torah.” Also the madman, who is not
responsible for his deeds, because his thought and deed lack intention, the
connecting link that is decisive. It is possible also to find a capacity
for thinking (a multi-talented person) without any capacity for control –
because it is intention that connects thought and deed.
The “sign” that was “the jewel” given to them at Har Horev, was
intention. They did not take proper advantage of this jewelry, and
therefore they lost the right to wear it. “And they lost their jewel from
Har Horev.”
According to the Akeida, this “jewel” was tefilin. Hand tefillin for “shamor”,
guard against the prohibitions, and head tefilin for “zachor”,
remember the positive commandments. According to the other commentaries, it
was a crown with the shem hameforash on it, like that worn by the
high priest.
The camoflauge is needed when external reality is not compatible with
thought. The camoflauge is intended to regulate and moderate between these
two. Thus Moshe’s camoflauge was removed, and was not needed when he taught
the people Torah, because the reality of Torah contains an integrative
factor in which the teacher, the student, and the Torah create one solid
whole.
The Calf Mask
The Calf was actuallly a mask that divided, as opposed to Moshe’s
camoflauge that connected and joined. The mask within the Calf separated
the reality of material-physical force from its supreme Godly/spiritual
source. The people’s sin was in the faith they put in this brute force as
separated from its Godly source, whereas Aharon saw nothing wrong with a
brute force reality that did not separate from but rather served as an
expression for its spiritual source.
Aharon was trying to create a delay, to stall matters until Moshe would
come, or until he could find a connecting link between spirit and matter –
but he did not find one. He sought the missing link, the factor of
intention, the leshem shamayim, “for the sake of Heaven” – but he did
not find it. Therefore blame was placed on him: “For Aharon had made [the
nation] wild.”
The intention leshem shamayim – is the factor that creates an
openness between the three components, thought, intention, and deed. Thus
humility: The camoflauge filters, and creates a flow of connecting factors.
As opposed to arrogance: The camoflauge blocks. When the body blocks, it
severs thought from deed. Then there is no regulating the flow between the
inner self-image and the outer. The external image is then merely a result,
a victim of arrogance, of wickedness, and of all other temporal futilities
that dominate the self and prevent its expression. In this way, the self is
erased.
The attempt to detach olam ha’asia, “the world of doing” from
olam hayetsira, “the world of creativity” and olam habria, “the
world of creation” is the Sin of the Calf that continues to this day. This
is the attempt to free the mechanical laws, to make them independent and
autonomous.
A society that is too intensively evasive at the expense of the private
individual erases the personality, including its emotions, uniqueness, and
needs. It dictates alien needs to the individual, and empties him of his
own personality. Thus is the Calf Mask created. This is the case in
interpersonal relationships as well: The man empties the woman of her
personality, relating only to her exterior. Insightful women are more aware
of this danger than men are.
When the self exists, but with no connection to the deed, this creates
paralysis, physical and emotional impotence – depression. Compulsiveness is
an expression of the absence of any connection between outer and inner, with
the inner struggling without success to find a path of expression within
reality.
Kitsch is the product of the thought that lacks the intention. It
becomes deed indiscriminately, without the appropriate and natural criticism
that comes from the inner space of the self. It may result from excessive
external stimulation that has difficulty passing through the self’s
digestive screen, or from an overflow of emotions that surge into the
vaccuum of an environment that does not have the capacity for appropriate
response.
Self-image is not really from the self, truth to tell. It is constructed
gradually by “the labor of Torah”, which creates a Godly image out of the
raw human material. Thus is the covenant between man and Creator expressed
through self-image as well. Self-image only requires the act of choosing
between image-makers that are inner and image-makers that are outer. It is
not created automatically.
As the Eben Ezra states: (31:18) “One cannot know God if one does not
know one’s own life force and soul and body. Because whoever does not know
the essence of his own life force – what use is wisdom to him?”
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