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Parashat Lech Lecha
l'ilui nishmat Esther bat Mordechai
Avraham – Father of
Religious Experience
The Individual is Born
– A New Experience: ‘Being Together’
In this Parasha:
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No longer – action which stands on its own
merit. Rather – action as an expression of inner experience.
“Doing” as an expression for “being”.
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The difference between the altar that Noah
built, and Avraham’s mizbaiah.
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The multi-faceted connection between man and
the Creator creates a new relativity that is bound up with a new covenant
between man and his Creator - unlike covenants between the Creator and the
creation such as the covenant sealed into the rainbow.
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Ramban’s criticism of the descent to
Egypt, of Avraham's saying, “say, please, that you are my sister”, and
“how will I know that I will inherit [the land]”.
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Of Avraham’s laughter on hearing the good
news that he would be given progeny through Sarah.
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Severing “doing” from “being” causes
technical stringency in the fulfillment of the mitsvot, at the expense of
cavana, personal involvement with the meaning of the mitsva.
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“Being” at the expense of “doing”, and vice
versa. Severing cavana from the environment, and
focusing exclusively on the meaning of the words.
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Contrast this with the focus on hesed
that was Avraham’s mida, versus the localized focus through
detaching from the environment, as with Yitzchak, and the perfect balance
between inner and outer, attained only by Ya’akov, whose mida was
truth.
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A new subjective experience creates the
sense of being individual, of ‘being together’. Of hesed.
“Doing” and “Being”
“This is the book of the chronicles of man.”
The story of the process of human development is a series of way stations
and progressive stages, as we have seen from what happened to Adam, and
from the ten generations from Adam to Noah, and from the ten generations
from Noah to Avraham. It is the story of a specific principle moving
progressively in a specific direction, running throughout the narrative
like a crimson thread: It begins as Godly unity bestowed from heaven, and
it moves toward a Godly Presence that is the handiwork of man, who has
become a creator of unity.
The human being who was shown how to actualize
Godliness through the human presence was Avraham. From here on, this
new process appears, through the three avot. It is the
handiwork of man, creating unity out of opposites, creating the triangular
structure that is the guiding principle of Torah shebe’al peh: Two
scriptures contradict one another, until the third scripture comes and
resolves them.”
This structure appears in every act of creation that
is the fruit of the human spirit. Avraham was charged with the duty
of uniting a new dimension of divisiveness, which had appeared with the
dor hapelaga. A split between the Godly condition and what the
dor hapelaga had, in their great insolence, set up against it –
their own act of creation.
Power versus power, so to speak.
The Creator, yitbarach, confuses their
language and causes internal mental conflict within them. How?
No longer is it a conflict between one reality and another, but rather
between an outer reality and a human-inner condition. From now on,
the Godly Presence would be expressed by a condition of unity between
inner and outer, a unity of the act and the experience.
From now on, an act would be tested by the degree to
which it faithfully expressed the inner intention, the will, and the
spiritual-human quality of the owner of the act. Any deviation from
this bond between these two components would be considered a flaw in the
quality of the action, and would empty it of its value, and of its
effectiveness as a completed act.
No longer would action be evaluated according to
itself, according to measures of quantity and criteria of efficiency, and
neither would the test of man be the murmurings of his heart and his inner
intentions. Rather, there would be a new test for both of them.
This task would demand new qualities of man, far beyond the limitations of
time and space by which his utilitarian reality was limited.
The more an act would be attached to and constitute a
direct and pure expression of the quality of the intention, so would the
“doing” diverge and break free of the limitations of time and space, and
take on new dimensions.
Occasionally a behavior would appear which the laws
of the logic of time and space would have no way to grasp. This
phenomenon would then be seen as a miracle, and would be mistakenly
explained as a Godly intervention from a higher source. The truth of the
matter is that this phenomenon belongs to the intervention of the Godly
Presence that is in man. We witness, in this parasha, the phenomenon
of an added dimension of the source of bounty. Unlimited wealth,
belonging to the phenomenon of Godly Presence – but this time created from
below, through man: Veheyai bracha. “Be you a blessing.”
From this ability, new existential needs are born,
pre-conditions without which the experience of existence is found lacking
in what is most essential, without which the sense of existence is caught
in the mechanical net of material reality, and is lost in the rushing
current of time and space devoid of human quality.
When this quality shows itself – when it emerges from
its source, which originates in the Godly quality that is in man – it
grabs the raging bull by the horns and gives it its orders, conducting and
orchestrating the melody, rhythm, and sound of life’s celestial song on
earth.
Thus does the whole and perfect human being imprint
his personal signature upon reality, and it is he who determines the rules
of the game – in the sense of tsadik gozair veHaKadosh Baruch Hu
mekayaim, “the tsadik decrees, and the Holy One fulfills.”
From this point onward, man’s personal needs become
vital to his experience of existence, or in our terminology, “doing”
exists only to the extent that it constitutes an expression for the
“being” that unfolds within the innermost self of a human being who stands
behind his actions.
When detachment separates between “doing” from
“being” then action has no value whatsoever. Its influence is
negative, in fact, and impairs the balance within reality. Such
action does not merge with the dynamic movement taking place within the
reality that surrounds that person, and in fact impedes its orderly
progress on the road of existence.
The new expressions that appear in our parasha of
ways of merging with reality’s dynamic processes, such as emotions, such
as the capacity to identify – these can be either positive or negative –
become an expression that determines the capacity for choosing between
truth and falsehood in their personal form. This is manifested as an
ability to distinguish between good and evil, between repair and ruin.
A new world is now given into the slack and sagging
hands of the highest of all creatures: A world of feelings, of
humanly identifying, of deciding on the basis of balanced judgment, and of
– most importantly – common sense. These become the elements that
blaze the private trail, reserved for every single individual.
From here on, a private belonging is born, which
unites within itself both belonging and freedom. A private public
space is opened, which determines the experience of existence, and which
becomes a reality that gives expression to the creating human being.
In its absence, the survival mechanism emerges, scattering fears in every
direction, imposing an atmosphere of darkness and the shadow of death over
existential reality.
A sense of hopelessness and despair takes over,
strangling the voice of insight and balanced judgment, and any chance of
getting out of the web of confusion. Reality loses its dimension of
height and is perceived as a two-dimensional structure, shallow and
fraught with contradiction.
The dimension of height lost quite a bit of height in
the dor haplaga, “the Generation of the Divide”, which “cut down
[God’s] plantings.” This was a generation of insolent swaggerers who
believed in their own power, which they would attain by rallying all
troops, consolidating all parties. Yet they were no more than
consolidating the wrapping, that comes in place of the dimension of
height.
What of the dimension of depth? “Cutting down
the plantings” is a metaphor which alludes to disconnection, to a denial
of the dimension of depth. It appears that this dimension had not
yet taken hold in existential awareness.
Its presence became vital only when the superficial
unity they had attained – whose elements did not derive from the roots of
the self but rather from a superficial consensus whose pragmatic goal was
compromise and a whitewashing of conflict within a two-dimensional reality
– was discovered to be no more than a technical solution reached through
blithely and insolently ignoring the dimensions of height and depth.
“Come, let us go down, and there baffle their
language.” By changing the formula, the dimension of depth was added
to the configuration of human consciousness. Up until this change,
man had related to an external reality. He had dealt with “doing”
but not with “being” – a pattern of doing that had been put in the stocks
of space and time, within a chessboard structure of relationships: The
private individual would make his moves, and this would affect others near
and far, as well as the system as a whole.
Enter the Holy One, to add a new factor, which was –
the world of inner sensation. It makes its appearance, and suddenly
it is the determiner of the causes and effects of external events.
Henceforth, man will not be influenced solely by the objective results in
the field, but mainly by the extent to which events unfolding in reality
affect the unfolding of his innermost self, including his emotional
system, including his self’s intention and his self-expression.
Suddenly, the factor of humanly identifying with
another makes its appearance in human actions and events. Thus is a
value-based relativity born, between events, and the human being, who
perceives himself as being connected to, and even personally responsible
for his actions.
The appearance of this new relativity undermines the
dor haplaga’s attempt to rely on technical, superficial
equilibrium, for when that equilibrium is upset, man is confronted with a
hopeless reversal of circumstances.
The internal contradiction that lies at the basis of
two-dimensional reality then returns with ever greater and harsher force,
causing the collapse of consensus, which had promised the fitting and
proper organization of the system as a whole.
This collapse undermined man’s confidence in his
ability to break away from dependency upon God. From here on, God’s
servant increasingly deepens his rootedness in, and tightens his hold upon
the self, abode of inner quality, in order to direct and determine the
value of practical actions. New needs, such as identifying, such as
feelings of love and hate, such as balanced judgment and common sense will
participate in decision-making before action is taken. Without
these, man will be unable to feel responsible for his own actions.
Above all: The self will be the main determiner in the connection
with one’s Creator. From here on:
Prayer in place of sacrifices. The sacrifice
will be man himself, happy to offer the best that is in him to God.
Sacrifice in the sense of an expression of devotion, of one’s own
dvaikut, one’s personally attaching to God without external
accessories. The self, bearer of the Godly seal in man, will now
draw from its own resources the guidelines of how to serve its God.
Dvaikut and identifying with God will now
become the road that leads from man to the Creator. The sacrifices
that were offered by the twenty generations until Avraham – that expressed
contradictory opposites as explained in Parashat Bereshit and Noah – have
stepped aside in favor of avoda shebalev, zu tefila, “the heart’s
worship; this is prayer”.
With Noah: “And Noah built an altar to God, and he
took of every pure animal, etc. and he offered burnt offerings on the
altar.”
With Avraham: “And he built there an altar to the God
Who appeared to him.” Rashi: “He prophesied that his children in
future would stumble there, through the sin of Achan, and he prayed there
for them.” And when he returned from his exile in Egypt, “to the
place of the altar which he had made there first, he called…in the name of
God.” Here too is a place of prayer. From here on, the
mizbaiah serves for prayer, and not for the offering of sacrifices.
Two manners of prayer: “Doing” severed from “being”:
One says, with one’s lips, words that are found in the prayer book, in
order to fulfill the halachic requirement, but one’s heart was not in it.
One fulfills the mitsva of prayer and therefore cannot be counted as
having evaded one’s obligation. However, in spite of this, one’s
prayer is not answered.
In the second manner of praying, the prayer serves as
a whispered outpouring, as an expression of the self’s inner yearning to
attach to its Possessor, to tell of what is in its heart. This
person’s prayer is answered according to its quality, and it can even
reach to “the tsadik decrees and the Holy One fulfills.” The quality
of this sort of prayer first appears with Avraham. It grows
increasingly profound, reaching its peak with Ya’akov, for whom such
prayer was an individual, direct expression.
From here on, the dimension of vision is added to
human experience, as an encounter between the sensitive inner self, the
imagination (vision, visualizing through imagination) and the objective
Godly manifestation. There are no barriers between the real and the
subjective inner self. Rather, there is an encounter that reconciles
them both.
Here is a new phenomenon of encounter – between the
whole human being, whose wholeness is Godly and perfect, and his Creator.
Whether waking or dreaming: “Avraham now merited having converse with God
in a vision in the day, because at the beginning his prophesy had been
through night appearances. And the reason God’s word came to Avraham as
a vision, is the same reason that ‘all the nation were seeing the sounds,’
but their mystery is for those who know the study of mysteries.” (Ramban)
As mentioned, the personal source adds a further
dimension not only to the experience of existence as a subjective
dimension, but also to one’s objective perception of reality. This
added supplement alters the picture completely, even to the point of
impairing the ability to see truth, which had until this point been quite
simplistic, two-dimensional, and even one-dimensional.
The Godly imperative had been previously perceived as
a localized instruction which did not encompass man, Creator, and
universe, but rather merely the will of the Creator and nothing more.
Very quickly man discovered – even while still in Gan Eden – that the will
of God encompasses man and universe. His attempt to adjust to this
new perception failed.
The failure to, or the difficulty of accepting God’s
word, runs as a continuous thread throughout all the incarnations of
religious perception, to our own day.
The description of the forefathers’ deeds is meant to
serve as a guiding light for their descendants. Its chief message is
a description of how human beings accept the Godly imperative, plus an
analysis of the components of this imperative.
With Avraham, the process of resolving the difficulty
appears. In the absence of the self, human beings had been pawns on the
chessboard of creation, suffering all the while, as mentioned, from the
intrinsic contradiction between reality’s two dimensions – for reality is
comprised of opposites in principle. There is water and there is
fire. There is conflict between polarized interests, which turn
existential reality into a war of survival.
The appearance of the human dimension, with Avraham,
only added complexity to the situation: A new conflict now developed
between rational mind and emotional feeling.
Let it be said clearly: A perspective based on the
human self is not limited to feeling or to subjective sensation, or as the
marketplace tends to call it, “emotional intelligence.”
We are referring to an emergence of the self as the
leader, as the ruler of behavior in its totality. The introduction
of the self into the behavioral system encompasses dimensions that diverge
immensely from existential reality, from survival’s face of things.
The self as the source of quality bestows content,
values, and long-term goals, which decisively answer the question “to what
purpose?” rather than merely answering the existential question of “how?”.
The self’s contribution hones free choice, setting it
up to be the critical apparatus in man’s ability to control his actions.
A new element is added to choice, which is balanced judgment, common
sense, and human insight. From here on, the human role ceases to be
limited to that of passive witness to the Godly Presence. Rather, it
becomes that of active partner to the creation of this Presence.
From here on, man has been freed from subjection to the mechanical rule of
the system, and has become its director.
However, this rich and complex process does not
appear as is, ready-made, and prepared to serve man. As a first
step, this added value causes reality to lose its simplicity (though this
simplicity has been limited and superficial). Avraham is charged
with a mission that, from a normal point of view, shows a deficient,
unbalanced reality:
Sever yourself from all the sources from which you
have drawn sustenance, to which a man is attached as the continuation of
the umbilical cord, and on the other hand, you must choose a substitute
for it that is hazy and vague, that seems to be the exact opposite of the
umbilical cord.
“To the land that I will show you.” It is only
thanks to intuition, fruit of the spirit of the new dimension. It is
only thanks to Avraham’s binat halev, heart’s insight, by the power
of his profound and personal identification with his Godly source, that
Avraham knows, without any doubt whatsoever, what is demanded of him.
He understands and also accepts the will of his
Creator from reality’s point of view, which includes the existential,
physical tangibility that attaches to reality. For the first time,
existential necessity is not found in a conflict of interests with the
Godly will or with human will.
Avraham fulfills God’s will with great happiness and
with complete satisfaction, even when this will does not reconcile with a
picture of reality that compels him to take up the wanderer’s staff once
again, to leave the land of the Godly destination, and to set out for
Egypt, which in its negative quality constitutes the polar opposite of the
Holy Land. It is only thanks to the third dimension that Avraham is
not disturbed by this contradiction, and sees it merely as a technical
problem. Contradiction never undermines the positive value, or the
justice, of the higher directive.
“Here, pray, I have known that you are a woman of
beautiful appearance.” According to one of the opinions of Hazal, it
was only now that he knew. Prior to this, he had not known? Is
it possible? It seems that we can understand this as a dividing of
the esthetic value from the totality of human values. Avraham does
not have this flaw, God forbid – the flaw of dividing human wholeness.
Rather, he recognizes the distressing fact that he is
about to confront a culture of falsehood, which places external esthetics
at the forefront of its values, while ignoring all other values, such as
faithfulness, honesty, and human value. It was in order to protect
the kernel of truth. It was not only out of self-defense, but rather
also an effort to protect himself and his wife from the trap of the
influence of this distorted world view.
…As does indeed happen to couples who leave a
value-oriented culture for a materialistic culture steeped in the
futilities of this world, and one member of the couple stumbles in
transition, losing the ability to see in the spouse those values that were
habit in the birthland – and it happens every day.
Avraham reminds Sarah of the supreme value of the
couple that complete one another, toward a unity that is the Godly
Presence. See the Ramban’s interpretation of the pasuk “God blessed
Avraham bakol, with all”, a poignant description of the perfect
love – a love that includes the entire scheme of relationships:
“He did not move from loving her, until he was
calling her his wife; he did not move from loving her, until he was
calling her his mother; he did not move from loving her, until he was
calling her his daughter; he did not move from loving her, until he was
calling her his sister.”
These do indeed entail the totality of relationships
with “one’s wife who is as one’s own body.” One person needs a wife
to be – his mother, while another needs a wife to be – his daughter, etc.
Among these relationships, and perhaps not least of
them, what determined the totality of perfect relations between Avraham
and Sarah – which were the ultimate in perfection – was the connection
between brother and sister. The source of this connection does not
originate in a chance meeting but is rather an umbilical connection,
deeper and more sacred than the womb, belonging to “forty days before the
fetus is conceived, a bat kol comes forth from heaven and
proclaims: ‘This man’s daughter for that man.’”
“Say, pray, that you are my sister.” Meaning I
am bound to him by a connection that derives from the original source.
It is a bond that cannot be severed. He is to me as a brother is to
his sister, not as a connection that appeared by chance and can also be
severed and disappear.
This new picture of reality is not easy to accept.
It may even be rejected contemptuously, in the name of truth, which, prior
to this appearance, had been determined by facts in the field – with no
dimension of Godly height, and with no depth of human quality.
Through this new and unfamiliar three-dimensional
perception, it is possible to understand the Ramban’s seemingly harsh
criticism of Avraham’s actions. Otherwise, how would a kedosh
Yisrael such as the Ramban dare to cast stones at the father of our
nation, yedid Hashem?
“And know, that Avraham our forefather sinned a great
sin in error, that he brought his wife the tsadeket, the just and
righteous woman into a stumbling block of sin, because of his own fear
lest he would kill him. And he should have trusted in God that He
would save him and his wife…”
“Also his leaving the Land that he had been commanded
about in the beginning, because of the famine, was a wrongdoing in which
he sinned…” The Ramban’s statements come immediately after his
interpretation – characteristic of his approach to the narrative of the
avot – that “the actions of the forefathers were the sign for the
descendants”.
The avot had been charged with the mission of
preparing the way and developing the antibodies, in order to immunize
generations of descendants, upon whom painful exiles had been decreed.
Is this not good reason enough for what they did?
Wherefore analyze their actions further? Why go beyond this point of
view?
It would appear that in a situation that holds three
dimensions – that contains many different and even contradictory
perspectives – events must be understood in relative fashion, relative to
the realm being addressed, and each realm is sovereign unto itself, never
touching its fellow.
This would testify to a continuous process, striving
for wholeness, for the perfection of opposites that have each been
completed by the other, which in principle takes place only with Yaakov.
On the road to wholeness, situations are created that
are difficult to understand from a single point of view, that lacks the
relative perspective. Thus with Yishmael, and Avraham’s positive
attitude toward him, and his request – a tsadik’s request, which is never
returned empty-handed – that to this day has been causing the nation of
Israel intense sorrow and suffering.
That one sentence was enough: “Would that Yishma’el
would live before You.” It is impossible to measure the amount of
agony Avraham caused his descendants by his request on behalf of Yishma’el.
By examining other perspectives, we may perhaps
discover the benefit entailed in this request: As a reminder of sin, for
the distortion of the Zionist idea, and more. Or as a spirit of
purity penetrating the blazing furnace that is the universe.
So, too when Yitzchak blesses Esav, and so, too, with
the laughter that was Avraham’s and Sarah’s response on hearing the good
news that they would yet have seed, and so too Avraham’s faith in the
news, and also his seemingly doubting question about the promise of
the Land: “By what will I know that I will inherit it?” Rashi brings
the Midrash's answer: “By merit of the sacrifices.”
According to our interpretation of sacrifice in the
sense of prayer as personal expression and as a bond of dvaikut, it
is possible to understand this: Avraham’s skepticism demanded that factors
hidden from the eye and concealed from superficial, two-dimensional
sight should now be activated..
He wanted the new factor, which would cast promise,
punishment, and future conflict in a forgiving light, rich in an
ingredient that could transform hopelessness into atchalta dige'ula,
disaster into a herald that would sound the footsteps of Moshiah.
Most importantly, he wanted the vision of a condition
taken out of heaven’s hands, so that the gezaira is no longer
decisive, for matters have been given into the hands of his children, who
know the secret of prayer.
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