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PESAH
Slavery – A Lack of Self-Definition
“Wealth Saved for its Owner – For His
Undoing”
Embarras de choix
Translated from Hebrew by S.
NAthan
l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai
Avodat parech,
crushing labor:
It is no coincidence that a process of transition was decreed upon B’nei
Yisrael – they must make the move from slavery to freedom; from Egypt to…the
desert?
On the surface of things this does not
appear to be a balanced process. One would expect a response to slavery
that carries equal weight in the opposite direction: In order to counteract
the 49 gates of impurity to which they had deteriorated, do they not require
an equally weighted opposite reaction? Shouldn’t they now be made to
confront a wealth of opportunity, in which many roads lead to perfection? A
vast and varied spectrum of opportunity, in which every single individual
could succeed in finding his own path to his Creator; in which he would find
expression for the originality that makes him unique, that separates him
from his fellows, from his environment.
This would be a proper contrast to the
enslavement of Egypt, which was called perach, which Hazal defined as
“women’s work for men,” a principle of blurring, of creating confusion: Work
that does not suit one, that one would have never chosen out of one’s own
free will, being that it requires talents one does not have, that it forces
one to deal with its requirements, despite their being the very opposite of
one’s affinities and tastes.
It appears from Egypt’s attitude that no
sinister creativity is necessary, nor inventive techniques for torturing the
body and the mind. One need not create a torture chamber. What is needed
is merely – and with elegant simplicity – to push a human being into a
corner that is so tight that he has no room to create his own creative
space, thereby emptying him entirely of all his talents, and bringing him to
the point of absolute loss of his own personality.
Gradually he will lose his capacity for
self-defense as well – a weapon the enemy would do well to beware of, for
after all - "as they afflicted him, so he increased and proliferated.”
Indeed, the Egyptians made this mistake at the early stage of the
enslavement, and it merely had the effect of arousing resistance, both overt
and covert. Obvious danger arouses resistance, and awakens to their maximum
the abilities and powers that are hidden in a human being.
Abilities forgotten and made dormant by
routine awaken when they encounter a threat, to an extent and of a quality
astonishing in their power and scope. The art of war prefers to put the
enemy to sleep, rather than to irritate his rest and arouse him to fight
back with full mettle. Indeed, avodat parech was the means that
brought the nation to the brink of destruction – a condition of dulling the
senses, of torpor and stupor, of losing one’s way. Of the slack limpness
that brings to gloom and despair. A situation in which a man loses all
hope, and then surrenders. This situation is defined by Hazal as mem-tet
sha’arei tumah, “the forty-nine gates of impurity”. Only the fiftieth
gate remained just around the corner – the gate beyond which there is no
return.
Here the Creator’s great hesed
makes its appearance: Z’chut avot, the merit of our forefathers, is
the great miracle that constitutes the basis for redemption. Intervention
by itaruta dilitata is a prime expression of the love of the Great
Shepherd for his flock.
The miracle of Egypt is the miracle of the
Promised Love – the unconditional love that reaches out to a human being
tashev enosh ahd daka, “even when he has hit bottom”, that seeks every
lost soul, ki lo yidah mimenu nidah, such that “even the most lost
can never be lost to Him”, as was the case with B’nei Yisrael,
trapped by a volcanic sea ahead, and by the Egyptian hordes from behind.
Beloved to such an extent that no effort
whatsoever is even demanded of him. Except to remember that he is beloved,
as far as he is able to. And if he finds himself in a situation where even
remembering is difficult for him, He Who loves him will bestow His blessing
and His healing intervention upon him nevertheless.
What is love?
At the first stage, love is a given,
handed over to the beloved in advance. Such is a mother’s love – at the
most basic stage, at the level of sense perception. The child feels
confidence in this love, beyond all doubt. He experiences the certainty
that this love is guaranteed him; it is already in his pocket. From here
the concept of pat bisalo “the bread lies already in his basket” is
derived – a condition in which ease and satisfaction are guaranteed even
before one has brought the bread to one’s lips. This is an experience that
sifts down to the very infrastructure of the personality, to the very
foundation of one’s being, to become one’s basic experience of existence.
Effectively, this love serves as a defense
weapon against the survival anxiety that accompanies every living being,
that confuses one as to the goal of one’s existence – that becomes the enemy
leading one astray, in a direction that will destroy everything good that
would have bloomed in the garden of originality and talent.
Survival anxiety is a terrifying fear. It
provokes the self-preservation mechanism, which is an animal-like system
that is all entirely negation and destruction and a blurring of ability and
destiny. It trades destiny for existence, and goals for means.
All that is required of B’nei Yisrael, the
Creator’s loved ones, is one strategy: “Remember and do not forget”. It is
the weapon of memory, versus forgetfulness born of anxiety and despair: The
more you remember the Creator’s love to you, the more quickly redemption
will come.
This is true even before your love for Him
comes into being. A Jew is not required, at the first stage, to love and to
long to cleave in love to his Father in heaven. Dayenu, “it is
enough for us” that we remember His love to us. This is the secret of the
Dayenu. It is the secret of the histapkut bimu’at of the One
Who loves. The One Who loves suffices with little. He suffices, He is
satisfied with the mere fact that the beloved recognizes Him, recognizes His
love.
And if the second part of love can be
realized too, in which the beloved loves the One Who loves, well then, this
attains the goal of creation: the longed-for union between Creator and
created.
The idyllic state of the Garden of Eden is
born of this, and at a later, creative stage, the idyllic state of building
the Bet HaMikdash, of heaven and earth paralleling one another, of the
sanctuary below facing the sanctuary above, of mutual awareness – the goal
of creation. This is the really and truly idyllic state, the most perfect
poetic expression of which is Shir HaShirim, The Song of Songs, of
which Hazal say: “All the scriptures are holy but Shir HaShirim is
the Holy of Holies.”
bread of poverty:
reducing the scope of free choice.
Dough,
any dough, any contact of water with flour activates a process of
fermentation – of leavening. The prohibition against fermentation, “no
leavening shall you eat”, resembles the prohibition against creative labor
on Shabat. It is a prohibition against intervention by human initiative.
It is a return to the natural raw state, to the primordial unformed mass.
It is restriction in the sense of ceasing, of shunning the first imperative:
“By the sweat of your brow shall you eat bread.”
Prohibiting the
first imperative: Blessing or curse?
Is there not in the prohibition against
fermentation a hint of repair for the punishment of Adam HaRishon? A hint
of pushing aside the measure of judgment for the loving Creator’s measure of
compassion, which grants man the gift of the lost Paradise?
There is something to this, no doubt. Yet
this fruit holds a thorn. After all, Paradise denied man the joy of
creating yesh mai’ayin, being out of non-being. “To tend it and to
preserve it” meant merely to preserve the existing situation as it was.
Even when Adam was commanded at first to observe one single mitsva, he had
difficulty sustaining it; he stumbled and transgressed it the very same
day! How much more so after he had tasted of creativity, “including its
innards and legs and thighs,” the taste of sin, the taste of the capacity
for creativity.
The prohibition against hamets
caused Hillel to bind together matsot and bitter herbs, and to command that
they be eaten together. This is for the element of positively limiting and
reducing that is connected to the prohibition against hamets. It is
a negative commandment bound to a positive commandment. In this positive
commandment of Hillel’s, there is indeed some suggestion of tikun, of
repairing the damage done by eating of the Tree of Knowledge, by a willing
acceptance of limitation through renouncing human/creative intervention in
the creation.
Or perhaps it is a return to the creation
as it is. Renunciation as a sign of the gratitude of the beloved, toward
the One Who loves. Gratitude and recognition as a first step, in the
process of love awakening in the beloved – as a response to the love of the
One who loves. It is a step leading eventually to the state of mutual love
– queen of all creation. This is a state in which Quality as such and
relative quality come together in a completing encounter.
A prohibition, a negative commandment
attached to a positive commandment is a condition that aspires to achieve
the repair of the schism that is the curse of creation. A completing
encounter between Quality as such and quality in relation to…such an
encounter grants means the taste of ends. It is a state of leil shimurim,
“a night of watching” of distancing all things that can cause harm. It is a
state of Godly Presence in all Its glory. “Not by a messenger.” “And I
came down to save them.” It is a state of “God will wage war for you, and
you will keep silent”, of removing the necessity of even making an effort,
for effort is the decree that comes as punishment for a deficiency in the
beloved’s trust in and recognition of the love of the Creator.
It is a love that cancels all doing. “Why
cry out to Me? Speak to B’nai Yisrael and have them travel.” Renunciation
by the One Who loves, of any payment on the part of the beloved. The One
Who loves does not even require that the beloved turn to Him with his
request. This love does not depend upon anything; an absolute Lover Who
loves to bestow His love and receive nothing at all in return, even no
expectation of prayer, of supplication by the beloved to be granted what he
needs.
Here perhaps the kernel of doom is
buried. It is absolute love on the one hand, but it is conditional upon an
almost absolute renunciation of creative initiative. Absolute love in
exchange for absolute renunciation of any sense of power. To grant
patronage in exchange for a flawed, crippled condition? A poor man’s party!
It would seem that there is a change of
direction here, rather than a cutting of the branch Bnei Yisrael is sitting
on. It is not a departure from a merely physical/emotional slavery, for the
adoption – though willing – of a different state of slavery. Rather, we
have here a move from slavery to freedom.
As mentioned, the beginning stage is a
mother’s love for her son. The son is not permitted to hold on to this
stage. He must leave this stage, and move toward the independence of
“therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife.”
He must move from the stage of love that receives to the stage of love that
bestows. He must move from being a taker to being a giver.
The temptation
of wealth versus the temptation of poverty.
The release from confusing wealth
(in truth restrictive enslavement)
toward a freedom that opens a new channel:
creativity within quality
Here we find a response to the question
that must be asked, as mentioned above: Where is the balance between the
enslavement within wealth, which prevailed in Egypt, and the desert
wilderness, where their thoughts turned longingly to Egypt? Is a desert
wilderness a counterweight to the wealth of the mistress of nations? The
competition is unfair.
It would seem that we have here a process
of liberation from temptations. A wealth of opportunities, when they are
all unsuitable, falls into the category of “there is such a thing as wealth
saved for its owner – for his undoing”, because it holds the fulfillment of
imaginary needs. It contains stimulations that create needs that a person
does not need in order to express his uniquely original ability.
“Who is wealthy? He who is happy with his
portion.” This refers to a recognition of the needs that derive from one’s
own uniquely original ability, which sets one apart from one’s fellow. It
is a recognition of one’s own uniqueness, a definition of one’s own needs as
they derive from a root that is the father of all needs: The need for
expression and actualization of creativity.
Only needs that derive from the element of
creativity contain what one needs to enrich and develop one’s personality in
the direction of perfection. Any other need falls into the category of “do
not add”, and “whoever adds, detracts.” Just as a company is careful to
prevent a worker who is “overqualified” from joining their staff, out of
concern that he will not adjust to the existing worker population, that he
will have difficulty cooperating with them, and that he will arouse the envy
of the other workers, so does a superfluous need run the risk of confusing
one as to one’s other needs, and of blurring one’s awareness of one’s own
specific quality – which needs to be defined as sharply as possible.
Here lies the answer to the eternal
question: Which is more difficult? The temptation of wealth or the
temptation of poverty?
Confusion results from an excess of
choice. According to this principle, it is easy to understand the trap that
lies hidden in the temptation of wealth, and it is difficult to understand
what is so bad about the temptation of poverty. What trial is there in it?
After all a poor person is not surrounded by temptations as is his wealthy
fellow.
Why do Hazal not view poverty as an ideal
condition, and why do they persist in being so attached to a condition of
corrected wealth, meaning: “Who is wealthy? He who is happy with his
portion.” Why cannot they simply state: “Beware of wealth – cling to
poverty,” as does Christianity’s simplistic perception.
We see here that poverty conceals a
different trap: It stimulates a sensation of lack. A sensation of
distress. A sensation of existential threat. Danger!
Nevertheless, it seems that the bait set
by wealth is more serious and its danger is greater. In wealth there is no
sensation of danger, fear, or despair. There is the danger that one will be
put one to sleep, that one’s senses will be dulled. As opposed to the trial
of wealth, there is something about the trial of poverty that rouses one to
seek a solution.
Hazal’s wealthy person who is happy with
his portion is not the wealthy person who suffers from an abundance that
does not fit him. Rather he suffices with what he has, and he has no need
of more, due to his awareness of his own uniquely original personality and
its needs. Therefore he does not fall into the somnolence of routine and of
sleep-inducing atrophy.
What is love?
Love in Stages
Our masters dispute the issue in the
Gemara (Pesahim 116:A) regarding the phrasing of the Hagada: “It begins with
condemnation and concludes with praise. ‘What is condemnation? Rav said:
‘From the beginning our fathers were idol worshippers.’ Shmuel said: ‘We
were slaves.’”
How are we to understand the words of
Shmuel? What condemnation or guilt is there in a condition of slavery?
Further, we must understand the reason for beginning with condemnation? Why
speak derogatorily of our forefathers at all?
It seems that Hazal’s reference is not to
the simply derogatory, but rather to a fundamental distinction that must be
made in regard to the worthy topic of love.
“We were slaves”: A condition that
prevents the development and growth of love in the garden of the self.
Slavery is compared to earth that is scorched and desiccated, that produces
thorns and thistles, that cannot absorb the seed that is sown, and lacks the
basic conditions that would allow its proper nutrition and growth.
Within human behavior, slavery resembles a
blockage preventing the absorption of the seed of love, blocking it from
penetrating the human heart, due to habits of enslavement to the tendency of
belonging, which prevent freedom and prevent free choice, even before free
choice is born.
Choice cannot appear in the arena of
behavior without a prior stage, and this is self-awareness, and a
recognizing of the conditions and needs that this self-awareness creates.
Recognition of the uniqueness, of the uniquely original quality that defines
one particular individual, that sets him apart from any other.
Belonging supplies an individual with
protection and identification. Protection of, and identification with
another are not possible without a recognition of one’s own individual
quality, because identification is created in the encounter between what is
recognized as unique on either side. This is necessary in order to define
differentness and to receive the balance and feedback that create the
fertile ground of reciprocity – giving and taking at the same time – which
grants the relationship stability on both sides.
From here we derive the formula that
determines the relationship between belonging and freedom: Belonging is the
container and framework, its goal being to protect and to provide tools and
opportunities for one’s unique quality, in order to encourage it and to
provide it with the capacity to express itself and to create.
Here we see that belonging without freedom
creates slavery, which means dependency on and enslavement to frameworks –
to environment, to habits devoid of purpose – a limiting and strangling
dependency. Such belonging is created by the survival system, which is
aroused in the existential void created by lack of expression of the
creative self. A vacuum of expressions of individual quality arouses
existential fear, which stimulates the survival instinct, which arouses the
desire to escape to the dubious shelter of belonging. A vicious cycle of
self-destruction is thus created.
The editors of the Hagada point to the
danger of this process, and also point to a way out, to a solution – in the
form of the chorus of “Had Gadia”. At the beginning and at the end of the
“Had Gadia” they place the supreme value, the Holy One – as the goal toward
which all the stages of existence are directed, and on which it bestows
constructive positive meaning.
Thus a vicious closed cycle, ultimately
strangling itself, turns into an open cycle creating a bridge over which
creative meaning flows from beginning to end, controlled by the free choice
of the conductor of the orchestra – that is, the individual who controls his
own existence.
You might say, was it for naught that the
Creator endowed man with the survival mechanism? After all, man must exist
within a cruel universe, having been chased out of the Garden of Eden.
Yet this is not so. Being chased out of
Gan Eden did not have the effect of transforming what was a wonderful
Godly creation into a hell. The aspect of destruction, man himself created,
with his own hands. Being chased out of Gan Eden only caused the
split, the separation of creation into distinct factors, into separate
parts, in order that man might put them together anew – as demonstrated by
the example of Moshe putting together the Mishkan, given as a repair for
man’s sin – that he might feel like an active partner in the creation, and
not have to eat the bread of shame, as per his request.
A world in which belonging exists separate
from freedom is a cruel universe, because the separation resulting from the
expulsion from Gan Eden turned these two elements into mutually antagonistic
mechanisms Yet through man’s initiative, they are designed to be made to
complement one another. If man is lazy, and tries to lean on the status
quo, on the existing situation – “if he does not toil on the eve of Shabat,
what shall he eat on Shabat?” – then the “natural” survival mechanism of raw
unformed matter turns against him. It becomes something enslaving and
limiting, making of man a dependent miserable creature, lost to free
choice.
Conversely, a mechanism of freedom that
has no hold on the reality of belonging, transforms freedom into wanton
abandon. Creative man, however, unites the two of them into a form of
belonging that serves as a framework and a container for freedom. Every
individual has a certain framework and a certain content that fits his
unique needs.
The concept “natural” has no existential
justification without man’s active intervention. Without man, the ecology
will destroy itself no less than it will be destroyed by his
self-preservation mechanism, when this mechanism is not controlled and does
not receive its work plan and its value-based goal from the crown of
creation – man.
Without the interference of the
destructive survival mechanism, man completes the creation that has been
separated, making it whole, and turning it into a cybernetic cycle boasting
the perfect features of repair and balance that deter all harm.
So too among the components of the body; a
perfect balance exists between the systems of nerves, muscles, and skeleton,
and hormonal system – and all without survival’s intervention. When
survival interferes, it causes chaos among all the systems, which fight each
another because there is no creative self, no controller who perseveres in
the incessant effort of merging the separate components.
Thus an immune system that was ideally
designed to guard the body from foreign invaders, begins to fight and to
destroy vital inner parts. Thus every component fights every other
component, and fights itself as well.
Thus too in relation to social and
cultural influences, and thus too in relation to the queen of all
components, intelligence, which becomes man’s chief enemy against himself:
Its fishing rod pulls in “ideals” that have the power to destroy the world
and the human race, and all camouflaged as an ideal, come to repair.
Even the very fact of a supreme value, the
very awareness of the Creator of the universe, intelligence has turned
upside down, and put in its place a Golden Calf. The yetser hatov,
the good-creating urge, it views as the yetser hara, the
evil-creating urge, and vice versa. Whereas when they are cooperating, the
yetser hara serves the yetser hatov and grants tangible
realness to its meaning.
Let man leave the evil inclination and the
survival mechanism alone, and let him invest in the quality of choice, and
choose the Godly goal for which sake he came into this world, and then a
peace of perfection will come into all his components and into the
components of creation, without his needing to labor to put them together as
long as he labors to direct them toward their Godly destiny.
“Slaves were we to Paro in Egypt”: It
began with a condemnation of slavery, which is a condemnation of the
separation that allows the component parts to enslave the whole, to enslave
a human being, who labors vainly to expend localized efforts on each
component, while ignoring the need to build the whole, to merge all the
components together into a perfect union, to create a hie nosai et atsmo
– a living entity that is self-sustaining, that carries its own weight.
“Every disease I have placed upon Egypt, I
shall not place upon you.” In vain shall you weary yourself with the
pragmatic science of medicine “because I am God your Healer.” When God
wills it “He heals all flesh and does wondrously” and then the efforts of
the pragmatic approach are expended in vain.
Indeed, when medical theory takes a
spiritual approach, embracing man as an entirety of body – spirit – life
force, there lies a constant, healthy cure. We find that the process of
natural healing cannot be found in nature outside of man. Rather, nature
awaits and requires man to activate it, by investing it with his
intelligence, wisdom and judgment, and mainly with what determines and
defines all his needs, whether physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual:
His own personal goals and ideals as an individual.
Recognition of one’s own uniqueness and of
its destiny is what causes all the components to unite into a whole that is
healthy and that moves toward a theocentric destiny. The chorus of
Dayenu is designed to express this need for definition of uniqueness, by
distinguishing between essential needs and secondary needs. “Whoever adds
[needs that do not define uniqueness] detracts” and blurs the entire unique
entity.
At each specific stage, there was that
stage’s specific vital need, and in God’s giving us that, it was enough for
us, to fulfill that need in order to create a whole and perfect union.
Meaning, Dayenu, it was enough for us at that stage of development,
and it fulfilled the need that characterized that stage.
it is AT THIS STAGE LOVE THAT DOES NOT DEPEND ON ANYTHING APPEARs
The Creator’s love of his people Israel is
comparable at this stage to a mother’s love. A love of giving. In one
direction only, without calculations, without expectation of thanks. A love
that bursts forth, without needing to be aroused by the beloved’s appealing
for what he needs. “And I saw their affliction, and the oppression that
Egypt oppresses them – and I remembered my covenant.” Covenant. Promise to
their forefathers. Love without any conditions imposed upon the beloved.
You might say, this is love at its supreme
peak – perfect love dependent on nothing at all: A beautiful scene unfolds
before us, a promise that is absolute. However, this stage of love is
one-directional. It has no continuity. It is effective as a provider of
first-aid, as a life raft in an emergency, when facing an existential
threat.
One cannot be built from this. “Even when
they were in the land of their enemies, I did not reject them.” Such love
does not hold the sustainability or continuity that brings redemption, for
that comes only as a slow process of bi-lateral growth. Perfect love
requires a basis of reciprocity. Of dialogue between the ones who love each
other, who take their stand from a position of comparable quality, sharing
love’s fruit between them.
It appears that this is the love Rav is
referring to: A perfect love based on reciprocity. Not that of a slave,
limited in his expression of quality. Rather, the love of capability, which
contains choice. One is free to love and also to hate, and even to betray.
Thus with the sin of the Calf, and thus
with the idolatry of Egyptian bondage. It was not slaves whom the Creator
came to redeem, but idol worshippers who had strayed from the path in terms
of their own quality.
Idol lovers versus lovers of God. The
tribe of Levi versus the asafsuf and the erev rav, the rabble
and the mob of mixed multitudes. It was these whom God came to redeem, by
negotiating redemption in stages, through – the ten plagues brought upon the
Egyptians.
“One opposite the other.” Love and hate.
The devotion and self-sacrifice of the tribe of Levi and of Nahshon ben
Aminadav, versus traitors fallen in love with Egypt’s forty nine gates of
impurity, including all the bewilderingly deceptive wealth that it
contained.
“For one who does not know how to ask, you
open for him.” One-directional love is only an opening stage. To the wise
one and to the wicked one, whose questions are similar, one has the
obligation to reply, and to confront each one according to his particular
nature. Both deserve to be related to. This is love that aspires to
reciprocity.
Love is quality: Both one-directional
love and mutual love express the quality of the one who loves. An
existential attitude, on other hand, is born of the encounter with survival
needs: You protect me and I’ll protect you. Honor among thieves. Love
appears where survival has been halted. The one who loves expresses his
quality in his love. This is a value-based quality originating in the Godly
image imprinted in man. The greater one’s quality, the more qualitative,
pure, and non-dependent upon accompanying conditions one’s love will be.
As mentioned, love has a beginning stage –
one-directional love. This has no continuity and no creativity. Quickly
enough, the baby who has become an adolescent will free himself from this
strangling dependency of the one-directional love of the mother: “Therefore
shall a man leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife, and they
will become one flesh.
Is it indeed so? “An embryo is its
mother’s loin,” is it not? One’s mother, one cannot divorce, but one’s wife
one certainly can indeed. Nevertheless, it is in the love of a wife that
the kernel of creative quality lies buried, while in the love of a mother
lies buried a kernel of doom, of dependency, of the fanning of the flames of
egoism, which is the heritage of the survival mechanism.
This is because the first stage of love
prevents and blocks the continuation of the development of love as a process
that brings love to fertile perfection between two who love.
There is hope for the deliberate heretic,
one who sins consciously, more that for the one who sins out of appetite.
That is what is meant by the saying: “In the place where the possessors of
teshuva stand, even the totally righteous cannot stand.”
The first one is aware and intelligent and
there is someone to talk to. If only he would want it. The second is the
one who does not know how to ask, who lacks awareness of the basic meaning
and purpose of creation. He is just like someone unconscious, in terms of
unique quality. Both are equally unable to deal with good or evil.
The one-directional love of the first
stage comes to awaken awareness and self-recognition in the beloved.
Hacarat hatov, recognition of good – the gratitude that is awakened
within them when they are faced with the great saving, that God has rescued
them from their distress, will encourage and will awaken within them that
awareness that they are missing, and this is the power of such love.
At this point, this love must move aside,
in favor of love based on reciprocity, for the latter’s chances for reaching
perfection are much better. Al zeh yitpalel col hasid. “For this,
every devout person might pray:” Sheyibaneh hamikdash bimhaira viyamainu.
“That the Bet HaMikdash will be built quickly, in our days,” meaning
that mutual love creates Godly Presence within the human being who loves,
which parallels the Bet HaMikdash on high, an expression for the Creator’s
love.
Deviations (Yisurim, Torments)
of Love
If love is quality, and if this quality
requires a partner in order to develop into love, it seems that these
definitions may be useful in revealing a small fraction of the infinite
experience of existence called love, which in its mighty wave washes away
all the boundaries of permitted and forbidden. This is the love that leads
all of the qualities, even the Godly ones: As has already been investigated
and concluded, finally and decisively, the mida of love has even a
higher status than the mida of awe. And Rabi Akiva has already
determined that even in terms of the love of one’s fellow, it stands above
all: Vi’ahavta lirayacha camocha – zeh clal gadol baTorah.. “And you
shall love your fellow as yourself – that is the great rule of the Torah.”
That is what opens, and that is what completes the cycle of Godly existence
in this world.
Love’s quality, if so, would be a function
of the Godly quality with which man is blessed. Despite its being possessor
of a status that is higher than morality itself, for after all, “love covers
all crimes,” it nevertheless does not tolerate any severing from its Godly
source. And those children of fortune, who have been blessed with a
higher-grade Godly spark – their love too expresses this.
Such love never leaves the category of
avodat Hashem, God’s service, and in this service, if its quality is in
keeping with their uniqueness, they will find they will find their own
personal, perfect, fruitful ge’ula, redemption – with the mitsva of
“be fruitful and multiply” included as well. In this way, the quality of
their love will find expression in the love of a wife. “And whoever is
greater than his fellow, his urge is greater than his”, and therefore this
need will find expression in the choice of a wife.
It is thus possible to create a scale of
categories of love, according to the quality of the ones who love:
Among the simple, of little faith and
paltry quality, their love finds its way along the flat mechanical plains of
bodily needs and hormonal activity. Even their desire is correspondingly
small, and devoid of rich imagination, and paltry in romantic feeling. The
danger for these people lies in a loss of their love after the first
satisfaction. This is a partnership supported by mutual needs of existence
– whether material or social.
Belonging is important to them more than
their freedom, which lacks originality and uniqueness. Marriages that are
supported by social pressure, by going according to what is accepted, with
no need for personal taste – these are the most common and prevalent
marriages. The matchmaking stock exchange is blooming for this huge social
stratum, which determines things according to external givens, and which is
executed according to conventionally accepted rules of a technical nature
that have been fixed in advance. This is not love in the sense of quality,
but rather on the flat material/social plain.
On the other hand, there are those who
merit belonging to the camp of Ben Azai. This level of love is so high that
it has difficulty finding a fitting partner, and they find expression for
their infinite love in the Torah. Woe to those who are rich in quality yet
far from Torah. The turbulent throes of their love overflow the “small
vessels” that – in the fever of their imaginary love – become fantasies
hanging on a turbulent thread: Thus lives are sacrificed for illusory
ideals, for a blind fanaticism that lacks all hold on reality; for a love of
women that is both symbolic and unrestrained, that consumes in its fire the
one who loves with no beloved.
Such was the case with many great writers
and artists who were blessed with a gift of God but without service of God,
who served Molech, and sacrificed the fruit of their love to him. Their
burning love could not find a hold on reality in the person of a specific
woman. Their distancing from women was misunderstood by the public, and
they were suspected of deviant behavior.
In the first category, where the quality
is paltry, love is found in doing rather than in being, and at the other
extreme, love is in being rather than in doing, such that their love
revolves round and round them, becoming a raging fire that consumes their
entire existence, until ultimately they are incinerated – destroyed by the
fire of the power of their love.
One is tangible realness devoid of
inspiration, and therefore requires incessant artificial stimulation, and
the other is inspiration devoid of tangible realness, destroying everything
that is good in existence itself.
Happy are those who “find what they have
lost” and that she fits the level of their quality. “On these, the world
stands”, as long as they have the intelligence to create, through the fire
of their love, an existential condition on the plain of Godly reciprocity:
The condition of “love your fellow as yourself.” The condition of Godly
quality tangibly actualized in the natural way of those who love. Here is
the basis for the Kabalistic claim regarding union between heavenly male and
female when there is union between earthly male and female, as in Hazal’s
statement: “If a man and woman merit it – the shechina rests between
them.”
The human element is what unites and what
grants an expression of tangible realness to mutual love. This dimension is
missing from those who love a symbolic love, just as it is absent from
those who love a materialistic love that suffices with satisfaction of the
needs of heftsa without gavra, the need of object without
subject – without the human factor.
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