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Purim
Part One and Part Two
Cultivating Distinctions between Sacred and Secular, Pure and Impure, Good
and Evil
OR
Charm is a Lie and Beauty is Futility
Translated from Hebrew by S.
NAthan
l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai
In the prayer of ata honantanu,
we ask for the gift of taking leave of Shabat: That the light of the
Shabat sanctity may continue on into the work week, into the rushing
pandemonium and the tedious labors that are entailed in the war for
survival – that this light should not be drawn after and pulled down into
the topsy-turvy confusion.
This request for a supplement of
insight, drawn from sanctity, is of no use for distinguishing between good
and evil. The kedusha of Shabat is not designated for the lowest,
most basic distinctions. Such distinctions are beneath the sublime sanctity
that both man and the Creator of the universe share in common, as the Torah
testifies: “and He rested on the seventh day” – It is beneath the kedusha
of Shabat to deal with the waste waters of evil and its corollaries.
The kedusha of Shabat sharpens
the experience of kedusha as a dimension of the heavenly plane. It
is a kedusha that cannot be traced to any of a human being’s
abilities to pave his own path in the labyrinth of existence. Shabat
sanctity is graciously bestowed by olam ha’atsilut, “the world of
nobility” (the realm of the pure Divine). It descends to this world in the
merit of Shabat, and there it sanctifies physical matter, just as it is.
This sanctifying of the physical – per se` – happens thanks to itaruta
dili’aila; Heaven’s initiates a connection with human beings. It
happens without human intervention, without human initiative – without
itaruta dilitata .
In merit of the Jew’s entry into Shabat,
by upholding both of its aspects – positive and negative, shamor and
zachor – the physical, earth-dwelling Jew becomes a prince – the
King’s son who sanctifies himself with a kedusha shel ma’ala – with a
supreme kedusha that “includes its innards, and thighs and legs,”
that includes all of man’s physical/material pleasures, which coalesce into
an infinite pleasure that evokes the world to come – and all this without
toil, without any of the agonies associated with devotion, without any of
the cruel conflict with the survival mechanism.
Hence the grave severity with which the
Torah relates to a Jew who demeans the kedusha of the Shabat. “Its
desecraters will be put to death.” “And that life force will be cut off
from its people.” One who desecrates Shabat is disqualified from legal
testimony. In addition to losing the kedusha he could have gained
for himself, the Shabat desecrater loses his human quality – his humanness –
perhaps as a result of the “spirit of stupidity” he has demonstrated by
belittling the kedusha with which he might have sanctified himself,
if he had not passed up – by his own fatuousness – this opportunity to be
sanctified and purified.
Discerning the sacred from the
secular deals with preserving
the sensation of inner sanctity that is found in the depths of one’s soul
after it has been made fragrant by the sanctity of Shabat. This kedusha
derives from the most supreme source.
Out of this sensation of kedusha,
one acquires the privileged ability to discern the sacred concealed behind
the camouflage of the secular, and one can then utilize this sensation when
aspiring to sanctify physical matter. Thus one attains self-realization as
a Godly Presence even under secular conditions: In one’s dealings with one’s
fellow human beings, in the refinement and distillation of one’s own
personality and midot, and in one’s ability to skip over evil on the
road to good, without being compelled to confront evil or to fear the
prospect of being trapped in its web.
This is the prayer on departing from the
Shabat: To discern between sacred and secular, between light and “the
darkness that covers the earth”, the darkness that creates a barrier that
hides the sacred from the secular, though the secular requires the sacred –
for it must sanctify itself in order to become Godly Presence.
To discern “between Israel and the
nations”: To discern the sanctity of the stature of man, for this
distinction can become blurred in the absence of the dimension of sanctity,
which lends a higher angle of vision, in the absence of which man may become
enslaved to the orders and hierarchies of man- as-creature, ruled by the
brute-force laws of physical matter, entirely devoid of moral qualities.
The distinction between good and evil is
found at the border that supposedly separates matter and spirit, the “world
of doing” comprised of mechanical material laws, from the “world of
creation”, the kingdom of qualities, spirituality, and humanness.
Know, then, that in the “world of doing”
in which qualities are absent, brute force rules. It is distressing that
human beings, the crown of creation, charged with realizing the Godly
Presence, must wade through the murky waters of olam ha’asia without
becoming contaminated. Here we see the incredible revelation granted to man
by the Torah, for it is a “pure mikveh, pooled living waters”, that
purify one from the contact with those contaminated, contaminating waters.
Not only the water, but also the air,
and also society itself can infect the body and the life force of God’s
servant, at moments when he is exposed to the temptation of spirit’s
enslavement to physical matter. Such enslavement beautifies physical
matter, adorning it with fashionable sanctity, tying the fashionable
accessories of sanctity attractively round its neck – all sorts of
brute-force values that have been made fragrant by the aroma of
humanitarianism, or by any other brute-force value, camouflaged in justice,
equality, the defense of human rights, etc. – values that are very close to
physical matter and remote indeed from the spirit of sanctity and purity
that are found in the values of heaven.
The danger of such “values” lies in
their tangibility, in their power to flatter, to grant one a place of honor
and glory in the society of man. The danger of evil is that it lacks any
defined address in any specific object. In the Torah world this is known as
– evil belongs to the gavra (subject) rather than to the heftsa
(object).
Evil is found in man rather than in the
universe. Evil would be perceived as a harmful consequence deriving from an
inappropriate human attitude, in which a human being relates to an activity
that is incompatible with his needs at that moment.
Thus avodat hamidot, the toil
over character refinement, is a ceaseless and untiring practice. It is
drilling oneself in the habit of looking inward, of being cautiously
conscious, incessantly aware of one’s habits in relating to existence. It
is learning to make sensitive distinctions between the activity of the self
and the enslavement to the mechanical system of survival. This avoda,
this labor – has but one purpose: Distancing from evil.
Being that evil is camouflaged by
“pleasing intentions” and being that it takes shelter under the flag of the
good and the ideal, an ideal of good can cause serious damage to “one who
has not been commanded to do it, yet does it”, one whose duty is not to
shelter in the shade of an ideal that is inappropriate for him.
It is common knowledge that the evil
urge poses a peculiar temptation, which entices people devoid of human
insight to work in the educational profession specifically, and enticing
sensitive, humanly gifted people to work in technical fields.
Hazal warn us of this: “Many are the
fallen that it has slain – when one who is not worthy to instruct, teaches
nevertheless, [because his students – the one who spreads Torah but lacks
the talent to bond with his students and lacks the talent to communicate the
ideas clearly and comprehensibly – his students will hate the Torah, and
will not see what is good and fascinating in it, and will only find goodness
and interest in other fields of study] and great masses has it killed – when
one is worthy to instruct, yet does not teach.”
Hence the Torah’s warning to cultivate a
capacity to make the distinctions between good and evil – in order to locate
every potential hazard of evil. This means neither the location of evil nor
its look, because there is no such thing. Rather the potential to cause
harm is what one must learn to distinguish, and this evil lies hidden behind
a thousand faces.
Hence the mitsva to remember Amalek,
and even more so to recognize your own weak point, within yourself – the
breach where Amalek might enter, and how to seal it up – the breach in your
midot, and how to repair them. This discovery partakes of “the joy
of resolving doubts.”
Yet on the other hand, “a man must
become fragrantly intoxicated to the point that he does not know [how to
distinguish] between ‘cursed is Haman’ and ‘blessed is Mordechai’.”
Yet there is no contradiction between
these two aspects – in spite of an imperative to make the finest, subtlest,
and most cautious distinctions between cursed and blessed, on the one hand,
and an apparent total blurring, on the other hand, within the very same
theme of distinguishing good from evil.
It seems the solution to this problem
lies in our distinction regarding the dwelling place of evil: Evil abides in
man rather than in any object. This means that after one has succeeded in
locating – within one’s personality, within one’s character – one’s weakness
in midot, then one can allow oneself a wider and more encompassing
scope for relating to one’s environment.
The clearer one’s Torah perspective, the
more courageously identified with it one is, the more one will be capable of
taking an interest in – and sanctifying a vaster area of – the components of
existence, as in the example of Rabi Elazar, son of Rabi Shimon bar Yohai,
who, in his sanctity so vast, was capable of connecting to foods and to
activities on a scale and in dimensions that diverged far beyond the
conventional – as described in the Gemara – without having this excess cause
him any harm.
The opposite was true. His sanctity
enveloped and encompassed cycles of existence that no other human being
could ever have succeeded in bringing into the realm of sanctity, to shelter
under the wings of the Shechina.
Becoming fragrantly intoxicated by wine,
which brings to a blurring of the boundaries, testifies that the intoxicated
one recognizes the camouflaged nature of evil, but has nothing to fear from
it, as in: “it is not the serpent that kills, but rather the sin that
kills,” for the sacred Rabi Hanina ben Dosa, who had no concern about
inserting his exposed leg into the serpent’s lair. The serpent immediately
struck him, it is true, but in fact it was the serpent itself that died from
its own biting, rather than Rabi Hanina who had been bitten.
Evil’s existing in man rather than in
the object derives from man’s being a partner to the Creator of the universe
by virtue of the power of the covenant. This covenant granted man the power
to repair and to destroy, to make good and to make evil. These are the
creating powers, and they are entirely absent from material, mechanical,
objective nature.
The car does not run people over, but
the driver. There are no magical powers in tashmishei kedusha, in
the sacred accessories of worship; rather there is power in the hands of the
man using them during the act of worship. There is no power in a word; the
power is in speech. The curse does not kill but rather the curser.
Similarly, there is no power in the bracha, the blessing itself, but
rather in the one blessing and the one being blessed, when they are worthy
of one another.
This is one of the important
perspectives in the miracle of Purim, which is considered a nes nistar,
a hidden miracle, because it proves beyond all doubt that there is no power
in the king’s ring – despite the fact that “what has been written and sealed
with the king’s seal cannot be retrieved.”
Haman the Wicked has no power – though
he is the very symbol of evil – as long as Mordechai guards the sanctity of
his trust in God, acting in an utter devotion and self-sacrifice that knows
no limit or end.
Similarly Esther, who ignores the strict
rules of the royal court. Here we find the answer to a perplexing question:
What power is there in the wine feast that Esther arranges time and again –
as her hishtadlut, her practical effort to prevail against Haman?
Was her agenda to blur the perceptions of the foolish king?
It would appear that Esther’s intention
was lehishtadail to make an effort to ignore the evil within the
object, within Haman, who was no more than the accelerator for the
manifestation of evil, to draw attention to the evil intention and to the
danger entailed in him, in the man’s intention – in his beliefs rather than
in the man himself.
It seems that the wicked Haman knows
this secret himself, because when he realizes that Mordechai neither kneels
nor bows to him, he does not suffice with a localized relating to Mordechai
the man, but rather views his behavior as a phenomenon encompassing
Mordechai’s entire nation.
“And it is not worthwhile for the king
to leave them [alive].” Haman sees a localized danger in an
all-encompassing phenomenon. A danger that lacks a specific destination is
real danger, because you cannot protect yourself against it. We see here
that there is no good Jew or bad Jew.
In the evil eyes of the Jew-hating
anti-Semite, the danger is not in the Jews but in Judaism. “And their
religion is different from any other nation.” For it is “scattered and
divided among the nations,” and it is very hard to locate the dangerous ones
among them, and therefore it is necessary to exterminate the whole religion
that encompasses and characterizes them.
Haman is punished by an answer of equal
weight: “If Mordechai, before whom you have begun to fall, is from the seed
of the Jews, you will not prevail against him.” Why? Because you have put
yourself into a danger that is not localized but rather
all-encompassing.
Here is no alignment of forces – one
defined force against another defined force. Here is a human-spiritual
situation that lacks any boundaries within an object. Instead of an evil
object, there is evil intention, which threatens to encompass and to devour
the good human intention.
The response to Haman is of equal
weight: When a flesh and blood, carved-of-clay creature makes the decision
to devote himself – to utterly dedicate himself – to his duty as God’s ally
in the goal of realizing the Godly Presence, then his good intention takes
on a force that is Godly, that is all-powerful. Against this force, none
can stand – for who can stand against Godly omnipotence?
No need for palpable evil in a palpable
situation. What is hidden is what holds the secret of the power of
influence, for better or for worse. This is one of the important lessons to
be learned from this Scroll of Secrets, which holds the secret of eternity.
To summarize:
Simhat Purim,
Purim joy is an encounter between two mutually complementary sources of
happiness. The happiness that derives from the removal of doubts has
already been mentioned: Internalizing and sharpening the most sensitive
distinction between good and evil, to the point that it becomes second
nature. Recoiling from evil to the point of developing a sense of smell;
even from far, you are forewarned.
In the words of Hazal: “Go round and
round, but do not draw near the carcass.” Cultivating this sense of
distinction in the gavra, in the subjective self, at the earliest
stage, prior to actually encountering the evil object, is the goal of the
mitsva of zechirat Amalek, remembering Amalek.
This is not only as a means of defense,
by distancing oneself from the carcass, but rather as the means to avoid
creating evil, while it is yet still within man, because practically
speaking, the source of evil is in man.
Evil does not exist – to tell the truth
of the matter – in any object in the existential environment, but rather man
is the one who creates the relationship to reality, and it is in man himself
that the seed of doom is buried. “As he wills it” he can create a bond of
blessing between himself and reality, and “as he wills it” he can wreak
destruction and ruin out of that very same reality.
Evil, and good, would then be a tendency
or ability, within man, to ruin or to repair, to destroy or to build. Only
after incessant and tireless avodat hamidot, after laboring over
one’s integrity, after strengthening one’s moral fiber, only then does the
road of creativity open up. This is the source of happiness, through which
the happiness of creativity flows, enabling new and uniquely original powers
that draw from the Godly self to bloom and to blossom, to flower and to
fruit by the thousands, to one’s – and to the universe’s – heart’s delight.
Part Two
All of this derives from the source of
yira, of awe, of cautious worship, of incessant examination of the
process of evil’s tendencies, and of following up on results. How
deep-rooted one’s ability is to make subtle, cautious distinctions is put to
the test the moment one is in a fragrant state of intoxication by wine – as
the test that Hazal suggest: “A man is known bekiso, bekoso, uvekaso,
by his cup, by his pocket, and by his anger.” “In goes the wine, out comes
the secret.” Indeed, wine shows a man’s true face. The concealed tsadik
is revealed in all his purity, while the masked villain is exposed in all
his ugliness.
There is a second perspective, a second
cause of happiness equally active. This moves from the direction of the
outer toward the inner: In this perspective, the absence of happiness
originates in existential distress. Vital energies are invested in the war
of existence, including its real and imagined dangers: Worries over
livelihood, health, and social status delude man into believing that solving
these problems is the key to happiness. Extensive, excessive investment in
the survival mechanism, including its many and stubborn aspects, is
eventually exposed – too late – as an exercise in futility; like quenching
one’s thirst with salt water.
Love – The Secret of Happiness.
Help is in sight – coming from the
direction of love, and bringing happiness in its wake. Faith and trust in
the compassionate hashgaha, which dearly loves God’s servant, who
takes the initiative, in the devotion of his free choice, to cleave to his
Creator, recruiting all of his physical/material and mental/emotional
resources to this goal of love, so as to fulfill “with all his heart and
with all his life force” the imperative that “you will love God your Lord.”
This initiative of free choice connects
and merges with the hashgaha, which hastens to his aid, which frees
him from tending to and toiling over the war of survival, which imbues the
trusting one – the one steeped in faith in the Divine Providence that
responds to all who truly call to it – with an endless peace and
tranquility, out of which bursts forth the truest joy that accompanies the
deepest sense of personal belonging, simha shel mitsva, the happiness
of mitsva, of the privilege of being able to fulfill one’s own personal
destiny at last, for it is only for the sake of this destiny that one’s soul
has descended to this lowly world.
Man-serving-God is filled with endless
happiness, as an expression of love. Love is the only sensation that has
the power to remove all the barriers and limitations that strangle man, who
is otherwise “a prisoner of poverty and iron”. Only love can free him from
the sense of strangulation that accompanies the distress of existence.
Faith and trust were born of the
devotion and the willingness to sacrifice themselves that the Jews
demonstrated under the leadership of Mordechai and Esther. Their initiative
merited the encounter with the saving hashgaha, which brings
redemption in its wake. There is no obvious miracle in this Scroll of
Secrets. Redemption is camouflaged by the processes of practical effort,
camouflaged by the processes of nature and by the use of conventional means
that have been employed in similar circumstances.
Faith and trust flow in a powerful
current, but not in the direction of the natural flow, which courses down a
steep and slippery slope of disaster and catastrophe. Rather it flows
uphill, toward hope and trust in the all-powerful Creator, Who runs His
world directly, as can be glimpsed through the cracks of a reality
camouflaged by the supposed laws of nature.
“They upheld out of love what
they had previously accepted out of fear”
when God forced the mountain on them at Sinai. This love was a powerful
current, rushing and frothing, and sweeping away everything in its path –
all evil obstacles, all traps concealing disaster – pulling everything
together into the great circle of the dance, and from this circle all things
rise, for this is its secret power, to transcend, to rise a few inches above
the distress of existence.
It is a feeling of ability: One feels
able to exit the distress, to rise above it, during the very moment of
existential anxiety, with no pre-conditions, with no sign of a solution,
with no indication that help is at hand – but just so…just because of the
exhilarating discovery that “God has not abandoned the earth”, that all is
for the good, despite all sufferings and distresses – these are only for
appearance’s sake.
There is a feeling of faith and
confidence in the justice of the Creator’s handling of His universe, Whose
intention is always and ever utterly pure of any taint of evil. This
feeling fills the believer with an elation that bursts the boundaries of
existence.
These two sources of happiness do not
contradict one another. Deepening one’s ability to distinguish between good
and evil safeguards the path of happiness traveled by one who loves.
The truth should be told – that this
happiness of the one who loves has a power that conquers all, an attachment
to the beloved that repels anything that might interfere with this
attachment, even without his conscious intervention.
For this reason, such a one has no need
at all for the distinctions that derive from the source of yira, such
as the distinction between good and evil.
However, this truth, no matter how
persuasive and irresistible it sounds, is difficult to guarantee on a
consistent and perfect basis. Within human reality, this truth is
discovered – contact with it is made – only at intervals. A bit here, a bit
there…
In the spaces that stretch between one
love and the next, there is room for yira, which distinguishes
between good and evil, in order to fill the vacuum empty of love, and to
strengthen the direction of one’s ambition to cleave to the highest source
and to sense His presence through the distinction between good and evil, in
order to attach to love’s goodness – which is entailed in the good – by way
of gratitude.
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