Rav Haim Lifshitz

Essays and Articles:

Go to Hebrew site

 Translated from Hebrew by Dr. S. NAthan

l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai
L'ILUI NISHMAT MAYER HIRSH BEN LAIBEL
L'ILUI NISHMAT BEN TZION BEN MENACHEM CHAIM

     Preocuppied with burying Elazar, son of Rabi Shimon Bar Yohai (after his body has been left lying in the attic of his home, yet has not decayed) the sages of the Talmud bring his pall to the opening of the cave where his father is buried, and find a snake “surrounding the cave like a wheel, with its tail in its mouth” (Rashi, Bava Metsia 84).
   A snake's mouth holding its tail serves as the symbol of perfection that is born out of of contradiction. The snake symbolizes evil and temptation, yet even a snake is turned into perfection the moment it becomes a perfect form, a perfect circle.  It becomes perfect – to the point that it can even serve as the guard that protects the entrance to the cave where a saintly sage, Rabi Shimon bar Yohai, is buried.
   “ ‘And tell Jacob, to tell others:’ [How can Jacob tell others?] This teaches us that the righteous even in their death, are called living.” “ ‘And he died there.’ Some say he did not die. Because in our verse is written ‘and he died over there’ and in another verse is written, ‘and he was over there, with God.’ Just as over there he was standing and rendering service, so too here, in our verse, he is standing and rendering service.” (Sota 13)
   “ ‘And he buried him.’ God, in all His glory, buried Moses. Rabi Yishmael says: ‘He buried himself.’” “And he buried him in the valley, in the land of Moav, facing the house of Pe’or.” Here we have a symbol within a symbol, as well as in the phrase: “And no man knew his burial place.” Rashi: “His grave had been prepared there, ever since the six days of creation, in order to atone for the act of Pe’or.  It is one of those things that was created right before the first Sabbath, at twilight.” (See Ethics of the Fathers) “‘And no man knew his burial place.’ Rav Hama bar Hanina said: ‘Even Moses does not know where he is buried.”
   Those things that were created right before the first Sabbath at twilight, as I have pointed out elsewhere, were not created for themselves as realities within their own right, but were rather ad hoc creations, for a particular function. They represented a relative reality.  Moses’ grave was not meant to absorb Moses, for after all “the righteous, even in their death, are called living,” and they do not require a place called a grave, and this is why his burial place is not known. His burial, or rather his burial place, was only there in order to protect and warn people against the idolatry of Ba’al Pe’or.
   Moses buried himself, or else the Creator, so to speak, buried Moses: Here the mouth of the snake meets its tail. This is the encounter that creates perfection, for life and death are the most extreme of dichotomies.
   The same can be said for the dichotomy between Creator and human being. With Moses, these dichotomies complete one another for the sake of perfection.  Such is the stature of the righteous: “Even in their death, they are called living.” This is what is meant by: “Some say that Moses, our teacher, did not die.” Rather he attained the perfection entailed in the encounter between life and death.
  So too with Rabi Elazar, son of Rabi Shimon bar Yohai: These two had combined to create a perfection of encounter between physical mattter and spirit. Rabi Shimon had been the spirit. He had been the one to reveal the mysteries of malchuta derakia, the kingdom of heaven, to the world. Yet he had lacked the ability to make spirit’s meaning penetrate physical matter, in order to sanctify physical matter. It was his son, Rabi Elazar, who had seen to this.  He had been the one to make meaning penetrate physical matter, thereby meriting the capacity to connect the two ends of the circle. Without connecting the ends, there is no perfecting the circle, which is the perfect form.  A circle that has not been closed is nothing more than a crooked line. Whereas there is nothing is stronger than a whole and complete circle, and none can prevail against it. This issue of perfect wholeness is a central element of the Jewish perspective, which propounds perfection created out of dichotomy.
   Here are some of the dichotomies that complete one another to create perfection: Yetser tov versus yetser hara, the urge to create good versus the urge to create evil; place versus time; sacred versus profane; fire versus water; man versus woman.
   The sanctity of the higher realm finds no handhold among those who dwell below. Similarly, the sanctity here below has difficulty soaring upward. Itaruta dilitata is necessary: “The awakening of the lower one” is needed, to arouse itaruta dili’aila, “the awakening of the higher One,” in order to enable both, the higher and the lower, to meet somewhere in the middle.
   How is this accomplished? By man. On the one hand: “Be sacred.” On the other hand: “Be people of sanctity for Me.” The first is accomplished by way of “mitsvahs between man and God,” and the second is accomplished by way of the “mitsvahs between man and his fellow.” We understand from this that it is man who is the bearer of sanctity by virtue of the Godly Presence that he bears within himself.
   Rabi Shimon bar Yohai and his son together completed the circle of sanctity, by actualizing the Godly Presence. The father did this by way of the spirit and the son did this by way of physical matter, as mentioned above. This is what Rabi Shimon means by his remark in the mishna: “I have seen 'children of ascension' but they are rare…and if there are only two such, then they are me and my son.” This teaches us that these two had come to complete the dichotomy between spirit and matter.
   Torah is the point of encounter that closes the circle of heaven and earth, by upholding a covenant between Creator and created. It is not for naught that the snake plays the starring role, as the leading, most energetic and most critical antogonist in the relations between Adam and Eve – instigating, entangling, and ensnaring them unto the very gates of death.
   Man and woman - a dichotomy. These are the furthest and most opposed extremes of the continuum on the most critically important plane of all creation: The human plane. And why did the snake exert himself so? In order to prevent them from completing and perfecting one another. For he knew quite well (in contrast to the lie that he told them: “For God knows quite well…”) that perfection between them would attain perfection for the entire creation, which would effectively end his own role as instigator and quarrelmonger, which had been his role from the very beginning. See Bava Kama 117, on the snake that guarded the mouth of the cave: Rav Kahana was buried there, having died as a result of Rabi Yohanan’s anger. “Rabi Yohanan went to [Rav Kahana to] conciliate him, but the snake would not let him enter the cave.” Rashi: “A great snake had made itself like a wheel surrounding the mouth of the cave, and had put its tail into its mouth, and no man could enter.”
   Here it is the snake specifically that serves as the guardian of the honor of the saintly deceased, symbolizing the perfection of that most holy amoraitic sage, Rav Kahana, of whom Raish Lakish said: ‘A lion has risen from Babylon.’”
   The snake’s putting its tail into its mouth indicates that it will redeem itself, as a parallel to the idea of Moses burying himself: The snake will neutralize itself. It will itself swallow its own venom, thereby transforming itself into perfection. The mystery of evil's transformation into good is thus fulfilled in the snake, and it is this same mystery that was known to Samson: “From fierce, sweet has come forth.”
   Man – Freedom. Woman – Belonging. Woman is reality and man is theory. All of these extreme opposite ends are bound together and connected, to complete one another in a perfect circle, in the encounter between man and woman. When they complete one another, through a complementarity of compatible traits, each one’s deficiencies are transformed into virtues, and become beneficial.  The two become one solid unit of wholeness and perfection, a unit as powerful and enduring as rock, able to withstand every danger in the universe.
   Fire and water, esh and mayim, equal shamayim, heaven. “By God’s word, the heavens were made.” For by natural means, fire and water have no possibility of uniting. Thus too with man; he also combines fire and water: He boils water over a fire, to prepare cooked dishes and hot drinks. Thus too with woman; she too combines fire and water: She cools man’s simmering urge - which she herself has heated in him - through marriage according to the law of Moses and Israel. Thus too the evil urge, which serves the good urge when a man takes a fitting woman for his mate.
The evil urge serving the good urge is a condition of serving God: “‘You [singular] shall love the Lord your God with all of your hearts.’ [With all of your hearts?  It means] with both of your urges.” 

    Thus, too, is sacred transformed into profane by a man and a woman who are unsuited and deficient in compatibility, to become the most profane of all profanities, the source of all temptation, destroying every good thing of human quality, yet thus does profane transform into sacred between a fitting couple: “The shechina, God's immanent presence, rests between them.”
   Sacred and profane meet in the encounter between place and time: “He sanctifies Israel and the times.” Through the mikra'ai kodesh, “the appointed times and places that are called sacred,” Jewish festivals bring place to its tangible actualization within time, creating an encounter between place and time.
   Time is given tangible actualization, thus transforming into place, which is the tangible actualization of time. When there is no encounter between these two, place moves away from time, and time is cut up into three parts. Past and future only meet in the present when place is made dependent upon the track of time.
   Moses was born on the seventh day of the month of Adar, and passed away on the seventh day of the month of Adar. Moses incarnates perfection, for it was he who brought perfection from heaven down to earth through the Torah. Moses, in the mere fact of his presence, and by his life and by his death, incarnated the perfection of time and place, which he transformed into a closed circle. “And no man knew his burial place.”  He was born and passed away at the same time – a time that had been transformed into a place, and a place that had been transformed into an eternal time.
  
   Humanness: Last and most important of all, the essence of the point of encounter between dichotomies and extremes, is the human element.  It is the power of all powers that completes sanctity, tangibly actualizing it within reality. This is the crown of creation: A human being.
   It is the human being who fulfills the injunction: “You shall be people of sanctity for Me,” which is the highest of highest levels, reaching higher than the angels who minister on high, who are almost the highest rank.  Yet highest of all is “the righteous one, [who] rules through fear of God.” “The righteous one decrees and the Holy One fulfills.” “You will be higher than sacred.”
   It is quite easy to be sacred at the level of abstinence. It is far more difficult and attaining to a far higher level to make sanctity penetrate the level of person-to-person relations, fulfilling the verse, “you will love your friend as yourself,” which is the perfect circle.
   Closing the circle is the ultimate purpose of the Torah. “It is a great rule of the Torah.” Humanness is the encounter between all forms of talent: Here, in humanness, intellect, emotion, and practical action allcome together as one.