Translated from Hebrew by S. NAthan

l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai

When Rabanan, the rabbinic sages were occupied with burying Elazar, son of Rabi Shimon Bar Yohai (after his body had been left lying in the attic of his home, yet had not decayed) they brought his pall to the opening of the cave where his father was buried, and found a snake “surrounding the cave as though it were a wheel, and its tail was at its mouth.” (Rashi, Bava Metsia 84)
   The snake holding its tail in its mouth serves as a symbol for the perfection that is created out of contradictory elements. A snake symbolizes of evil, and temptation, yet even a snake becomes perfection the moment it becomes a perfect form, a perfect circle – to the point that it can even serve as the guard that protects the entrance to the cave where the saintly sage, Rabi Shimon bar Yohai, is buried.
   “ ‘And tell to Yaakov, to tell others:’ [How can Yaakov tell others?] This teaches us that the tsadikim, even in their deaths, are called living.” “ ‘And he died there.’ Some say Moshe 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 stands and renders service.” (Sota 13)
   “ ‘And he buried him.’ God, in all His glory, buried Moshe. 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, since the six days of creation, in order to atone for the act of Pe’or, and it is one of the things that was created right before Shabat, at twilight.” (See Pirke Avot) “‘And no man knew his burial place.’ Rav Hama bar Hanina said: ‘Even Moshe Rabeinu does not know where he is buried.”
   Those things that were created right before Shabat at twilight, as I have pointed out elsewhere, were not created for themselves as realities within their own right, but rather as ad hoc creations, for a particular function. They are a matter of relativity. Moshe’s grave was not meant to absorb Moshe, for after all “tsadikim, even in their deaths, 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 in order to protect and warn against the idolatry of Ba’al Pe’or.
   Moshe buried himself, or else the Creator, so to speak, buried Moshe: Here the mouth of the snake meets its tail. This is the encounter that creates perfection. Life and death are the extreme of dichotomies.
   Similarly, the Creator and man. With Moshe, these dichotomies complete one another for the sake of perfection; this is the level of the tsadikim: “Even in their deaths, they are called living.” This is what is meant by: “Some say that Moshe Rabeinu did not die.” Rather he attained the perfection entailed in the meeting of life and death.
  So too with Rabi Elazar, son of Rabi Shimon bar Yohai: These two people had combined to create a perfection of encounter between physical mattter and spirit. Rabi Shimon had been the spirit. It had been he who revealed the mysteries of malchuta derakia, the kingdom of heaven, to the world. Yet he lacked the ability to impenetrate spirit’s meaning into physical matter, in order to sanctify physical matter. It was his son, Rabi Elazar, who saw to that: It was he who impenetrated meaning into 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 is not closed is nothing more than a crooked line. Whereas nothing is stronger than a whole circle, and no man can prevail against it. The issue of perfect wholeness is a central element of the Jewish perspective, which propounds a perfection created out of dichotomy.
   These 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 has 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 them both 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 the “mitsvot between man and God,” and the second is accomplished by way of the “mitsvot between man and his fellow.” Here we understand that it is man who is the bearer of sanctity, by way 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 about “children of ascension…that if there are only two such, then they are me and my son.” To teach 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 nought that the snake plays the starring role, as the leading, most energetic and most critical antogonist in the relations between Adam and Hava – instigating, entangling, and ensnaring them unto the very gates of death.
   Man and woman: Dichotomy. Extreme opposite ends on the most important and critical plane of 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 was his role from the very beginning. (See Bava Kama 117, regarding the snake that guarded the mouth of the cave: Rav Cahana was buried there, after he had died as a result of Rabi Yohanan’s anger. “Rabi Yohanan went to [Rav Cahana to] conciliaate him, but the snake would not let him enter the cave.” Rashi: “A great snake made itself like a wheel surrounding the mouth of the cave, and put its tail into its mouth, and no man could enter.”
   It is the snake specifically that serves here as the guardian of the honor of the saintly deceased, as a symbol of the perfection of that sacred amora, Rav Cahana, 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 burying himself with Moshe Rabeinu: The snake will neutralize itself. It will itself swallow its own venom, thereby turning itself into perfection. The secret of evil being transformed into good is thus fulfilled in the snake, and this same secret was known to Shimshon: “From fierce, sweet has come forth.”
   Man – Freedom. Woman – Belonging. Woman is reality and man is theory. All opposite ends are bound and connected and complete one another in a perfect circle, in the encounter between man and woman. When they complete one another, with a complementarity that is compatible, each one’s deficiencies are transformed into virtues, and become beneficial: They become one solid unit of wholeness and perfection, a unit powerful and enduring as a rock, 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 boils water over a fire, to prepare cooked dishes and hot drinks. Thus too with woman: She cools man’s simmering yetser, which she herself has heated in him, through marriage by the law of Moses and Israel. Thus too the yetser hara, which serves the yetser hatov when a man takes a fitting woman for his mate. Thus 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, source of temptation, destroying every good thing of human quality, and thus does profane transform into sacred between a fitting couple: “The shechina rests between them.”
   Sacred and profane meet through the encounter of place with time: “He sanctifies Yisrael and the times.” Through the mikra’ei kodesh, “the times and places called sacred,” Jewish festivals bring place to its tangible actualization within time. Thus do they create an encounter between place and time.
   Time receives its 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 can only meet in the present when place is made dependent upon the track of time.
   Moshe was born on the seventh day of the month of Adar, and he passed away on the seventh day of the month of Adar. Moshe incarnates perfection, for he brought perfection from heaven down to earth through the Torah. Moshe, by the very fact of his presence, his life, and his death, incarnated the perfection of time and place, which he transformed into a closed circle. “And no man knew his burial place,” and he was born and passed away at the same time – a time which had been transformed into a place, and a place which had been transformed into an eternal time.
   The yetser hara serving the yetser tov is to be found in service of God: “‘With all your hearts,’ with both of your urges.”
   Humanness: Last and most important of all, and the essence of the point of encounter between dichotomies and extremes, is the human element, power of all powers, that completes kedusha, and tangibly actualizes it within reality. This is the crown of creation: A human being.
   It is a human being who fulfills “be for Me people of sanctity,” which is the highest of high levels, reaching higher than the angels who minister on high, in the sense of the highest rank: “The tsadik rules, by his fear of God.” “The tsadik decrees and the Holy One fulfills.” “Higher than sacred shall you be.”
   It is quite easy to be sacred at the level of abstinence. It is far more difficult and a far higher level to impenetrate sanctity at the level of person-to-person relations, fulfilling “you shall 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, the intellectual, the emotional, and the practical all meet as one.