Three Paths in serving God: Torah, Avodah, and Gemilut
Hasadim.
Translated from Hebrew by S.
NAthan
l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai
“On
three things, the world stands: On
Torah, on Avoda, service, and on
Gemilut
Hasadim, acts of generous kindness.” Would
it be relevant
to try to determine which of
?these is preferable
In Parashat Va’Etchanan
we find the “Shma Yisrael” that deals with accepting the yoke of Heaven’s
rule, while in our parasha, Parashat Ekev, we find “VeHaya Im Shamo’a,” the
continuation of the “Shma” that deals with accepting the commandments.
The way of the world,
and of the religious perceptions of other peoples, is that the masses adopt
beliefs crawling with superstition – ghosts and demons, quasi-mystical
beliefs such as astrology and numerology and what not – and compress into
these their own fate and their own hopes, on their road to the One Who
dwells on high. They then attribute to Him such titles as king of the
demons or ruler of witchcraft and mysticism.
Whereas logic and
methodical continuity, they save for themselves, out of the goodness of
their hearts. Rationality and clarity they entrust, as it were, into their
own faithful hands. It lies with human creatures, dwellers of dust and
rust, despite the temporariness of their own existence.
Yet they are the first
to humbly admit that their supposedly powerful hands fall slack the moment
any force of nature strikes disaster upon them. Their approach is
astonishingly split: During periods of routine, when the world is running as
it should, man is king. Suddenly when disaster strikes, as is the way of
nature – which man has no part in – his hands slacken in utter despair. Yet
he is oblivious to the contradiction and fickleness entailed in his
approach.
Even a Jew who is whole
in his faith and at peace with his belief, and who seeks the well-being of
his fellow Jews, finds himself in a constant state of dilemma as to where to
draw the line and where to lay the limits of personal effort and
hishtadlut, how much to make use of the pathways of financial and
scientific logic – when facing problems of livelihood or health.
He inquire into things,
he investigates frantically: In whose hands shall he entrust and which
direction should he choose for his efforts for livelihood and health. At
such moments, he tends to forget that the One Who rules all, and Who
encompasses the entire problem of survival, is the King of the universe, and
it is in His certain and faithful Hands that the keys to livelihood and
health lie.
An awareness of this
sort would have to endow him with the mida of bitahon, a
personal character trait whose main features are trust and confidence in
God. It would then be bitahon alone that would determine the
boundaries of his hishtadlut.
We are not referring
only to efforts on the practical/technical plane. We mean mainly on the
spiritual plane, that lies deep within his life force. It is there that
bitahon must determine the extent to which anxiety or seriousness or
bother or excitement should be aroused or moderated, when facing any
survival issue whatsoever, whether in the area of livelihood or health.
The mida of
bitahon is the litmus test of the level of one’s connection with one’s
Creator. It is bitahon that must determine which paths of
hishtadlut – be they rational/logical, practical or intellectual – one
must take in order to properly cope with the survival problem one is facing.
For every person and
for every situation, there is a different mida, a different measure
of bitahon. This mida is determined by the power of the
dvaikut within the depths of the life force, which is created each time
anew.
Indeed there is a whole
tangle of trials waiting to envelop, energize, or strangle the individual on
his path of survival. The phrase “do not bring me to the point of being
tested,” accompanies and justifies the test and the trial. Denying the need
for hishtadlut means fleeing the incessant need for confrontation,
which has been decreed upon human beings in their struggle for existence.
Escape methods are many
and miscellaneous. One person might immerse himself extensively in prayer,
while neglecting – some more, some less – his obligation to exert himself,
to invest hishtadlut in earning a livelihood for his hungry family,
while another person may neglect his health to the point of reaching a
life-threatening condition, because he views resorting to doctors as a
spiritual deficiency that borders on apostasy, demonstrating a lack of trust
in the One Who dwells on high.
Others put all of their
energies into hishtadlut, investing incessantly in survival efforts.
This hishtadlut empties them of all their resources of time and
emotion and other vital resources, so they are left with no leisure to
occupy themselves with “‘serving God:’ This means prayer.”
Which of this group is
more God-fearing? It is difficult to say. The one has advantages and yet
also disadvantages, which relate to one extreme, while the other, from the
opposite direction, has advantages, yet also disadvantages that are no less
severe.
Among the peoples of
the world, the work of connecting directly has been handed over to religious
professionals, whereas the employment of rational means is the lot of the
majority, and especially of those who view themselves as talented and
successful in the sciences and in technology. Such people are exempt as it
were from relating to the Creator of the universe, Who is then left to the
mindless masses, who attribute to Him the title of king and ruler of the
mystical realm, as mentioned above, and this realm is the source of their
fears.
The Torah seems to
complicate matters even further by claiming that the universe is established
upon yet another foundation: Involvement in Torah, as a path of serving God
in its own right, and as a way of life.
A guiding motto
accompanies anyone occupied with Torah: “Whoever occupies himself with Torah
is exempt from the yoke of government and the yoke of livelihood…and his
work is done by others.” Indeed? A casual survey of the workings of the
world would show evidence for this claim to be highly ambivalent at best.
Which means that a casual survey is inadequate to shed any light on the
problem. Casual surveys only create smoke screens, complicating the problem
and deepening the test.
There is no escaping
the need to delve deeply, to get to the bottom of the issue, for the sake of
gaining clarity and building the foundations of bitahon, which alone
can save the believer from the entanglements of trial and tribulation.
Among the peoples of
the world, a certain path of serving God directly has won popularity and
captured all hearts. It is a path requiring one to officially ignore every
other path. Necessarily, such a perception has created a cult of monastics,
men and women, monks and nuns, for whom monasticism has become a profession,
and very often a position of power in every sense of the term, including
monetary power and political influence to a significant degree. The
business of these professional worshippers of God is prayer. They deal in
prayer, which has become the instrument by which they serve themselves and
by which they serve whoever believes in the power of their prayer. Their
profession is conspicuous, by their appearance and by their clothing.
We must admit the truth
– that the likes of these have penetrated into our own midst as well, into
our own camp. They are to be found among ourselves, people who attribute
the power of prayer to religious professionals, who efface themselves and do
not trust in the power of every Jew’s prayer.
There is no doubt that
the Torah looks askance at the development of an exclusive class of
“worshippers”. This is not only because it claims the authority to divest
the other classes of their power of prayer. A second reason for the Torah’s
criticism of professional worshippers is that this social class becomes
exempt from hishtadlut, as it were. Those who hold the status of
worshippers are exempted from the requirements of hishtadlut through
natural means, and it all takes place out of an arrogant contempt for those
who do occupy themselves with hishtadlut. They view the latter as
lesser worshippers, if they may be even called worshippers at all.
Some join this sect out
of laziness, being unwilling to exert efforts of hishtadlut, claiming
theirs is the only true path, as it were, and that there is no other. Their
method is to self-justify through the use of partial quotations of Biblical
texts such as those found in our parasha: “And now, what does God
require of you, except to fear Him.” To this they join Hazal’s comment on
this verse: “Everything is in the Hands of Heaven, except for fear of
Heaven.” To this teaching of Hazal’s they attribute the distorted meaning
that all hishtadlut as it were is in the Hands of the Holy One, and
we have nothing to do but rely on Him, and not to participate with Him in
any way in hishtadlut. What they are attempting to say is that
hishtadlut only interferes, and does not assist in solving the problem.
Hazal’s intention is to
focus on the truth that everything is in the Hands of Heaven, by dealing
with hishtadlut specifically, so as to fulfill the verdict decreed on
Adam HaRishon when he was evicted from Gan Eden: “By the sweat of your brow,
you will eat bread.”
This is a verdict
decreed on every human being without exception. There is no way to bypass
this trial and this test: To relate to the natural ways of the world with
appropriate seriousness, yet all the while to know and to believe that the
source of blessing does not lie in this preoccupation, but rather all things
come directly from heaven. As it says: “I will bless you in everything that
you will do.” This means, you will do, because of your obligation of
hishtadlut. You will prepare the vessel to hold God’s blessing. This
vessel you are required to toil over and to prepare, if you desire life.
The attempt to bypass
hishtadlut is found in the depths of each of us, in our longing to
return to Adam’s primal condition of Gan Eden, where every toil and effort
was done for him by heavenly beings. They prepared even his meals for him;
he had no effort to make and most importantly, there was no fight for
survival lurking at his door. Out of this longing for Gan Eden grows the
tendency to err with delusions of grandeur, which is the source of the
tendency to laziness.
Obviously the Torah
does not encourage this tendency. To the contrary, the Torah places upon
man a heavy burden and a difficult mission: To make use of the life of
physical matter in order to sanctify it, to use it as an offering of
sacrifice, as a part of one’s service of God.
The other side of the
coin of this temptation is to immerse oneself head and shoulders in the
business of existence. Such involvement also presents a danger, which
appears in our parasha as well: “Lest you forget God, your Lord”. “In order
that you will remember…that “not on bread alone does a man live, but rather
on all that comes forth from the mouth of God, man lives.”
The Torah presents this
ideal, the merging of spirit and matter. Yet it should be pointed out that
this ideal merging (and we have mentioned it elsewhere) exists mainly in the
Holy Land. In the Diaspora, the merging of matter and spirit is less
successful. There, one must minimize physical matter and maximize the
spirit on one’s path of serving God.
A Preoccupation with
Torah
It is not incidental
that the service of God is called preoccupation with Torah, rather than
study of Torah, because what characterizes this path is a breadth of
knowledge that encompasses the universe and all that it contains. Under
the hems of its mantle, it collects all of universe and human being, both
theory and practice, and spirit and body as one. What is most
characteristic of the Torah occupation is its exclusivity. From here we
find that someone who is solely preoccupied with acts of generous kindness
for his fellow human beings, for the sake of heaven, out of the depths of
sensitivity to their pain, and out of utter devotion and self-sacrifice – he
too is called one who walks the path of Torah, just as one who is
preoccupied all his days with the interactions of Abayai and Rava, and who
teaches Torah and writes Torah hidushim, is walking the path of
Torah, and his status is higher than all the others.
By the power of his
learning, he brings the Torah down from heaven to earth, as Moshe Rabeinu
did in his time, and the keys of Heaven were given to him, to bestow
abundance of blessing on earth. Someone preoccupied with Torah bestows
shefa no less than – and indeed more than – someone who is preoccupied
with prayer.
The preoccupation with
Torah focuses on the essential substance. It activates the best of the
creative quality with which the Holy One has graced that choicest of His
creatures, man. The one who is occupied with Torah applies the rules of
serving God as they are written in the Torah, the halachot, the legal
rulings, as well as the conceptual principles, such as: “You shall do what
is right and good,” (meaning above and beyond the legal rulings) in the best
way possible, and he immerses all of these into physical matter.
In this way, unity is
created between spirit and physical matter. Spirit finds tangible realness,
and physical matter serves as garb and garment for the spirit. Thus
container and content are formed.
An important principle
stands behind these remarks: The spirit of creativity in man, the Godly
quality characterizing the essence of the one formed in God’s image, finds
that preoccupation with Torah provides the best of self-expression. The
study of Torah encompasses one’s material world within one’s spiritual
world, all as one: One’s details and one’s whole, one’s private and one’s
public, are enveloped in unity and perfection.
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