Rav Haim Lifshitz
Achrei Mos

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Tranquility in this World?

 

 Translated from Hebrew by S. NAthan

l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai



The Ohr HaChaim writes: "Now you've learned that it is not beneficial for a person to be so close to G-d, to the point of bursting the barrier and entering into the inner space of sanctity."

      Are we seeing two separate domains here? Is there a sacred human being versus a sacred space, with the sanctity of the space being greater than the sanctity of the human being? Including even a human being who resembles Moshe Rabeinu?

      Later in Parshas Kedoshim, the Ohr HaChaim writes: "It intends further to say, when it states by way of a reason, "For I am sacred etc." that according to the value of the greatness of His sanctity yisborach we must sanctify ourselves, because since we are preparing ourselves for the Shechina to rest upon our heads, we must assess the greatness of His sanctity, yisborach, in order to effect our preparedness for this thing."

      The Ohr HaChaim poses a problem yet he also offers a solution. The Torah is not presenting two different sanctities in confrontation with each other. "...According to the value of the greatness of His sanctity...we must sanctify ourselves." That is, there is only one sanctity deriving from the heavenly source. This sanctity is able to be present in different amounts and at different levels within the creation.

      On the surface of things, every creature bears its Creator's fingerprints, and constitutes a faithful testimony to the Artist Who made it into a vessel, by the mere fact of its presence. This is true to the extent that each creature maintains its own character, its own form, and its own destiny. Every created being has a role that expresses the G-dly presence of the Creator, yisborach, Failing to fulfill the role assigned to it or distorting its own original form in a way that is not according to the Godly imperative constitutes a desecration of the Name of G-d and a distortion of the purpose of the creation, and implies that there are two separate domains, G-d forbid. Man, being the crown of creation and its essential destiny, by the mere fact of having been created possesses the ability to be the representative and to constitute the presence of sanctity in this world.

      This is the main part of a human being's task. The Torah supervises our striving toward the goal of sanctity by providing us with specific rules of behavior.

      The purpose of the positive commandments is to actualize dormant human potential, to make tangible the direct Godly qualities that are reflected in the neshama, the soul that is the Godly kernel in all its purity, that hides amidst all the layers of physical matter, amidst all the raw materials that belong to the components of creation. The human body with all its characteristic energies and powers constitutes a complete collection of all the raw materials of creation, including both its static and dynamic components. The study of Torah and the doing of mitzvos constitute a route, a process of merging and organizing the powers of creation toward the goal of incarnating the Godly presence within this world. This process dwells only in man. Only human beings process the powers of the creation and transform them into a presence of sanctity. Thus is raw material of a secular nature transformed into the tangible realization of sanctity.

      This teaches us that different levels exist, and different categories for making sanctity immanent in the world. One can say with certainty that were it not for the presence of man, who constitutes the presence of sanctity, there would be no place for sanctity in the world. There are not two types of sanctity in the world, one in man and the other outside of man. The sanctity of place is the sanctity of man's place, man's place as it awaits him, as it is prepared for him, as it anticipates its redemption through him and its actualization by him. Man's destiny was and remains the actualization of the sanctity of the creation - taking the dormant potential for sanctity that is hidden within the creation and making it tangibly real. None but man is charged with this task.

      Different levels exist on the path to actualizing sanctity, as the Ramban states in the beginning of Parshas Kedoshim (18:4): "Those who are occupied with mitzvos out of love [for G-d], and also as is proper and fitting with matters of this world...will merit a good life in this world as is the way of the world, and for the next world, their merit is whole and complete there... [whereas those who are at the highest level] who abandon all affairs of this world and pay no attention to it, it is as though they possessed no body, and all their thoughts and intentions are exclusively involved with their creator, as with Eliyahu, etc. behidovek nafshom baShem hanichbad, in which their life force attaches to the glorious Name, they will live forever, with their body and with their life force, as we see in the scripture about Eliyahu, and as the midrash mentions in connection with Chanoch and others who come to the next world and who rise up at techiyas hamaisim."

      The purpose of the negative commandments is to pave man's path toward his role in this world by removing those factors from his path that have no relation to his role or that are beyond his ability to sanctify them. Thus the prohibited foods are those foods that do not sit well with his body's needs, for his body's needs were designed to strengthen him for and to make him compatible with his own worship of his G-d. Similarly certain lifestyles are delegitimized for the same reason, such as the prohibitions against incest, etc. All of these are for the purpose of protecting the sanctity of his life force, spirit, and body. Clal godol, one major rule determines the classification of conditions according to their compatibility with the human worship of G-d: Ours is a non-static situation. Our conditions are dynamic, and their dynamics are determined by the human attitude to them. It is man who must create compatible conditions, after the initial general classification provided by the Torah.

      Certain conditions are appropriate for those who are not of the covenant [non-Jews] and these conditions assist them in fulfilling their role in the world, yet they are inappropriate for and even interfere with the labor of sanctity that obligates those of the covenant. Thus a food that is forbidden to those of the covenant, for it would cause them impurity and a dulling of the heart, would do no harm at all to those who are not of the covenant. And even those foods that are designated by halacha as being kosher have many different shades and degrees of appropriateness, according to the level of awe of G-d possessed by the one who would bring them to his mouth. Not every chumra, stricture of dietary law is appropriate for everyone. Some must guard their sanctity and purity because of the role that has been destined for them, from the nazir and on down. For others, the level of food kashrus is not what determines what they are permitted to eat. These are the people to whom the rule applies, "Sanctify yourself through what is permitted to you." "Consecrated from the womb," etc.

      Aspiring prophets, the b'nei hanevi'im who studied prophecy under the great prophets, would undergo certain exercises of body and life force in order to purify and sanctify themselves. Among these was an etherealization of physical matter. While physical matter serves as the tool for every Jew's labor of sanctity, it can prevent those destined for prophecy from attaining that level of prophecy that requires an utter hispashtus hagashmius, divesting of the physical.

      For the attainment of that level of sanctity that turns a human being into "the Shechina's footstool," intensive and creative work is insufficient. For it requires devotion to the point of self-sacrifice. Such self-sacrifice cannot be measured in the cheftsa, in the object, by an objective measurement, but only in the gavra, by the subjective human being. One person's attainment of sanctity requires a certain amount of affliction, such as Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai, while another's demands a broadening of material conditions, like that of his son, Rabbi Elazar, whose sublime sanctity would sanctify physical matter at its fullest, rather than at its minimum. The Gemara goes to great lengths in telling of his immense and exaggerated food requirements, and of his great physical might, to the point that people feared him, and mistakenly thought him to be a burly ruffian who might well attack them and rob them. When they came to Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai to complain of Rabbi Elazar's aggressive behavior toward certain people, Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai warned them not to belittle or despise his powers, because they derived from a sacred source.

      The place does not sanctify the man. Rather the man sanctifies his place. We learn from this that there is no holy place, only a holy person, whose holiness sanctifies his place. There is no neutral place. A place where one finds conditions appropriate for one's worship of one's G-d may be called a holy place for that person. A place that does not have the conditions appropriate for one's worship of one's G-d is not holy for that person. Exceptions to this rule are the holiness of the Bais HaMikdash and its sacred accessories, the sanctity of which is immutable. Yet even this sanctity is negotiable according to the manner in which it serves human beings: When a man is not worthy of the sanctity of the labor, the conditions disappear though the sanctity remains. Thus man loses his right to work the sacred service in the sacred place (the destruction of the Bais HaMikdash) despite the sanctity that is incessant in that sacred place, even in its state of ruin. This holiness does not have the dynamic capacity to sanctify those who try to seek its shelter. Unfortunately the opposite is the case, and those who enter the sacred unprepared are entering a category of grave prohibition, to the point that "any stranger drawing near shall be put to death."

      Thus does a man walk the tightrope that stretches over hell's yawning abyss. One misstep might destroy everything he has built through the power vested in him as the servant of his G-d. This misstep could even cost him his life. On the one hand, a fall into the abyss, and on the other hand, sanctity. "Man is born to toil." Whether to the toil of Torah or to the toil of vain pursuits, his fate has been decreed for a life of toil and torment, whether the torments of doom or yisurim shel ahava, the torments of love. The "turbulent labors of the Moshiach" demand so much of human beings, to the point of "giving up all the souls that are within the body." And "whoever adds [further toil], heaven adds [further reward] to him." It is a process similar to alchemy: Fierce turns into sweet. The torments of love turn into a binyan adei ad, a solid structure lasting into eternity. The torment of abstaining from, as well as the torment of sanctifying physical matter. Neither one is more difficult than the other, nor is either one more beneficial than the other. Every person has a role that has been destined for him, and conditions that are suited to him.

      There is no corridor of rest, of idleness, as long as one lives and breathes. "With the dead, all is free," Iyov's comrades point out to him. "Man is born to toil." This saying captures the essence of life's style as a never-ending struggle. It is a struggle in which good people take part just as evil people take part, and the wise along with the fools." Nevertheless, there is a substantive difference in the type of struggle between the talented and the weak-minded, between the wise and the simple people. While the simple expend the vast majority of their energies in existence's struggles, such as "envy, lust, and pride," wise people deal with creativity. The turbulent toils of creating - torments of love - transform raw materials into components that bestow meaning, content and ideals.

      Whereas the one who confronts existence's struggles comes out disillusioned and empty handed, faced with an existence that will never belong to him, like a stranger in a strange and cruel universe, yet the one who confronts creativity becomes master of his own existence. "The wicked are under their hearts' jurisdiction. The righteous, their hearts are under their jurisdiction." Both have been granted a certain budgeted time on this earth. The wise person abandons the world, and comes to the supreme world with his hands full of attainments, as it says, "Avraham was old and coming with days." The midrash explains, "he brought all his days with him." He had not forfeited any of his days. Whereas the wicked leave their wealth to others, and leave this world naked and needy.

      Yet the toil of creativity conceals its own danger. Even the toil of Torah contains "the elixir of life and the elixir of death." Therefore "do not believe in yourself until the day you die." Nevertheless, the very involvement with Torah "though one does it not for its own sake, one eventually comes to do it for its own sake."

      Parshas Achrei Mos and Parshas Kedoshim both deal with the boundaries of permitted and forbidden, beyond which lies the abyss. At one extreme are prohibitions against incest that border on prohibitions against idolatry, with the angel of death standing in wait for any who would transgress these prohibitions. Yet he stands thus in wait also for those who would cross the borders of sanctity, for "any stranger drawing near shall be put to death."

      The Torah way serves as the safe ground for both of these tendencies. Creativity in preoccupation with Torah and mitzvos paves a safe and certain path: "They shall go from prowess to prowess" until evil shall serve good. We do not mean that special sphere of behavior that deals only with relations between man and God, which serves as a tried and tested path for Godly meaning within reality: "For the sake of mitzvah." Human beings live and operate within an existential reality paved with hazards. Deviating from the framework of halacha is tantamount to choosing death over life.

      However, the central path of existence is embraced by the interpersonal mitzvos. The vast majority of human preoccupation embraces the region "between man and his fellow." It is in this region that the essential pitfalls and obstacles are concealed, and this area is paved entirely with trials and tests. The social track is the furnace that purges one's midos. It is where one's quality of personality is expressed.

      The Torah speaks of two types of kedushah: Abstaining from the way of the world avoids its pitfalls. "If a man refrained from transgressing a prohibition, scripture considers him as if he had done a mitzvah." Nevertheless, a mitzvah one fulfills actively does not resemble a mitzvah one fulfills by remaining inactive. The latter one's mitzvah endows him with the sanctity of abstinence, while the active doer of the mitzva acquires a supreme sanctity whose reward reverberates for a thousand generations. One becomes holy in body and spirit, to the point of leaving behind the restrictions of a limited existence, while the other acquires a sanctity that knows no restrictions or boundaries of any sort. "Everything has been placed beneath his feet" for the one who is holy through the sanctity of action performed by body and spirit. "Fortunate is he in this world, and good is his in the next world." He fulfills both types of sanctity. He is protected from the danger of becoming "a degenerate with the Torah's permission," on the one hand, and he is protected from the reduction caused by abstinence on the other hand. "He has merited both tables." He sanctifies physical matter and he sanctifies the supreme soul. He attains supreme sanctity in this lower world. What we have here is attainment of goals through toil. What we do not have here is repose.

 

 

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