Thoughts on the Weekly Reading
by
Rabbi Ze'ev Haim Lifshitz

Human Being as Godly Presence

by Rabbi Haim Lifshitz

Discussion based on weekly Torah reading: Naso

“Then, when Moses would come to the Tent of Meeting to speak with Him, he would hear the voice speaking with him...” The difficulty raised, in principle, by this verse, has given pause to the greatest commentators – in that it appears to be a physical materialization of the Lord. Sforno writes: “'Speaking:' It was speaking with and to itself. For all that God has worked, has been for His own sake, and to add to his own wisdom. And he will thus know and work goodness in another, with a generosity of bounteous influence that has no limit or end. And he will see what he has worked in the one who responds rapturously, according to his level of preparedness. This accounts for every “speaking” referred to in the Torah when it says “God spoke.” (Sforno)

“The voice was speaking with and to itself:” Whose voice? The “speaking”'s as an independent entity? Similarly, when Sforno writes: “and to add to his own wisdom.” Who is adding to whose own wisdom? The voice? ('his' and 'its' are interchangeable in Hebrew.) Yet what if the reference is to the hearer? By that level of identifying attained through devoted self-sacrifice, unto utter attachment to the source of the voice, the hearer becomes transformed into a Godly presence; this is granted him in merit of his attachment to the infinite qualities of the omnipotent One.: “And in this, he will know, and he will work goodness for another, with a generosity of bounteous influence that has no limit or end [that is unrestricted and unlimited]. So as to remove all doubt from the reader's mind that this is in fact what he means, Sforno adds: “And he will see what he has worked in the one who responds rapturously, according to his level of preparedness,” meaning in the hearer, who has been privileged to attain Godly qualities, according to his spiritual level and according to his preparation – i.e. according to his devoted self-sacrifice to the Source of the voice.

The saintly Or HaHaim senses the fundamental difficulty presented by this verse, and offers a middle ground in the form of the independent entity of an angel – a sort of Leibnitzian “nomad” – which Or HaHaim suggests as a sort of intermediating entity – mediating between the physical and the metaphysical, as though it were one of the physical states of matter, still existing somewhere in the category of flow and fluidity, of which more later. “According to what we have written elsewhere, that from the speech that emanates from God, an angel is formed, and it is he who speaks to the prophet – and I have thus reconciled the meaning of every instance of 'to say' [that appears in the Bible] with reference to God's speaking.”

Rashbam actually foreshadows Or HaHaim's interpretation here, in his commentary on an earlier reading, in Genesis (18:13): “God said to Abraham: 'Why is it that Sarah has laughed?” Rashbam comments: “'God said' [means that] the greatest angel among them [said].”

Sforno's remarks here are profound, penetrating to the fathomless depths of the human life-force.

He is referring to the human being as to a Godly presence; when he relates to man, it is to his Godly origins, or to the Godly element in him – to the “part of God on high” that exists within man. From the root of his Godly soul, a Godly sprout shoots up, blooms, blossoms and gives forth the fragrance of prophecy. It is according to this perspective that one must understand the difficulties inherent in some of the commandments: What need does the Creator have for the sacrifices, for the tithes, for the priestly gifts? For charity? Unless it is in order to allow human beings to participate in partnership with His Godly presence in the world. One who offers a sacrifice, actualizes the potential of his Godly quality, turning it from potential into an actual, tangible reality of Godly presence. From his very own human self, this transformation occurs. One who gives charity is placing himself in the position of God. Such was the case with our forefathers: Abraham: “And I shall bless whoever you bless.” Jacob: “God called him the Lord.” Such was the covenant entered upon between the Creator and our forefathers, for He turned them into partners of equal rights, partners to the Godly presence. Thus with the blessing in the amida prayer, “He who heals the sick:” The individual who turns to God with a request to be healed, is healed by the power of his own identification with the possibility of healing that exists in the Creator of the universe that exists within himself. As implied in “'the One Who dwells in their midst:' Who dwells with them, within their impurity.” In the very midst of their camp. “For I am God, your healer:” The God that is within you. “All the disease that I placed upon Egypt, I shall not place upon you.” The question that begs to be asked in this verse – and the Talmud does in fact ask it (see Rashi) – is that if I never place disease upon you, then what need and what purpose is there in healing? Why does the verse conclude with “for I am God, your healer”? Yet according to our methodology, the interpretation of the verse is as such: The Egyptians, who do not believe in an omnipotent Creator, do not merit Godly quality, nor are they privileged to make any use of such, and therefore they were smitten with the plagues of Egypt and were rendered helpless. This is in contrast to the children of the omnipresent One, whose attachment of utter identification with their Father in heaven wins them a “part of God, from on high,” in the sense of “You made [man] only slightly less than God.” They are given the privilege and the ability to heal themselves by means of the God that is within them, in the sense of “for I am God your Healer,” healing themselves in the name of God. You shall partner with Me in your own self-healing. Indeed, that which the Torah revealed, at the very beginning of its path, has not been comprehended by humanity until our very own days – the fact that “a man's spirit shall sustain his disease, and who can bear a crippled spirit?” as expressed by the wisest of all men in Proverbs 18:14. That is to say that the spirit of God keens within man, and it is in his power to be assisted by it in order to treat his own sickness, which is dependent upon his spirit. One who falls ill and is not healed – this is a sign that his spirit has been crippled and broken. Let him return to rehabilitate his spirit, and then he will be healed of his illness, through the assistance of his spirit's attachment to its Godly source. Let him consider the possibility of repentance, according to the guidelines laid down by the sages of the Talmud: “If one sees that sufferings have come upon him, let him rummage among his deeds, and attribute his sufferings to his sins. If he has found none, let him attribute them to his having wasted time from Torah study, not as a sin but as a severing from the involvement with Torah, from which he could have drawn justification for his existence and for his physical vigor. In the sense of “whoever ceases from his study, and says, 'how lovely is this tree!' has forfeited his life.” He forfeits his life because he has been distracted? Not at all. Rather, he is penalized for having “ceased from his study,” meaning that he has severed himself [including his appreciation of the tree's loveliness] from the source of his vitality. Of this, more later.

It would be appropriate at this point to examine this rather daring perception from a conceptual/ philosophical perspective. It seems rather drastic to lay upon man, who is carved of physical matter, this heavy burden of Godly quality, to the point of making a miniature God of him, or even an authentic Godly presence. Is such a thing possible? More than this, it even makes a partner of him, by virtue of his being an ally of the Lord of creation, he must bear responsibility for the world, for better or for worse, not as a submissive servant – rather, he is to stand before the king as a minister, the relationship between them based upon reciprocity. Is such a thing possible?

Love, Fear/Awe, Taking Initiative, Being Submissive, Being Active and Being Passive

Fear and awe of Heaven – all well and good. A mortal stands before the Creator of the universe, filled with fear and awe, faced with the tremendous gap that yawns between himself and his Possessor. Love of God, however – whence its source? What does it draw from? From love, at attitude of reciprocity is reflected; it is the reciprocity of those who love – with a love that depends on nothing at all. Here is the problematic phenomenon. Love that depends upon something – this is a comprehensible phenomenon. The one who loves is interested in the benefit he can extract from the bond. He does not love his friend, but rather the benefit inherent in the connection. This is a selfish interest, which is human nature. What is the nature of relations of love that is pure of any selfish, ulterior interests? There is no natural mechanism that can help us to understand relations of pure love.

Our practice is to separate between the self and the ego. Whereas the ego incarnates the mechanistic/materialistic element of survival – a system that exists in all creatures – the self reflects the uniquely original, value-based quality of the image of God in man. The love that depends on nothing at all, expresses a two-sided encounter of the self. At the moment that the uniquely original Godly quality of one side encounters the uniquely original Godly quality of the other side, a complementary attachment is formed, between two complementary and completing qualities (when one quality does not touch the other, there is no complementary attachment, and no encounter of love). From here we may understand that the encounter of love is not something common or readily found, rolling about in the gutter, waiting for whoever wishes to come and take it. An encounter of this nature is rare, in that it is a complementary, completing encounter between two uniquely original qualities, and the path of the uniquely original is not strewn with roses, being that it is the incarnation of the soul-based Godly spark, its like existing nowhere else in the world. Therefore, there is no chance that it will encounter a uniquely original quality that resembles it, but rather a uniquely original quality that is different but complementary, for after all, by nature man is born lacking, and he goes about in search of that which will fill and complete his lack. “There is no happiness like the resolution of doubt,” and the encounter with the complementary, completing other creates an enormous bang of emotions that not all are privileged to experience in the course of their lifetimes, and this is the exclusive lot of those who love. The completing encounter creates a new reality. Gone suddenly are the separate entities; the ego fades away as if it had never existed. Experiences and sensations of an endless nature, without boundaries, a complementary, completing connection – with no disclaimers and no pre-conditions – envelops and unites the two separate entities into one perfect entity, filling their world entirely. The world calls this experience “being madly in love” in that it bursts all boundaries and restrictions, in that it transforms flaws into virtues, “and love covers all crimes.”

How is love – the very incarnation of reciprocity – feasible between opposites, between whom endless distances yawn, separating them both in principle and in substance: Between the Creator and the creature. The Creator's love for his creatures is understood as a father's love for his child. After all, why, “you are children to God, your Lord.” The creature's love for the Creator contains a certain difficulty, in principle. Fear, awe, gratitude, devotion – all these are well and good. These sensations are saturated with the longings that are the experience of self-effacement before the Godly presence. Suddenly, these sensations of dependency and submissiveness transfer over to the track of love, reciprocity and the rapture of attachment. There is no escape from this thicket of contradiction. After all, it is written that “there can be no love if there is no fear and awe.” And this does not refer to a fear that grasps the heel of love, but rather to one that accompanies it arm in arm, as though love were embracing fear, and enveloping it, until fear and awe were swallowed up entirely in its warmth, so it would seem, yet suddenly fear and awe emerge strengthened, and strengthening love, serving as its container. It is not love that contains fear and awe. Rather it is the fear and awe that contain the love – with no conflict and no contradiction between these two opposite emotions. This can only be the unfolding of an event created by the quality of the self, from the pure source from whence it came, a place where perfection rules without flaw and without contradiction, unlike the appearance it makes on the surface of materialistic, mechanistic reality, a place into which conflicting opposites have been crowded together against their will by the brute force-based law of physical matter – disparate components that are only waiting and longing for the moment when the package will come undone and each separate part can go its own way. “Entropy,” the physicists call it, the process of the termination of physical matter; the disintegrating rot that terminates the illusion called existence. This is the flow that is halted due to disintegraton, rather than thanks to a state of physical matter crystallizing into building blocks. Now suddenly, lo and behold, a Godly presence is rising and growing – and its laws constitute the very antithesis of of the laws of physical matter. Love rules at the top, while the inner space of fear as well is paved with love. It is only in the physical/material reality that love and fear are found on opposite sides of the fence, in which love initiates and fear arrests. Whereas in the realm of the self...

Free Choice – Fear's Contribution to Love

...the self is able to move from its state of dormant potential to a state of tangible self-realization, having been liberated from the lustful hungers of physical matter. Love then desires to cling to its Godly source; all ablaze with the fire of desire, it is initiating, active and generous. Fear too fills a sacred role, setting boundaries to guarantee the security of love, so that it will not lose its way, and so that it will not consume itself as in the case of Nadav and Avihu. Fear guides love, bestowing upon it a consciousness of the Creator's magnitude, as in “you may [only] see My back, but My Face may not be seen,” preventing love from crossing the boundary and attempting to peer within and be harmed by the immense vision implied in “[God's] Face.” To the extent that love and fear emerge in a unified embrace, so will the individual sense the Godly presence forming of itself, within himself, and so and to that extent will he be enabled to see a personalized Divine Providence – in the most tangibly sensory manner – that has been awakened by fear's initiative of free choice, without which love is incapable of distinguishing good from evil, and falls into the trap of that blind desire that feels “compassion for the cruel, which ultimately causes it to show cruelty to the compassionate.”

“You Grace Man With Knowledge”

The exquisite fruit of the union of love and fear is knowledge, as in “Adam knew Eve, his wife.” Knowledge as consciousness and recognition, knowledge as identification, moving toward clinging, attachment, with clinging and attachment moving towards that merging that is the sign of perfect unity. Such merging does not entail an ignoring of the beloved by the one who loves, but rather the contrary. The attachment that clings to the beloved begets knowledge. These are no links bound together in a chain by the power of a process necessitated by reality. Rather we have here a process in which every single component is the fruit of the initiative of free choice, of devotion, growing out of consciousness – which merits the blessing of the Creator, and is His gift, that most generous and precious gift of all, knowledge. In the merit of knowledge, the recognition of truth is strengthened and reinforced, being liberated of the bonds of environmental self-interests. The recognition of truth transforms into a source of power, into a sense of capability, freed of the bonds and fetters and boundaries of ephemeral space and time. “If you've acquired knowledge – what do you lack? If you lack knowledge – what have you acquired?” King Solomon chooses knowlwdge, requesting it of the Creator, preferring it to wealth and honor. He then merits them as well, through the power of knowledge. In his prayer, man requests knowledge, yet this prayer includes and contains all things; it is the key to all blessing. Thus does a human being transform into a Godly presence containing abilities without limit. What shall one do with the gift of knowledge? Why, draft it, too, to one's worship of one's Creator. This dialectic process is a recurring theme, a consistent thread running through the Jew's worship of God. This dialectic is as remote as the east is from the west – from the dialectic of all other religions. To the extent that God's servant's self-made quality intensifies, so does his worship become increasingly qualitative, increasingly possessing a Godly quality that is the result of free choice, and so does he increasingly sense that “he has nothing at all that is from himself.” That is to say that he contains nothing at all that is separate from his actual Godly substance, and he finds himself feeling submissive, feeling ashamed and embarassed, by the power of his own fear of God, which places him in his proper place, as in “Who is wise? The one who recognizes his own place.”

“You open your hand, and satisfy the will of every living being.” This key verse that opens the Psalm “Fortunate are those who dwell in Your house,” is enriched by new meaning, according to our approach. Free will is an element. It is not a compound. It incarnates the “part of God on high” that is found in the self. The self is expressed by the free will: The ability to choose, to decide, to actualize the dormant potential of one's Godly quality, and to crown it, to proclaim its sovereignty over the reality of one's existence, its absolute government over the temptations of physical matter. “For this, let every pious individual pray.” Grant me, O my Creator, of Your will, that my will may be Your will, that Your will may be my will, and that I will be thus privileged to serve you with a whole heart. This is a sensation of inner power, dependent upon and originating from Godly power.