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Rav Chaim Lifshitz
Nitsavim
Essays and Articles:
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THE GREAT QUESTION THAT NEEDS NO ANSWER Translated
by Dr. S. Nathan
l'ilui
nishmat Esther bat Mordechai l'ilu nishmat Mayer Hirsh ben Laibel l'ilui nishmat Ben Tzion ben Menachem Chaim The Tosfot postpone the time when reward is due: It is to be meted out in the World of Utter Goodness, and deferred even to the time of the ultimate reincarnation of the dead, and they do not even quite stop there. The sages of the Talmud long ago stated decisively: “Reward for mitzva is not in this world.” “Today is for doing them, and tomorrow is for receiving their reward,” and “be not like the slaves who serve their master in order to receive reward.” And even more bluntly: “A mitzva’s reward is another mitzva, and a transgression’s reward is another transgression.” This is why “one is obligated to bless over the bad just as one blesses over the good,” and this is why our Sages have raised the banner of the symbol of Nachum Ish Gam Zu, "Man of 'This, Too'," who would say – after every wave that inundated him – “This too is for good.” You are not meant to know the mitzvas' reward; you must do them purely for the sake of heaven. The wise of every generation have grappled with this fundamental issue. The Ramban, in characteristic fashion, wrote an entire book on reward and punishment, entitled Sefer Hagmul, The Book of Repayment, in which he follows the Tosfot’s approach and describes in minute detail the manner in which the Holy One itemizes every person’s sins, paying that person back in small increments. Out of His love and compassion for his creants, the Creator arranges yearly opportunities for the individual to pay off his debts and to repair his actions, so as to shrink his list of sins while he is still alive, thus preventing them from being added to the list of accumulated sins that have no way of being paid off after death. Yet the truth of the matter is that nothing is really paid off in this life, but only in the next world, and even perhaps after a very extended period, to the point of the ultimate reincarnation of the dead, at the hour when the gates are being locked and the cycle of existence is coming to a close: When those who dwell in dust shall return... If so, then why does the list of requests during the prayer of “Our Father, Our King” - as it bursts forth from the depths of our hearts - relate entirely to our immediate needs in the present moment? Why are they not postponed to a distant and inaccessible future? Similar is the prayer of “Eighteen [blessings],” which relates to our immediate needs, and describes the immediate praises of the Creator. What shall become of them, of our present-moment needs and our immediately felt praise God? It may be superfluous to point here to the words of the Gemara (ibid) regarding the three books that are opened on Rosh Hashana. The absolutely righteous are inscribed “on the spot;” immediately, right now and not for some future time. THE PRESENT: A TANGIBLE DIMENSION OF TIME THAT ENABLES US TO EXPERIENCE DVAIKUT These extreme tendencies regarding reward and punishment create an immense confusion that bewilders our sensations when we are praying, distracting our hearts and confusing our minds. The confusion that is most painfully felt, that can actually prevent dvaikut, that can detach one’s heart and deny it the opportunity to connect to its Creator – stems from the simple fact that it is difficult to form an attachment to the future. Human beings attach themselves directly only to the present. From here we conclude that the approach that promises only future reward for the performance of mitzvah does not benefit people at prayer; it does not allow them to attach to their Creator. It behooves us to undertake a more thorough examination of the way in which the time factor influences the individual. Time is comprised of three mutually contradictory parts: Past, present, and future. The words of the wise sage, Avraham Ibn Ezra, fit beautifully: “The past did fly by. The future we’ve yet to try. The present is as the blink of an eye. Then worry? Why?” Meaning that one must not take existence too seriously. So it indeed appears – when we are viewing the dimension of time from the outside. From the inside however, from an experiential perspective, human beings live in the present, and in the present alone. Yet everyone has his own present, and one person’s present is unlike another’s. Infants experience a reduced-to-the-minimum present, which contains nothing at all of the components of the past, and which lacks any future forecast whatsoever. With the years, human beings develop a broadened present, comprised of the experiences and sensations of the past, and of the ability to anticipate the future – to attempt to take the future into account when considering the present. We may conclude from this that the perfect human beings, the “absolutely righteous” live in a broadened present that is compounded of all the past, including their own private past as well as the public past, and obviously this present comprises the dimension of the future as well. Thus the Holy One says to Moses: “From here, you will see the Land.” From your position here and now, you are capable of sensing the tangible reality of the Land, and you have no need whatsoever to enter into it, in order to experience the sensation of settling it. In contrast to the righteous person, the wicked person has no compounded present that includes also past and future. Wicked people live in a present that is as ephemeral as the blink of an eye, and therefore “wicked people are called dead, even in their own lifetimes.” (Brachot 18) We conclude from this that the division of time into three parts has no real substance. It is only there for appearance’s sake, to sound like a rational explanation. The truth of the matter is that the difference between reward and punishment in the future and reward and punishment “on the spot” is an imaginary one. The righteous live in an eternal present, and the wicked live in a total absence of time. If one feels that God has not answered one immediately, this signals one's own lack of faith and confidence in one's own prayer. This shows us that first and foremost among all our cavanot – all inner intentions and meanings upon which we focus our thoughts during prayer – must be dvaikut, attaching to our Creator to the point of annulling our own ego, while our inner Godly self (neshama) experiences absolute, immediate connectedness, to the point of canceling our egoistic, animalistic being utterly. Such connectedness during prayer is truly answered immediately, in the broadened present. It is not postponed as a vision for a future time. Locating the Yetser Hara It is important to note that obsessive preoccupation with the yetser hara, “the evil urge,” only takes place within a truncated present. For the righteous person who finds himself in a broadened present, the space held by the yetser hara is gradually reduced and dwarfed, giving way to a space increasingly occupied by an immediate present, which compounded also of components of the past and future – realms in which the evil urge does not exist. Because we all fall into the middle category [out of the three categories: absolutely righteous, in-between, and absolutely wicked] we all suffer from parts of the past and parts of the future that we have not yet managed to incorporate into the present. This is expressed as distress over the past, pangs of conscience, and an accumulation of disappointments that eat away at our personalities and constitute a source of sorrow, as well as distress over the future that we have not managed to compress into the present. Such a future, severed as it is from the present, constitutes a source of anxiety. We conclude from this that the parts of time that we have not yet succeeded in including within the present – these are the very sources of depression, pessimism, anxiety and sorrow, whereas the sensation of the present is indicated entirely by creativity, and is a source of positive and joyful thinking. It is the happiness of creativity, because the self, the source of the quality that creates, can only find expression in the present. Akeidat Yitzchak: The Binding of Isaac No event captures the essence of this perception of time as powerfully as God’s test of Abraham our forefather, in “The Binding of Isaac.” It is not for naught that this juncture in time has served as a source of comfort, encouragement and accumulated merit for the Jewish people unto eternity. “And it came to pass after these things,” from a point of view that has grown out of a given situation: This event takes place as a continuation rather than as something new. This teaches us that the test of the "Binding" was meant to bestow a new dimension upon an existing reality, and therein lay its power. “And raise him up as an offering, on one of the mountains, the one I will show you.” “And he saw the place from afar,” the mountain, that is. This was a seeing through the view from the heights, the perspective from afar. As yet, the element of nearness was still missing, the embrace born of dvaikut. There was only perspective, cool and rational. Already at this stage, Abraham's awareness has penetrated to the depth of the implication of the Godly command. Yet he is as yet solely preoccupied with the means of fulfilling the command, dealing with the details – so it appears on the surface of things – yet the Torah makes no distinction between means and ends. Any creative activity that deals with any of the accessories of mitzva, any preparations for approaching the mitzva – these are all stages of the ultimate goal. They bring destiny nearer to the present, and are thus themselves transformed into a part of the ultimate goal. No longer do they belong to a shrunk and shriveled present, to a present that has no past and no future. They belong to the components of the broadened present, and by force of this breadth, one must endow them with quality, meaningful content, and purpose. This is not always possible, and for this reason some preparations must sometime be distanced from the ultimate destiny. “Sit you here with the donkey, and I and the youth will go over there…” (in order to endow the present with an ultimate purpose, to introduce meaningful content into the present. Then, after we have done so) “we will come back to you.” The Torah goes to great lengths to describe details that do not seem particularly relevant on the surface of things. “Abraham took the wood for the offering and placed it on Isaac, his son, and he took in his hand the fire and the knife, and they walked, the two of them, together.” Yet no detail here is superfluous. In the action of mitzva, in the present, every single detail takes on the immense weight of the meaning of destiny. Isaac wonders at this progression of events, and notices a logical flaw: “Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the offering?” Isaac at this point is still relating to a present that is empty of purpose and meaningful content. It is true that he knows that there is no such thing as a present that is empty, and it is for this reason that he is asking the question. Abraham here reveals a key principle to Isaac: One must fulfill one’s Creator’s command. Abraham explains to Isaac that he is guided by the supreme imperative. He not does not merely base his decisions on logical imperative – on his own logic that is solely preoccupied with the present. The supreme imperative alone is what grants value-driven meaning to the present. A human being is required to fulfill the guiding imperative that is above reality. “The Lord will Himself see to a lamb for the offering, my son.” Meaning, whatever is missing in reality is not our affair. Remove all worry from your heart. There is Someone who worries and Who sees to everything. Isaac immediately identifies with this point of view. “Where God is controlling matters, why is it my concern?” Why should I concern myself with the supreme plan? It is sufficient that I am aware of, and identify with the supreme plan. It is sufficient that I realize that this event cannot be attributed to random chance. There is no random chance in the universe, even if reality is afflicted by a lack of consistency, by a seeming lack of logic. Look above and beyond; place all hope in the dimension of height. At times the view of reality is disabled, by a superficial seeing that is comprised of only two dimensions. Such seeing lacks the third dimension – the dimension of height. One must not be overwhelmed, or overly impressed by a reality that lacks the dimension of height, even when this reality is overwhelmingly laden with pristine and terrifying logic. This is what our sages mean by their statement, “Even if a sharp sword is laid against one’s neck, let one not despair of mercy.” Even when Abraham reaches the “practical” stage - “Abraham built the altar, and arranged the wood, and bound his son Isaac, and placed him on the altar” - and even after Abraham has reached his hand out to take the knife… (What is the purpose of all these minute details that seem self-evident?) This teaches us exactly what we have been saying here: When you find yourself in a situation that has its own dynamic momentum, that seems to possess its own logic - whatever you do - do not turn your heart away from the dimension of height, which grants you a truth-based purpose. Only then can you attain the privilege of supreme quality: “And God said to Abraham: ‘Now I have known that you fear the Lord.’” Only at this point does the dimension of height – which has been awaiting this man’s choice, for by his very decision to allow his behavior to be directed by the dimension of height, he has created the merit that allows the dimension of height to merge with reality, to become tangible. “After this, Abraham raised his eyes, and lo, there was a ram…” Because Abraham had withstood the test, and had not been overwhelmed by a two-dimensional reality, the true reality was now revealed to him, the one "that had been waiting for him since the six days of creation.” (Rashi) In order to define and to eternalize this fundamental truth, Abraham names the place “God Will See,” meaning that the Godly seeing is not like the flesh and blood seeing of reality, a seeing that lacks the dimension of height. Only after Abraham has uncovered the secret of this fundamental truth, and exposed it to the world, will the world now comprehend that such a secret is revealed only to those who face “God’s mountain,” who relate to the Godly dimension of height. “As will be said to this day: “In the Mountain of ‘God Will Be Seen’.” This truth is now made known and publicly proclaimed. You might say, yes this is a fundamental tenet of faith, among many other fundamental, no less important tenets of faith. Yet as it turns out, the Torah places primary emphasis on this tenet, raising it above everything else: “I have sworn by Myself, says the Lord, that because you did this thing [that stands in screaming contradiction to all the laws of nature] and you have not spared your son and your only one from Me…” This sublime event places our forefather Abraham at the forefront of all the believers in human history. Having revealed an entirely new approach to belief in the Creator of the universe, the narrative then concludes with “a still sound of silence,” that seems prosaic in the extreme: “Abraham returned to his lads…and they went together to Be’er Sheba, and Abraham dwelt in Be’er Sheba.” Just so…the universal heroes of eternity go back to their day-to-day routine activities, teaching us that their heroism had already existed previously – sheltering in the shade of the dimension of height – even before the act of “The Binding.” The akeida had only exposed what had been already inherent in them. |
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