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Rav Chaim
Lifshitz
Essays and Articles:
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Translated from Hebrew by DR. S. NAthan l'ilui
nishmat
Esther bat mordechai
FOR GOD'S SERVANT - TOOLS AND FRAMEWORKS OF WORSHIP, AND MANAGING WITHOUT THEM... The Quintessence of the Zealot “The tribes began to abuse him: ‘Did you see that son of Pooti? His mother’s father used to fatten calves for idolatry, and here he kills the prince of a tribe in Israel.’ Therefore, Scripture specifically makes a point of attributing his lineage to Aaron.” (Sanhedrin 82B) The zealot is jealous for his God; he avenges God’s own vengeance: The zealot may be defined as a servant of God who attaches to God while bypassing the established tools and frameworks that are designed to express practical worship, but that - at a given moment - fail to target what is unfolding within the servant's innermost heart, failing also to address the personal connection between him and his Possessor. A human being enters the universe and is immediately immersed in a complex structure of frameworks, only a few of which become, with time, one’s tools of expression, and only the smallest part of which ever become a tool that serves the individual as a uniquely personal expression. All the rest – all those frameworks and tools that are not tailored to one’s own individual size – run the risk of muddling one’s path, in the sense of “whoever adds, detracts.” As far as the individual is concerned, there is no need for frameworks at all, because his attachment to his Creator bursts from his innermost qualitative being, which blooms and grows from the Godly kernel within his soul. This is an intimate connection that does not belong to the world of “doing” with all its coarse frameworks. Out of this qualitative principle, an attitude grows that is highly sensitized and selective in relating to the environment. It is this attitude that determines one’s experience of existence, the way in which one connects “being” with “doing,” and the way one expresses self by means of ego. Connecting to “doing” exclusively, permits the stimuli of the external environment to drag one into strange and compulsive behaviors that erase the self, in the sense of “wicked people are called dead even in their own lifetimes.” For the wicked, ego’s experience of the fight for survival takes center stage, activating a brute-force-based mechanical system that is empty of any personal, inner sensation. This system is activated by stimuli from the outside only. Normally however, there is a gradual process that is at work forming a selective personal connection and internalizing the conditions of the outside, which eventually are transformed into personal tools, like the false tooth that becomes acclimated, and is eventually accepted in friendship by its neighbors, the natural teeth, until eventually they are indistinguishable from one another. Similarly, an infant is at first attached only to its mother, while all the other relatives are greeted with hostility and fear. With time, the circle of relationship expands to include the other family members, relatives and acquaintances. An infant who does not undergo this process of selective development is mentally disabled, just as an adult who is devoid of any personal relationship with his environment can be said to be personality-disabled. The “educate the youth according to his own way” method of education is charged with just this task: Such education takes its clues and guidelines from the individual needs that arise, the need to find a way to relate to the environment, according to each individual’s different way. Sweeping educational methods that are dictated by rules that ignore the inner needs of the individual are “better not to have been created than to have been created.” Is this really so? How would such an education look, which did not contain game rules that allow and that forbid, that educate youth to a framework orientation, to belonging to frameworks, to moral ideals, to a responsibility toward society, toward their nation, toward their faith? An education that preaches wanton abandon denies the basic human need to belong. When this need is denied, human beings feel threatened. They sense a lack of stability and permanence, and all the other elements that together comprise one’s basic experience of existence. Truth to tell, this basic experience of existence does not come to man by virtue of his being one of the innumerable creatures that fill the creation. Survival systems do not need any special frameworks. They suffice with those already found – in massive doses – in the world of physical matter. The acute difference between human beings and all other creatures was sharply emphasized, and presented in stark relief by the punishment given to the snake, despite the fact that man too was afflicted by the snake’s punishment; the shortening of human life and human beings’ enslavement to physical matter, which deteriorates and which ends in death, comes to us because of the snake. Nevertheless, the punishment exposes the difference: The snake’s food supply is available to it wherever it goes. In any framework of physical matter, it will feel at home. This follows the rule that everything equals nothing. Similar is the demagoguery that preaches love for all humanity, a love known for its reverse correlation with personal love for a private individual. What the snake’s curse meant was the loss of a personal, a private experience of existence. There is no curse more painful. Human beings in contrast to the snake, draw their sense of existence from their intimate connection with…??? Here lies the problem of human existence. What is the connection through which human beings experience their existence? We might view the question of human existence as a tireless search for the connection that will make one belong, for the handhold, the point of contact with a reality that will compatible with one’s own uniquely original needs. It is the search for that one and only friend whose unique soul will bestow that sensitive feedback to the unique expressions of one’s own self. It is the search for those stimuli from the external environment that will constitute a challenge, that will activate the creative potential hidden within one. The more an individual finds compatible conditions, the more the inner self participates in the actions carried out, thus actualizing that coveted ideal of "Doing" expressing "Being," and doing becomes experience. In the lack of harmony between external conditions and internal needs, which is the commonly found state of our being, generally speaking, the inner self huddles in the inner hall and protects itself with all manner of defense mechanisms, such as anxieties, hostility - to the point of feeling persecuted - and all the other dire forces of compulsive neuroses, which vainly compel one to relate to situations that do not respond to one's self's true needs. Thus one rolls about on two parallel tracks that never meet; the barrier separating them is mountain-high. In reaction, man builds a wall between himself and reality, while formulating his own subjective philosophy based on the sour grapes model. He involves himself in the work category of "back-breaking labor," which refers to work that does not fit the skills of the worker. Thus man finds himself in a world filled with imagined good, while he himself is sunk deep in the mire and muck of the physical world, and this dichotomy embitters the experience of the self, which cries out for its own expression through tangible reality - but receives none. Here we learn the central challenge facing every human being: To find an expression for oneself, so as to tangibly actualize one's own unique quality. Out of frustration, man must try to forget his own anguish through the fulfillment of ego's imaginary needs, while his soul - embittered, in hiding, clandestinely - weeps. This wretched human condition is well known, and has been widely criticized and saturated with insult. All agree that existence is not perfect, that indeed it is far from being adequate to fulfill human needs; none know how to effect their escape from this entangled thicket, other than by taking irreversible, despair-driven steps. Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther, Ayn Rand's despair theory - reach pessimistic conclusions that cast doubt on life's value. In a calloused and absurd manner, they preach death by suicide as the romantic actualization of life's value. And indeed many were the youths - who were still lacking an inclusive perception of life - who committed suicide under the destructive influence of those "leaders" who were attempting to turn life into death and death into life. The suicide phenomenon itself cries out its great despair, its painful disappointment over what may be anticipated from life. The root of the problem, in our opinion, is the disconnection and separation between the two tracks. Emotions are what tie the ideal to its actualization in the world of tangibility. The bond passes through the individual, harnessing him to personal involvement and to his own human contribution, which breathes life into the dry bones of the existential components of the mechanical world of "Doing." A human being's involvement is what halts the monotonous, boring, irritating linear motion of logic - from here to there and from there to here - all the while searching for the decisive point - in vain. With no point of contact, nowhere to grasp onto the vetical axis that erupts from the secret space of the innermost soul to attach to the source of heavenly quality, with no dimension of height - existence's two surface area dimensions merely revolve in circles, rotating around their own axis with no goal and no purpose - a mechanical motion lacking the leadership of content and meaning. This is a leadership lacking any answer to the question most critical for the continuity of existence: "Toward what purpose?" Personal involvement is the guarantee of a direction leading toward a solution to the meaning of existence. Emotions lead and organize the meaningful components of values, of Heavenly assistance, and of one's own will - the prime expression of the self - and thus, through personal expression, the picture of existence takes on a sublime lucidity; it is graced with heavenly clarity. Without these, all those theories loaded down with ideals and idealism seem nothing but dried out dogmas hovering above reality with no real handhold anywhere, no point of contact, making no impression on detached, alienated man whose approach to reality is confused and indecisive; indeed, he is incapable of decision. The greater the burden of existence grows, the more pressing the need for decision, yet in the absence of any possiblity of a decision, the apocalyptic threat looms ever closer, and the signs that existence is in crisis - being devoid of decision, determination and resolve - begin to show. Opposite the camp of the depressed, the despairing, the devoid of any dimension of height, any dimension of faith - the zealot stands firm and determined; he soars upward in a single leap of devotion and self-sacrifice, ignoring the pack of wolves intent on devouring him, their jaws yawning, their fangs bared. The zealot goes out on the highest limb, hanging onto the highest tree of heavenly quality, forcing the Divine solution upon lowly ground dwellers. Suddenly, an ambivalent situation is illuminated with an exquisite light that rejects the gloom of uncertainty. By a sharp decision, it cuts short the endless cycle of doubts with one thrust of the sword, severing them from their compulsive hold upon reality, tossing them to the trash bin of history. The ephemeral removes itself, conceding its place to the eternal. Pinhas is Elijah, who merited the life of eternity through a single, liberating leap of self-sacrifice. The Creator of the universe Himself, in all His glory, grants him his lovingkindness, which is reserved for those who sacrifice themselves to sanctify God's name, by virtue of the revelation of truth entailed in their action, which has derived from the "World of Nobility." The Creator grants him a "covenant of peace" that is unique, that is private and personal, that is outside of all frameworks, that is in no need of the assistance of any of the accessories of mitzvah whatsoever. This is man's victory over frameworks. Yet it is not outside of the Divine imperative entailed in the practical laws of the mitzvah. It is outside of the framework of mentor and student, perhaps [for Moses was the mentor and Pinhas the student, yet Pinhas took action independently] yet not outside the corpus of practical Jewish law. Attachment through emotions requires direct, personal tools of expression, without social and ceremonial frameworks. This sort of direct attachment needs a genuine hold, something real to grip. The material world's reality has nothing to offer to fulfill this need. "The Holy One wished to grant Israel merit; He therefore increased their amount of Torah and mitzvahs." This was in order to increase the variety of choice, the purpose of which is to provide a grip upon reality that would fit the taste and needs of every single individual. We learn from this that there is a direct relationship between reality and the mitzvahs. The more complex reality grows - having passed from the stage of reflecting the revealed face of God to the stage in which God's countenance is hidden - the more complex grows the variety of choice from a halachic perspective, from the practical legal perspective of Jewish law. The zealot refuses to compromise with truth, and does not agree to dilute its essence with falsehood, through excuses about the contingencies of reality. The zealot does not compromise with existence, nor with the Divine imperative of the halacha. The truth of the matter is that the zealot ignores the reality that is outside of the halachic reality. The halacha determines reality - both in content and in definition, and it is within this framework alone that he finds his grip upon it. He thus fulfills the verse, "Let me sit in God's house all the days of my life," for it is only through this reality that he is privileged "to gaze upon the Lord's pleasantness and to visit in his palace." Similarly Elijah the zealot, who abandoned the social framework and huddled in a cave. Thus Jeremiah who was zealous for his God, and cried out in pain over the absence of the presence of God among the people: "Would that I was a desert inn; then I would leave my people." Thus too Jonah, the prophet, who fled existential reality for the alternative reality that the had Creator summoned for him in the intestines of a female fish; this reality enabled him "to look upon Your sacred palace," specifically from within an impossible reality, in which "water swirls about me to take my soul, the deep surrounds me," etc. A surprise awaits the zealot, held in reserve for him: The greater grows the hester, the more the hiddenness of God's face, the more sophisticated, upgraded and advanced becomes the personality of the individual - isolated in a world of shattered vessels, of broken tools, wth nothing to grasp, no handhold on which to fix his grip - the more his personal talents develop, the more his mental powers progress toward ever greater sophistication, and gradually he develops his own independent tools from clarifying the truth. Thus his skills and talent in learning continue to develop, attaining the level of conceptual quality, which is the way through which the student delving into the text reaches to the very root of matters, to a level of definition that clarifies the division of facts into conceptual, principle-driven categories, like a dwarf astride a giant, admittedly, yet with a higher quality, as opposed to the greater clarity of knowledge possessed by those who have studied before him, yet through a quality that surpasses theirs. This is the gift of quality that has been bestowed upon the learner who attaches utterly, and through self-sacrifice, to his Torah - by severing from the futilities of the world. |