Rav Chaim Lifshitz

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 Rabbi Ze'ev Chaim Lifshitz

l'ilui nishmat Esther baHt mordechai
L'ILUI NISHMAT MEYER HIRSH BEN LAIBEL

 
A Torah Scholar is the Torah Itself

He is God's Own Presence...He is the Giver and He is the Receiver

When God gave the Torah to the people of Israel...

      "They all came together in covenant and they all said as one: ‘We will do [the Torah] and we will hear [the Torah].”

This wording, "we will do [the Torah] and we will hear [the Torah]" which reverses the natural order, implies a single reality of receiver and giver rather than two separate entities in which one is giving and the other is receiving.

What we are seeing here, at the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai, is an entirely new existential reality, unequalled anywhere in the universe, for the simple reason that the Creator Himself has not created this reality.

This new reality would perhaps best be defined as a Godly ability that has been transferred into human hands, by the Creator, in order to express a Godly creation, but one that human beings must create for themselves, on their own.

 
 The Talmud depicts the human being at the first stage of its creation – prior to its division into two separate, opposed entities of male and female – as one single, unique entity. Male in the front and female in the back, or vice versa, it was independently empowered with the reproductive ability. This single entity possessed the ability to both give and receive, to beget as well as to give birth.

It seems this was the ideal first choice version of the human being, God's vision of the ultimate in human completeness and perfection. The roots of this subject are further explored elsewhere, in our comments on Genesis. Here, we will suffice with pointing to the fact that perfection as a pre-determined, ideal state was not received well by the human, in principle.  He did not find it satisfactory. He felt that challenge was lacking.

“One would rather have one single measure of one's own than nine measures of one's friend’s.” Human beings desire to be initiators, to take the mission upon themselves, to create perfection with their own hands, to attain the perfection that results from creating an utterly new reality.

 From Separation to Union

    The world is comprised of complementary opposites, following the principle that “two scriptures contradict each other until the third shall come and resolve them.” Thus we find fire and water, light and darkness, sea and dry land, matter and spirit, and all the rest of the opposites. “By God’s word, the heavens were made,” and “by His rebuke He created the lofty vaults of the heavens” are references to the third scripture, to an active Divine intervention. “In ten statements, the world was created.” These are levels reflecting a process of unification between matter and spirit.  They progress from the most inferior level of physical matter to the supreme level of physical matter in which the spirit is reflected in the tangibility of physical matter through active revelation.

      This structure of contradiction between opposed elements follows a back and forth “running to and fro” dynamic, of clash and construction, moving perpetually upward in spiral formation until the opposites attain a point of absolute union.  This is a dynamic process, incessantly unfolding and being created anew, through man's deliberate intention, which aims at a clear and defined target that holds his own ultimate purpose, of which he is completely conscious and aware. It was [God’s] deliberate and prior intention that this process be given over solely into the faithful hands of human beings, for it is man alone as crown of creation who reflects, in microcosmic form, a miniature world that contains all of the features of the greater universe, including the laws of matter and of the spirit as well. All of the conflicts and contradictions contained in the macrocosm of the created universe rage volcanically inside of man with ceaseless intensity, at such high levels of concentration as to threaten to explode at any moment. They are to be found throughout the entire structure of all the elements that comprise a human being, in every form and aspect of human existence, whether in the private domain or in the public domain within the social structure.

The Ideal Peace: A Vision For the End of Days

      The war is constantly raging: It is man against himself, man against his fellow, man against society, between one society and another, between one country and another. Peace in the sense of unity is held in reserve in the higher worlds in the Creator’s hands – and in man’s desperately yearning heart: Peace as the unreachable dream, as a heart’s desire only, as a prayer. “He Who makes peace in His lofty worlds – He will make peace upon us and upon all of Israel.” How, wonders man, can it be that the Creator keeps it for Himself, this longed-for peace? Why would He not entrust the ideal of peace into human hands? After all, the Creator has granted man the gift of the capacity to create unity between opposing forces.

      We must conclude from this that the Creator’s intention was that the contradiction accompanying this capacity should be very purpose of creation. Out of all of life and among all the created beings, only the human candidate received this endowment: Everything needed in order to successfully carry out the mission: Every single individual has been given a chunk of existence, a bundle of crawling creatures, each attempting to devour the other, carved of physical matter and operating according to existential rules that have been fitted to the uniquely original, creative quality of that specific individual, who alone is capable of imposing peace among them. It is for this purpose that he was brought down from the world of souls to this lowly world. Indeed, the extent of his success in his mission is the measure of his level of spiritual success.

      The interesting and surprising thing is that the bundle itself is not actually given into human hands. Rather, it dwells within him, inside himself. “It is not in heaven, nor is it across the sea. For the thing is very close to you – it is in your mouth and in your heart to do it.”

      A tool then was needed to accomplish this mission of reconciliation – the tool of the ‘third scripture. With the first human, this tool was well within his grasp, inside of him and a part of him. Adam’s problem was an excess of tools; he had all possible ways and means at his disposal. Even the Garden of Eden was unique in that all of the opposing forces inherent in the creation were already arranged in the most optimally complementary positions possible. They did not require human intervention. Man therefore felt that he lacked the opportunity to express his creative self.

God accepted this, and granted his wish: “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make him a help, opposite him.” This help would be “flesh of [his own] flesh,” yet positioned opposite to him. He would thus feel lack, as well as the need to fill this lack, but the methodology would be different now, in the post-androgynous era: He would be preoccupied with confronting contradiction, with dealing with the opposition itself.

Confronting the other, for better or for worse, would now become the third scripture, resolving the conflict between two opposing scriptures: “'Love your friend as yourself:' This is the great rule of the Torah.” Chesed, altruistic giving, would be the only form of receiving that would work to fill one’s lack.

Yet this tool as well, though it has found grace in the eyes of those idealists who love humanity and society, has not withstood the test. The reason for the failure of Chesed was that it was removed from the private, personal space. Social ideals would pop up at intervals in history – communism, socialism, etc. These ideals diverged from the private domain to become social, political systems. The moment such pseudo-ideals were activated, societies lost the secret of the direct bond between one individual and another. When person-to-person becomes society-to-person, the bond becomes a whip. Missing the target entirely, society then relates to suffering human beings as to objects, whose main purpose and destiny is to actualize the theoretical ideal, which is now emptied of its human content, serving only to further the egoistic ambitions of the power-hungry. From an instrument designed to impose peace on earth, the ideal of Chesed became an impetus for class war, envy and hatred, mainly because it had metamorphosed from identifying with others into competing with others. Only a few chosen individuals – our sacred forefathers – were able to prove their ability to protect the trait of Chesed, to demonstrate its effectiveness as a tool enabling one individual to bond with another and reducing the distance that separated one individual from another.

      Even in our own day, after the humiliating failure of the direct [mold-by-force] approach to human relations, naive thinkers and theorists – both Jewish (Levinas) and non-Jewish – still believe in it, bestowing the crown of morality and religion upon it. Yet they are merely running in place on the theoretical-intellectual dimension while ignoring the test of practical application. We must not forget that we are dealing with the exalted plane of human behavior, first and foremost. We are not dealing with theoretical mathematics.

      We must remember as well that if we are not to remain trapped within the boundaries of abstract theory, we must necessarily bring these vital principles down to the plane of those relations that primarily influence ordinary human beings, rather than only the intellectual denizens of ivory towers. “The mitsvot were given only in order to purify human creatures.” This refers to all human creatures and not merely the elitists. The Torah intends a way that is accessible to all.

      For this reason, the Torah offers an entire network of concepts and laws that encompasses all aspects of behavior, being all-inclusive in its scope. Focusing on a central axis, it gathers unto itself all of human experience. The events of every individual's entire life drain toward its gravitational point, which then corrects and perfects whatever is in need of repair in the human personality, whether centrally or peripherally. To accomplish this feat, the Torah must deal with the uniqueness and originality that characterize every single individual. Indeed, this is why the Torah is not satisfied with mere dogma, and does not suffice with prescribing a specific list of rigid rules. Openness and flexibility characterize the Torah approach, which covers the entire span of life's interconnecting tracks while maximizing every opportunity to promote sensitivity, in order to protect every individual's unique needs. The Torah thus became an instrument of union, reconciling individuals with themselves and binding one individual to another.

      The Torah approach rouses us to profound inquiry, yet of a cautious nature, in that it must consider the difficulty entailed in classifying the Torah perception into different categories of known and familiar processes that are also accessible to conventional inquiry based on the dimensions of time and space, object and subject. This difficulty aside, the Torah approach is astounding in its simplilicity:

    The Torah is the Man Himself
   
    The Torah does not position man to confront the outside.  All that it requires is that you identify with your self by focusing on your own meaningful content, on your own creative ability.  This is not to say that the Torah is preaching individualism, as a counter-reaction to the danger of losing yourself entirely in the flood tides of technocratic western culture.  Rather it wishes to encourage you to identify with the Torah – to the point of absolute sacrifice – for the Torah itself is your own truest essence.  The Torah contains a preservative for the uniquely original quality that lies within every individual’s (your) innermost self, as well as the antidote against all the external shells of ego, which is influenced by external stimuli, by alien stimuli whose entire power lies in devastating your inner systems and erasing your self.

  “When a man dies in the tent,”the Talmud explains to mean “the tent of Torah.”  This is the death of the ego in favor of the self.  It refers to devotion, to consistently sacrificing the shell of ego in favor of liberating the self and permitting its uniquely original expression.  Learning Torah requires an individual act of choice. Learning and keeping Torah is an incessant sorting out, an endless sifting, a conscious effort toward opting for the elements of a value-driven, qualitative life, as opposed to allowing oneself to be easily and mindlessly pulled down in the current of materialistic existence.  Furthermore, Torah learning endows the personality with a profound enrichment of qualities, in that elements belonging not to the outside but to the dimension of height – penetrate the personality and become a part of its infrastructure.  The profound act of choice entailed in Torah study wins one the right to the services of the ‘third scripture,’ which resolves the conflict between two dimensions that on the surface seem to contradict one another.  Through the view of the third dimension, you discover suddenly that you are not dealing with enemies against whom you must wage the war of survival.  Really you are dealing with friends who seek your welfare; together with them, you complete and complement one another.  You need not distance them. You must rather adopt them in a loving, unifying embrace.  For this is not an embrace of strangers but rather an embrace of your own self, for the source of the contradiction is in you, inside yourself.

    The Reality of Torah

    “For his only desire is God’s Torah; he delves in his Torah day and night.”  The Talmud interprets the difference in phraseology between “God’s Torah” and “his Torah” to indicate that God’s Torah exists in its own right. 

It is non-dependent, requiring no support from any reality other than itself.  It belongs to God alone.  However, when a learner of Torah is preoccupied entirely with it, and devotes all of his time and resources to it, it is then attributed to him, becoming his own possession.  From “God’s Torah” it becomes “his Torah.”  From this point onward, the Torah occupies space inside of him.  His thought is Torah, his heart is Torah and his actions are Torah.

   This is true not only when he is actively involved with Torah study.  In contrast to all other mitzvahs, which protect humans from the pitfalls of existence during the moment they are occupied with the mitzvah, the Torah protects its students even when they are not specifically occupied with it.  Furthermore, the preoccupation with Torah is not dependent on the specific intention of the individual occupied with Torah. He does not need to consciously intend to fulfill a mitzvah: “From [learning Torah] not for its own sake, he comes to [learning Torah] for its own sake.”  This means that it is not the intention that makes the mitzvah, as is the case with all the other mitzvahs.  Rather the very preoccupation with it awakens an intention of mitzvah.  Under one condition: That he must be immersed in it entirely.  He must see the preoccupation with Torah as the main element of his life.  “A Torah life” means an exclusive experience of existence, outside of which is nothing at all.

    The sages of the Talmud go to considerable extremes in their description of the Torah life.  In Pirkei Avot, they count forty-eight “acquisitions” that are needed in order to acquire Torah.  The guiding principle behind all of these “acquisitions” is exclusivity, achieved by completely ignoring – to the point of renouncing – all of the needs of survival.  There is no need to abstain from them, and there is importance in using them according to the needs of one's existence, following the rule that “ ‘one must live by them’ and not die by them.”  Yet the needs of survival have no importance as a goal.  One must merely be aware of survival.  This is actually the case with all the mitzvahs. The requirement of being aware of the needs of survival does not take up much space in the Torah learner’s scale of values.  “If a man dies in the tent:” The Talmud removes the phrase “a man dies” from the regions of death, and grants him instead the life of Torah.  That is to say that only the man who dies in the tent of Torah has merited life in the full sense of the word.  His life has become one of happiness and fulfillment with no threat that could rouse his survival instinct.  One who is immersed in the tent of Torah is exempted from the need to confront the adversariality that is inherent in existence; the war fights itself on his behalf.  A life of Torah does not waste energy on existential contradiction.  Every deed is carried out along the track of creativity, led by the goal of preoccupation with Torah – which exists at every moment; it is not merely to be found at the end of the tunnel.  There is no division between ends and means, as is commonly accepted by the contradictory life of the war for survival: Suffer now, be compensated in the future.  The life of Torah unites ends and means in that the ultimate goal is constantly being actualized at every stage of implementation, and not merely at the end.
    The Talmud raises an interesting question: Which is more important?  Learning or action?  The Talmud concludes that learning is greater in that learning leads to action.  We are being taught here that the occupation of Torah occupation cannot be divided into parts – theoretical Torah versus applied, practical Torah.  Learning is great, because learning is action.  Torah is not subject to the restrictions of space and time, which are segmented by the rules of survival.

      Ohr HaChaim (Numbers 1:1) focuses our attention on God's “Spoken Word” to Moses in the Sinai Desert: The desert is not a defined space, but rather the opposite. It is also no place for human habitation. It has no address. Therefore, in the verse that quotes God's words, “here is a place with Me,” Ohr HaChaim comments that the Holy One’s place is secondary to Him.

      “You can know how tremendous is the place where God is, for we find that within the two cubits between the rods of the Ark, six hundred thousand of Israel stood comfortably. Though to the eye it seems like a small space, it is vast by reason of the blessed One who dwells therein.”

      We find further in Tanchuma (96:12): “ ‘All of the congregation, you shall assemble.’ [Moses] said, ‘Where? [The Holy One] said: ‘At the entry to the Tent of Meeting.’ Moses said to Him: ‘Master of the universe, there are six hundred thousand men and six hundred thousand youths. How can I place them at the entry to the Tent of Meeting?’ Said the Holy One to him: ‘You wonder about such a thing? These heavens, why, they are like the fine film of the eye. Yet I made them extend from one end of the world to the other.’”

      The Talmud determines the substance and meaning of the concept of place: “The Holy One is the universe's place, yet the universe is not His place.”

      This is to say that place does not determine reality. The Holy One is reality, as the Godly presence. Everything that is included within Him – is called reality. Anything that is not included within Him has no existential value whatsoever.

      We are meant to learn from this the lesson that survival’s sense of existence does not deserve to be related to. This is because survival’s sensations have no objective realness and are only the result of subjective distress. The experience of existence that is real, that enables human beings to relate to it, is the reality found in Torah’s tent. Anything not included in this is a figment of the imagination – an optical illusion. Even perils are imaginary. We find here a complete blurring of the criteria for a sense of reality, not only as regards time and space, but even as regards life and death.

      “Death for the sake of sanctifying the Name [of God]” is not death but rather a realization of life. One who is preoccupied with Torah does not recognize any reality outside of Torah’s tent, meaning – outside of himself, outside of the “four cubits of the halacha [of Torah]” which alone defines what is true and what is false – what is good and what is evil, what is life and what is death.

      “It is not in heaven,” means that from the moment the Torah was transmitted to man – transmitting to him a status of partnership with the Godly reality – man is immersed in reality on an equal basis with the Creator, becoming, himself, a Godly presence. Thus are the barriers of time and place suddenly burst, to open wide to endless vistas.

      The limitations that characterize the two-legged survival creature now disappear, and he becomes capable of a vision from the dimension of height, where he sees his own existence as inseparable from himself. Just as “His glory fills the universe,” man too peers into his own microcosmic universe, and from there he can see the entire creation, “from one end of the universe to the other,” as did Adam, the first human.

      The difference is that Adam, the first human, did not see the entire universe from a personal angle of inner vision, whereas a ben-Torah, Torah’s child sees the universe as a function of his own achievements in Torah: As the quality of his Torah, so the quality of his vision.

      The world of the ben-Torah is the tangible realization of ‘tending one’s own garden,’ by virtue of his Torah, by virtue of his place in Torah that has been held in reserve for him since the first six days of creation. Such is his real place, the one shown to Moses as he sojourned in heaven when receiving the Torah. He was shown a vision of what every Torah scholar until the end of time would ever innovate in Torah, out of his own creative powers.

      When this mystery was revealed to Moses, “he felt weak and mentally exhausted,” because he believed that if the Torah were given over to every single individual to do with as he pleased, as if it were his own, the Torah could lose its uniqueness as the expression of God’s will. God showed Moses a vision of Rabi Akiva, interpreting the meanings of the print flourishes that connect the letters, doing with his interpretations as he pleased, as though it were his own private property. Moshe was appeased, however, when he heard Rabbi Akiva reply to a student’s query as to the source of his interpretations: “This is the law of Moses from Sinai.”

      That is to say that the father of the Oral Law, Rabbi Akiva, subjects all of his interpretations to the Written Law of the Torah. We learn from this that there is nothing in the Oral Law that is not contained in the Written Law, and vice versa. There is nothing in the written Torah that is not contained in the oral Torah. From one shepherd, both were given.

      Outside of the two tablets of the law, there is nothing else. Nothing comes afterwards. These statements sound rather contradictory. On the one hand, a place in the Torah is reserved for every learner who occupies himself with Torah, to the end of all time and to the last of all generations. The learner is preoccupied with Torah according to his own opinion and according to the uniquely original creative spirit that inspires him. Yet on the other hand, his Torah contains no deviation whatsoever from what was transmitted to Moses at Sinai.

      This contradiction has no place and no existence in any discussion of a Torah scholar, who is not subject to survival’s limitations of time and space, whose Godly self has liberated itself from the limitations of ego, whose involvement with Torah has exposed the infinite wisdom that lies hidden in Torah. And from the moment he makes Torah his own exclusive reality, in which he is utterly immersed, the wellsprings of Torah’s infinite insight open within him, and these are not limited by past or future.

  Thus the child of Torah, the ben-Torah, merits the privilege of achieving a level of wisdom that is not necessarily limited to the sum total of his own experience or to the knowledge he has accumulated by virtue of his efforts delving into Torah study. This wisdom comes to him instead from the Godly presence that has rested on him, which has transformed him personally, in himself, into a Godly presence that is unlimited, yet nevertheless conditional on the quality of the attachment and devotion that he brings to his work, and with which he labors and toils for the sake of his involvement in Torah.

      Therefore “the mundane conversation of Torah scholars – is Torah.” The Torah scholar does not have a mundane world. It was Rabbi Akiva specifically, a son of converts, who became the greatest of the transmitters of what had been heard at Sinai, teaching us that existential reality is not the decisive factor. Rather, the quality of Rabbi Akiva’s attachment and self-sacrifice, which had no equal – it was this quality that transformed him into a Godly presence.

      Even his external, objective death expressed his eternal life. The moment the Romans were combing his flesh with iron combs – was also the moment that a Jew is required to recite the Shema. Rabbi Akiva was therefore reciting the Shema – until his soul left his body. His students asked him: Rebbe, to what extent [must one sacrifice oneself for the sake of Heaven]? He answered them: “All my life I have been wondering when I might have the opportunity to fulfill this verse: ‘You shall love God your Lord… with your whole life.’ This means, even if they take your life.”

      Meaning, there is no life outside of Torah. A Torah life includes also the taking of the soul, and creating life even out of death. A ben-Torah is an incarnation of the Godly presence that knows no limitations of space and time – those dimensions that call death their master. Rabbi Akiva’s replies to his students: All my life I have striven to actualize the Godly presence within me, a presence that includes also death, within the framework of life. As an actualization of life.

      Here is no deification of death, such as one finds among the primitive savages who sacrifice themselves to Molech, their death god, and sacrifice their children as well. Rather, we have here the sanctifying of a life built upon Torah and awe of heaven. The imperative to "live by them” constitutes its first premise.

      Torah constitutes a source of life, which endows life with an existence that is beyond space and time, both within space and time and outside of space and time. This is the life of eternity, in which space and time are cancelled out, just as quantity can disappear within quality.

      Once again it is Rabbi Akiva, father of the oral Torah, who constitutes the prime example of this principle: Papus ben Yehuda has rebuked him for risking his life by gathering crowds together in public and teaching Torah. Do you not fear the regime? Rabbi Akiva answered him with the parable of the fox and the fish: Some fish were desperately fleeing the fishermen’s nets when a fox passed by and suggested to them that they come and join him on the dry land, where there were no fishermen’s nets. They replied: “If we are afraid in the place that keeps us alive, how much more will we be afraid in the place that puts us to death!”

      This means that other than upholding Torah, our life has no meaning. Far better is a life of meaning, though it entails suffering, than a life without meaning, which is considered death.

      Consider also the story of Rabbi Chanina ben Tradyon, who was among the “ten killed by royal decree.” When he was once ill, Rabby Yosi ben Kisma came to visit him and warned him against angering the evil Roman regime, who had forbidden the study of Torah. Rabby Chanina ben Tradyon had ignored them and continued to assemble crowds in public in order to teach Torah. Rabbi Chanina replied: “Heaven will have mercy.” Rabby Yosi said to him: “I am telling you something of substance, and you reply, Heaven will have mercy?’

      Learn from this how greatly Judaism cherishes the sanctity of life, to the point of emphasizing the contradiction between existential need and sanctifying Torah. This means that one may never deny the value of the sanctity of life, God forbid.

      Rabbi Yosi then relates that he foresees a painful future for Rabbi Chanina ben Tradyon: “I wonder if they will not burn you and the Torah scroll by fire…” Rabbi Chanina ben Tradyon’s reply does not appear to relate to this painful prediction with appropriate gravity. “Master, how am I for the next world?” Calling Rabbi Yosi ‘master’ shows Rabbi Chanina ben Tradyon’s reverence for him, and the great weight he attributes to Rabbi Yosi’s opinion. Nevertheless, he does not seem to relate to his warning with the appropriate seriousness.

      It seems however that he did indeed relate with utter seriousness to the warning, but was answering that there is no importance to suffering and death in contrast the reward of Torah in the next world. And if he can merit this by utter attachment to it, by dvaikut, then he chooses his lot.

      Such is the Torah world. Many have been painfully puzzled by the queston: How is it possible that such utter doom befell the incredible Torah world of Lithuania, which bore a near-absolute state of suffering during the Holocaust – greater than any other period of exile. Lulei demistafina, were it not that I dare not suggest this, I would say – as a son of a family who were the kings of Lithuania, the monarchs of Torah scholarship, as one who was privileged to know them personally, at close hand, having being raised in the lap of the giants of that Torah generation – that that Torah world annihilated itself. It refused, quite simply, to confront the degradation that threatened them from a technocratic, soulless world devoid of humanity and devoid of vision. It did not attempt to waste its time, which was dedicated exclusively to the sanctity of Torah, in order to develop a dialogue so as to confront this world. It enclosed itself within itself, in its own language of sanctity, occupied itself with Torah day and night…and drew the relevant conclusions.

      Its death for the sanctification of the Name of God did not put an end to the Torah world, but was rather a natural development, the incarnation of its purpose – which was the absolute concentration upon truth, upon the quality of the holy Torah. It refused to give in on truth. It did not believe in anything that was less than total truth. It was only in truth that it could see any point or purpose to life.

      It did not believe that compromise was da’at Torah, the Torah view. It was its will to sacrifice itself upon the altar of Torah, out of choice, rather than as a succumbing due to lack of choice. It viewed giving in on truth as suicide, and it viewed identifying with truth as the ultimate and final point of self-actualization, similar to the actions of the “ten killed by royal decree.”

The Mida of Bitachon
      The personality trait of confidence in God reveals the face of the believer confronting his own survival. In a world of hester panim, where the Godly presence and plan are well and thoroughly hidden, the mida of bitachon becomes an object of public ridicule – and riddled with internal contradictions. It finds itself serving the interests of the idlers and loafers, who wish to evade any confrontation with their duty.

      Only in the world of Torah – where the Godly purpose rules man himself – does the mida of bitachon find whole and perfect expression. It is within man’s capacity to internalize his Godly existence: By absolutely identifying to the point of self-sacrifice, one's mida of bitachon becomes a beacon of light, illuminating both the man and his occupation in its brilliant glow. One who has this type of bitachon identifies with the Creator, Who manages man’s world from within man himself, rather than as a stranger. Under this management, where man himself chooses his own initiative, and the purpose of his own existence, he is able to feel, with perfect faith, how his needs are fulfilled – in that these needs are for the sake of heaven – even before he has made any request, even before he becomes conscious of the fact that his needs are needed in order to fulfill his aspirations.

      This is meant in the sense of “even as they speak, I shall hear,” and “from a wound, You will make our healing.” The sensation felt by one who is confident in God is that the ability to attain his wish rests in his own pocket. His obligation of hishtadlut, investing practical effort, is limited to taking the trouble to actualize the dormant potential hidden within him; it is inside himself, in the sense of “not in heaven is it found, nor across the sea. It is in your own mouth and in your own heart to do it.”

      “A Life-Giving Drug” - “A Death-Dealing Drug”

      The Talmud states that the Torah can be turned from a life-giving drug into a death-dealing drug. How is it possible? Yet indeed such wretched situations unfold every day, and the tendency of “making Torah a shovel to dig with,” (meaning, using Torah learning to serve one’s own egoistic interests) is the least severe of them. Much worse is the one who makes of his Torah a means to dominate others, politically and socially. Worse yet is the one who deludes the masses into believing he possesses hidden powers, that he is a secret saint, sacred and omniscient. Worst still is the one who sets himself up as a god figure at the head of a cult of believers and “pious fool” disciples.

      The least dangerous of all these is the process of being “a learner who learns not for the Torah’s own sake, yet who gradually becomes a learner who learns for the Torah’s own sake.” Perhaps we should remind the reader here of the distinction between self and ego. Where ego rules supreme, the survival system is activated, but where the self rules supreme, the survival system would not dare to intrude into the space of the self, which is charged with cultivating one’s creative quality.  There ego unwittingly becomes the servant of the self, and there ego ultimately bestows the ruling crown upon the self. There the need for social recognition, for achieving status, for earning one’s livelihood – set the framework and create the containers that will contain the meaningful content of the self; there Torah is invited to fill these containers with the meaningful content of quality, and it is all for the good.

      When ego rules by brute force, and aspires to exclusive control, while the self is weak and effectively cancelled by a negative abundance of ego stratagems, all plotting to achieve dominance over the self through cunning and through the use of negative means, then the meaningful content of the self becomes a servant to ego. It “makes of the Torah a shovel to dig with.” In such cases, the learning that is not for Torah's own sake never transforms, and never reaches the stage of the learning that is for Torah's own sake.

      This explains the need for selectivity in determining who may enter the study hall.  We must discern whether tocho ceboro, whether a candidate’s inner reality matches his outer appearance. We must warmly welcome those who possess an ego that is not at war with the self, for though they begin their learning not for Torah's own sake, yet eventually the radiant light of Torah will bring them to learn it for its own sake. However, we must reject those who possess a negative ego, for whom the self has become the indentured slave of the negative ego. For these people, the Torah serves as the powerful instrument for furthering their survival system, which takes center stage in their experience of existence.

      Summary

      The revolution that came to the universe through the giving of the Torah created a new human being, one who would be capable of internalizing the Godly presence. This new human being would no longer reflect the created universe in microcosmic form, but would instead reflect the Creator of the universe Himself in all His glory. The new human being would be a Godly presence, and would also contain His qualities, which are not bound by space and time.

      From here we derive the concept: “The tsadik utters a decree, and the Holy One carries it out.” From here we derive the idea of partnership, of human beings as allies to the Creator. Our minuscule contribution toward bringing this rare concept down to the level of human understanding is not designed for those who deal in nistar, the Torah’s secret mysteries. Rather, we are dealing here with an idea that reflects a tangible, actual reality.

      The Sforno sheds new light on our discussion in the closing verse of Naso (Bamidbar 7:89): “ ‘And he heard the voice speaking to him;’ means that the voice was speaking between Him and Himself, for “all that God has worked is for His Own sake.’ And when He informs Himself, He thereby knows and bestows good upon the other, with an immense generosity of influence that knows no termination [limitations, restrictions] and this works its effects upon the one who allows its effects to be worked upon him – all according to the level of that person’s preparedness. We have thus interpreted the meaning of every “speaking” mentioned in the Torah, whenever it says ‘and God spoke.’”

      Sforno’s words indicate that the expression of Godly presence inherent in human beings – that presence which generously bestows unlimited, boundless abundance – is dependent on the extent to which the worshiper has internalized, identified with and attached to the Godly presence within himself. His ability to influence and bestow is a function of his recognition and worship of God, which derive from his own Godly quality.

      On the other hand, the effectiveness of this Godly influence is obviously dependent on the extent of the ability of the one receiving the influence to be open to it and to digest it, according to his level of preparedness, and according to his spiritual willingness to receive. Thus an exchange of roles is brought about, blurring the Creator-creant relationship, moving toward a giver-receiver relationship in a virtuous cycle that constantly builds itself: Creator gives to creant, who is receiver – but who then becomes giver to another. No more “I-Thou” relations, but rather “love your friend as yourself.” I and other become interchangeable, uniting through “as yourself,” in the sense of “I will bless whoever blesses you.”

      So too with the priestly blessing, in which the cohen, who receives blessing from God, draws it down upon the heads of a holy people. Similarly with the sacred words of the Alshich, who differentiates between Abraham and Moses: “For Moses’ power was greater than that of Abraham, because with Abraham, the angel made a distinction: ‘And an angel of God called out to him, etc’ and afterwards, He...spoke with him: ‘Do not raise your hand against the youth, etc.’ But with Moses: ‘And He called to Moses,’ by Himself.”

      The Alshich continues his discussion of the idea we are examining here: The power of Torah. “For when Aharon was despondently pondering the fact that the tribe of Levi had not been the one to dedicate the altar – Moses too could have been despondent about this. This is why the Torah comes and tells us: Behold Moses has no complaint, for what more can he possibly desire than his own attainment and nearness to Him... For ‘when Moses would come [to the Tent of Meeting]’ before he would even plead with God, ‘He would speak to him’” – in the sense of “even as they speak, I will have heard.” Moses attained this by shrinking the distance between the Creator and man to attain a "Shema...God is One” level of unity.