Translated from Hebrew by S. NAthan

l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai

  By God’s blessing… Eve of the first of the month of Elul, 5745.
Travel Notes: The South African Jungle

      Endless plains. Bushes torn and crushed by animals. Trees uprooted by elephants. The atmosphere is apocalyptic. The end of the world.

      We are visitors from another planet, closed and sheltered in our minibus. To leave the bus would be dangerous. As the ancient Egyptians sought the refuge of their homes in fear of God’s hail, we seek the refuge of our minibus in fear of the wild beasts that rule the earth. Man, a barely tolerated guest, is here by the gracious and very contingent permission of the new lords of the earth, the wild animals.

      We attempt to ignore our bewildering situation, trying with all our might to create for the lords of the earth the impression that we are gawking tourists. Courtesy would require this. It is also a bit risky to offend the locals. They are sensitive about their dignity. Imprisoned as we are in the minibus, the optimists among us work at giving the impression that they are after all simply enjoying an interesting and pleasant tour. I try to do the same, although I find it a bit difficult.

      I am reminded of that process of the soul whereby a captive comes to identify with his captor. I attempt to become one with the elephants and with the countless deer that stand in still, tranquil groups off the sides of the road. The animals blend into the scenery, merging with the objects and with the scenic view. Rock forms, shapes of dead tree roots – they all have in them the image of wild animals. There is a harmony and a blending of forms and colors. The stillness that is all around us begins to take its hold, even over the travelers in the minibus.

      There is very little communication in Nature. There is no individual initiative. The conditions of the environment are what create the harmony. It does not derive from the animals. They are patient and passive, ruled by Nature’s law, by the law of the environment. Only a human being takes initiative, to create new situations. Independent, autonomous – a human being is not a mere part of the environment.

      A Nature lover must be a rather odd type. To merge with Nature and give up one’s human initiative… What motivates such a person? Is it a desire to resemble Nature that stems from respect and admiration for nature? Is it admiration for the wild animal? For the laws of Nature? Tired of being human, perhaps? Weary of all those complex and vaguely defined human relationships without purpose and without end… A yearning for the simple, for the non-complex, for tangible things... A need for equilibrium. Freedom from people. Like my friend the cynic, who told me once that the more he gets to know people the more he appreciates his dog.

      Our guide, a well-grown youth, muscular and blond-bearded, has quiet, good eyes and is tranquility personified. He speaks little, opening his mouth only to point out an animal, a bird, an interesting tree. He knows his subject matter thoroughly, reveals an impressive store of knowledge. He answers every question satisfactorily. It is difficult to get him to speak on other topics, though. He glances at his questioner, smiles slightly and does not reply. I wonder if he is a machine? Perhaps a force of Nature. Human being! Answer the question! No response.

      The atmosphere is tense with expectation to see animals. We all come to life when we meet an animal. The shoulders of the road have been mowed half a meter on each side, clearing the tall jungle growth. This is the only trace of human interference in this wild and abandoned realm of Nature. I ask the guide the reason for it. “So that the small animals that stand on the sides of the road will be seen by cars.” Everything here is for the animal. It is not for the convenience of human beings, remarks the guide with satisfaction.

      The South African winter is dry. Warm rains fall in the summer. The month of August is winter here. Trees are bare, losing their leaves. Two giant mounds protrude from the road at some distance. Elephants. The guide rouses from his apathy. A force of nature to be reckoned with. Gigantic beasts floating in placid ambience, unaware of their own power. They stand nearly motionless, indifferent. Now and then an elephant waves his trunk in graceful, elegant conceit. They are not worried about their safety, as are the giraffes who stand beside them, lofty as towers, turning their heads back and forth in wary apprehension, in fear of the lions. They, the elephants, are responsible for the ruin of the vegetation. That is why human beings permit themselves to interfere in their instance, and to limit their numbers within the borders of this gigantic nature preserve to only eight thousand. An increase of elephants over this number would turn the wilderness into an uninhabitable region devoid of life. Limiting the number of elephants maintains the ecological balance.

      There is a crushed and flattened root, almost completely bare of its bark, and a young and impudent sapling has burst forth from its side. Here and there a large tree, a beautiful leafy silhouette stands out against the background of barren and forlorn vegetation, breaking the monotony. Sunshine peers through a crack in the heavy layer of clouds, painting gold over the dry plant life. Gigantic lumps of granite protrude startlingly from the vast flat planes. They look amazingly like the gigantic piles of excrement, round brown loaves of bread left behind the by the herd of elephants that crossed the road. Cooled lava, a souvenir from the giant mammoths of an ancient age, petrified forever.

      A mountain range breaks the line of the horizon. Mozambique, announces our guide. An odd-looking spot rouses our attention. Perhaps an animal, perhaps a rock. It is only a broken root, after all. The guide stops the minibus. We travel backwards. He points out a deer, slightly different looking. It is of the antelope family, the largest and also the most eaten species of the jungle. And for all this, it still prevails over its predators. Its life expectancy is four times as great as theirs. So you see there really is justice. Here is proof! Everyone is moved by this. Except for me. It seems a shame to waste such a trip on me. The three hours yesterday have already satisfied my curiosity, and continue to preoccupy my mind with the question of man’s advantage over the beast.

      The nature of inorganic matter and of the organic flora and fauna are intertwined and create a harmony. Only a human being has no part in it. A human being creates his own harmony from within. Mostly from his own self, and with a little bit of raw material from the environment. A human being is the only creature who initiates a dynamic from within himself, not being dependent upon external motivators, as are the other creants. The world of human creativity has nothing in it of what characterizes the world of nature. Components of quality that flow from the human/Divine contact point are what determine the features of anything man creates.

      A watering hole, filled by rain, draws together zebra, deer and other creatures in an astoundingly beautiful composition. The perfection of this masterpiece imbues the scene with a tremulous softness, poignant and moving… A family of gazelles with their heads inclined is reflected in the water. Many slender limbs, regal and agile, complete the rest of the scene exquisitely, rousing a sensation of esthetic perfection, in me, the human being. The actual esthetic, where is it to be found? In me or in Nature? In the sensation alone or in the objective reality? Why do the other travelers not sense it?

      Life in Nature, in a green sapling bursting vibrantly from a withered tree, brings still and inanimate surroundings to life. Giraffes, gazelles and zebras are scattered about the pastoral scene, standing without movement, merging with the inanimate. Suddenly they lift their ears, muzzles twitch, the deer take light and graceful leaps, and Nature switches into gear, rousing itself to life. It all seems directed, somehow. For a moment it seems that all this great celebration of movement has some specific purpose. They are preparing for a gala event; it is a dress rehearsal for a performance.

      A giraffe moves its head in graceful tranquility, in order to photograph better. It twines its long neck toward another giraffe’s neck for a really great shot. Wrong. It butts the other giraffe forcefully. But it merits no response, no angry retort. The other giraffe moves slightly, indifferently, and then life carries on as usual. In Nature there is no initiative. Only forced response.

      Man alone takes initiative. Nature has endless multiple facets, but within a specific and defined field. Only humans have unpredictable behavior, and endless possibilities. All are enslaved to the laws. Except for humans, who create their own laws.

      The Torah portion for this week is “Judges.” “Judges and police shall you establish in all your gates. “ A human being is required to legislate a legal system, to invent a method of self-coercion, to toil towards the delicate balance between liberal independence and self-restraint. Creativity is within a framework, according to guidelines and values that one has received at Mount Sinai.

      But it is all really from within one’s own self. In the final analysis, one’s life hangs upon one’s own free choice and one’s own creative initiative. Humans do not fulfill their obligation by adapting to the laws of Nature. These were created for the animals alone. For some reason, modern human beings strive for a return to Nature, but they pay the price of limiting their own stature, and destroying their own quality. They do not succeed at this obviously. They do not attain their goal: the equilibrium, the harmony, the peace of the animal. Ultimately, they lose both worlds. The have neither the human quality nor the stability of Nature. They become enslaved to the mechanistic aspects of Nature. They become machines rather than animals. The animal blends with Nature, and is bound to it. It is ceaselessly preoccupied with its food. Not as an initiated purposeful activity, with meaning that it has instilled through a creativity which springs from within itself. Rather as an expression of subservience to the Master of the universe and to His laws, it bows its head submissively to its Creator. The animal plucking industriously and incessantly at the grass is not doing so, as it seems, only to satisfy its hunger. Rather it is fulfilling the will of its creator; this is its task in its world, and it is expressing thereby the law and the will of the Creator. This is its life, to express the Creator’s law by its own existence. In the animal is found a perfect flawless realization of purpose. The justice of existence inherent in creation is tangibly realized in the animal.

      Whereas a machine is mere inanimate matter, an empty container. It has no life with which to express, by its very existence, the intent of the One who creates containers as the living expression of His will. The machine, an object devoid of life, serves at best as an indirect expression of an undefined purpose of unpredictable humans. It is energy that is lacking direct purpose from its creator, the human. The machine is not a direct, natural expression of human value or quality, nor of human intention, but rather of a force severed from the harmony that stems from human creative ability, severed from the testimony to human quality and values.

      A herd of wild deer crosses the road. We stop cautiously and respectfully. They ignore us completely. They are immersed in themselves, waving their heads up and down with the devotion of prayer, as in a sacred service that forbids mental distraction. Suddenly, one of them turns its face backward, and staggers about in clumsy leaps. It has forgotten something at home, apparently. Funny to attribute intention to animals. They are directed by a generalized external system of laws after all. Enslaved to it absolutely. I am reminded of Bergson’s definition of humor as the disparity between an external act and its internal content. Attributing human intention to animals provokes laughter by its strangeness, by its remoteness from realty, by the exaggeration it entails.

      Yet for all this, humans anthropomorphize Nature. They attempt to cast it in their own mold. They endow Nature with qualities that it does not possess. Qualities taken from their own halls of learning: Values, harmony, esthetics. This tendency in humans seems to me a proof of their creativity, of their need to innovate, to create new situations, to not be satisfied with the status quo. To endow the raw materials that their environment offers, with meaning, content, values.

      This human tendency towards Nature stems perhaps from a search for creative paths in the wrong direction, having, by their own great foolishness, lost their own path that is appropriate to their own nature – the path of the spirit, of values. The service of their Creator, through their own qualitative means, directed toward the dimension of height, meaning to say upward rather than outward. This tendency towards materialistic Nature exhibits itself whenever people are unaware of their own spiritual power, unaware that they are capable of using materials created out of their own spirit, from within themselves. Instead, they seek their salvation from the outside. Yet this is a fruitless and never-ending search. Whereas to the extent that one’s internal wealth increases, one’s external needs become more easily satisfied with a barer minimum of material goods. “Who is wealthy? He who is happy with his portion.” From within himself. And there may be some people who can actually find what they seek in Nature, and can discern the will of the Creator of the universe within Nature’s multi-faceted and endless expressions.

      Huge bald spots. Forlorn vegetation, tree roots torn out, dead. The environmental preservation people claim that there is ecological stability in independent Nature but they are not convincing. The earth needs Man. “To tend it and to preserve it, “as is written in the Book of Genesis. The Torah is right once again. As always.

      A world without human beings responsibly fulfilling their role is a wretched world. Abandoned. Similarly, a human being who severs himself from the Divine source that is his niche in Nature, becomes subjugated to Nature and enslaved to it. He then relates to his own human self with suspicion, with distrust. With his blessed capacity for initiative, he worries that he might interfere and correct some part of Nature, and so ultimately he causes Nature’s ruin. “All the souls shall praise God.” The human being has received a mandate: “To the conductor: A praise-poem.” A human being must conduct the symphony of Nature.

      Our trusty escort remarks that he feels as though he is in a casino, awaiting the big win. We are all frantically eager for that greatest of privileges, an encounter with the king of beasts. The lion. Our vehicle devours roads and paths past tens and hundreds of kilometers with no sign of animal life. The travelers are equipped with lists of animals and birds, and they note down each animal and bird that they are lucky enough to meet. And here they are, with no prior warning, padding along with infuriating complacency. With open and deliberate contempt, two young lions. They seem to enjoy the fact that everyone fears them. That they are so thoroughly hated. But their tranquility is only outward. Beneath the surface seethes a cruel tension. A thirst for blood. Everyone survives here at the expense of someone else. “Tyre could only be built out of the ruins of Jerusalem.” There is no peace in Nature. Nature is not an independent unity, a self-sufficient organism, as the ecologists claim. It is in need of completion, in need of the human being, the single creature on earth capable of bringing peace to antagonistic forces. Peace depends solely and exclusively on human beings, on the human will to bring peace, on the human desire to attain wholeness.

      I am wearied and irritated by this frantic anticipation. We have been traveling a long while and seen nothing. Nature is not giving us anything new. I sink myself into a soothing mirage. I am awaiting redemption. I am not hoping to win the lottery… Rather, I yearn to be saved by law, by the law of the righteous man who rules by his service of God. And there he stands, he, the righteous man, between the trees of the forest. He is immersed in prayer. He is not apprehensive of the animals that surround him. They stand in a circle around him. Respectfully, with bent heads they listen to the just man singing his prayer, the song of the grasses. And they answer Amen, waving their ears, wagging their tails. They are all here, all of them. The lions, the families of leopards, the ostriches, the other predators.

      A deep red stain, part of the striped carcass of a zebra is visible in the high grass. We hear the growling of a nearby lion among the bushes, his songs after his feast. He does not honor us with an appearance. He refuses to play the role of amusing house pet. A cruel world serves as our stage; we are entertained.

      Scene Two: A jackal approaches the carcass. Hesitant. Extremely cautious. Step and sniff. Step and sniff. He refuses to offer the predator a second course. Here is our chance to see a new entertainment feature. We all get ready. This time, the kill will take place before our very eyes. We are full of hope. How great the distance between ourselves and the living world. Nature, drenched in blood, entertains us. The jackal reappears, a huge chunk of meat in his mouth. This time he quickens his steps, and speeds away, burying his booty among the trees across the road. Then he returns to the arena of battle. He circles, he approaches from another direction, for the sake of caution. And he comes back, the zebra’s heart between his fangs. The sun’s rays glitter on the gaping wound of the zebra’s corpse. The dark red stain clouds the pastoral tranquility. Everybody’s happy. A jackal eats his carcass with relish. We hope for action. For a second feature. For the big predator who will come and teach this little carcass eater a lesson, this uninvited guest at someone else’s feast. A long wait, but nothing. We continue on our way, disappointed. We are hurrying to lunch. And suddenly, not far away, near a pool of rainwater, a flock of zebras, just lately bereaved of one of its members, grazes gently. A peaceful flock. They exude tranquility. Not one of them weeps.

      Nature – the contact point, where heaven kisses earth. And the spirit of God blows across the water. And the rest, the water does... It is difficulty to accept the claim that strategic and acquisitory survival mechanisms alone shape animal behavior. What is their true role in the universe? To serve Man perhaps. To teach human beings the rules of existence. It seems perhaps that each animal embodies an expression of Godly power, of God’s wisdom in creation. But they cannot teach human beings the human creative quality.

      The sun touches the tops of the trees. It is time for Mincha. During prayer I muse. What shall I request? I am full of needs, filled with yearning for redemption. What do I lack? Do animals too lack things? Here I seem to find the clue of what distinguishes human from beast. Only the animals find complete fulfillment of their needs in Nature. God has granted this to them. Nature does not have the wherewithal to fulfill human qualitative needs. Humans must create this fulfillment for themselves. Only the guidelines they received at Sinai. According to these, they may, if they wish, build solid and content-rich systems. They have been given the answer to the question of “to what purpose our existence.” The rest, they must create for themselves. Through quality. Through the cream of the crop that is found in the spirit, rather than through the inferior-grade crop that is found in Nature. All things are contingent, and await human free choice. To be or not to be.

      Wild pigs pass in front of our vehicle in a line, their backs to us. The first is big, the second medium, the third small. They walk seriously, concentrating, it seems from their round behinds. Which are kind of cute. They have slender tails topped by black plumes. It’s a sort of rallying flag for their offspring behind them, explains our guide. The first one turns to face us, revealing an ugly head. It arouses disgust and revulsion. The head is ugly and the behind is pretty. In the Talmud, the pig represents hypocrisy, as it waves its split hooves in the air, the symbol of a kosher animal, and conceals the non-kosher fact that it does not chew its cud. These pigs seem true to pig character, showing the pretty and concealing the ugly. I am reminded of some two-legged creatures who look better from behind.

      It may be that a face requires too much commitment. A face demands to be related to. It shatters the status quo. It threatens the complacency of routine. There is no appearance of static regularity in faces. Faces change according to inner and outer conditions. Faces are points of encounter. They require incessant re-adjustment. Perhaps this is the meaning of God’s concession to Moshe’s desire to see His glory: “You shall see My back.”

      Nobelesse oblige. The viewer must adapt himself to the other’s face, and leave his own situation behind him. This is why one must not look into the face of an evil person because one can lose one’s own image and acquire the image of the evil one. Likewise, in order to behold the sacred, one must be capable of scaling the heights of sanctity. How can mere flesh and blood, even Moshe Rabeinu’s, adapt itself to the sanctity of the Face of the source of ultimate sanctity? It could only lose its own face, its own self image, which fluctuates in a never -ending dynamic, adapting itself to the new conditions of the present moment. The crucial human self image is vulnerable to total destruction, if faced with a vision that is not appropriate to its spirit or to its level, whether too high or too low.

      The behind is fixed and defined. It constitutes a point of reference. It entails no risk. Yet humans were formed in God’s image. And they have myriad faces.

      Some animals have human faces, and some humans have animal faces. Someone has a bird’s face, and someone else who has the face of a cat. Another has a lion’s face. There are the different animal faces of the Divine chariot. Yet still and all, an animal’s face is fixed and unchanging. Only humans are built on a foundation of change, alternating their forms like reflecting water.

      Water changes a fixed situation. It adjusts itself to different surfaces. It connects, it penetrates matter, it fertilizes, it alters, it binds and unifies the universe with its powerfully fertile vitality. So too human beings: They have a need to create bonds, they have a need to attach and to belong. They change; they adapt themselves to reality.

      The earth, the plants and the animals bestow a tangible dimension on human beings, giving them a certain fixed regularity, certain boundaries that are defined by law and order. Without this tangible dimension, a human being loses his specific identity.

      Everyone seeks a point of reference for himself. It is according to this point of reference that an individual tends to establish his identity. Therefore, this point of reference holds great significance. And why shouldn’t one’s fellow human being be the ideal point of reference, since one can identify totally with it? It is after all the most like oneself. A human being has a constantly shifting and fluctuating being that is not limited. Nor would it limit the person who is relating to it. It would never force anything on that person that is alien to that person’s human essence. “Go and earn your livelihood from one another,” advises King David. Yet apparently, although relationships with other human beings are the ultimate expression of human relatedness and a full and complete realization of human abilities, nevertheless they are not at all feasible as a point of reference.. Human relationships cannot serve as the springboard for relating to experience. They themselves are the relating experience. They are the content. They cannot be the container, in that the human character has no fixed definition.

      A human requires the materials of the environment to serve as pathways for relating to other humans. Without these, relatedness becomes a mystical telepathy that lacks substance. The physical, chemical, biological and intellectual planes are the raw materials that serve as paths of relationship to others. Without these, relating deteriorates and can turn unexpectedly into a formless, liquid state that blurs the images of the relators. A human being who has no environmental container of relatedness endangers himself and endangers the other. He is defenseless against the loss of his own image, and feels threatened by the other. He attempts to save himself by canceling the other. Here lies the cause of slander. Its motive is to be rid of the threatening presence of the other.

      Here also lie the beneficial effects that work exercises upon its doer. “Torah that has not with it work, is ultimately cancelled.” Similarly, “The study of Torah goes well with earning a living.” Work has its own laws and its own method. It is tangible substance. A person involved in work absorbs its laws into himself and becomes substantiated through it; he becomes a tangible entity. There is a risk, though, in that direction. Absorbed in work, he can lose his personality and become a machine, a mechanism that lacks personal, qualitative content, that lacks genuine human sensitivity: Work without Torah.

      Conversely, Torah that has not with it the work of earning a livelihood is lacking in a tool for expressing its application to reality. Theory without practice. This does indeed befall some of those inhabitants of study halls who slacken from their study of Torah. They lose both worlds; they are wastrels, who lay the world waste, detached from reality. Babbling about God and the Messiah, they cancel their own words by their very emptiness. They stumble readily into slander and resent others who have gained real achievements. They are shut into a narrow circle of hollow interaction with one another, hollow people like themselves. They empty one another, attempting to satisfy their own hunger by draining their equally starved comrades. They eat bread on bread, as the exiled Israelites said contemptuously of the void and senseless Babylonians. Contrast these with the accomplishers of good deeds who relate to the Torah as a pathway to relatedness, whose wisdom is not more abundant than their deeds. They possess a whole and complete relatedness. They find expression for their intellect, and also for their spirit, for values, for other people, and for the universe, through their study of the Torah and the commandments – which constitutes the ideal human pathway.

      If the study of Torah constitutes the ideal human pathway, then let me renounce all the arts of this world and teach my child nothing but Torah. No. One who deals with the intellect alone is barren. The intellect imposes order but does not mold the whole personality toward its own values and its own need for substance. Teaching Torah only through the intellect, through logic only, rather than including also felt experience – one deteriorates towards the mechanical. Relating only to a machine, molds one into becoming a mechanism, empty of that quality of content that is so vital to the human personality. A machine lacks character. Someone engrossed in a machine comes to resemble it. A force without a driver. Lacking free choice. Dangerous because it is ruled from the outside.

      Relating to Nature inside of Nature’s framework is far preferable to the above condition, and indeed comprises most forms of relationship in human life. In its simplest form, this entails the relationship to the natural/material sphere. Protecting oneself. Avoiding danger. Dealing with the natural needs of food, sleep and bodily functions. Cultivating methodical relations with Nature, such as agriculture, animal breeding, construction, manufacture of the primary human needs: Clothing shodding, food preparation. These preoccupations lead their devotees toward the natural dimension of existence. Simple, primal, they bestow tangible substance upon those who deal in them. It is a direct and simple approach; it is a non-problematic relationship to the world and to oneself. This approach is bound to the human aspect; it is true, but only to its superficial aspect, to its outer shell, to its system of self-preservation. It cultivates the domain of ‘doing’ and wholly neglects the self, the domain of ‘being,’ the qualitative inner aspect of the personality. Such a person becomes an animal, and loses his quality, his Godly image. The tendency towards ‘doing’ rather than towards ‘being’ belongs to this mode of relationship. One tends toward the fleeting and ephemeral; there is no delving into the innermost center of human experience, no exploring to the foundation and to the root, to the laws and causes that lie behind appearances.

      Preoccupation with practical aspects can also become a technical and soulless preoccupation, lacking in theoretical insight, coincidental, responding only to external stimuli. Inhuman. It becomes a practical science with no research into the realm of pure science, with no awareness of background, of roots, or original sources. One deals only with the new, and severs oneself from the old. This attitude characterizes politicians, journalists, psychologists of the existential school, business people, and other such luft-gesheftenThese are thin-air occupations, lacking substance and not rooted in a natural lawfulness. All of these lack the expression that most characterizes a human personality: When ‘doing’ expresses ‘being,’ when practical action expresses the inner quality of the unique personality.

      The inner personality reacts to this neglect of it, through emotional disturbance, through an erased uniqueness, and through the loss of the capacity for decision-making and free choice.

      The ‘people professions’ constitute a special category within the spectrum of tendencies to relate excessively to external Nature: Social leaders, guidance counselors, psychologists, lawyers and educators. They are lacking in the simple, defined, tangible dimension bestowed by external elements. They deal with the most perverse and elusive factor in Nature: Human beings. The uniqueness found in the human personality is destroyed at its most rapid and perilous rate through this category of interaction: A loss of the self and its exchange for a “mixed multitude” of bits and pieces of someone else’s self, with no rhyme or reason. Thus teachers acquire the childish personalities of the cubs, their charges with whom they waste many hours for many years. Thus lawyers lose the human value inherent in human relations and acquire a frozen, arbitrary legal view of the most sensitive realm of human relations. Thus the doctor sees the body and forgets its owner. And thus the spiritual shepherd loses the principles of value that guide his leadership, and turns into the indentured servant of those who need him, the sheep of his flock. And thus, among psychiatrists and psychologists, nervous breakdowns are frequent.

      People of this category require simultaneous support from both directions. First, they need to rediscover their path to the natural, simple, and tangible. In plain terms this means getting out into Nature, physical activity, working with their hands, and having a hobby that has nothing to do with human relations. From the other direction, they need to replenish their spiritual reserves by constant simultaneous involvement with the conceptual/spiritual/theoretical spheres; they must replenish their depleted spiritual and intellectual reserves – by studying Torah for its own sake, in depth, creatively, by teaching Torah and communicating it. By being involved in writing, for the sake of education and for the increase of Torah.

      A truly fascinating and lofty view of this dilemma is personified in the sages of Israel who worked at a trade or craft. For them, work was not a compensation for a deficiency, as discussed above, but rather an expression of the practical, value-driven realization of their Torah, each one through the Divine uniqueness with which he had been endowed. The work each dealt in was a symbol of their realization of a spiritual/Divine principle. But there is no doubt that their example constitutes evidence and warning against the dangerous tendency to sever ‘doing’ from ‘being,’ to use practical action as an independent arena, rather than as an expression of subservience to ‘being,’ in which ‘doing is directly tied to the inner qualitative human center.

      We also may not deny the reality that we live in: A motley society lacking solid character, a society of refugees, all of whom have been severed from their traditional communal sources. This entails a serious threat to the uniqueness that characterizes the human personality, and further serves to blur the self-image.

      Last and most important, Woman. The woman requires a close bond with the real, living, natural dimension more than does the man. She is at her best cultivating her family: marrying, and raising her progeny. These enable her to retain her equilibrium and to maintain the complex sophistication of her personality, and these preserve her from deterioration. These also vitalize her other talents, in the intellectual, artistic, and technical spheres. However, when she is not involved with her natural occupations, she becomes severed from her vital sources, and she is liable to lose her natural personality, and to deteriorate more quickly than would a man. Perhaps that is what the sages of the Talmud meant by their definition, “Women’s minds are light.” When? When their minds are removed from their natural occupations. Conversely, when they are involved with that which their nature has designated for them, their minds are more powerful and balanced than that of men, and about this the sages of the Talmud state, “More insight was given to the woman.” The biological/human preoccupation endows the woman with a holistic dimension of human realness. This realness is capable of turning every undefined theory into forceful, living reality, imparting meaning and actuality to all of the components of Man: to the emotions, to the intelligence, to the technical/practical skills. Such realness permeates the environment with its warm, profound human significance.

      We witnessed a live demonstration of the pathetic effects wrought by human beings who had addicted themselves to Nature and sold their souls to animals. It seemed on the surface of things to be an expression of humaneness, but in truth it was an utter loss of bearings and a defeat of its own purpose. Preventing distress to animals is a Torah commandment; within the framework of Torah and mitzvahs it expresses the natural/Divine value inherent in animals. But it loses itself, and sorely misses its mark, and achieves the exact opposite, when it becomes a goal and a banner unto itself:

      A dazed and wounded lion lay among the high grasses near the road. A veterinary doctor passed by in his car, noticed the wounded lion and came out of his car, his faced wreathed in infinite compassion. Inflamed with enthusiasm he moved closer to tend to the lion. He gave the lion a shot of sleeping sedative, cleaned and stitched its wounds. He killed an antelope! And placed it at the side of the lion to nourish the patient when it would awaken from its slumber. He left the scene with the satisfaction of one who has fulfilled a mitzvah.

      Only a few minutes had passed, when a wild buffalo approached the sedated lion, lifted it into the air with its horns, threw it to the earth and trampled it into the dust. Had the merciful veterinarian only left the lion alone, it would have dragged itself into a hiding place and waited out the natural process of convalescence, which would not have been long in coming. “Whoever is compassionate to the cruel, will ultimately be cruel to the compassionate.” Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, please take note…

      We must point out though that the life expectancy of grass eaters is four times as great as that of their predators. Justice!