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Rabbi Haim Lifshitz
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Vayehi l'ilui nishmat Esther bat Mrdechai DIMENSIONS OF TIME AS THEY PERTAIN TO THE EXISTENTIAL PRESENT Jacob, choicest among our forefathers, is attached to the past, yet he attempts to relate to the future as well, in order to rehabilitate his existence in the present. The dimension of time preoccupies and worries him. Even when standing before Pharaoh, he finds it necessary to exhibit his troubled relationship with time: “Few and bad have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not equaled the days of the years of the lives of my forefathers.” (3:47) Our weekly Torah reading also finds it necessary to deal with the dimension of time, at the very opening of the narrative. The very first verse (28:47) informs the reader of the amount of time that Jacob lived in Egypt, and of how many years he lived altogether. In the second verse, the announcement appears that Jacob is preparing for his death. Here, too we find a strong attachment to his past in the Land of Canaan, as he commands Joseph to swear to him that he will bury him in the burial portion of his forefathers in the Cave of Machpelah. Jacob is perceived even by Joseph, and not merely by his other sons, as being an awe-inspiring figure representing the splendor, power and devotion of the past, and concealing within itself the secret of the future, the far-seeing vision of ultimate hope and redemption – yet long since detached from the reality of the present. Jacob is preparing for his final day. Within the framework of this preparation, he seeks to bless Joseph’s children, but only Menashe and Ephraim, born of the past, and not the children of the present, nor the children of the future. These latter will share, and be included within the blessings given to Menashe and Ephraim. When Joseph brings them before his father, who attempts to cross his arms, so as to lay his right hand upon the head of the younger Ephraim, Joseph attempts to move Jacob’s right hand, so that it will lay upon Menashe’s head, as people do with someone who cannot distinguish his right from his left, due to the waning strength of old age. Suddenly, Jacob proves that he is still in control of the situation: “I know, my son, I know.” I am not unaware, as you believe. Jacob justifies his action, both in terms of the present and the future, explaining his short-range and long-range considerations. “Jacob wishes to reveal the end,” to tell his children how the exile that is now unrolling at their feet will terminate. Suddenly his prophecy is severed, the Talmud teaches us, and he begins to speak of other things, words that strike directly at the present, at the heart of the matter, words that penetrate to the depths of the soul, that expose the inner workings of heart, mind and conscience – words that sting… What moved Jacob to speak so? In our discussion of last week’s Torah reading, we emphasized the moral aspect. Man takes his position within the dimension of time as it passes before his eyes like a foaming river. One event pursues another. He seems tied by his umbilical cord to the passing events, yet his sense of self-defense alienates him from his own involvement in the eye of the storm. None of these things are happening in him, but rather outside of him. It is none of his concern. He invokes the Ibn Ezra’s saying: “The past did fly by, the future we’ve yet to try, and the present is as the blink of an eye. Then worry? Why?” When he embarks on even the shortest journey, his lips murmur the prayer of the road. For after all, his road is paved with obstacles, which certainly do not guarantee his safe return to his home, to his castle. Who knows if he will not be one of those fated to be cast into the pit, like Joseph in his time? Or some other accident, God forbid? He is filled with the fears of what could happen. Fears over what have not happened gnaw in his stomach and bewilder his mind. Suddenly, a connection with the present moment appears, and he is busily involved with an enjoyable journey filled with new experiences. The secret of connection to the present – where is it buried? Connection with the present takes form when one adopts a moral posture vis a` vis the unfolding event, a position of responsibility, of value-driven accountability that is answerable to one’s own personal sense of moral responsibility. A moral stand creates a personal bond with the object, with the unfolding event. This is the only way to give expression to the moral imperative, which creates the bond between object and human subject – a bond that the survival instinct urges one to sever, in order to bypass personal responsibility. Joseph and Judah, the two Messiahs, represent the moral dimension. Not so Jacob, who rises to a super-human position, somewhat Godly, above time and space. “He was gathered unto his people,” but did not die. It is difficult to connect Jacob with an ordinary mortal’s fate. Yet Jacob’s perspective seems somewhat flawed in its lack of tangibility. This is why the Torah uproots Jacob from the future, and plants him firmly in the present. Jacob wishes to tell his children the future, and his prophecy is halted. He speaks instead words that are piercing in their moral power, and bearing upon the present. This teaches us that Jacob belongs to the present as well. Redemption is expressed in Jacob’s aspiration to be buried in the grave of his fathers, specifically, in the Cave of Machpela. The Holy Land does not belong to the present, as long has it has not has been completed by the sanctity of place, through the rebuilding of the Mikdash. When the Temple is built, and functioning, then redemption is transformed from a hope of the future to a continuous present that occupies the places of past and future together. Joseph – like his father – makes his brothers swear to bring his bones to the Holy Land after his death, even if many years of exile must pass before this oath is fulfilled – in order to implant a sense of hope – that an end will come to their tribulations. The Sabbath too, like the Holy Land in its completion, is saturated with the sanctity of time, just as the Holy Land is saturated with the sanctity of place. Both of these belong to a continuous present, which embraces past and future. The sanctity of Sabbath overrides one’s routine survival plans, and permits these only for saving life, and this concept is applied only to actual threats to one’s very survival. All other survival-related considerations are pushed aside. This includes the technical rules of games. Game rules that are empty of Godly values are nothing but the tactical means for answering the trivial, secondary question of: “How?” This tactical perspective does not consider questions of substance that answer the ultimate question of: “To what purpose?” The man acknowledged as Israel’s expert in public relations and advertising was interviewed today in the media. He had brought two prime ministers to power, from opposing political parties, one from the right of the political map and one from the left. Asked about his guiding principles for shaping public opinion he responded that he ignores questions of substance absolutely. He focuses exclusively on technical questions: Color of attire, number of smiles, etc. He instructs each candidate as to exactly which sentences may leave his mouth, sentences that are pleasing to the public ear. Results are guaranteed if the candidate obeys these tactical suggestions, and refrains from entangling himself by taking a position on any matter of substance. That is to say, everything is reduced to the efficacy of the rules of the game. So it is with politics and so with economics, and so with every area – one cannot discern essential from inessential. The Torah’s attitude toward ignoring and separating from “to what purpose?” would obviously be negative. The Torah does not view the human creature as an object, activated by pulling its strings from the outside. The Torah addresses itself to a creature that thinks and feels, that possesses an inner world and free choice. However, the modern age does not identify with the Torah perception, and has therefore developed a technical approach, accompanied by a cynical contempt for the values of substance, of “to what purpose?” This approach has created a society of routine, and has even succeeded in penetrating to the mass religious culture. Even the performance of mitzvahs, of God’s commandments, has become a technical project – an object that appears at fixed times and then disappears, that attaches to no human values of the spirit, that reflects no desire or yearning to attach to the sublime – a religion without God. The main components of this religion are frameworks of regulations of diet and dress that reduce free choice. Even one who lives in a religious society can lead a life free of choice, on a track that bypasses daily dilemma and doubt in determining what is permitted and what is forbidden. The Torah’s prohibitions derive from the very nature of one’s innermost intentions, and are not merely dependent upon the test of the result. Keeping kosher out of choice means the struggle during a moment of hunger, or the temptation of placing something into one’s mouth that one is not certain is kosher. It is not about predetermined, sweeping procedures within an objective framework. Similarly with the question of prayer: One may not lean on the external framework of the prayer quorum that determines the time and pace of prayer. Rather, it is “a service of the heart,” a longing to attach, refilled at every moment with new content, yet, specifically within the framework of prayer as determined by the custom of routine. The reference is not to preoccupation with the rules of a game called prayer, but rather to a profound, constantly self-renewing expression of existence, which seeks to embrace the entire universe – without routine and without objective technique empty of content. A well-known quote by Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, master posek (legal decisor) of recent generations, points to the word de’aga, worry, as containing all the first letters of the Hebrew aleph-bet, except that it lacks the letter bet, indicating that worry results from a lack of betachon, faith in God. It may be that viewing the struggle for existence as implementation of an object and preoccupation with an object, is what has created the view of the problems of existence as being a question of knowing the rules of the game – all this to avoid personal confrontation, to avoid involving the human/subjective aspect, which cannot ignore substantive issues such as “to what purpose,” and most importantly, the moral questions. Without morality, which binds one to one’s actions, in that one stands behind them, a vacuum is created. Chains of technical actions take place outside of the human sphere, in a void, empty of value-driven human intention. This enables the acting human being to ignore emotional involvement, and this ignoring is deliberate, for it brings about a sense of having distanced oneself from the worries of existence. Yet the effort to emotionally ignore existence is not successful. The survival instinct is found in an incessant state of anxiety over existence. This prevents practical and emotional involvement, which causes a sense of distress, which results in worry. Lack of emotional and moral involvement sever one from relating to the present, as mentioned above, and send one fleeing into the mists of the future, which is not included in the framework of the rules of the game, which has a pragmatic, truncated character that is made up of a tangle that is essentially truncated and random, of bits and segments that do not flow from one another, either organically or spiritually. A sense of randomness, with no purpose and no chance of escape, creates a sensation of worry. In contrast, the sensation created by involvement of the human subject is saturated with a sense of purpose, answering the ultimate question: “To what purpose?” Laden with the goals of moral values, it returns the mists of the future to the warm bosom of the continuous present, which embraces the object that is unfolding with human, personal warmth and love. The sense that actions proceed at random disappears, and with it, worry disappears as well. Now that the future is gone, action returns to the bosom of the controlled present, controlled by a human being who is morally and emotionally responsible. As the sense of control returns, the faith in God returns to fill one’s existence. Lack of faith is reflected in the anxiety expressed by Joseph’s brothers: “What if Joseph will hate us” now that the moral, value-driven authority of their great father no longer shelters over them. Joseph is filled with compassion for his brothers, who are unable to view him as a moral figure that is the continuation of their father’s spiritual figure. Joseph’s soul goes out to his brothers as he reveals his thoughts to them. When will they understand that his moral/human path is nothing other than the application, in the present, of their father’s Torah? |