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Rabbi
Haim Lifshitz
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With the Godly Dimension
Translated from Hebrew by Dr. S. Nathan l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai L'IlUI NishMAT Meyer
Hirsh Ben Laibel The social dimension is not merely a supplement to the physical and spiritual dimensions. It is the outgrowth of a process: Initally, in the Garden of Eden, God's plan had called for man to be alone, with only the spiritual dimension. This goal was not achieved. Man, being formed of physical matter, felt the need for other dimensions, such as time and space, and society. “It is not good for man to be alone.” Even while in the Garden of Eden, man had tried to attach himself to the various creatures, but without satisfaction, until Eve was brought to him. At that moment, man arrived at the dimension of his own self, with Eve as his mirror. Now man manages the dimension of arrogance. This is his own dimension taking part in the social-human dimension. Noah was called upon not only to deal with the social dimension but also to improve the physical dimension. Yet he dealt with both of these in an egocentric, limited manner. He was deeply involved in both dimensions to such a complex and problematic extent that he did not have the leisure or energy to address the spiritual/Godly dimension to an equal extent. The Creator of man thus saw a need to reduce all dimensions, to fit them to Noah’s limited abilities. “His lifespan will be 120 years.” This limited framework would also apply to the covenant between heaven and earth; it would be a rainbow in the cloud. Thus the world continued for ten more generations… …Until Abraham appeared, and taught human beings how to handle both the physical and the social dimensions. The leader that would chart the path for both of these dimensions would be the third dimension – specifically, the Godly dimension. The physical and social dimensions would now be given a relative status. They would now be contingent upon the Godly dimension. “So that you will not say, ‘I made Abraham rich.” “I raise my hand to the supreme Lord, Possessor of heaven and earth.” Contrast this with Malki-Tzedek who sufficed with raising his hand to the supreme Lord, and did not mention the continuation of the verse, “Possessor of heaven and earth,” as if God dwelt up in the clouds and did not trouble to pay attention to His world, implying that He had left it to man’s exclusive control, for better or for worse. In Abraham’s world, the physical and the social are only reflections of the dimension of height. The angels who come to visit Abraham do not reflect clearly; we are not certain whether they are angels or men. Nor is it clear from the phrasing of the verse: “And they said to him: “Where is Sarah your wife?” "And he said to him, ‘Why is it that Sarah laughed, saying, ‘Could I really ever give birth? Why, my lord is old.’’ And she said, ‘I did not laugh,’ because she feared.” The verse does not tell us why she feared or whom she feared. Sarah, who was greater than Abraham in prophecy, feared human beings? Could she not sense that it was God Himself, in all His glory, speaking to her? Yet even for Sarah, there was confusion in this area: Did the dimension of height rule the human/social dimension as well? Or was one perhaps required to consider the social dimension when dealing with human beings? The social dimension takes center stage in people’s lives. The business of reckoning social accounts and tallying social calculations falls into a category by itself, having its own peculiar character. In this realm, all is determined by the rules of society. Society knows how to reward, how to grant recognition and honor to individuals, but it knows also how to punish. Individuals spend most of their time and energy making social calculations: What will people think? How will they react in this event and how will they react in the other event? Looked at superficially, it seems that some basic positive character traits, such as kindness and justice, are mined from the quarry of the social dimension, and it is on such positive straits that “the world stands.” And peace, greatest of all, arises out of society. “The world shall be built of lovingkindness.” “Justice, justice shall you pursue.” Suddenly Abraham appears, and states emphatically that loving kindness and justice, too, are only an outgrowth of, “You shall fear the Lord, your god, Possessor of heaven and earth.” Without this, neither loving kindness, nor justice, nor even peace is feasible. In order to actualize this idea, the tale of Sodom and Gomorrah is presented. Its vivid message is unambivalent: Without the Godly dimension of height, there can be no loving kindness and no justice. Despite the fact that Sodom was governed by a legal system (justice, supposedly) the law without fear of God is only a rod with which to beat others, wielded by man’s animal urges. So it has always been, and so it shall be. In our own day as well there are those who presume to claim that they rely upon the pillars of social justice. They create terrifyingly distorted, imaginary illusions of peace. Their peace is the peace between wars – wars that express man’s most distorted animal lusts. Similarly with communism and its many offshoots: They came to fix the world. They would raise a kingdom founded upon justice and peace. These were the claims of the kibbutz founders. Admitting that there was no God in their hearts, they claimed that they held justice, loving kindness and peace in their very hands, in their most utterly ideal state. The kibbutz crisis shattered the myth of justice and loving kindness; their race for money shattered all illusions. Their vaunted equality collapsed in the face of human selfishness, which prevailed over all its opponents and seized the reins of power. To this day, there is no democracy that does not display a yawning gap between those who are equal and those who are more equal. It was not only in Sodom that distortions of justice prevailed – reaching to the point of murder. “Your hands have filled with blood.” Even Lot, remaining alone with his two daughters, reflects a tale of horror as he deteriorates into incest. The dimension of height needs to be the sole decisor. “Only – there is no fear of God in this place, and they would kill me over my wife.” The murder is supposedly justified because it solves the problem of the immorality entailed in taking another man’s wife. Yet all would agree that this is a rather dubious solution. The same is true of the solution to sexual identity, which is to blur the distinctions between male and female. This is no solution. It affords harm to the sustained continuity of the generations, and to the perpetuation of the species. In spite of all, Abraham attempts to save Sodom. Abraham feels like a partner, responsible for the well-being of the universe, precisely because of his absolute relationship to the dimension of height. There may be righteous people in Sodom, even a few, in whose merit – of the dimension of height that these righteous people represent – perhaps the other dimensions can be saved. “Shall the One Who judges all the land not do justice?” Abraham cries out, the Godly dimension in his heart filling him with compassion for the social dimension. Confused People, Neurotics, and Geniuses We are compelled to relate to all three dimensions. The average person relates to each of the three separately, rather than relating to all the three together. This is how man is built - all men. In the synagogue a man prays “the prayer of innocence.” With devout concentration, he turns to God, pouring out his heart, his emotions, his financial and social woes. He begs and pleads of God to spare his life and the lives of his children, their health, his income/their income. In the marketplace, he behaves as the merchants behave, with cunning and cruelty, as though he had never greeted the dawn with prayer, as though he had never in his life related to the dimension of height. At home, among his family, once again he behaves according to the rules of wife and children. One man is a cruel, authoritarian patriarch, while another is a cowardly mouse, afraid of his wife and children, spineless and groveling. His feelings and senses are not appalled by these contradictions. He does not view them as fickleness or hypocrisy, as a peculiar flip-flop tendency, incompatible with the laws of logic and wisdom. He accepts the scenario as necessity, as nothing to be condemned, as if – such is life. Such complexity and compoundedness are a part of existential nature. There is no possibility of change. He does not view himself as a confused person. If certain people find this contradiction-riddled complexity unacceptable, their tendency to delve more deeply rebels against confusion. These people are the opposite of the mindless lightweights. Their memory and logic have a longer range, and they seek to align their past and their future with their complex and compounded present. A neurotic attaches to only one aspect of one of the dimensions, as if he were holding on to the altar. Through this one aspect, he seeks to attach to all aspects of all dimensions. Maimonides calls him “a one-skill master.” Sometimes a person can do this in a highly successful manner, thereby winning the acclaim of Maimonides: “I have never been defeated by any man, unless he was a one-skill master." This refers to the genius, who manages to arrange a single point of view for himself. From this angle, he views everything from a highly consistent, if localized perspective. Yet his localized perspective encompasses all related localized points. Reality for him is reflected through only one point of view, it is true, yet this view brings everything together in concentrated form, thus encompassing everything. It is built and supported upon a logical structure that is thorough, that does not cut corners, and that does not neglect a single detail. Everything he produces comes forth with the uniquely original fragrance of its owner’s point of view. The neurotic tries to take one single perspective, but is not successful in encompassing and including himself in this perspective, because his gaze is evasive, and he misses much of reality. He sustains losses from all directions. When his gaze rests on the dimension of height, the physical dimension and the human dimension slip out of his grasp. He then becomes monastic, detached from everything. Even the dimension of height itself is deprived, because the Jewish view does not preach monasticism. “Live by them.” “Your life takes precedence.” “You will be called upon to give an accounting for anything that you might have derived pleasure from and did not.” When the neurotic's gaze rests on the social dimension, he deprives this as well, because he denies its human aspect. Eventually conflict brings him to a halt: The conflict between arrogance, humility, and kindness. Which should he pursue at the expense of the other? This problem leaves him no peace. Abraham constitutes the symbol of genius – that coveted goal. His Godly dimension of height included all the good character traits in the world. The Talmudic sages raise the banner of Abraham’s immense loving kindness, yet there was no good character trait in Abraham that found itself deprived of expression. The Godly dimension in Abraham, that ruled everything else, compelled him to sacrifice his only son. This sacrifice laid the foundation for his descendants, who would, for all generations unto eternity, be characterized by this trait: Self sacrifice that becomes eternal. An intrinsic contradiction? It almost seems that whoever wishes to achieve an eternal achievement must first be willing to renounce it, to the point of sacrifice. Why this inverted logic? It can only be the genius’ point of view, for he manages to sacrifice everything in order to attain everything. How is this possible? Apparently the genius knows how to remove himself from the existential structure and shed his egoistic kernel. (“At the entry, (ego) sin crouches.”) Indeed, if ego would not be involved, human beings would be capable of managing and organizing the reality of their lives, and of comprehending and encompassing things as they really are, without neglecting even the smallest corner hidden in the innermost depths of their existence. Ego stands at the head of the line of the disruptors of human experience. Genius does not necessarily depend on intelligence. Genius depends on humility. “What wisdom used as the crown for its head, humility used as the heel for its sole.” This teaches you that arrogance is the source of all ills. Were it not for arrogance, almost everyone could qualify as a “one-skill master.” Worst of all are the confused people, who get their directions confused, and confuse heaven with earth, as in: “What is on high, they put below, and what is below, they put on high.” This refers to people who see all their flaws of sin as being heaven-sent, while any advantages or qualities they may have, they attribute to themselves. Distorted and warped sexual tendencies they consider inborn, and attribute those to heaven: This is how they descended into the world. Hyper-active and attention-deficit children, and dyslexic children who have difficulty reading – they do not attribute these to blundering teachers who cannot teach reading or who are incapable of making their subject matter exciting or even minimally interesting for the talented students who suffer boredom in their classroom. Instead of blaming the inept teacher, they blame heaven: Thus did the Creator of human beings create this child. All sin, distortion and failure, they attribute to heaven. All good qualities and talents – to themselves. Spirituality in their view is some sort of mere speculative technique. Students with mathematical skills are considered gifted and talented, while students who use logic to delve into the depths of reason – are considered slow learners. The authentically spiritual person is in their eyes an errant dreamer, while the quick, shallow thinker – a genius. The solitary individual is mentally disturbed (autistic) while the empty-headed extrovert who holds the opinion of whomever he spoke to last – is a pleasant, friendly fellow. The original thinker is a fool, and the coarse and vulgar person is the wise thinker and opinion-maker. Cleverest of all, as they see it, is the winner, so skilled at misleading people to their detriment and his own advantage. The money lover is wise and the poor man is a failure. Thus has the world been handed over to fools. The wise are pressed back into their corner, into their minimal “four cubits,” as the prophecy foretells: “The wise person, in those days, will keep silent.” What would they have thought of Abraham? |