Rabbi Haim Lifshitz

Essays and Articles:

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 Translated from Hebrew by S. NAthan

                                                 l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai
   
An optical illusion expresses a superficial error, creating misleading surface impressions.  Nevertheless, one receives the impression from the Book of Exodus that because the People of Israel entangled themselves in the Sin of the Golden Calf, the good bestowed by heavenly abundance would henceforth be acquired through suffering.  Out of this principle, Judaism has come to be perceived as a painful journey along a difficult path, strewn with risks and gambles – for these thousands of years.  (See more on this in our discussion of the previous readings, Vayakhel / Pikudei.)

Along comes the Book of Leviticus and disproves this notion.  It tells us that serving God is a great privilege, reserved for those who are pristine of heart and pure of hands.  This privilege has been given to the people of God, for they possess a root and a foundation that is pure, being descendants of the friends of God, the forefathers of our nation.  With the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the merit of their ancestors pulses in their children’s roots.  The nation of Israel is “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation,” children of those saintly and pure people who were purged through suffering.  Suffering atones, as Abraham was told in the covenant sealed with God, “Between the Pieces.”

Nevertheless, one may not infer from this in any way that an obstacle course is reserved for the People of Israel in principle, as a first choice.  The truth of the matter is that a straight road has been reserved for the people of God, a smooth and straightforward route that has no risks and no difficulties; it is the king’s highway.  The worship of the mishkan, the sacrifices, the Holy Temple – this is the king’s highway, the high road of worship, the revealed Face of God, which has been hidden, because of our sins.  Yet although hidden, it has never been replaced.  This ideal, first choice, clearly revealed path is reserved for the people of God at the end of days.  This is the intention of Book of Leviticus: To describe, and to promise these conditions.

Our sages express this in a short, clear-cut statement: “At five years old, to scripture.”  The child begins the study of scripture with the Book of Leviticus, specifically.  The sages of the Talmud explain: “Let the pure deal with the purities.”  We are to immerse, as it were, the pure child who has never sinned, in the laws of the sacrifices, which purify human beings of sin.  Here we learn that here lies the foundation of purity -  reserved as an ideal first choice for human beings whose souls have not been infected with sin.  Yet if God’s servant does stumble into the taint of sin, the path of purging through suffering is reserved for him. 

“The Holy One wished to refine Israel.  He therefore increased the Torah and multiplied the commandments for them.”  We learn here that the worship of God purges, without being bound to suffering.

The meaningful content found within the pages of the Book of Leviticus is another, no less important aspect.  It deals with the fundamentals, imbedded in the infrastructure of the path of God.  Here are the foundation stones, the road markers and the boundaries for God’s servant.  A beginning child cannot be expected to plumb these depths, obviously.  However, the very fact of this primary encounter, this first learning of his life, is meant to settle into the depths of his consciousness and inform its infrastructure.  This infrastructure will constitute the foundation of his worldview, wherever he goes and whatever he does.

It is a methodology that focuses mainly on defining clear boundaries. Boundaries are drawn between you and I (“Love your friend as yourself.”  And yet on the other hand, “Your own life takes precedence”) and between the individual and society (the private domain and the individual’s rights to his own money, versus the individual’s obligation toward the public domain).  The boundary of morality is defined.  (“You shall be sacred.” Versus: “One can be a degenerate with the Torah’s permission.”)  The boundaries of family are defined (what constitutes incest) and the boundaries of appropriate speech are defined (slander, and its punishment, leprosy).  The influence that human beings’ wield over the physical world is drawn in relief (leprosy of the garments, leprosy of the house) and the borders of the realm of sanctity of place are defined (the sanctity of the Holy Land, the prohibitions against certain hybrids, the tithe requirements, and other commandments “dependent upon the [Holy] Land.”)  The sanctity of time (the festivals) the sanctity of human beings (the priests) and the sanctity of physical matter (forbidden foods) are defined.  Our attitude toward physical matter is defined (forbidden combinations in fabrics, in agriculture, the need to give the gift of the tithes, and all the commandments “dependent upon the Land”).  The boundary of morality – the inherent value of every human being – is defined. 

These fundamental elements are all implanted and embedded in the tender heart and mind of the child – for the rest of his life.

A child’s fundamental innocence does not lend itself to impurity, neither through strange thoughts nor even through free choice, because his imagination is narrow and given to control by the outside.  (My five-year-old grandson could not fall asleep, because he was disturbed by the selling of Joseph.  I advised him to count sheep.  He countered that he had no sheep, and therefore could not count what he did not have.)

A child’s innocence accepts the connection with one’s Creator as a natural fact.  The connection between heaven and earth is a given – a fact of the reality into which he has been born.  This connection has the power to leap past all the pitfalls of existence (which do not exist as yet, in his mind and heart.)   It should be pointed out that a connection as direct and as clean as the type perceived by a pure child, sits very well with the absolute imperative, “Be innocent and whole with God, your Lord.”  Innocence and wholeness is viewed as the direct line, the direct access that does not have to pass through any of the gambles and risks of existence; it has the power to work wonders.  The pristine prayer of an innocent child is accepted.  Its sincerity is not examined.  Passing in a flash over all the worlds, it lands directly beneath God’s throne of glory.  Pristine innocence is the secret code, the hidden direct line that strikes the center of the target, because the name of the Godly code is innocence.  Its escape route is through the soul, that part of God that is inherent in man.  It flies upward, soaring high above this world, straight to its abode in the Godly source.  This is the secret of its effectiveness.  It is accepted without preconditions.  It is tested by its purity.  Herein lies the power of the prayer of a tender child: “From the mouths of children and suckling babes, You have established might, to cut off the enemy and the avenger.”  The enemies of Israel collapse, and are rendered null and void, before the prayer of children.

This brings us to the “pedagogical” educational question.  The stories of the Bible hold an honored place at the forefront of world legends and mythologies.  The story of Adam and Eve in Paradise, of Abraham’s discovering the existence of God while he is only a small child, and his clash with the rest of human society, which is sunk in idolatry, the story of our forefathers, and all the rest – constitute a basic foundation, deeply embedded in humanity’s heart of hearts, having becoming the source of most of the mythologies of the world.

Could there be any better reason than this to fascinate the imagination of the child, in order to embed these stories in his mind and heart?  Are they not better than the technical details of the sacrifices, which have no place in a child’s world?  Would it not be better to begin with Genesis than with Leviticus?

It is worthwhile remembering that the imagination of a five year old does not contain compounded images and complex problems.  His brain is busy with acquiring the basic proficiencies.  A child’s thinking requires activities of an automatic nature, the raw instruments and tools of cognition, so that at a later stage, these can be used for meaningful content.  Drill is the name of the game in a child’s world: Acquiring vocabulary; learning basic mathematical operations – addition, multiplication, subtraction and division (in that order); drilling the multiplication tables, and all the other foundational operations.  Children drill the structure of the Biblical textual style, which is not exactly the structure of normal language usage.  They absorb and digest this information in order to prepare themselves for the activation and operation of the cognitive structures required by the Talmudic dialectic.  Acquiring the language of the Mishna and the Talmud comes much before the later stage.  (“At fifteen years old, to Gemara.”  At fifteen, one is to begin studying the Talmud, for at this age, the youth is capable of abstract thinking.)

Being of tender years, the child is more interested in acquisition and mastery of the techniques of the materials of cognition than in meaningful content.  Games of the multiplication table, drilling texts in order to expand word usage capabilities – these interest a child, just as kittens are absorbed by the chase after a ball; it is a preparation for the more serious business of catching mice upon reaching maturity.

This issue turns into a problem – which testifies like a thousand witnesses to its critical importance – for anyone who has worked with Torah study for newly observant Jews, who have returned to their Jewish roots as adults.   A ba’al teshuva who has never experienced the stage of technical, automatic drill of Torah study that is learned during childhood is incapable of separating the form from the content.  He finds it difficult to focus solely on the forms of Torah, and requires meaningful content to occupy his mature level of thinking.  It is much easier for the young person who has undergone all the stages of learning during childhood.  During adulthood, he can focus exclusively upon meaningful content.  The Talmudic style is automatically familiar to him and he does not waste his energies deciphering the language of the Talmud.

Thus at the beginning stage, when a child focuses upon the Book of Leviticus, he loves these matters that appear technical.  They impenetrate their principled content into his heart with no confusion.  He is not troubled by heretical thoughts, as is the adult with the rich and fickle imagination, devoid of innocence.

This declaration – “Let the pure be busy with the purities” – embraces the entire universe.  It contains a rebuke against the complexity of the adult, against the distortion that springs from excessive sophistication, from a warped distancing of oneself from a natural, lucid and honest way of seeing.  It conceals a warning against warped maturation.  It is a call to innocence and to wholeness, which is the lot of rare individuals who have guarded their own innocence and wholeness even into the later stages of maturity.  Those people at whom everyone wonders, for their ability to make use of a “sixth sense.  Thus is innocence and wholeness labeled, in a world that has distanced itself from its natural sources.  A wonder.  Magic.  These are the labels that attach to the innocent and whole human beings who have forged their paths through innocence and wholeness, reaching directly to the goal.  These are the direct paths that bypass the world of physical matter, homing directly into the Godly source of all things and all phenomena.  Innocence and wholeness bypass the struggle for existence. 

This is the world of the child as well, and this is the hidden meaning of the verse in Psalms: “From the mouths of children and suckling babes, You have established might.”  Here we reveal the secret of the Talmudic sages, in their statement: “Let the pure be busy with the purities.”