Parashat Bahar- Behukotai

Rav Haim Lifshitz

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PARASHAT BEHAR

 Circles

 Translated from Hebrew by S. NAthan

l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai

 “Level your foot’s circle and all your paths will be well-directed.”   (Mishlei 4:26)

The proliferation of theories regarding the structure of creation testifies to the great interest that man takes in it.  It might be that the basis of this interest in the creation indicates man’s attempt to distance himself from the need to bear witness to the source of his own birth, and the cause of his own existence, and its purpose.  For these issues obligate one, and strike an undeniably personal note.  The more the cause of creation can be shoved into a reservoir of speculative theory that fits one’s own attitudes, the more one feels secure in one’s own existence. 

In his secret heart, man does not absolutely respect his own philosophical creations, since “the mouth that forbade is the same mouth that permitted.”  We are dealing with theory, after all, so if a theory happens to cause discomfort, guilt feelings, or too much need for commitment, one can always find a substitute, as necessary.  Its successor will preferably be as generalized as possible; it will be a theory in which the formation of man, his role, and the cause and purpose of man’s existence do not take up any space.

Along comes the Torah, and places the universe on Atlas’ shoulders, but Atlas is human, and here and now; he has been pulled out of mythology’s attic.  The world of creation is first and foremost the world of man.  It is a human reality, with all its contrariness and complexity.  It is the axis round which the world rotates – cycles and circles...   It is an axis whose ground is in human reality, and whose “head reaches heaven.”

The creation of this axis was premeditated and preconceived by the Creator, as an aforethought, to create a tangible reality out of the reality concealed in the Torah.  The Torah had been created long before the universe, and its principles, meanings, and values reflected the Godly reality.  “...He looked in the Torah and created the universe,” Hazal reveal to us.

 The Torah thus constitutes a precondition, a basic principle, a first premise.  “This is the book of the chronicles of man.”  Look into man and you will understand the universe.  Not vice versa.

Man, though created last, is the end purpose of the universe.  If man comes to ruin, the primal foundations of the universe come to ruin.  If man repairs what he has done, the universe is restored to its primal might. “Were it not for My Torah, the laws of heaven and earth I would not have set.”

These sayings of Hazal determine the centrality of man and the Torah as the foundations and the conditions upon which and according to which the natural laws of creation were determined.  This does not refer only to the cycle of human existence.  It includes the biological cycle, and the material and cosmic cycles as well.

 We speak of the cyclical, of the circular rather than the linear, in order to emphasize a structure revolving round a central axis.  We are not dealing with a fragmented structure, but rather with a whole and unified form.  To damage it is to turn something perfect into a sadly crooked line.  To lose one link is to damage an entire cybernetic process.

 Here we begin to understand the global importance of lovers: “Man and wife...the shechina is between them.”  An encounter of perfect connectedness – on earth – brings about an encounter between dukra, the spiritual element of maleness, and nukva, the spiritual element of femaleness – in heaven.  They create a moment of grace, of universal conciliation.  The same applies within the family circle, and within social circles, and too, between an individual and society.

Thought structures also are circular.  Western culture has done wrong in separating thought according to function, according to the various branches of activity that relate to it – including those that are not functionally oriented – and attempting to learn about the functioning of cognitive processes from each branch of activity individually.  Scientific research for example, with its division of the different parts of the brain, separates the expression of imagination, emotion, and creativity from rational analytical ability.

What are the exact ingredients, for example, which create a person’s practical ability to orient himself to an existential situation?  Is there not a definite difference between this ability and the ability to function On a theoretical plane?  These differences between people can be very extreme, and classifying them can almost border on racism, or even name-calling.

 Separating thought by function is inadequate – it is not an optimal solution, it does not faithfully reflect the true picture of God’s servant, for he has been commanded to learn so that he can do, and to love his fellow and to strive for mutual commitment, and to take practical responsibility for all events.

A bewildering mix of sensation, emotion, and thought?  Polar opposites, each sabotaging the other?  Even the structure of the cosmos is inadequate to account for the structure of human functioning.

 For man himself is the center.  It is from man that the cosmic structure is created, rather than vice versa.  The human structure strives for a perfect merger of space and time, of micro and macro.  In micro absolutely reflecting macro to the point of perfect fit, we find evidence that we are dealing with a solid and unified structure, rather than antagonistic elements, joined by force.

 Fate and choice, the personal and the public, the micro, as mentioned – all these find their place in keeping with the character of the individual who shares in the responsibility for events that unfold.

 This structure originates in heaven, and radiates over the human circle – over the axis of behira and hashgaha.  Authority and free choice complete one another in an ideal merger, breathing life into Godly principles.  That is the structure of man on this earth.  The sensory, the material – they await meaning, and direction, and being used by God’s servant. 

“For the sake of heaven” is the name of the game, activating matter, and raising it to heaven, but not before it passes through the laboratory of human involvement, undergoing a process of alchemy. 

The point of encounter between spirit and matter is God’s servant.  The cybernetic cycle is created around man.  He binds and merges all the various components, which then change their shape and substance, to join hands in a mitsva dance.  Thus a personal circle of heaven and earth is born to every ba’al behira, oved Hashem. 

We are done at last with the “intermediate circles of the heavenly forces”, to use the terminology of the medieval thinkers.  We throw those medieval mathematical structures – coerced into existence by a segmented human thought process – to the winds.  The human circle breaks free, happily escaping from the realms of mysticism, Gnosticism, reincarnations, and all the other evils that shake the resolve of the weak in faith.  Instead, “all is in the hands of heaven”.  This golden rule is handed over – a gift to the one who fears heaven, to “the tsadik who decrees...”

In spite of all this we must point out that Judaism does not classify as anthropocentric.  Human truth, as much as it creates a circular structure of its own, belongs to the human circle, as a microcosm within the macrocosmic circle. 

Anthropocentrism limits itself.  The methods that flourished in the Far East attained a level of sophistication that cannot but arouse admiration, in the martial arts, and especially in “yoga,” a system that creates a cycle that is wonderful in its cybernetic flow, through use of nervous system, blood circulation, breathing, mind and spirit, yet its weakness lies in its closed nature.  It is a closed circle, severed from its environment.  It does not merge with the social circle, nor the economic, nor the spiritual, nor any other of reality’s circles. 

And what of the circle of spiritual creativity?  What of its uniquely original goals, which give unifying direction to the unique talents of the individual?  What of the matter of a unifiying goal, which endows emotion and value with direction? 

If we do not forget that values, morality, and avodat hamidot also combine to create the social and interpersonal behavioral circle, then we must ask how this circle joins and merges with the practical-existential circle, on the one hand, and with the spiritual-intellectual circle on the other? 

After all this, we no longer wonder at the golden rule: “Pave your foot’s circle.”  This phrase conceals the secret of human existence in its depths.  While embracing man in its warm, protective, loving embrace, it is also “embracing the vast arms of the universe”, drawing them closer to one another, bridging and merging them toward their center point – which is man, creation’s crown.  This phrase teaches all this, in a world where polar opposites, antagonized to the point of hostility, are the leading features.

“In the year of the yovel: Tanya – they taught – Rabi Yosi bar Hanina said, ‘come and see how hard is the dust of the seventh year, etc.’  (25:13)  “A man does business with the fruits of the seventh year, in the end he sells his movable goods, as it  is said “In the year of the yovel you shall return, each person to his estate, and juxtaposed to that is “and if you shall sell to your friend, or buy from your friends hand’ – something that is bought from hand to hand.’”  If he still has not regretted working the land in the seventh year,  “eventually he sells his fields, as is said, ‘when your will brother fall low and sells of his estate.’ – He is still not released until he has sold his home (pasuk 29): “And when a man shall sell his dwelling home...”  He is still not released until he has sold his daughter, as it says (Shmot 21) ‘when a man shall sell his daughter as a maidservant.’  He is still not released until he borrows with interest, as it says, ‘when your brother falls low and stretches his hand toward you,’ and juxtaposed to this is ‘do not take from him extortion and interest.’  He is still not released until he sells himself, as it says ‘when your brother falls low and is sold to you,’ and not even to you but to a convert, and not even to a sincere convert but to a tenant convert, as it says, ‘to the tenant convert, the convert family,’ this means a heathen.  When it says ‘or to a barren one,’ this refers to one who has been sold to idolatry itself.” 

These are the remarks of the midrash.  Rashi says furthermore (26:1): “ ‘Do not make for yourselves idols’ refers to one who is sold to a heathen, that he should not say, ‘since my master is incestuous, also I will do as he, since my master serves idols, also I will do as he, since my master desecrates Shabat, also I will do as he,’ for this reason these texts were said.”  So much for the human circle.

 Should you say, there is no connection between the micro and the macro, Rashi joins the macro cycle to this: “And these chapters too were written in order: In the beginning it [the Torah] warned of the seventh year.  And if he coveted money and was suspected of working the land on the seventh year, he will ultimately sell his movable goods, therefore it juxtaposed ‘and if you shall sell a salable thing. (What does it say there? ‘Or bought from the hand of your friend,’ etc. meaning a thing that is bought from hand to hand.)  If he has not repented, ultimately he sells his estate.  If he has not repented, ultimately he sells his home.  If he has not repented, ultimately he borrows with interest.  In all of these, the latter are more difficult than the former.  If he has not repented, ultimately he sells himself.  If he has not repented, he does not suffice with being sold to a Jew, but even to a heathen.”

 “What does shmita have to do with Mount Sinai?”  With these words, Rashi opens his interpretation of Parashat Behar.  Lilamedcha - to teach you that the mitsva of shmita (the lead mitsva in all the mitsvot hatluyot ba’arets) expresses how man relates to all the mitsvot – that all things depend on how man relates – that how man relates to the earth is part of how he relates to heaven, of how he relates to his fellow human beings, and of how he relates to himself.  It is man who moves the cybernetic cycle along its circular track, from the earth to man, and from man to God, from God to the earth, and so on.

 On the path the Torah has paved, man steps surely, along a circular track, from the center, moving outward.

 Shabat and Bet HaMikdash

 Shabat is the track of time. 

Bet HaMikdash is the track of space, the encounter between heaven and earth, their joining in a cybernetic circle that embraces heaven and earth. 

“ ‘Shabat is weighed against all the mitsvot’: They are hinting that all the mitsvot are included in Shabat and the Mikdash.  And a well-learned person will understand this.” (Ramban)  Both are cycles, as we have said.  One is in space, and one is in time, and both have man at their center.

 The sanctity of the mikdash exists on its own, independent of man.  The sanctity of Shabat too is independent; it is not determined by man.  Yet the day is not sacred unless man upholds the sacredness of the day.  So too with the mikdash.  Desecration of the mikdash and desecration of Shabat both result from man.  “Those who desecrate it – shall surely be put to death.  (Shabat)  “The stranger who approaches will be put to death.” (Mikdash)

We see here that the value of a supreme authority, of an absolute, is what determines the relationship between man and reality, man and himself, man and his fellow, and man and his God.  This is not an anthropocentric approach but rather a theocentric approach based upon an axis of man-heaven.  So with Shabat and so with the Mikdash: They are values that determine an absolute dimension that fixes the axis of the circle; whether the circle of man, the circle of the universe, or the circle of creation.

Parashat Behukotai:

Cybernetic Circle: Inner and Outer

(Gavra and Heftsa: “Being”, in Torah, and “doing”, in fulfilling the Torah.)

The Toil of Torah
 

“If in My laws you will walk, and my mitsvot you will keep.”

“ ‘If in my laws you will walk:’ Could this mean fulfillment of the mitsvot?  When it says ‘and my mitsvot you will keep’, we see that fulfillment of the mitsvot has already been said.  If so, in what way can I fulfill ‘if in My laws you will walk’?  That you will be toiling in Torah.”  (Rashi)

Or HaHaim:

“It can be further explained according to what they– of blessed memory – have said that permission is given to learners of Torah to interpret it and to investigate it along many roads and paths.  A student can innovate in his investigation of the scriptures as much as the scripture is able to bear, and as far as his hand is able to reach in his Torah.  God commanded here, by His saying ‘if in My laws’ which is the Torah, ‘you will walk’ in its orchard of proliferating meanings, that this is conditional upon ‘and my mitsvot you will keep’.  Meaning that you will not put a non-halachic face on the Torah; that you will not call the impure pure.  ‘And you will do them,’ you not call the pure, impure.  This is the meaning they – of blessed memeory – intended, in their saying: (Sanhedrin 99)   Whoever puts a non-halachic face on the Torah has no part in the world to come...”

It is as their saying in Sota: ‘Torah shields and shades from yetser hara...even at a time that one is not occupied with it, it shields and shades...but only if they learn lishma...”

“It can be further explained according to their words, of blessed memory, in Mishnat Hasidim: (Avot 3:17)   ‘Anyone whose wisdom is more abundant than his actions...’  This refers to keeping the mitsvot, that his wisdom should not be more abundant than his actions, and that is why it juxtaposed the mitsva of preoccupation with Torah to ‘and my mitsvot you shall keep and do them...’”

“Every single mitsva that is not accessable, when a man learns that mitsva in the Torah, it is considered as though he had done it, ...and it is not I only give reward for the thought.’”  (Absurd...)

“It also wished to convey – according to what they have said, of blessed memory (Suca 45) that there are three ranks among sublime people.  The first – those who look into a glass that is not lit, the second – those who look into a glass that is lit, and the third – those who ascend without permission.’  And I have interpreted the passage (in Iyov3:19) according to this approach: ‘Small and great are there, and a slave free of his masters.’  ‘Small’ is the one who looks into a glass that does not illuminate, as in the mystery of the smaller luminary.  ‘Great’ is the one who looks into a glass that illuminates, as in the mystery of the greater luminary, and ‘a slave free of his masters’ is the one who goes up without needing permission.  For God Who is his masters has given him the freedom to come and go at will.  And I do not know how this great honor is attained.  To this end, His Word comes, be He blessed, for He has said: ‘If in my laws you will walk,’ meaning by means of the effort of Torah as is needed to attain this.  Then you need no permit to walk.  Rather you, on your own, walk without permission.”  (Or HaHaim)

Or HaHaim goes on to attribute eternity, ascension to heaven, and victory over death to the merit of dealing in Torah.  “You see that according to the value of those who possess Torah, they are able to go to the supreme world whenever they wish and desire to go, despite the fact that their time has not come, and the king has not sent for them, and this is what they meant by, ‘if in my laws,’ meaning as the result of my laws in which you are toiling, you are under your own authority.  If you wish to go – go...”  Ahd kahn leshon  Or HaHaim

Gadol mairaban shmo...

This taking liberties, this freely entering the king’s chamber without permission, may perhaps be understood as the eved lifnei rabo, the slave who comes before the king, in contrast to the minister who comes before the king.  The king’s response to his slave requires none of the airs that he must put on before his minister, since the substance of a slave is that he is no substance in himself, he has no existence that is separate from the king, no substance that requires boundaries when relating to the king.  The slave belongs to the king.  There are no defined forms of appropriate relating.  The slave occupies the category of a heftsa, an object of the royal property.

Torah’s toil: “One who puts himself to death in the tent of Torah” turns into the Torah itself – the Torah is his, Torah dilay.  B’Torato yehegeh.  “In his (own) Torah, his thoughts probe day and night.”

For this reason, his hidushim are accepted, because his Torah innovations derive from his pnimiut, his inward being, which has become, itself, a source of Torah: “My heart tells me so.”  “Your Torah is inside my intestines.”

(Here we can discern two kedushot.  There is the kedusha of “ascending God’s mountain,” and there is the kedusha digvulin, of boundaries, which is not discernible in a sacred place but in a sacred human being, who has attained kedusha through toiling in Torah.)

“In what way can I fulfill ‘if in My laws you will walk’?  That you will be toiling in Torah.”  (Rashi) 

If you say, this refers to devotion and dvaikut to God, how does it differ from any other devotion and dvaikut required of God’s servant in all other areas of mitsva fulfillment? 

Would it occur to anyone that there is any bit of mitsva fulfillment that is not determined by the quality of human involvement, by the extent to which God’s servant identifies with what he is doing, as he toils in the act of mitsva?

Here we move to the promise of reward: “I will give your rains in their time.”  “And the earth shall give its yield.”  Is this bracha here, or is it s’char mitsva? 

I find it astonishing:  What reward could “the one who puts himself to death in Torah’s tent” possibly need.  He clings to the Torah.  He identifies with it to the point that he nuls all his existence’s needs before it. 

As for the Ramban, why so extreme?  “For with this [that the land will be blessed as a reward for Torah toil] a human being will never be sick, and they will never have among them anyone whose child dies or who is barren, neither they nor their livestock, and their days will be filled, for in that the bodies are great and healthy, they shall last as long as the days of man, and this is the greatest of all Brachot.”

The Ramban’s opinion on Rapo yerapeh should be mentioned in this context:

 “They did not say that permission was given to the sick one to be healed, but rather, since he fell sick, and came to be healed, because he dealt in cures, and was not of those of the congregation of God whose portion is in life, the doctor should not restrain himself from practicing medicine, neither because of the concern that he might die in his hand, for after all he is expert in that craft, nor because he would say, God alone heals all flesh, because medicine is already the custom.  However, when God is pleased with a man’s ways, he has no dealings with doctors.” (26:11)

It is a simple rule: “When Yisrael will be whole, and many, their affairs will not follow nature at all, neither in their body nor in their land, neither in their general public nor in the individual among them.”  All this transpires through nes nistar.

This brings us to a basic principle in the toil of Torah:  Being occupied with Torah is different from being occupied with the general body of mitsvot, in that the  learner is immersed in it, rosho v’rubo, through the involvement born of identifying – to the point that nothing remains of him in terms of ego.  His all – everything of him – becomes an expression of original, Godly “I”,  to the point that no vestige of nature exists in him.  He solely and entirely inhabits the category of miracle.  He is outside of the restrictions of nature, which demand the toil of existence and the trevail of survival.  The learner deeply immersed in the labor of Torah thwarts survival. He is not preoccupied with it at all.

According to the law of equilibrium, to the extent that “I”’s toil intensifies, the troubles of survival recede and diminish, and with them the natural restrictions of physical matter.  This is how to understand the blessing of the land, which won the title, “greatest of all blessings” from the Ramban:  The restrictions of physical matter will not apply to the one who is toiling – who is immersed in Torah, for he himself, in his glory is turning into  a miracle.  His inner and his outer are merging in the Torah:  From subjective, he is becoming objective; from a relative being, he is becoming an absolute being. 

Earthly restrictions do not apply to this toiler, nor even heavenly restrictions.  He is like the slave freely entering the innermost chamber.  No restrictions apply to him; he needs no permission from the king. 

Here we derive that the Torah learner is granted the permission (the obligation) to create and innovate, meaning to personally express his own sensation of learning, which has become his most natural sensation, purged of the dross of ego and the harassments of survival.

An “I” that has been freed of ego by labor of Torah study, finds its own natural expression through personal feelings, through uniquely original emotions, sensations, and insights.  One thus enters the category of hidush shel kol talmid vatik, “innovation by any senior, experienced student.”  By toiling in Torah, he finds his own private place in the Torah – his own “vale in which to create his shelter.”

The one who merits Torah, is initiated into the brotherhood of truth’s “message passers.”  These are messengers – heaven-sent to teach truth to those who truly seak Torah.  Nature’s physical restrictions do not apply to them.  They enter the category of “live miracle.”  They are not restricted by survival’s conditions, nor by anguish nor by suffering, all of which limit human knowledge.  In such people is the verse is fulfilled: “If not for your Torah, my play...”

We may be seeing here the geder anava. This is the category of humility – which is not exactly the same as the mida of humility.  Geder anava is an objective condition of Godly presence, in human incarnation.  It is characterized by  extreme purity and clarity, clean of any personal involvements of selfishness or survival or kina, ta’ava, v’kavod.  Anava – humility as an objective condition – is a glimmer of “I”, a momentary flash that reveals the inner nucleus of Godly quality that is in a human being, that creature that can be “like an angel-messenger at some moments,” to borrow the pure-gold phraseology of the Hazon Ish.

This is not to be confused with the mida of anava, the character trait of humility, which is human behavior on its ladder of rungs, a trait that characterizes a person who makes the effort to work on his midot.  Humility is just one of the midot he works on, being one amoung many of human character traits.

As distinct from the mida of anava, there exists a geder anava – as an example, and as a behavioral model.  This model does not impose itself on man.  Anava in its human incarnation entails a condition.  One who enters into it loses his existential being – to the point of a complete cancellation of his egocentric being.  One cannot exist in this condition for any length of time, for this condition is purely spiritual, lacking the necessary conditions for earthly existence.

Nevertheless, a person who wins a glimpse into this palace of anava  gains a new dimension of truth in the way he perceives his own existence.

(These words were spoken as we followed Rav Michel Feinstein, ztsvk”l, prince of Torah in our generation, on his last earthly journey.)

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