Parashat Ki Tisa

Rav Haim Lifshitz

Essays and Articles:

Go to Hebrew site

The Danger of Separating

"Focus" from "Encompass"

 Translated from Hebrew by S. NAthan

l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai

The Ohr HaHaim explains: “The worship would be to a part of the whole, and then it would be as though they were worshipping the whole, and the part would go before them, and would answer for that which had been taken from it by the sin of the Calf.  And it did not seem bizarre in their eyes, for after all there is in man a part of God from on high, but since man’s composition is not made of lasting stuff, the spirit returns to God.  Therefore they were being clever by making a thing that would draw supreme power into a thing that was of a lasting nature, so that it would be found always before them.  Never at any point did they uproot anochi – “I am God,” etc.  They said: “These are...’”

People seem to be divided between “focusers” and “encompassers.”  The tendency to focus gropes in the darkness of reality, and its adherents feel they must grope through an endless mass in order to find the jewel lost therein.  All else is pushed aside, for the sake of almost nothing at all:  “All of this has no worth for me...” says the focuser, obsessed with his single-minded goal, ignoring the rest of the universe and all its values.  Man as a human value is considered worthless to the point of insult, in comparison with that one mechanical point of focus, that one abstract concept, or that one localized drawing point that attracts his sensuality now at this very moment, or any other specific egocentric factor that is in his immediate existence. 

Such a person is at best willing to address the issue of fear of punishment, and perhaps even fear of sin, but certainly not fear of heaven.  The broad encompassing scope of ahavat Hashem is too much for him.  At best he will choose love of man, not in the abstract sense, but rather love of a specific person.

The encompassing tendency bypasses details, swims in the endless waters of words and more words, revels in the fragrance of rhetoric, and relates to it as though it were a tangible reality.  Discourse on ideals imbues the encompasser with a feeling of heroism and a belief in all-embracing solutions to specific localized problems.

The attitudes toward religion of these two tendencies are as different as one extreme is to the other.  The focuser resembles the “single craft artisan” of whom the Ramban testifies that “never has anyone bested me except a single craft artisan.”  All his life he is discovering his enslavement to his Creator by way of a single central mitsva that he adopts permanently to himself.  The focuser does not have the ability to relate to the Creator of the universe, but rather only to his commandments, and not to all of them as mentioned, but rather only to one, and by way of this one he expresses his love and his awe.

Within that mitsva he also discovers his creative niche.  If he is blessed with creative talent he will produce new and innovative refinements upon that mitsva.  If he is practically oriented, he will stake out his holding in this mitsva, seek out improvements to it, and increase its strictures and its restrictions without limits other than those set by his own fertile imagination.

In short, he requires a focus upon a tangible object.  What does his sort have to do with the vastness of creation?  He finds no pleasure in the exquisiteness of the creation or in its marvels.  He does not sense the wonders of the Creator “who renews in His goodness every day always the primal act of creation.”  Out of the marvelous poetry of Tehilim, he suffices with the psalms of thanks and requests that are close to his heart.

Haval al d’avdin, “what a shame about those who are lost to us,” but this one’s heart is sealed shut to the glories of “barchi nafshi,” that poem of rapturous praise embracing man and universe.  He only recites it out of the prayer book, on the days that he is required to recite it, but his heart is not in it.

The encompasser feels strangled by the narrow horizons of mechanical expression that are forced upon him “har k’gigit.”  His heart and his imagination go forth to great trials and great victories that embrace endless vistas.  The absolute hovers over his thoughts.  Anything less is paltry in his eyes.  Life’s problems do not concern him, and the fulfillment of mitsvot, with all their details and exactitudes appear to him to be unbearably trying.  Mysticism and the unknown he feels to be the highest peak a believer can attain.  Delving into the experiential flow of Abayai and Rava he finds picayune and uninspirational, for someone possessing so lofty a spirit as he.  He must preoccupy himself with the ultimate universals, with the final redemption, with the future – while ignoring the present.  The nation of Yisrael is more important to him than Reb Yisrael, standing in front of him and needing his help.

From all that has been said above it appears that the Torah is not to be found in either place, neither in the former’s pocket nor in the latter’s lofty, all-embracing imagination.  The great challenge facing God’s servant is joining these two opposites into one solid whole.  Lulay d’mistafina, I would view the breaking of the luhot as a punishment (an educational one of course, as is the Torah’s way, for its punishments are all steeped in the hesed of educational purpose, and are meant to open the eyes of the blind) for detaching the two tendencies from one another.  Why were the luhot given as two?  To teach you to never separate them, despite the fact that on one tablet the vast and encompassing principles and imperatives were engraved, and on the other, in parallel to the first, were engraved the imperatives that address specifically localized behaviors. 

When Moshe descended the mountain, he realized that his absence had created a rift between the two sides.  The encompassers continued to believe in God, and even to believe in Moshe, His servant, but as an ideal, as a symbol.  However they had neglected the specific, localized commandments and prohibitions.  Thus they found themselves involved with an immediately occurring reality, loaded with momentary stimulations, which the encompassers attributed to the concealed forces whose vast arms embrace the universe, and therefore fell straight into the arms of witchcraft and meaningless symbolism.

In het ha’egel, the sin of the Calf, the two divided parties were each doubly smitten.  Among the encompassers, the Calf was a symbol, a representative of all-encompassing reality.  The Golden Calf, in their eyes, was seen enveloped in a halo that radiated all the primal powers of primeval creation, that expressed all the tangibility that man would address.  If you could succeed in riding upon its back, you would be lifted upon its wings to reach the highest heights of the universe, and if you were truly fortunate, you would be privileged to touch the hem of God’s own mantle!  Just so, and without any need for the wearying fatigue of the desert journey:

“These are your gods O Israel who have brought you up (!) from the land of Egypt,” and they will bring you to the promised land.  And it is not just any symbol at all, but indeed a symbol that is truly heart-warming, that has inspirational qualities, that rises above the reductiveness of the focusers...

...who saw in the Calf a specifically localized medium, that one could tangibly grab hold of, for after all a religion that lacked a specifically localized tangible element would be inconceivable.  A calf that ate grass, at grass-height, was a tapestry spread across the face of reality, in rich and living color and flower – a veritable feast for the senses.  Here was a true and Godly religion, that addressed physical matter as it should, that gave it rich and exciting color.  “Moshe the man.”  It was not as the shluha d’rahmana – “the Compassionate One’s messenger” that they perceived him, but as the shliah tsibur, the messenger of the congregation, who could be related to as the one who makes the connection between them and God.  The moment he left them, they lost their minds, for he eluded them all, to soar far above their height, to enter a hidden space they could never reach, where no man could discern what his will was, for he was without a body and without even the image of a body.  He had left a vacuum in his wake which they felt had to immediately be filled, if even with the most paltry replacement, with anything tangible at all, even if it was no more than holding on to the tail of a calf that ate grass...

Kidush hahomer, the sanctification of physical matter is the attainment that connects these two opposite camps.  Let it be known: There is no flaw in focus, and nevertheless a person’s personal and spiritual level is tested by the extent of his ability to encompass and to correctly place specifically localized principles within an encompassing milieu that embraces cycles of reality that are as far from the center as they can possibly be.  Yet all of this is only on condition that they not be separated from one another, that they join together to become one tree – Ephraim and Yehuda joined. 

If these two polarized tendencies are in such need of one another, one must wonder how they could turn their backs on one another so totally, how they could deny their mutual need for completion.  It seems that this can be attributed to the brutal nature of creation’s components, when they are not guided by a supreme authority.  It is the supreme authority that grants them the dimension of height and meaning and content and mainly, that brings them into a framework whose structure is homogenous, in which every natural force discovers its own place, and its own specific role in the creation.  The poet of Tehilim gives this need a lyrical dimension in perek 104, Barchi Nafshi et Hashem, “Bless God, O my soul,” the chapter in which the God’s worship by the titanic forces of nature and all of its creants is described.

Kedusha as a quest and as a goal – sanctity as destiny – is able to cancel out the survival mechanism feature in the components of creation, placing before each of them instead its own unique destiny, its own specifically localized role, through which it merges into the all-encompassing order of things.  In the all-encompassing order, each component’s quality is granted a unique rank, which endows it with self-awareness, as well as recognition of its own place in relation to the other powers that encompass it.

The quest for kedusha is thus basic to any solution of the survival instinct phenomenon – which emerges from the vacuum like a thief in the night.  The vacuum is experienced as a sense of detachment, as a lack of belonging.  It occurs with every one of creation’s components, the moment that component fails to find its place within a structure possessing the dimension of height.

Kedusha therefore fulfills a vital need, without which the creation would not be lasting.  There would be no likelihood of continuing stability.  Two-dimensional encounters create a negative dynamic which destroys both sides, creating a negative energy which is em kol hatat, the forebear of all sin. 

A person’s natural reaction, when reacting out of his blind survival instincts, is to attempt to eliminate the adversary.  If this attempt proves unsuccessful, he attempts to escape into himself, to create for himself a dimension of height of his own making.  Escaping into himself, he thus finds himself losing his way in the thickets of mysticism, having no mesila la’yesharim, no path for the honest and straightforward which would bring him to the high places, from which he could gaze down with a clear and lucid view upon his life and his existence.

The sin of the Calf sharpens the problem of the three-dimensional structure from all three of its perspectives.  According to the first camp, the egel, the Calf is perceived as property (gold) as a device of power capable of assuring one of victory over one’s adversaries.  According to the second camp, the egel is perceived as a place of shelter and haven which would land ultimately on safe shores, which would help them inherit the Promised Land without any effort on their part.  These two camps do not constitute any threat to truth, but rather only an existential threat to those who believe in them, the bitter end of which eventually opens their eyes.  It is the third camp which endangers the eternal destiny of God’s people.  The seduction of substitutes: “These are your gods, O Yisrael.”

Distorted spirituality is the threat, the ambush that lies in ominous wait for God’s people.  The people of Yisrael are not apprehensive of existential dangers.  Traveling a long road paved with disasters, a road which all the other nations barely began to tread before they immediately and permanent collapsed, the Jewish people has proven that ka’asher ya’anu oto ken yirbeh v’chen  yifrotz, “the more they afflict it, the more it increases and the more it bursts forth.”  From every disaster it has come forth strengthened and increasingly re-strengthening.  It is the spiritual threat that has always been its downfall, and therefore Moshe’s anger burned against them – Moshe, their spiritual leader.  The very fact that the nation viewed him as a social leader, a political leader, Moshe ha’ish, “Moshe the man,” rather then as a spiritual leader whose task was to bring them entry into the spiritual space that is tahat kanfei hashechina, created  the need for Moshe’s aura of splendor, his halo, in which “the skin of his face radiated,” as a rebuttal to this perception. 

The Torah does not stipulate concessions, nor does it beckon invitingly to the hearts of believers.  Rather it demands and it expects of the believer a total relating, which encompasses his entire heart, soul, and capacity.  It demands of him also a genuine focus upon all of his existence’s needs in this world, through a process of drafting all possible resources for the sake of the Godly presence.  Also, and obviously, the Torah demands spiritual expression.  This includes yearning for redemption, both personal and universal, both in the present and in the future.  It includes longing for dvaikut to the  Godly presence through the exclusive exercise of one’s value-based qualities, and through their crystallization into one coveted spiritual ideal whose power is such as to push aside any inclusion of other ideals that might accompany the experience of existence.

For this reason, all of the above seems a terribly heavy burden to bear, for those people who play both ends against the middle, who try to suffice with “making peace” by making concessions to the enticements of the immediate moment.  Conceding in every direction, their very bodies are eventually parceled out, to be divided among the conflicting interest groups of existence.

“And they rose up to make sport:” These are the pursuers of comforts, who exult when the powers seem to split apart.  They believe that they are men of peace, for they resist no pressure.  They believe that by willingly renouncing the purity of shlaimut they guarantee themselves a life free of the yoke of Torah and mitsvot.  The joy of wanton pragmatism, the life of egoism, disconnected from any commitment to purpose, any dimension of height, any of the yoke of the practical mitsvot.  Some of them prefer the spirit without the deed, others the deed without the spirit.

Means and Ends

Dividing things into means and ends: Those focusers upon blindly mechanical execution turn ends into means.  The doing is its own purpose.  A Judaism that is not careful about the covering of the head, that neglects the dimension of height, is turned instead into a Judaism that is all covering and no head.  A great hat is pulled down to cover the eyes and ears of the focuser, who loses all sense of direction.  This focuser, through a process that is not guided by any supreme authority, passes all too soon to the other extreme.  In the wake of stifled emotion and spirit, he runs into the arms of the all-encompassing spiritualists, who are totally detached from practical action, who stare into the vastness of infinite space and ride the wings of mystical imagination.

The Torah does not contain any division between means and ends, as is known, and therefore the trap of “the ends justifies the means” does not lie in ambush for the complete believer, though this trap is to be found in every system of idealism that is two dimensional, that lacks a supreme authority.

In the absence of a supreme authority, the believer himself is turned into the power that determines his own being.  Sooner or later he has a dream in which a miraculous power is vested in his hands, the rod of God.  Through this he is transformed, in his dream of egoism, into a hero and a savior, working miracles by his word, immersed in sweet dreams peopled by the charmed heroes of his childhood, which refuses to give way to serious, responsible adulthood.

In moments of distress mainly, belief in God turns into belief as a tool of power that is given over into the hands of the believer.  Thus avoda zara rears its snake-like head, emerging suddenly out of the ego to conquer the territory of one’s personal sense of existence.  Thus a believer turns into a brute-force, wonder-working instrument.  Thus a human being turns into a brute-force Calf, or into the gullible servant of the brute force Calf in another person: The guru/baba, and his flock of believers.  The encompasser turns into a baba, and the focusers turns into his gullible followers.

A complete believer senses his own ability to correct matters, and even “to cause the evil of the decree to pass,” but not through his own power.  Rather, he can bring all this about by the very fact that plants his own distress on the ground of the Godly Presence.  This ground has saturated with his tears.  The cup of his tears has been filled through his joining the camp of those who believe truly, of those who stand before the omnipotent Creator of the universe knowing their own paltriness and  their own emptiness, yet pleading to be allowed to continue to serve their Possessor.

In this way existential distress is turned the distress of the believer whose whole and single ambition is to continue in God’s service.  He does not request brute power, not his enemies’ obliteration, but the removal of God’s enemies from his path.  “And Hana prayed over God,” “For over you we have been killed all the day,”  “God for Your saving I have hoped,” prayers for the sake of kidush shem shamayim,  that heaven’s name be sanctified.  The one who prays thus does not believe that it is in his power to obliterate his own distress.  Yet he believes and trusts that the Creator of the universe, and He alone, has the power to do so, l’ma’an shmo hagadol, for the sake of His great name.

There is however only a slight step separating the believer who falls into ego’s trap from the believer in the total goal.  The first sees himself as a goal (to be all-powerful) while the second sees himself as a responsible participant in kidush shem shamayim.  With the first, ego is at work.  With the second, “I” has moved into the center of the arena.

 Go To Top