Parashat VaYakhel-Pikudei

Rav Haim Lifshitz

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Kedusha:

The Third Katuv that Resolves the Contradiction of Existence

Rav Ze'ev Haim Lifshitz

 Translated from Hebrew by S. NAthan

l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai

Time and again the Torah repeats and specifies and itemizes the minute particulars of the Mishkan and its vessels, in the most precise and elaborate detail.  The mitsva of Shabat returns here as well, a short reminder of what was spelled out at greater length in Parashat Ki Tisa, where the main reasons for Shabat observance are listed.  Here in our Parasha the mitsva appears as a simple imperative.  It is an order; no explanation is given.  And once again the Torah mentions the donation of gifts that were given with such an excess of generosity by the people, to the extent that they had to be urged to cease: “Then the people restrained themselves from bringing.”

Betsalel too is granted a highly detailed description of his talents: He has been endowed with unique Godly wisdom: Hands’ wisdom, craftsmanship.  How does craftsmanship become a wisdom that derives directly from wisdom’s ultimate source?  You might say, it was art rather than craft.  Yet the Torah seems to be referring to a wisdom that derives from kedusha’s source, which is well above the inspiration of the artist, and certainly beyond the handiness of the craftsman.

Ama p’ziza, “impulsive nation,” is the term Hazal use to describe – without excessive admiration – the outburst of generosity that the Torah praises at such great length.  Twice the people of Israel merit the rather critical description ama p’ziza by Hazal, in such very different contexts that it is not reasonable to assume that this term is necessarily derogatory.  Rather, it meaning is surely positive and constructive.

The first time is at matan Torah, when they leap to put na’aseh, “we will do,” before nishma, “we will hear.”  The second time is here, where a comparison is made with their generosity for the Mishkan, and the excessive generosity they showed at het ha’egel, the sin of the Calf.   “They are called upon for the egel, and they give.  They are called upon for the Sanctuary, and they give.”  Plainly Hazal intend, as is the Torah’s way – for its educational goal is blatant – to interpret the second impulsiveness as a tikun, a repair and correction of the first impulsiveness.

By placing na’aseh before nishma, they were leaping into Torah’s waters – for Torah is compared to endless waters – without examining the nature of these waters, or the chain reaction that could develop from commitment to a life of Torah.  They did not delve into the Torah’s demands for a life of morality and sanctity in order to determine whether they were compatible with the needs dictated by natural law. 

Indeed soon enough a clash developed, between the tendency toward the tangible, toward the outer garments and the laws of matter that are intrinsic to existence, and the tendency toward the sublime and spiritual.  Materialism demanded a clearly defined tangibility, of human dimensions and within hand’s reach, at the depth of the dimensions of time and space, whereas the spiritual attempted to wrench itself free of the prison of physical matter, of the strangling perception of existence’s material needs. 

The sublime vision of matan Torah – where God’s reveals Himself on Har Sinai, where Moshe is the leader able to create an encounter between man and God which merges them as one, where a peak experience takes place, the like of which mankind has never experienced – all of this shrinks and shrivels away, to lose its infinite horizons and become a calf of gold and a mindlessly frenzied fools’ dance.  The participants are the very same creatures who were privileged to participate in the sublime encounter and the peak experience. 

Such mindless wantonness develops from contradiction, which harms the Godly image in man.  It is an insult to the spirit, which has been forced into the confines of coarse matter’s noose.

What is the nature of this p’zizut, this impulsiveness?  Is it not a close relative of ruah shtut, the spirit of idiocy which rests upon anyone who sins?  After all, “no man sins, unless a spirit of idiocy enters him.”  This means that the source of sin is not in human quality, but in the miserable encounter between opposites that have no chance of making contact and no point of common denominator. 

How amazing that this bizarre encounter is not to be found at the fringes of human existence, but rather at the very center of action.  No work of the devil, this, for it has obviously been planned and determined in advance, apparently by the Creator of man and universe.  Baffling indeed!

Breaking the luhot will not do.  It is inadequate to remedy this major stumbling block.  Breaking the luhot is meant to illustrate the crisis created by this painful conflict, a crisis that breaks existence itself apart.  It is meant to inform b’nei Yisrael: We cannot go on like this.  Ha’ikar hahser min hasefer.  “The main part is not in the book.”  Therefore the book alone cannot save you.

Do not pin your hopes on time’s process.  Do not imagine that you will gradually acquire the habit of living with contradiction for time heals all ills.  Time will not heal this one.  Do not depend on the dimension of height, floating somewhere up there in the lofty heights.  Kedusha must be brought back into life’s midst.  Man cannot unite two parallel lines when he himself is torn apart between sacred and profane.  He will ultimately conflict with both, to reap the rotten fruits of impurity mixed with purity, to live in a world of madly clashing urges that threaten to devour the image of God in man.

The religions’ attempt to make peace between the tracks of spirit and matter has produced rotten fruit – hypocrisy and self-delusion: All such pretense collapses the moment it is put to the test.  The Torah’s solution is to bring spirit over to physical matter’s track, doing away with two tracks that move along parallel lines that never meet, doing away even with the occasional points of incidental encounter, insisting instead upon a union of perfect d’vaikut between matter and spirit.

This is spirit with a tangible dimension, spirit that can be applied in the field, spirit that partakes of the vital power of existence, that partakes of the actualization of sense and feeling.  This is a warmly sensual spirit, that breathes life into dry bones.

A symbiosis such as this leaves no room for mindless frenzy leaping to and fro between tracks, throwing itself upon one track, forgetting, and alienating itself from the other track, which but a moment earlier, it considered the ultimate vision, being then ruled by that track.

Actualizing the spirit through physical matter: “And they will make me a mikdash, and I will dwell among them.”  A sanctuary made of human dimensions – twenty boards by ten, a table, a cabinet, a candelabra, things that normally serve mortals, will from now on also serve God’s sanctuary, so to speak, kivyachol, with all its details and specifications.  Nor will it be limited to household accessories, but even clothing will become a tool in service of sanctity.  Thus is formed the encounter that unites both tracks.

The secret of such kedusha is to be found in the brit kodesh, the covenant of the sacred, which is kedushat haShabat, Shabat’s sanctity.  In this brit kodesh, man is partner to his Creator, with both sides together keeping Shabat as a day of sanctity and of rest.  This is a whole and perfect rest, and not merely a vacuum devoid of labor.  In this rest is an accumulating of spiritual meanings and content – menuha as a vital source of inspiration for spiritual content, menuha as the actualization of kedusha, impenetrating kedusha into the six days of the work week.  Here the secular is suffused with sanctity, and enveloped by it from every side.

Betsalel: The Spirit of the Creator of Man is Granted to Creative Man.

The Torah does not choose the easy solution of garb and ornament, which for a particular application is used to represent kedusha.  The Torah has no interest in the clothing that masks, that covers the nakedness of materialism.  The Torah is interested in revealing the essences, in exposing the contents, the kernels of quality and their spiritual root, buried deep in the Godly soul of man. 

The Torah’s goal is to free man from the shackles of his physical existence and to direct him toward his creative ability, which is unlimited to a great degree.  Hence the urim v’tumim, a “garment” worn by the kohen gadol, pure mystery – the spiritual element that invited and activated “the level of ruah hakodesh, which is below prophecy and above bat kol,” as the Ramban expresses it in Parashat Tetsaveh. (28:30)

“Below prophecy,” which is granted only to the sublime human being, “and above bat kol,” which appears only when the occasion requires it.  Ruah HaKodesh is a phenomenon of connectedness, between superior man – when his superiority is the fruit of his own initiative of free choice, through activating the qualities that are at the root of his soul – and Hashgaha Elokit, Divine Providence, which comes as a response to the human initiative of free choice.  Ruah HaKodesh, then, is a Godly-human phenomenon that is the product of a partnership of covenant between God’s servant and the Master of the universe.

Ruah HaKodesh found its expression, par excellence, in the “spirit of wisdom” that rested upon Betsalel, the creator of the Mishkan and its vessels.  By pointing to this overflowing endowment of the spirit of wisdom, the Torah is pointing to man’s ability to choose the quality of his own existence, to choose a life of toil, of active initiative, and to determine his own fate thereby. 

This is in contrast to a man who, out of weakness, renounces his own ability to choose, leaving his own fate in the hands of chance, becoming a plaything in the hands of the conflicting forces of his existence. 

It is at such time that man turns into an existential contradiction.  In other words, existential contradiction is not a permanent pre-existing factor that one must never ignore and that one is obliged to take into account, if one would ever attempt to impose order upon one’s own existence. 

The Torah rejects this entirely.  The Torah as the foundation, as the formula, as the principle according to which the universe was created, clarifies in every possible way and by every possible means of clarification and elucidation, that the power of control is given over to the hands of man.  This is not merely a power to impose order among the many factors over which man has no control, but rather the real power to create his own situation with his own hands the moment he chooses to activate “I”, source of his uniquely creative quality, over and against ego, which is the focus of the conflicting forces of existence.

Dualism exists only as an option.  The double existence is to be found only in potential in man, as an ability to choose between two possibilities, two agendas, two tendencies, “sin lying at the opening.”  Meaning, there is no evil as an independent object to be found existing in creation – evil has no autonomous being.  Evil is a tendency lying between the two openings of the human heart.  Evil only interprets as ability.  Good’s ability to prevail against evil is also in man’s hands.  Above all, at the crest of power, is the ability to choose which of these is to be granted final decisive power, which of these is to become actualized into a tangible, real-world entity. 

There is a moment in which a man makes the choice to activate his own original qualitative potential, by which potential he has been differentiated as unique by the honen la’adam da’at, the One Who grants man the gift of wisdom.  At such a moment, ego’s tendency is transformed into an obliging servant whose duty it is to endow this new creation of good – freed now of the limitations of the material – with vitally material, vitally tangible realness.

Truth to tell, the man who does not make this choice, who turns himself over to ego’s hands, is committing suicide on a steep and thorny slope, on the tempest-tossed cliffs of war; this is the epic war between brute-force’s titans, where there are no winners. 

A war of the titans?  Certainly, for each force in existence has an opposite agenda.  Let a man satisfy half of his desires, the other half will pounce on him with contradictory demands.  Lust causes ailments, ailments arouse fears, fears create dependency, dependency brings lust, lust causes ailments, etc.  Pride brings one to enslavement, enslavement to hatred, and hatred to envy.  By your superior you feel insulted.  Towards your equal, you feel jealous.  Towards your inferior, you feel angry.  Ultimately you long for even a bit of tranquility, for a rest that is nowhere to be found in a brutal world where everyone is at war with everyone else.

While one’s soul is never satisfied by this existence of threat and limitation, the cup of one’s anguish is more than filled to the brim with one’s portion of suffering.  One is enveloped with longing for  a perfection that is to be found somewhere far beyond.  This is the longing for death that is felt by one wearied and disillusioned with life.  It creates, in the better case, a search for the truth, and in the worse case, depression and despair.

But let a man choose the challenge of creativity and suddenly life’s path spreads open before him, clear to the horizon.  “I” goes into action, its hands filled to bursting with talents – God’s blessing to him, as in Moshe’s blessing upon the completion of the work of the Mishkan: “And let God’s loveliness be upon us, and the work of our hands well-accomplished upon us,” etc. meaning our own creative ability: This in itself is God’s very blessing. 

The spirit of the Creator of man is granted to Creative man.  In this bracha the mystery of creativity is concealed, for its meaning is that one concentrates and channels a uniquely original ability, in the direction of an ideal that holds a spiritual-Godly value that is compatible with that uniquely original ability. 

As soon as creative ability goes into action, a paved road, free of obstacles, opens wide to personal redemption.  This is the road to self-actualization, and it does not have those wars with enemies that lie in ambush at every turn.  It does not have clash, conflict, and contradiction.  The war of existence disappears, and what appears in its place is an incessant effort to choose between the creative “I” and the survival tendencies.  This effort is entirely in man’s hands.  It is not dependent upon any given or unchangeable situation that one must make one’s peace with despite the conflict inherent in it. 

This is the bracha that the Creator granted Betsalel: The blessing of creativity.  Henceforth, it is given over into the hand of every creator who chooses a goal for himself, a goal that has been waiting for him with infinite patience from the first moment his soul descended into this lowly world – a world where free choice becomes creativity.

From all that has been said, it should be understood that creativity does not move from potential to actual until it connects with an ideal of kedusha that is compatible with it.  In this case, kedusha is not something hovering beyond existence, floating, detached, creating conflict, making one loathe the track of physical matter that one must travel, and bringing one into conflict with one’s own basic existence.  When creativity connects to an ideal of kedusha, it brings kedusha down and into the very midst of an existential situation, merges with it, and draws meaning from it which then becomes tangibility.  Thus are tools created, tools that are tashmishei kedusha, accessories of sanctity – a tangible encounter between Creator and created.

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