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Parashat Beshalah
Essays and Articles:
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Focusing on Reality As Opposed To Focusing on one’s Creator
Translated from Hebrew by DR. S. NAthan l'ilui
nishmat Esther bat mordechai
We referred to reducing the field of control by focusing on a limited point of concentration, at the end of our discussion of last week's reading, Parashat Bo. The need for control – which derives from the existential urge to survive – engenders a need to know one’s environment. This is the need that created science.
Research aims at certainty, certainty requires precision, and precision cannot exist in an undefined space. Utterly defined and utterly hopeless - such is the instrument of certainty, used to advance one’s goal of control, because certainty results in a reduction of the scope of control. One must search for the coin only in the small circle of light cast by one’s flashlight (because that is a place that is precise and well-defined) instead of searching in the place where the coin was lost.
The Torah recognizes the need for control. It is understood to be a vital existential need. To attain this end, the Torah offers a focus of concentration – in the direction of spiritual height – a focus upon one’s Godly source: Shma, “Hear, O Israel…God is One.”
This focusing on the dimension of morality/values, this attempt to refine the ability to discern good from evil, opens and expands one’s horizons, and liberates individuals from their tendency to focus on one specific point of existence, because a narrow focus renders the effort to gain control ever more ineffectual, eventually becoming a source of existential fears (claustrophobia) and all other phenomena of compulsive neurosis, all of which derive from the effort to limit one’s focus to a single point, empty of goal or purpose.
The Torah directs the focus of concentration so that it flows between height and depth, within the vastness of existence, as an axis along which flows the connection between a human being and his Creator.
Focus: Versus Flow:
The commentaries find these verses difficult: Do we not expect man to focus on crying out to his Creator during times of distress? “At that moment, Moses was going on at length, immersed in prayer. Said the Holy One to him: ‘My beloved ones are drowning in the sea, and you pray at length?’ Said he to Him: ‘Well, what should I do?’ Said He to him: ‘Tell the Children of Israel to travel on, and you, lift up your staff, and stretch forth your hand…” (Sota 37)
Rabi Yohanan said: ‘The angels wished to sing praise. The Holy One said to them: ‘My legions are in distress and you sing praise?’ As is written: ‘And the one did not draw near the other all that night.’ “And Moses said…: ‘What are we? Your complaints are not against us, but rather against God’s word.’ And they turned toward the desert, and behold, God’s glory appeared in the cloud.” (16:8-10)
Their complaints, their narrow focus on particulars - these narrow and reduce Israel’s ability to perceive the greater picture, i.e. to believe in the Creator, Who splits the sea for them, Who determines that the angels may not sing praise when they are in distress, Who appears in a cloud of glory. Their narrow focus requires broadening, or rather, they must learn to combine the narrow focus with the greater flow. Therefore the Children of Israel are taught about the Sabbath.
Sabbath as a metaphor: The sanctity of the Sabbath, the kiddush, is the sledgehammer blow. During the six days of the week, the sledgehammer is plummeting in its downward descent. On the Sabbath, the sledgehammer makes contact, arriving at its point of rest. Thus the Sabbath is the perfect combination of the broad flow of action and the intensive focus that brings action to a halt.
“Is there God within our midst, or is there not?” Disconnecting focus from flow blurs the very focus whose purpose is to express the flow. Sabbath is the reality that combines the positive commandment of kiddush and the negative commandment, the prohibition against creative labor. The positive commandment: Focus. The prohibition against labor: Flow – but a flow not disconnected from focus, but rather directly related to it.
Another example of the merging of focus and flow is the prohibition against berera, separating edible from non-edible foods – separating focus from flow.
During the weekdays, the danger of disconnecting the flow from the focus is a constant threat. Flow must express focus, yet how is this to be accomplished during the week? By acts of lovingkindness, performed for the sake of heaven: Flow expressing focus. This prevents internal contradiction. It prevents splitting the human intention apart from the intention for the sake of heaven.
It is the same with oneg Shabat, “Sabbath pleasure” – “meat, fish, and all delicacies.” The taste and the pleasure of the food constitute a flow with nature: The physical sensation of the palate expresses the spiritual sanctity of the Sabbath with no contradiction between them. This is the unique power of the Sabbath.
For the sake of heaven – focus – must pass through “for the sake of mitsva” – the practical/pragmatic flow of action. There is no contradiction when the focus is made to pass through the flow, and when the flow expresses the focus.
“And you shall tell your child on that day…so that you will remember the day of your leaving Egypt all the days of your life.”
Focusing on time is an error. Time is a rushing river, flowing with the rhythm allotted it by the Creator of the universe. It must behave according to the laws of nature.
Attempting to remember things that have been forgotten in the flow of time is hopeless because the focus becomes entangled with the flow, and opposites clash.
Focusing, trying to grasp the kernel of memory, is only effective for a moment. Then one must immediately let go of the subject, and instead of focusing on a specific time that has passed, allow oneself to flow with the flow of present awareness and reality. The process of memory will then already find its own path. Through flow, the memory will come to one, rather than through halting the flow.
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