Parashat Matot-Masei

Rav Haim Lifshitz

 

 

 

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AVENGING GOD'S VENGEANCE?
OR
AVENGING ISRAEL'S VENGEANCE?
WHY THE AMBIGUITY IN THE TEXT?


“THEY TRAVELED ... AND THEY CAMPED.”

PERMANENCE AND CHANGE

Rav Ze'ev Haim Lifshitz


 

 Translated from Hebrew by DR. S. NAthan

l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai
L'ILUI NISHMAT MAYER HIRSH BEN LAIBEL

 

 

Non-dependent love – “the love that depends on nothing” – derives from the self, from that “part of God from on high” within the human personality.  Such love does not recognize limitations of space and time, nor does it recognize hatred, envy or vengeance.  When love is dependent, on the other hand, when love does “depend on something else”, then one is self-centered.  Such egocentric love merely expresses one's own sensations, the sensations aroused in oneself by the presence of the object of one’s love. 

 

Arabic love songs go to great lengths to describe the lover’s feelings of rapture and suffering.  There is no admiring description of the object of their love.  Their love is a possessive one: Anyone who harms the object of their love arouses their animalistic survival mechanisms – their hatred, jealousy and revenge – brute force instincts in all their ugly nakedness.  Fear and anxiety are described, and rage at the threat, at the sensation of the iminence of loss of a beloved piece of property.

 

Love of this sort can be categorized under “the lovingkindness of the nations is sin.”  Christian love literature as well focuses on the sensations of the lover, all the while ignoring the object of love.  This love ends in the death of the lover, who reaches a condition of self-nullification, self-torment, and the agonies of longing – which are eventually transformed into hatred of the love object, and/or of the  environment that interferes with love, that threatens to snatch away the love object that is perceived as the private property of the lover.

 

No love exists outside of the human boundary, just as there is no love that is true, no “love that depends on nothing” anywhere within the boundaries of ego.  Only the self can love – through transcending the boundaries of its abilities.   One who loves the “love that depends on nothing” grows greater and rises higher through his love, which he discovers to be the direct and ultimate expression of the Godly element within him.

 

This element is the element of infinite quality.  Love is the expression of the Godly in man.  Its source is in the Divine.  Love of God arouses love of man who is created in His image, who is the Godly Presence found in tangible reality.  Therefore  the love of man, when it is sincere and altruistic, leads one on the march toward the Godly track.  Love of man brings to love of God, and love of God is expressed by love for those who are created “in His image and according to His likeness.”

 

This love does not retain bodyguards from survival’s kingdom of darkness - such as jealousy, revenge, and hatred.  One who loves God may experience sorrow.  He will then express his sorrow by jealousy for God, through jealousy for the people of Israel, who constitute the real-world expression of the Godly Presence.  God’s revenge against Midian does not deal with Midian at all as a goal.  Its goal is rather the repair of a flaw that has formed – within an otherwise perfect state of Godly kedusha –  as a result of sin.

 

Dealing with the repair of the Godly Presence is the polar opposite of dealing with man’s negative dimension, which cultivates ego’s survival instincts, which is weighted with feelings of destructiveness such as jealousy, revenge and hatred.  Moses therefore changed nothing at all of God’s imperative to avenge Israel against Midian [by instructing Israel to avenge God] in that he saw no substantive difference between avenging God and avenging Israel.  Both draw from the source of sanctity and neither contains any trace of hate. 

 

In order to teach this lesson, Moses makes it clear to the people of Israel that avenging Israel is the equivalent of avenging God.  It is the act of avenging a quality that is all entirely sanctity, drawn from sanctity’s source.  A related distinction can be drawn through the difference between a dispute for the sake of Heaven and a dispute that is not for the sake of Heaven.  The latter is directed at a person while the former deals with an issue.   The latter hates and the former is involved in repair.

 

They traveled – and they camped...”

 


Tractate Brachot 17:  “The following saying was regularly heard from the [Talmudic] masters at Yavneh:  ‘I am a human creature and my friend is a human creature.  I - my work is in the town.  He, his work is in the field.  I rise early to my work and he rises early to his work.  Just as he would not take over my work, so I would not take over his work.  And lest you will say I do much and he does little, we have taught:  It is all the same, whether one does much or does little, as long as he directs his heart toward heaven.’”

 

Rashi: “And lest you might say, ‘He is only right that he does not take over my work, for were he to try to grasp my art, he would not have a heart open enough to accomplish as much in Torah as I do, and therefore he would ultimately do little - and he would have no reward.’  Thus we have taught:That there is reward for the one who does little - just as much as for the one who does much.’”

 

From the simple meaning of the Gemara it appears that everyone has his own path in God’s service.  One with Torah and another with activity in some other mitsva – each according to his own talents, as long as each directs his heart to an awareness that his work is for heaven’s sake. 

 

Along comes Rashi and overturns the plain meaning of this Talmudic text, moving it from one extreme to its opposite extremeHe is telling us: You may not say, let everyone be satisfied with his own work.  Let the gifted alone deal in Torah, and whoever has not been endowed with gifts of intelligence is exempt from the study of Torah.  Rather, also one who has not been granted a high intelligence is obligated to study Torah  to the best of his ability.

 

It is difficult to explain how Rashi appears to be overturning the explicit wording of the Gemara.  It appears that Rashi intens to teach us that involvement with Torah is the permanent occupation of every Jew per se`.  Every other involvement falls into the category of all things fleeting and temporary - activity that is appropriate to that moment alone.  Even one who is momentarily exempt from the study of Torah because he is involved in another mitsvah, let him not imagine that he is free of the obligation to study Torah.  Rather it is fit that pangs of conscience should torment him, and that he should long to learn as much as he possibly can.  This longing will preserve his connection to Torah.  He will then merit siyata dishmaya, Heavenly assistance, and be granted an increase of ability, talent, and time, to the point that he will become capable of actualizing his desire.

 

The Talmud’s innovative message here intends to convey that one should not make his work out of study and neglect the work for which he is suited, separating himself from it to learn Torah exclusively, but should rather occupy himself with his work on a regular basis and learn Torah as much as he possibly can.  For in such case, even his limited learning will enter the category of regular basis, and his work the category of temporary, as long as he directs his heart to heaven – that is, that he yearns and longs to learn Torah, and this longing will be counted for him as though he had learned, and it will be joined to his humble learning.  “Someone who thought about how to do a mitsva and then did not do it - Scripture considers him as if he had indeed done it.” (Brachot 6)

 

The root of the matter lies in one's subjective orientationThat personal connectedness, the personal bond that preserves man as a subjective entity – as a ‘micro’ of inner Godly Presence, as a “miniature universe” – connected constantly and substantively to the ‘macro’ of the Divine.  This connection is made up of the initiative of free choice, which has then awakened a personalized Divine Providence, hashgaha pratit.   Its essence lies in the value of the intention, the kavana.  “Anyone who learns the laws of sin offering - it is as if he has sacrificed a sin offering.”  Hence the importance of anticipation, of longing and yearning for attachment, for dvaikut to Torah - of viewing Torah as the real and true reality and all the rest of the unfolding of events as being merely the expression of the reality of the Torah. 

 

Reality is determined by the Torah's rules and the Torah's laws, in the sense of “He looked into the Torah and created the universe.”  The Torah is the creation – reality is only its soap bubble.  The human creature in the fields is required to view himself as being bound to the Torah no less than the human creature whose reality is the one of the Torah scholar, whose exclusive occupation is Torah study.  If he will see himself as being tied by his umbilical chord to the Torah, if he will yearn for it, in the sense of ‘when might this Scripture come to my hand, that I might learn it?’ If he will feel this way, then “the Scripture will consider him as if he had” indeed learned it.

 

This teaches us that a reality separated from Torah has no sustainable existence whatever.  “Whoever ceases from his study, forfeits his life,” for to cease, to sever from Torah, to make peace with an involvement that is separate from Torah, is to sever from the umbilical chord that is the vital source of his existence.

 

...teaching you that there is no material situation that is separate from a spiritual situation awaiting actualization.  This actualization is to be found within the framework of Torah, for which it serves as an expression.  Torah endows reality with permanence and realness.  All the rest is ephemeral.   The permanence of a thing is measured by its relationship to the Torah.

 

Yet, “anyone who says ‘I have nothing else but Torah’ – well, he does not have Torah either.”  Furthermore, why was the second Temple destroyed?  “Because they supported their views by the law of the Torah.” 

 

Rigidity is the negative side of permanence.  Insularity, an aversion for the new, an inability to see things with an open mind, these cause atrophy.  Routine sets in, with its standardized and mechanical performance of mitsvot, preventing  personal development, progress, and renewal.

 

“And they traveled” signfies the activity that imbues the state of rest, of Shabat, with currents of vitality.  Rest does not mean zero action, but rather the period of consolidation, the pause, when the raw materials that have streamed into it from the days of action - are crystallized.  “And they camped” in order to provide an interval, a space to pause between each Torah portion that had been taught to Moses, in order to digest what had been learned.  A human being’s thinking, like his body, requires rest, for digestion and  absorption.  People who are mentally obsessed evoke a physical imagery of someone eating without digesting - alternatively ingesting their food and vomiting it whole.

 

The Torah and the commandments are the containers that bestow meaning and value on the actions that unfold within their framework.  Everything that is outside of this framework – everything that is done as a response to the fleeting stimulus of the outside – as it comes, so it goes, and it leaves no mark.  "The wicked, in their own lifetimes, are called 'the dead'."

 

The Torah and mitzvahs contain a vitally dynamic aspect that derives from one’s wondering about them, from one's searching after their meaning, from one's conquering new horizons and including them within the framework of Torah and mitzvahs.  Hence kavana - the inner personal intention - required during prayer.  Perpetual kavana rises to its climax as the imbuing of kavana into life itself; life – that self-renewing fount of difficulties and problems that sprout anew every morning.    True kavana is defined as attributing these to aspects of serving God, and searching for the element of Godly Presence reflected in them.     

 

Tisha B’Av - The Ninth Day of the Month of Av

 

Whoever does not mourn over the destruction of the Bet HaMikdash [which took place on the ninth of Av] – it is as if the Temple was destroyed in his days.”  A personal connection to the historical destruction transforms the historical event into a permanent event of human existence, so that it is not left as a petrified fossil but rather becomes a living and vital happening.  Mourning, accompanied by the “afflictions,” according to the commandments specific to this day (fasting, etc.) gives  living tangibility to an idea, which then takes on personal realness clothed in flesh  and bone and sinew.  Whoever grants it mere historical value, through words alone, detached from the practical mitzvahs of this day, has abandoned it to the bookshelf of history.

 

Jacob had sought to dwell in peace, [but then] the rage about Joseph pounced upon him.”  Jacob reasoned that he had completed his public-historical role, and could now return to rest and repose; he could now make the transition from “they traveled” to “they camped.”  “Tsadikim, the righteous have sought to dwell in peace.  Says the Holy One to them: ‘Is it not enough for you that you dwell in peace in the next world?  You seek to dwell in peace in this world as well?’”

 

We see from this that the greater one’s quality grows, the more it prevents one from splitting, from dichotomizing into separate, antithetical components - such as private versus public.  It blurs such distinctions, to the point that the tsadik eventually belongs wholly to the public.  So with Jacob, and so with Moses who attempts to refuse his appointment as the savior of Israel.  “Send whoever else you might send.”  For a great human being, life is comparable to a long journey that knows no rest.  His private life - he hands over to the devoted care of the Creator of the universe.  Similarly with the father of the Jewish people: “Get yourself from your land and from your birthplace and from your father’s house.”  Hence the command to sacrifice his one and only son, his one and only private space.  For the sake of the public.  His wanderings prevent any conditions of privacy.  "Life on the road prevents fame and fortune and [family] children."  Therefore the Creator who sent him forth from his private home - sees to these things.  Abraham does not toil.  God’s blessing does what Abraham himself cannot do because of his duty.  Inner rest is attained by Abraham in merit of this blessing.  For the outer rest of atrophy and stagnation, he has no need.

 

A Reminder of Mourning, A Dream of Peace,

Teshuva-Repentance, Bitahon-Faith, and Hope

 

Bitahon is the point of encounter between past and future.  Confidence and faith in the road that one is traveling, as well as a genuinely felt anticipation for the test of the result.  Rest is the period of consolidation, of taking inventory, of introspection, of a return to the ideal situation of harmony between inner and outer – in which outer constitutes the exclusive and direct expression and actualization of inner, in which no external behavior is motivated by the passing stimulations of the outside, nor by any dependency upon the passing winds.

 

Openness to innovation and change, viewing these as the opportunity for an expression of creativity deriving from one’s inner being: This is the dream, opening the confines of the encampment to dimensions above and beyond limited reality.  The sages of the Talmud direct a worried gaze upon a man who has not dreamed for seven days.  They considered it a sign of a damaged connection with heaven!  Dreaming plays the role of digesting the new as well.  The new is changed in order to allow it to merge with the essential substance of the personality, to combine with the sedimentary layers of one's being that have settled previously, to form the foundations of the unique cup from which one drinks of one’s existence.

The merging of components is essential, else even desirable components become harmful.  Memory, for example, when detached from the future, becomes the first cause of depression.  When one’s past is not seen as a continuous line into the future, the backward glance shows one’s past to have been a mistake, a waste of time, an irreparable distortion – bereft of teshuva, of the possibility of repentance and repair

 

Teshuva is one of the optimistic foundations of Judaism, giving human beings the sense of their own ability to control a situation.  A sense that existence has been given over to human hands, a sense that there is a future, that there is hope in the merit of one’s openness to new horizons, to the possibility of coming forth from the narrow straits of distress.  Openness to new hope, to a better future, to new opportunities, to the actualization of abilities that have never been given expression in the past.

 

A dream as the cultivation of hope, as a new dimension, hovers as the Spirit of God above the water, an infinity beckoning invitingly to the  stuck present, trapped by space and time.  Woe to the one who has no dream.  His lot is doom and despair.  The dream is formed in the flowerbed of confidence and hope.  Crystallization creates the basis for the upward-soaring dash – towards the dream, towards the horizon, towards heaven.  “The corner of the tsitsit, of the fringed garment - is blue.  Blue resembles the sea.  The sea resembles heaven, and heaven resembles kisei hakavod, the Throne of Glory.”

 

Dvaikut, the concept of "attachment" to God, means identifying with one’s own Godly source, with one’s inner source of creativity, of renewal.  Of a better life – of life and love as a new creative work, produced by the creative self.  The more creative one grows, the more distant one grows from Survival System’s stranglehold of sorrow.

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