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Purim
Cultivating the Ability to
Make Distinctions:
Between the Sacred and the Secular;
Between the Pure and Impure;
Between Good and Evil
OR
False is Charm and
Futile is Beauty
Translated from Hebrew by DR.
S. NAthan
l'ilui
nishmat Esther bat mordechai
L'ILUI NISHMAT
MAYER HIRSH BEN LAIBEL
In the prayer ata
honantanu, as we separate the departing Sabbath
from the evening of the week that is about to
commense, we request the gift that comes of taking
leave of Shabat: That the light of the Sabbath
sanctity may continue on into the work week, into the
rushing pandemonium and the tedious labors that are
entailed in the war for survival – that this light
should not be drawn or dragged down into the
topsy-turvy confusion.
This request for a
supplemental dose of insight, drawn from sanctity, is
of no use for distinguishing between good and
evil. The sanctity of the Sabbath is not
designated for these lowest, most basic
distinctions. Such distinctions are beneath the
notice of that sublime sanctity that both man and the
Creator of the universe share in common, as the Torah
testifies: “and He rested on the seventh day” – It is
beneath Sabbath's sanctity to deal with the waste
waters of evil and its corollaries.
The kedusha
of Shabat sharpens the experience of kedusha
as a dimension of the heavenly plane. It is a kedusha
that cannot be traced to any of a human being’s
abilities to pave his own path in the labyrinth of
existence. Shabat sanctity is graciously
bestowed by olam ha’atsilut, “the world of
nobility” (the realm of the pure Divine). It
descends to this world in the merit of Shabat, and
there it sanctifies physical matter, just as it
is. This sanctifying of the physical – per se` –
happens thanks to itaruta dili’aila; Heaven’s
initiates a connection with human beings. It
happens without human intervention, without human
initiative – without itaruta dilitata .
In merit of the
Jew’s entry into Shabat, by upholding both of its
aspects – positive and negative, shamor and zachor
– the physical, earth-dwelling Jew becomes a
prince – the King’s son who sanctifies himself with a
kedusha shel ma’ala – with a supreme kedusha
that “includes its innards, and thighs and legs,” that
includes all of man’s physical/material pleasures,
which coalesce into an infinite pleasure that evokes
the world to come – and all this without toil, without
any of the agonies associated with devotion, without
any of the cruel conflict with the survival mechanism.
Hence the grave
severity with which the Torah relates to a Jew who
demeans the kedusha of the Shabat. “Its
desecraters will be put to death.” “And that
life force will be cut off from its people.” One
who desecrates Shabat is disqualified from legal
testimony. In addition to losing the kedusha
he could have gained for himself, the Shabat
desecrater loses his human quality – his humanness –
perhaps as a result of the “spirit of stupidity” he
has demonstrated by belittling the kedusha
with which he might have sanctified himself, if he had
not passed up – by his own fatuousness – this
opportunity to be sanctified and purified.
Discerning the
sacred from the secular deals with preserving
the sensation of inner sanctity that is found in the
depths of one’s soul after it has been made fragrant
by the sanctity of Shabat. This kedusha
derives from the most supreme source.
Out of this
sensation of kedusha, one acquires the
privileged ability to discern the sacred concealed
behind the camouflage of the secular, and one can then
utilize this sensation when aspiring to sanctify
physical matter. Thus one attains
self-realization as a Godly Presence even under
secular conditions: In one’s dealings with one’s
fellow human beings, in the refinement and
distillation of one’s own personality and midot,
and in one’s ability to skip over evil on the road to
good, without being compelled to confront evil or to
fear the prospect of being trapped in its web.
This is the prayer
on departing from the Shabat: To discern between
sacred and secular, between light and “the darkness
that covers the earth”, the darkness that creates a
barrier that hides the sacred from the secular, though
the secular requires the sacred – for it must sanctify
itself in order to become Godly Presence.
To discern “between
Israel and the nations”: To discern the sanctity of
the stature of man, for this distinction can become
blurred in the absence of the dimension of sanctity,
which lends a higher angle of vision, in the absence
of which man may become enslaved to the orders and
hierarchies of man- as-creature, ruled by the
brute-force laws of physical matter, entirely devoid
of moral qualities.
The distinction
between good and evil is found at the border that
supposedly separates matter and spirit, the “world of
doing” comprised of mechanical material laws, from the
“world of creation”, the kingdom of qualities,
spirituality, and humanness.
Know, then, that in
the “world of doing” in which qualities are absent,
brute force rules. It is distressing that human
beings, the crown of creation, charged with realizing
the Godly Presence, must wade through the murky waters
of olam ha’asia without becoming
contaminated. Here we see the incredible
revelation granted to man by the Torah, for it is a
“pure mikveh, pooled living waters”, that
purify one from the contact with those contaminated,
contaminating waters.
Not only the water,
but also the air, and also society itself can infect
the body and the life force of God’s servant, at
moments when he is exposed to the temptation of
spirit’s enslavement to physical matter. Such
enslavement beautifies physical matter, adorning it
with fashionable sanctity, tying the fashionable
accessories of sanctity attractively round its neck –
all sorts of brute-force values that have been made
fragrant by the aroma of humanitarianism, or by any
other brute-force value, camouflaged in justice,
equality, the defense of human rights, etc. – values
that are very close to physical matter and remote
indeed from the spirit of sanctity and purity that are
found in the values of heaven.
The danger of such
“values” lies in their tangibility, in their power to
flatter, to grant one a place of honor and glory in
the society of man. The danger of evil is that
it lacks any defined address in any specific
object. In the Torah world this is known as –
evil belongs to the gavra (subject) rather
than to the heftsa (object).
Evil is found in man
rather than in the universe. Evil would be
perceived as a harmful consequence deriving from an
inappropriate human attitude, in which a human being
relates to an activity that is incompatible with his
needs at that moment.
Thus avodat
hamidot, the toil over character refinement, is
a ceaseless and untiring practice. It is
drilling oneself in the habit of looking inward, of
being cautiously conscious, incessantly aware of one’s
habits in relating to existence. It is learning
to make sensitive distinctions between the activity of
the self and the enslavement to the mechanical system
of survival. This avoda, this labor –
has but one purpose: Distancing from evil.
Being that evil is
camouflaged by “pleasing intentions” and being that it
takes shelter under the flag of the good and the
ideal, an ideal of good can cause serious damage to
“one who has not been commanded to do it, yet does
it”, one whose duty is not to shelter in the shade of
an ideal that is inappropriate for him.
It is common
knowledge that the evil urge poses a peculiar
temptation, which entices people devoid of human
insight to work in the educational profession
specifically, and enticing sensitive, humanly gifted
people to work in technical fields.
Hazal warn us of
this: “Many are the fallen that it has slain – when
one who is not worthy to instruct, teaches
nevertheless, [because his students – the one who
spreads Torah but lacks the talent to bond with his
students and lacks the talent to communicate the ideas
clearly and comprehensibly – his students will hate
the Torah, and will not see what is good and
fascinating in it, and will only find goodness and
interest in other fields of study] and great masses
has it killed – when one is worthy to instruct, yet
does not teach.”
Hence the Torah’s
warning to cultivate a capacity to make the
distinctions between good and evil – in order to
locate every potential hazard of evil. This
means neither the location of evil nor its look,
because there is no such thing. Rather the
potential to cause harm is what one must learn to
distinguish, and this evil lies hidden behind a
thousand faces.
Hence the mitsva to
remember Amalek, and even more so to recognize
your own weak point, within yourself – the breach
where Amalek might enter, and how to seal it up – the
breach in your midot, and how to repair
them. This discovery partakes of “the joy of
resolving doubts.”
Yet on the other
hand, “a man must become fragrantly intoxicated to the
point that he does not know [how to distinguish]
between ‘cursed is Haman’ and ‘blessed is Mordechai’.”
Yet there is no
contradiction between these two aspects – in spite of
an imperative to make the finest, subtlest, and most
cautious distinctions between cursed and blessed, on
the one hand, and an apparent total blurring, on the
other hand, within the very same theme of
distinguishing good from evil.
It seems the
solution to this problem lies in our distinction
regarding the dwelling place of evil: Evil abides in
man rather than in any object. This means that
after one has succeeded in locating – within one’s
personality, within one’s character – one’s weakness
in midot, then one can allow oneself a wider
and more encompassing scope for relating to one’s
environment.
The clearer one’s
Torah perspective, the more courageously identified
with it one is, the more one will be capable of taking
an interest in – and sanctifying a vaster area of –
the components of existence, as in the example of Rabi
Elazar, son of Rabi Shimon bar Yohai, who, in his
sanctity so vast, was capable of connecting to foods
and to activities on a scale and in dimensions that
diverged far beyond the conventional – as described in
the Gemara – without having this excess cause him any
harm.
The opposite was
true. His sanctity enveloped and encompassed
cycles of existence that no other human being could
ever have succeeded in bringing into the realm of
sanctity, to shelter under the wings of the Shechina.
Becoming fragrantly
intoxicated by wine, which brings to a blurring of the
boundaries, testifies that the intoxicated one
recognizes the camouflaged nature of evil, but has
nothing to fear from it, as in: “it is not the serpent
that kills, but rather the sin that kills,” for the
sacred Rabi Hanina ben Dosa, who had no concern about
inserting his exposed leg into the serpent’s
lair. The serpent immediately struck him, it is
true, but in fact it was the serpent itself that died
from its own biting, rather than Rabi Hanina who had
been bitten.
Evil’s existing in
man rather than in the object derives from man’s being
a partner to the Creator of the universe by virtue of
the power of the covenant. This covenant granted
man the power to repair and to destroy, to make good
and to make evil. These are the creating powers,
and they are entirely absent from material,
mechanical, objective nature.
The car does not run
people over, but the driver. There are no
magical powers in tashmishei kedusha, in the
sacred accessories of worship; rather there is power
in the hands of the man using them during the act of
worship. There is no power in a word; the power
is in speech. The curse does not kill but rather
the curser. Similarly, there is no power in the
bracha, the blessing itself, but rather in the
one blessing and the one being blessed, when they are
worthy of one another.
This is one of the
important perspectives in the miracle of Purim, which
is considered a nes nistar, a hidden miracle,
because it proves beyond all doubt that there is no
power in the king’s ring – despite the fact that “what
has been written and sealed with the king’s seal
cannot be retrieved.”
Haman the Wicked has
no power – though he is the very symbol of evil – as
long as Mordechai guards the sanctity of his trust in
God, acting in an utter devotion and self-sacrifice
that knows no limit or end.
Similarly Esther,
who ignores the strict rules of the royal court.
Here we find the answer to a perplexing question: What
power is there in the wine feast that Esther arranges
time and again – as her hishtadlut, her
practical effort to prevail against Haman? Was
her agenda to blur the perceptions of the foolish
king?
It would appear that
Esther’s intention was lehishtadail to make an
effort to ignore the evil within the object, within
Haman, who was no more than the accelerator for the
manifestation of evil, to draw attention to the evil
intention and to the danger entailed in him, in the
man’s intention – in his beliefs rather than in the
man himself.
It seems that the
wicked Haman knows this secret himself, because when
he realizes that Mordechai neither kneels nor bows to
him, he does not suffice with a localized relating to
Mordechai the man, but rather views his behavior as a
phenomenon encompassing Mordechai’s entire
nation.
“And it is not
worthwhile for the king to leave them [alive].”
Haman sees a localized danger in an all-encompassing
phenomenon. A danger that lacks a specific
destination is real danger, because you cannot protect
yourself against it. We see here that there is
no good Jew or bad Jew.
In the evil eyes of
the Jew-hating anti-Semite, the danger is not in the
Jews but in Judaism. “And their religion is
different from any other nation.” For it is
“scattered and divided among the nations,” and it is
very hard to locate the dangerous ones among them, and
therefore it is necessary to exterminate the whole
religion that encompasses and characterizes them.
Haman is punished by
an answer of equal weight: “If Mordechai, before whom
you have begun to fall, is from the seed of the Jews,
you will not prevail against him.” Why?
Because you have put yourself into a danger
that is not localized but rather all-encompassing.
Here is no alignment
of forces – one defined force against another defined
force. Here is a human-spiritual situation that
lacks any boundaries within an object. Instead
of an evil object, there is evil intention, which
threatens to encompass and to devour the good human
intention.
The response to
Haman is of equal weight: When a flesh and blood,
carved-of-clay creature makes the decision to devote
himself – to utterly dedicate himself – to his duty as
God’s ally in the goal of realizing the Godly
Presence, then his good intention takes on a force
that is Godly, that is all-powerful. Against
this force, none can stand – for who can stand against
Godly omnipotence?
No need for palpable
evil in a palpable situation. What is hidden is
what holds the secret of the power of influence, for
better or for worse. This is one of the
important lessons to be learned from this Scroll of
Secrets, which holds the secret of eternity.
To summarize:
Simhat Purim, Purim joy is an
encounter between two mutually complementary sources
of happiness. The happiness that derives from
the removal of doubts has already been mentioned:
Internalizing and sharpening the most sensitive
distinction between good and evil, to the point that
it becomes second nature. Recoiling from evil to
the point of developing a sense of smell; even from
far, you are forewarned.
In the words of
Hazal: “Go round and round, but do not draw near the
carcass.” Cultivating this sense of distinction
in the gavra, in the subjective self, at the
earliest stage, prior to actually encountering the
evil object, is the goal of the mitsva of zechirat
Amalek, remembering Amalek.
This is not only as
a means of defense, by distancing oneself from the
carcass, but rather as the means to avoid creating
evil, while it is yet still within man, because
practically speaking, the source of evil is in man.
Evil does not exist
– to tell the truth of the matter – in any object in
the existential environment, but rather man is the one
who creates the relationship to reality, and it is in
man himself that the seed of doom is buried. “As
he wills it” he can create a bond of blessing between
himself and reality, and “as he wills it” he can wreak
destruction and ruin out of that very same reality.
Evil, and good,
would then be a tendency or ability, within man, to
ruin or to repair, to destroy or to build. Only
after incessant and tireless avodat hamidot,
after laboring over one’s integrity, after
strengthening one’s moral fiber, only then does the
road of creativity open up. This is the source
of happiness, through which the happiness of
creativity flows, enabling new and uniquely original
powers that draw from the Godly self to bloom and to
blossom, to flower and to fruit by the thousands, to
one’s – and to the universe’s – heart’s delight.
Part Two
All of this derives
from the source of yira, of awe, of cautious
worship, of incessant examination of the process of
evil’s tendencies, and of following up on
results. How deep-rooted one’s ability is to
make subtle, cautious distinctions is put to the test
the moment one is in a fragrant state of intoxication
by wine – as the test that Hazal suggest: “A man is
known bekiso, bekoso, uvekaso, by his cup, by
his pocket, and by his anger.” “In goes the
wine, out comes the secret.” Indeed, wine shows
a man’s true face. The concealed tsadik
is revealed in all his purity, while the masked
villain is exposed in all his ugliness.
There is a second
perspective, a second cause of happiness equally
active. This moves from the direction of the
outer toward the inner: In this perspective, the
absence of happiness originates in existential
distress. Vital energies are invested in the war
of existence, including its real and imagined dangers:
Worries over livelihood, health, and social status
delude man into believing that solving these problems
is the key to happiness. Extensive, excessive
investment in the survival mechanism, including its
many and stubborn aspects, is eventually exposed – too
late – as an exercise in futility; like quenching
one’s thirst with salt water.
Love – The Secret of Happiness.
Help is in sight –
coming from the direction of love, and bringing
happiness in its wake. Faith and trust in the
compassionate hashgaha, which dearly loves
God’s servant, who takes the initiative, in the
devotion of his free choice, to cleave to his Creator,
recruiting all of his physical/material and
mental/emotional resources to this goal of love, so as
to fulfill “with all his heart and with all his life
force” the imperative that “you will love God your
Lord.”
This initiative of
free choice connects and merges with the hashgaha,
which hastens to his aid, which frees him from tending
to and toiling over the war of survival, which imbues
the trusting one – the one steeped in faith in the
Divine Providence that responds to all who truly call
to it – with an endless peace and tranquility, out of
which bursts forth the truest joy that accompanies the
deepest sense of personal belonging, simha shel
mitsva, the happiness of mitsva, of the
privilege of being able to fulfill one’s own personal
destiny at last, for it is only for the sake of this
destiny that one’s soul has descended to this lowly
world.
Man-serving-God is
filled with endless happiness, as an expression of
love. Love is the only sensation that has the
power to remove all the barriers and limitations that
strangle man, who is otherwise “a prisoner of poverty
and iron”. Only love can free him from the sense
of strangulation that accompanies the distress of
existence.
Faith and trust were
born of the devotion and the willingness to sacrifice
themselves that the Jews demonstrated under the
leadership of Mordechai and Esther. Their
initiative merited the encounter with the saving hashgaha,
which brings redemption in its wake. There is no
obvious miracle in this Scroll of Secrets.
Redemption is camouflaged by the processes of
practical effort, camouflaged by the processes of
nature and by the use of conventional means that have
been employed in similar circumstances.
Faith and trust flow
in a powerful current, but not in the direction of the
natural flow, which courses down a steep and slippery
slope of disaster and catastrophe. Rather it
flows uphill, toward hope and trust in the
all-powerful Creator, Who runs His world directly, as
can be glimpsed through the cracks of a reality
camouflaged by the supposed laws of nature.
“They upheld
out of love what they had previously accepted out of
fear” when God
forced the mountain on them at Sinai. This love
was a powerful current, rushing and frothing, and
sweeping away everything in its path – all evil
obstacles, all traps concealing disaster – pulling
everything together into the great circle of the
dance, and from this circle all things rise, for this
is its secret power, to transcend, to rise a few
inches above the distress of existence.
It is a feeling of
ability: One feels able to exit the distress, to rise
above it, during the very moment of existential
anxiety, with no pre-conditions, with no sign of a
solution, with no indication that help is at hand –
but just so…just because of the exhilarating discovery
that “God has not abandoned the earth”, that all is
for the good, despite all sufferings and distresses –
these are only for appearance’s sake.
There is a feeling
of faith and confidence in the justice of the
Creator’s handling of His universe, Whose intention is
always and ever utterly pure of any taint of
evil. This feeling fills the believer with an
elation that bursts the boundaries of existence.
These two sources of
happiness do not contradict one another.
Deepening one’s ability to distinguish between good
and evil safeguards the path of happiness traveled by
one who loves.
The truth should be
told – that this happiness of the one who loves has a
power that conquers all, an attachment to the beloved
that repels anything that might interfere with this
attachment, even without his conscious
intervention.
For this reason,
such a one has no need at all for the distinctions
that derive from the source of yira, such as
the distinction between good and evil.
However, this truth,
no matter how persuasive and irresistible it sounds,
is difficult to guarantee on a consistent and perfect
basis. Within human reality, this truth is
discovered – contact with it is made – only at
intervals. A bit here, a bit there…
In the spaces that
stretch between one love and the next, there is room
for yira, which distinguishes between good and
evil, in order to fill the vacuum empty of love, and
to strengthen the direction of one’s ambition to
cleave to the highest source and to sense His presence
through the distinction between good and evil, in
order to attach to love’s goodness – which is entailed
in the good – by way of gratitude.
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