Rabbi,
Does todays discussion contradict what we mentioned last time about the Mitzvah of the 4 Minim? We mentioned that the reason there is a particular action of the Mitzvah is because the farmer has an attraction towards making a thanksgiving. The torah takes that joy and redirects it through the Mitzvah system, particularly Mitzvas Lulav. The Torah could not just tell us that our happiness must be tied to the Shem Hashem since that would not be real to our experience. If so the lack of being farmers, even with a great education system will not make the Mitzvah instruments useful for human development since when Sukkos comes we aren't in the state of happiness which leads us to desire a thanksgiving holiday.
Thanks!
~Yaakov
~Yaakov
Yakov,
Though I have not directly said so, the last few weeks we have been exploring the issue of tzedaka, "justice". Specifically we have seen justice as " הגעת בעל חוק חוקו" supplying every lawful entity in accordance with its law or principle.
In a Creation context, this "justice" is G as manifest through the action of the natural ecosystem supplying every species with its particular material needs פותח את ידך ומשבע לכל חי. Or " צדיק ה בכל דרכיו" otherwise known as Midat hadin or by the name Elokim as you have pointed out nicely in your post about Noach.
The key is we must see this principle of "din" , not only as it applies to the environment of Shamayim and aretz as in the 7 days of Creation, but as it applies to our daled amos, the immediate environment of our action- the farm, the city the home etc.
For this to happen we must identify a specific area in our daled amos, let us say lulav, or the relationship to animals in the case of Noach, and see how it is connected to tzedaka. It is certainly true that the area of lulav is best known to a farmer in Israel who wants a thanksgiving, and the Avoda using animals is best known to Noach, an Ish Adama who just experienced the destruction of his world. In fact each and every story in the Torah is best understood by someone else other than ourselves. Mitzraim is best understood by Yotzei Mitzraim and the Midbar is best understood by dor hamidbar. Each story is a particularity
(פרט ). However, we too can relate to each area via understanding, be it the farmer and Noach or Mitzraim and the Midbar. This understanding involves identifying the common thread, the classic human dimension (כלל) embedded within the particularity of the story (פרט). As you recall this detecting of (כלל) embedded within the particularity of the story (פרט) is the first rule of Ralbag in reading Torah shebichtav.
What we will find is that in each and every entity in our daled amos, the lulav, animals,Midbar and Mitzraim included, are subject to distortion. Specifically this distortion is one of achzariyut, a worldview centering around the supplying the material power of the self, rather than tzedaka a worldview in which supply is to each entity in accord with its nature.
Via the Torah we can retrace each and every entity back to a view proper to tzedaka. As we do this we come to see the Mitzvot in a different light. We see them not as a number of discrete disconnected actions, but as a system of actions, a נימוס directed to a common end. This end as we saw in the dibros is a path from achzariyut (lo tachmod) to tzedaka (anochi Hashem).
In this framework, one realizes that some instruments of tzedaka will be more significant at some times, while others will be more important at other times. The korbanot may be more important at one time, nishalma parim sefataynu, study and prayer about korbanot more important at another time.
Leket may be more important at certain times, matanot lianiyim more important at another. This can be true of aspects of a Mitzva as well. The lekicha may be more important at one time, the naanuim more important at another.
Why then is our time one in which we are disconnected from farming and the idea of thanksgiving? This question is really answered by the Navi in the vision of the vineyard. We are disconnected from the farming precisely because we have refused to use the Torah to see tzedaka as it applies in our daled amot. We prefer to disconnect our daled amot in the pursuit of yitron a fantasy of accomplishment rather than see it as but another supply of tzedaka. I say we because this "decision" is a communal one, not one done by individuals usually. Israel decided to avoid thinking about its vineyard, not individual Israelites.
As you can see this is a keeping of Torah in Tzara, a keeping which keeps coming back to the need for Geula. But isnt this in fact the situation that our Neviim and Baalei Mesorah say we are in? The Navi in the vision of the vineyard is clear, but so is the Rambam.
In our times, severe troubles (צרות יתרות) come one after another, and all are in distress; the wisdom of our Torah scholars has disappeared, and the understanding of our discerning men is hidden. Thus, the commentaries, the responses to questions, and the settled laws that the Geonim wrote, which had once seemed clear, have in our times become hard to understand, so that only a few properly understand them. And one hardly needs to mention the Talmud itself--the Babylonian Talmud, the Jerusalem Talmud, the Sifra, the Sifre, and the Toseftot--which all require a broad mind, a wise soul, and considerable study, before one can correctly know from them what is forbidden or permitted and the other rules of the Torah.
ואחר שנשלם לי זה העניין, והשתדלתי לעשות הספר ולזכור המצוות כולם זיכרון מוחלט ומספרם בפתיחת הספר, התעוררתי אל השורש שכבר עלה בדעתי זה שנים רבות. והוא במה שמוני המצוות הנה נשתבשו בם רבים בעניינים לא אוכל ספר גודל גנותם.
כי כל מי שהשתדל למנותם, או לחבר ספר בדבר מהכוונה הזאת, נמשכו כולם אחר דברי בעל הלכות גדולות, ולא נטו מכוונתו במספר המצוות כי אם נטייה קטנה. כאילו קפאו הדעות במאמר האיש הזה. עד שבעל "ספר המצוות" המפורסם, ראיתי שהרגיש בחלק קטן משיבושי בעל הלכות גדולות, והיה רחוק לדעתו למנות [במניין המצוות] בקור חולים ונחום אבלים, כמו שמנה בעל הלכות. ומה שהרחיק, הוא באמת רחוק, אבל הביא יותר רחוק ממנו, ונמשך אחריו במה שהוא יותר מגונה, כמו שיתבאר למי שיעיין במאמרנו זה.
ויודע האל יתברך, ודי בו עדות, כי אני כל מה שהשתכלתי בשיבושם במה שימנו, והיותם מונים מה שנראה בעיון ראשון שאין ראוי למנותו - נמשכו קצתם אחר קצתם בזה, מבלתי עיון - גדל אצלי אסוננו, ונתאמת חיוב ייעודו אשר יעדנו:
"ותהי לכם חזות הכל כדברי הספר החתום,
אשר יתנו אותו אל יודע ספר לאמר קרא נא זה,
ואמר לא אוכל כי חתום הוא" (ישעיהו כט יא
10 comments:
While reading this post, I was envisioning it as a parallel to the link between the physical and the spiritual realm.
In an article entitled “Spiritual Education According to the Kabbalah: The Inner Voice of Rav Kook” by Aryeh Ben David, the author identifies the following reference which reflects back to the statement “the understanding of our discerning men is hidden”:
"The perpetual prayer of the soul continually tries to emerge from its latent state to become revealed and actualized, to permeate every fiber of life of the entire universe . . . Sudden spiritual clarity comes about as a result of a certain spiritual lightning bolt that enters the soul . . . When many days or years have passed without listening to this inner voice, toxic stones gather around one's heart, and one feels, because of them, a certain heaviness of spirit . . . The primary role of spiritual clarity is for the person to return to himself (herself), to the root of his soul" (Introduction to the Prayer book, Olat Ra9aya).” (http://www.pardes.org.il/online_learning/spiritual_education/)
This can also be found in a midrash:
"At the inception of creation it was intended that the tree have the same taste as the fruit (Genesis Rabba 5:9). All the supportive actions that sustain any general worthwhile spiritual goal should by right be experienced in the soul with the same feeling of elation and delight as the goal itself is experienced when we envision it. But earthly existence, the instability of life, the weariness of the spirit when confined in a corporate frame brought it about that only the fruition of the final step, which embodies the primary ideal, is experienced in its pleasure and splendor. The trees that bear the fruit, with all their necessity for the growth of the fruit have, however, become coarse matter and have lost their taste. This is the failing of the "earth" because of which it was cursed when Adam was also cursed for his sin. But every defect is destined to be mended. Thus we are assured that the day will come when creation will return to its original state, when the taste of the tree will be the same as the taste of the fruit. The "earth" will repent of its sin, and the way of the practical life will no longer obstruct the delight of the ideal, which is sustained by appropriate intermediate steps on its way toward realization, and will stimulate its emergence from potentiality to actuality.” http://www.vbm-torah.org/archive/rk1-kook.htm
Hello Moonlight
Can you draw out the parallel for me?
Dear Rabbi, thank you, I saw the comment, and I'm in the process of thinking how to draw out the parallel into words.
I am very much looking forward to it.
Hello Rabbi,
The parallel is built upon the idea that with the passage of time, the world evolves in such a way that as changes occur at the micro/macro-level, there are a set of governing principles on which the world is based and which are defined according to RS as “the common thread, the classic human dimension or principle (כלל) embedded within the particularity of the story (פרט)” (RS). When we explore the origins of this “common thread” in relation to justice, we refer to the story of creation, where we encounter “divine action of the ecosystem supplying every species with its particular material needs פותח את ידך ומשבע לכל חיor " צדיק ה בכל דרכיו“ (RS). For this reason the Torah is called a Living Book, as it represents the roadmap to this “governing principles” and it can be seen as a “unity” since what happens in the spiritual, happens in the physical, and vice versa, while the mitzvos, although apparently unrelated, are meant to uplift one’s soul to higher spiritual levels. These governing principles can be identified further in a variety of ways. For example, when taking the mitzvah of tzis-tzis, at the micro-level, there are certain requirements that make the tzis-tzis the tzis-tzis: 1. a time bound-mitzvot 2. location: the 4 corners of the garment 3. mesorah/customs/ as to how exactly they are manufactured, how they are worn, where they are placed, color, etc. 4. there’s a specific bracha. 5. gematryia for name/knots, etc. Then again, the mitzvah of tzis-tzis is not just isolated and unrelated, as all mitzvos are encompassed in a greater Torah framework.
When looking at the midrash that describes the creation of the world, we find another one of the common threads, here exemplified in the metaphors of the fruit and the tree, “The trees that bear the fruit, with all their necessity for the growth of the fruit have, however, become coarse matter and have lost their taste. This is the failing of the "earth" because of which it was cursed when Adam was also cursed for his sin." R. Kook explains this to mean that when we set a goal, we are rather reluctant to put all our efforts into achieving that goal, as opposed to the elation we feel at the end when we benefit from the fruit of our labor. As per other explanations for this perspective: In the physical realm, we can look at entropy-- a room that tends to get dirty over time exemplifies the principle of entropy. Likewise, there is the example (From RS) of the trees that bear fruit while growing in the wilderness as opposed to the fruits of the trees that are tendered and cared for. Yet, in these examples, we see that man is endowed with the ability to control entropy, by putting things in order/cleaning up/caring/improving/exploring/changing. Similarly, if we connect entropy with the spiritual realm, according to some Jewish Philosophers/Kabbalistic interpretations,. we can envision the soul and the body as the “driver” and the “vehicle”. The driver should be controlling the vehicle, and in order to keep the vehicle on the right path, the driver must be vigilant to keep it as such controlling both the internal and external factors that might affect the vehicle and the driver. Moreover, there are many different models of cars as there are many different drivers on the road, there are also traffic rules and regulations, different paths, different destinations. And undeniably, our personality shapes the way we drive. As such, we can also connect this to the Mashal of Lifnei in Rambam’s Moreh Nevuchim part III Chapter LI (from RS most recent post with the king and the different subjects), and similarly, with Jacob’s Ladder, if we take the interpretation that the angels descending and ascending on the ladder are like souls that descend through yetzer hara or ascend through yetzer hatov.
Thank you for your clarification Moonlight. I know it took a very large effort to put this vision into words.
Do you think this sense of principles is what Rambam was speaking of, or rather a different approach?
RS, Sorry, I deleted my first comment b/c I wasn't happy with how I answered it so...I'm going to need to learn more before I answer this question. Thank you.
Moonlight
Whenever you are ready to put a post on, that's fine with me. It doesn't need to be some "well researched" thought either by the way. Thanks for your thoughts!
Dear Rabbi, Thank you for the comment.
Well, I have a custom of answering questions with analogies: This post makes me think that at the heart of the most complex phenomena, one can find simple principles. The Torah was written with the Aleph Beth. My mom has a saying that children grow up to be successful if they have someone behind them who took the time to explain to them, read to them, make them think, like a parent, grandparent, teacher, etc. It seems to me that in Moreh Nevuchim, Rambam delineates a logic roadmap to complex principles, yet certain aspects of Rambam's approach are debated by some, and if the question “Do you think this sense of principles is what Rambam was speaking of, or rather a different approach?” was referring to this aspect of his work, then the way I try to understand this is by envisioning it as the piece of the bigger puzzle (like in the story with the elephant and the 10 blind men, I can’t make the argument that what I see is the whole elephant).
In the beginning of Moreh Nevuchim, Rambam states that there are various levels of knowledge and understanding, as in Jacob’s Ladder, some will climb higher and others will find themselves at a lower position. Yet, in light of my current knowledge, I would not venture to say what is debatable and what is not in Rambam’s work because I think that the same way that the Talmud records every opinion, for the sake of the greater truth, so does Rambam’s approach can be looked upon as this or for example, as in biology, the formation of the Enzyme-Substrate Complex has 2 perspectives: it is interpreted as either a Lock and Key Theory or it’s an Induced Fit Model, with some adjustments— therefore, more knowledge is required in order to understand Rambam’s viewpoints in the specific context of his time, or rather Rambam’s work must also be understood in the context of those that came before him and those that came after him. Yet, I don’t think that aspects that might be deemed controversial/different in Rambam should be rejected, but rather they have their own purpose, which might not make sense at some point, but might make sense later. There’s also the saying, “From Moses to Moses there was none like Moses”.
Moreover, with certain doubts, I surmise that Rambam was quite influential in other works, in other milieus, such as certain books written during the Middle Ages and the time of the Spanish Inquisition, (for example his metaphor of the palace with the king and his subjects), although this is something I encountered in a Spanish class I took once in college and it's another one of those curious aspects I am unable to assess.
Thank you for reading.
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