tzelem and Purim

In the previous post we noted that Rambam views the problem with identifying a meaning with the word “tzelem” in the tendency of man to confuse this word with another, the word “toar”. It is worth asking why do we tend to confuse these two words? Are we too lazy to look up the different meanings in the dictionary?

In fact, the issue goes far deeper. The difficulty is similar to explaining the difference between the words “love” and “like” to a child. The child has not experienced the passion of “love” and therefore cannot stabilize a word to distinguish it from “like”. We confuse Tzelem and Toar because in our frame of reference, in our world of experience, the recognition of phenomenon that would enable a distinction in words is underdeveloped.
Tzelem and Tzura point to two different mentalities, two fundamentally different frameworks of seeing the world, each enabled by a different mechanism or prism in man. The world of material structure-Toar- is seen with the eye of flesh, the world of tzelem- natural principle pointed to by structure- is seen through the eye of the soul.

יג  [ז] לעולם אין אתה רואה גולם בלא צורה, או צורה בלא גולם.  אלא לב האדם--הוא שמחלק הגוף הנמצא בדעתו, ויודע שהוא מחובר מגולם וצורה, ויודע שיש שם גופים שגולמם מחובר מארבע יסודות, וגופים שגולמם פשוט ואינו מחובר מגולם אחר.  והצורות שאין להם גולם, אינן נראין לעין, אלא בעין הלב הם ידועים, כמו שידענו אדון הכול בלא ראיית עין.

יד  [ח] נפש כל בשר, היא צורתו שנתן לו האל.  והדעת היתרה המצויה בנפשו של אדם, היא צורת האדם השלם בדעתו; ועל צורה זו נאמר בתורה "נעשה אדם בצלמנו כדמותנו" (בראשית א,כו), כלומר שתהיה לו צורה היודעת ומשגת הדעות שאין להם גולם, עד שיידמה להן.  ואינו אומר על צורה זו הניכרת לעיניים, שהיא הפה והחוטם והלסתות ושאר רושם הגוף, שזו תואר שמה.

It is interesting to note Rambam's examples of Toar, what it is that we see with the eye of flesh. In principle, Rambam could have chosen any material structure as an example, the oblong structure of the Earth, the atomic structure of a chemical, or the geological structure of a mountain, any of these would be a toar seen by the eye of flesh. But Rambam does not use these examples. Following the Torah in the story of Gan Eden, Rambam uses the animal properties, the structure of the animal body, the mouth the nose, the jaws. Why is this? At one level, the reason is, that it is intuitive for us to note that mouth nose and jaws are instruments of a life principle. One preserves life by proper use of the mouth, with its structure of an opening with teeth needed to process food in eating or the digestive system. One preserves life by proper use of the nose, with its openings and hair follicles that allow processing of oxygen through the lungs and blood stream- or the respiratory system. So too all animal parts that are instruments of life systems. It is this understanding, namely that material structure points -to principles of systemic function that Rambam wanted to bring out. Through the particular example of the natural life systems of animal- the tzelem of animal-Rambam points to the broader natural system. If it were not for the divine crafting of tzelem into the very design of Shamayim Varetz, if it were not in the nature of the Earthly ecosystem to provide air, food and water to us, our mouth and nose, our very life function would be of no avail. Rambam's treatment of tzelem arises from the story of Breesheet that make this very point.

20 ויאמר אלהים, ישרצו המים, שרץ נפש חיה; ועוף יעופף על-הארץ, על-פני רקיע השמים: 21 ויברא אלהים, את-התנינם הגדלים; ואת כל-נפש החיה הרמשת אשר שרצו המים למינהם, ואת כל-עוף כנף למינהו, וירא אלהים כי-טוב: 22 ויברך אתם אלהים לאמר; פרו ורבו, ומלאו את-המים בימים, והעוף ירב בארץ: 23 ויהי-ערב ויהי-בקר יום חמישי:    פ

Rambam warns us that human life is like peering through a latticework of silver to see the underlying apple. All too often we get stuck in the world of toar or material structure, and fail to seek the underlying systemic functions of our world. We limit ourselves to the world seen through the eye of flesh, we fail to peer through to the glorious golden apple, the systemic functions we could glory in.

It is interesting that modern science has chosen this very example, an apple, as its metaphor for this very process. How many people saw apples fall in the thousands years of civilization before Newton? Yet, we failed to grasp the systemic sense of a universe of material bodies all moving in accordance with a unified principle of “force”. We could not see gravity in the falling of the apple. All we saw was that there was a pattern of motion, a familiar toar of an apple falling, we did not choose to use the eye of the soul to explore the underlying causal system calling to us, the golden apple behind the latticework of the falling apple.

 We left off the previous post with the question of what a scientist would think of Adam Ha-Rishon's exploration of his world. In a sense, the scientist, at least the more thoughtful among them, would be highly approving. After all, rather than allowing himself to remain in the limited world of appearances, Adam quested to name, to scientifically organize and seek underlying theoretical principle. We can begin to imagine the process he went through. Noting wings, noting legs. Perhaps reflecting on basic survival mechanisms. But above all, what seems to have attracted Adam's attention was reproduction, the continuity of species through generations of individuals. This continuity underlies the "name" or tzelem of a thing. Deer is not deer because of its particular features, toars like grazing, particular sizes and colors seen through the eye of flesh. These do no last. Deer is deer, bear is bear, wolf is wolf, because of the continuity pointed to by reproduction.


24 ויאמר אלהים, תוצא הארץ נפש חיה למינה, בהמה ורמש וחיתו-ארץ למינה; ויהי-כן: 25 ויעש אלהים את-חית הארץ למינה, ואת-הבהמה למינה, ואת כל-רמש האדמה למינהו; וירא אלהים כי-טוב: 26 ויאמר אלהים, נעשה אדם בצלמנו כדמותנו; וירדו בדגת הים ובעוף השמים, ובבהמה ובכל-הארץ, ובכל-הרמש הרמש על-הארץ: 27 ויברא אלהים את-האדם בצלמו, בצלם אלהים ברא אתו; זכר ונקבה ברא אתם: 28 ויברך אתם אלהים, ויאמר להם אלהים, פרו ורבו ומלאו את-הארץ וכבשה; ורדו בדגת הים ובעוף השמים, ובכל-חיה הרמשת על-הארץ: 29 ויאמר אלהים, הנה נתתי לכם את-כל-עשב זרע זרע, אשר על-פני כל-הארץ, ואת-כל-העץ אשר-בו פרי-עץ זרע זרע; לכם יהיה לאכלה: 30 ולכל-חית הארץ ולכל-עוף השמים ולכל רומש על-הארץ, אשר-בו נפש חיה, את-כל-ירק עשב לאכלה; ויהי-כן: 31 וירא אלהים את-כל-אשר עשה, והנה-טוב מאד; ויהי-ערב ויהי-בקר יום הששי:    פ

A good sense of this approval is seen here in Feynman.Feynman describes his wonder at his friend locked in a world of immediate appearances who sees the skin deep "beauty" of a flower with his eye of flesh, yet fails to focus his eye of soul upon the deeper wonder of tzelem incarnate in matter.

Quote by Richard Feynman:(As quoted from the "Best Mind Since Einstein" NOVA Video)
I have a friend who’s an artist and he’s some times taken a view which I don’t agree with very well. He’ll hold up a flower and say, "look how beautiful it is," and I’ll agree, I think. And he says, "you see, I as an artist can see how beautiful this is, but you as a scientist, oh, take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing." And I think he’s kind of nutty.
First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me, too, I believe, although I might not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is. But I can appreciate the beauty of a flower.
At the same time, I see much more about the flower that he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside which also have a beauty. I mean, it’s not just beauty at this dimension of one centimeter: there is also beauty at a smaller dimension, the inner structure…also the processes.
The fact that the colors in the flower are evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting – it means that insects can see the color.
It adds a question – does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms that are…why is it aesthetic, all kinds of interesting questions which a science knowledge only adds to the excitement and mystery and the awe of a flower.
It only adds. I don’t understand how it subtracts.

So too Einstein.

[The World As I See It]
His [the scientist's] religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection. 


What Einstein had a glimpse of, which Adam also noticed, is that the existence of Idea expressed in matter points to a unique identity of man in Creation.

This process of apprehension of ideas, as a unique and distinct process, is shown by man naming himself. Man's naming of himself is not the same as his naming of the external world. Naming the external world can lead to theoretical action, action of the mind only, Ahavat Hashem, a need to pursue the  apprehension of Gods wisdom to its ultimate conclusion. But naming oneself, leads to another imperitive awe of God- a new sense of identity as a humble mind, as well as the need to act in a manner harmonious and consistent with being a mind that sees ideas incarnate in matter that point to God.

Einstein

I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details.
My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.
The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.
Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe-a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. 

What Einstein did not grasp, which he could not grasp without prophecy, was that Man's spiritual evolution, is itself, part and parcel of the phenomena of ideas in nature. It is in the very nature of these ideas or tzelem, to attract us to an sense of the world and ourselves as a mind in the "tzelem" of our Creator that causes us to evolve in our striving for a formulation of tzelem. 

15 ויקח יהוה אלהים את-האדם; וינחהו בגן-עדן, לעבדה ולשמרה: 16 ויצו יהוה אלהים, על-האדם לאמר; מכל עץ-הגן אכל תאכל: 17 ומעץ, הדעת טוב ורע, לא תאכל ממנו; כי, ביום אכלך ממנו מות תמות: 18 ויאמר יהוה אלהים, לא-טוב היות האדם לבדו; אעשה-לו עזר כנגדו: 19 ויצר יהוה אלהים מן-האדמה, כל-חית השדה ואת כל-עוף השמים, ויבא אל-האדם, לראות מה-יקרא-לו; וכל אשר יקרא-לו האדם נפש חיה הוא שמו: 20 ויקרא האדם שמות, לכל-הבהמה ולעוף השמים, ולכל חית השדה; ולאדם לא-מצא עזר כנגדו: 21 ויפל יהוה אלהים תרדמה על-האדם ויישן; ויקח, אחת מצלעתיו, ויסגר בשר תחתנה: 22 ויבן יהוה אלהים את-הצלע אשר-לקח מן-האדם לאשה; ויבאה אל-האדם: 23 ויאמר האדם, זאת הפעם, עצם מעצמי, ובשר מבשרי; לזאת יקרא אשה, כי מאיש לקחה-זאת:


As Rambam would say Adam moved beyond the world of external features seen by the eye of flesh, choosing instead to seek the deeper principles, incarnate in and expressed through the phenomena of matter.


On this day of Purim, may we all be blessed with the ability to see the underlying cruelty hidden in the ignorance of Achashverosh, who lived for the allure of the female toar. May we be blessed to see in Esther not an attractive figure or Toar, but an underlying mind a tzelem capable of apprehending and acting on its understanding of tzura. Then we will see a nahafoch who, in an instant society will be turned on its head, and we will be led by Mordechai's and not Haman's. Purim Sameach!