Redemption begins with Failure

 

 

1. R. Tanchuma in the name of Shmuel said: What is it that it writes (of the intention of the two daughters of

Lot

): ‘We will produce SEED from our father” (Gen. 19:32)? In the book of Ruth it also says “SEED”, The seed that came yet from another place. Which is it? The King Messiah (Ruth Rabbah 7:15).

We understand that Ruth did not redeem only the error of Judah and Tamar but also the willful incestuous ignorance of

Lot

and his daughters. In all these situations we read about junior women and a senior man. Judah thought that he sinned with a loose woman after his wife died, in his eyes a minor sin, if a sin at all; Lot did not know that his daughters repeatedly committed incest with and through him, although according to the Rabbis, he should have known ( Rashi to Genesis 20:33 from Sifri). Yet in both these sins there was a kernel of good intention, sufficiently good that it deserved a chance at redemption. Before Ruth and Boaz, all the players in the cosmic drama of Redemption instantiated in their particular lives, succeeded in some ways and failed in others. On one side we see the men; Judah, his sons Er and Onan and Shela, his distant descendents – Elimelech, Kilyon and Machlon;  on the other, the women – the daughters of

Lot

, Rachel and Leah, Tamar, Orpah and Naomi.

However, we are not yet far enough and deep enough. The root of the problem reaches back to … Adam and his sons. The Sages teach us that all the souls of humanity were included in Adam. In him the roots of the souls of men and women were united and every  marriage is a reflection of the first couple and an unification of the roots to create from them the harmony of a family.

How so?

2. “..And she called his name Seth for God has given me SEED in stead of Abel whom Kain has killed (Gen. 4:25). R. Tanchuma in the name of R. Shmuel said: “She saw that seed that came from another place – this is the King Messaiah (Gen. Rabbah 23:5).

This word, “SEED”, is now traced by the same R. Tanchuma  to Cain and Abel. This should not surprise us. Adam and Eve sinned and destroyed the harmony of the world. Cain killed Abel and how could that fissure between brothers be fixed and harmony restored? Through the birth of another brother, Seth, who, unlike the first two, was “in his (Adam’s) image, in his appearance (Gen. 5:3)”.

The letters of Adam are deconstructed as: Adam, David, Messiah. “Adam took seventy years of his life and gave them to David, son of Jesse (Numbers Rabbah 14:12)” .

The seeds of redemption lie in the very beginning of humanity's failure. We might say that the process of repair and redemption began at teh very moment of disrepair and dysharmony.

At every misstep, there is an opportunity, to correct, to rectify to grasp harmony, to create wholeness. The actors in the drama of Redemption traverse the fractured landscape of failure, to partial restoration, to the ultimate rectification and realization of completeness. The conflict and estrangement of man from God gives rise to every person’s alienation from his fellow and finds its source in the very first conflict between brothers, when Cain rose up against Abel and killed him. At that moment the very fabric of human communal existence was torn asunder, and conflict, betrayal, violence and injustice became the daily accompaniment of human experience within a group. It was also at that moment, R. Tanchuma tells us, that the seed of the Messiah came into being at that moment. It was then that the process of clarification and rectification began. Abel was reborn as Seth, as

Judah

, as Boaz, even as the Kabbalists tell us, as Moses.

The axis of conflict and harmony intersects and interacts with the axis of good and evil. The two daughters of

Lot

were united in what they did. They committed a grievous sin but their unity of purpose was something that was worth saving. From the very beginning of history,  when people disagree about what is right, they have had to consider whether to walk separately or together, whether split or to pursue compromise for the sake of common purpose and peace. The choice between pure truth and the common good made itself felt between Ruth and Orpah, Rachel and Leah, Ruth and Naomi. In the world in which conflict and disagreement is part and parcel of human condition, there are no simple answers to conflict. The irreducible contradiction of good and evil and war and peace will only be ultimately solved by the Messiah who will bring wholeness to fractured humanity. Cain and Abel will be redeemed and harmony shall reign forever.

“Certainly there is peace which derives from the absolute harmony in which disparate components interact and complement one another. We think of a piece of music in which each note enriches and colors the other to produce the loveliness which so deeply touches our hearts. But, to remain with our musical metaphor, discord and dissonance also have their place. …Metzudos to Divrei Hayamim (Chronicles) notes that the very word which in Hebrew denotes music, nitzuach, connotes victory, the ability to overcome, because the beauty of music derives from the many voices or instruments vying with one another in a battle for beauty.

This second form, this harmony which draws upon the disharmonious to enhance its attractiveness, needs the firm hand of the composer to assign form, location and degree. Uncontrolled, it is nothing but raucous cacophony plaguing the air and offending the senses.” (M. M. Eisemann, A Pearl in the Sand, p. 70)

The Conductor knows how to conduct. In His hand, discord and conflict become the means to healing and restoration. Suffering and discord become, in His Plan a path to wholeness and peace. Suffering leads to healing which is a greater good than a mere absence of suffering. Rachel and Leah argued and disagreed – through it they also negotiated and cooperated and “both together built the House of Israel”.

Lot

’s daughters utilized deceit; through Tamar and Ruth it was uplifted and became the element for achieving goodness. Oppression becomes Justice and rejection is transformed into acceptance. The lesson of the Messianic idea is that disharmony is only a building block from which harmony is ultimately fashioned. The book of Ruth starts with Elimelech’s betrayal of his people and ends with his soul’s symbolic return into the midst of them. In the beginning there is death, poverty and exile, estrangement and suffering – at the end, acceptance, joy regeneration and life.

Comments

[yitz..]

i'm sorry if i'm in an overtly devil's advocate mode right now, but when i boil down the point i'm left with:

"at the very moment of any breaking, HaShem is already sewing the fixings of it."

which in the talmud would be rendered: HaShem always brings the trufah before the makah.

but doesn't this trivialize the idea of moshiach into just a solution to a created problem -- ie. if the problem never came to be, so to the moshiach would never be?

Are you implying that all of the dis-harmony was intentional for the purpose of arriving at moshiach -- that every seeming breaking in history was an intentional step on the path to Moshiach? Or that, as I said, Moshiach is simply a cure to the problem introduced when kayin violated the brotherly bond and traumatized the human race?

[avakesh]

It is incorrect to think of tikkun as a mere return to how things were in the beginning. Instead, once the vesssels broke, the reshimu, trace of their breaking will always remain, at the very least by the virtue of them having once having been broken. With Tikkun comes restoration but not return. In other words, what is different is that after the Tikkun harmony is reached through bringing together of disparate voices rather than by playing one tune in one voice.

[Jon Saboe]

Avakesh is correct. Indeed, the entire message of Torah is restoration and redemption.

Hashem takes broken pieces and mends them into something different from (and even better than) the original—-but there is always an indication or hint that something WAS broken to remind us that Hashem is the one restores and redeems.

Joel 2: 25-27: "And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you. And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and my people shall never be ashamed. And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the LORD your God, and none else: and my people shall never be ashamed."

"For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though worms destroy this body, yet IN MY FLESH shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another." Job 9: 25-27

The best, modern example is the nation of Israel herself, who is described in Ezekiel 37 as being (during Ezekiel's day) "a valley full of bones". It wasn’t until 1948 that the bones came back together—but it won’t be until Messiah comes that breath (verse 8) will return.

Evil is required to appreciate good, and broken-ness is required to appreciate restoration and redemption.