avakesh

Interview with Mubarak and Biblical References

...Oh.. it's from Saturday Night Life

Disturbing Video: I Broke Shabbos Again

I was very distrubed by this video but it so poignantly expressess the pain of the saw-sawing to and back from observance that so many of our off-the-derech kids experience, that I post it anyway. Its painful to wach and painful to experience. My heart goes out!

Warning:There are two instances of nibul-peh. I would not ordinarily post such material but the pain expressed is so raw and the pathetic attemtps to cover the pain up with leitsonus is so striking that i decided to make an exception.... but those who are more careful-beware.

May Hashem wipe away all tears and bring all our brethren closer to Him.

 

 

For a redemptive experience after watching this, watch this

Three levels of selflessness

From Hakhel October 27, 2010 and quoted in Mishpacha this week.

 

Here is a beautiful thought by the Skulener Rebbe, Z’tl.

There are three possibilities in the performance of chessed:

• As we see from the thoughts and actions of Avraham Avinu, one who
  actively seeks and pursues chessed, looking in the distance for opportunities, and not resting on laurels or being complacent with past and even significant accomplishments.
• One who properly and meticulously performs chessed, but only when the opportunity arises, such as the knock at the door-giving a respectable amount, b’Sever Panim Yafos.
• One who does not utilize every chessed opportunity, and does not like “getting caught” in a chessed, but instead does chessed “in his way” and “at his time.”

 With this in mind, the Skulener Rebbe looks to the zemiros that many of us sing on Friday night: “Dorshei Hashem Zerah Avraham Ohavo HaMe’achrim Latzeis Min HaShabbos U’Memeharim Lavo - seekers of Hashem descendents of Avraham His beloved, who delay parting from Shabbos and rush to enter.” The Rebbe queries, what does rushing to enter or delaying to leave the Shabbos have to do with the fact that we are descendents of Avraham His beloved?! He beautifully looks to the three levels of chessed performance, and compares them to our Shabbos performance as well:

“There are those, like Avraham Avinu, who look out for shabbos well in advance, beginning preparations to enhance the shabbos earlier on in the week - What do I need to buy? What do I need to clean? What do I need to prepare? Is there anything that happened last Shabbos that I have to improve upon or make sure that it does not happen again? What do I need to learn this shabbos?

This enhanced level of preparation, U’Memeharim Lavo,is a mark of the progeny of Avraham Avinu, and labels one as an especial Doresh Hashem as described in the zemiros.

The second level of shabbos preparation, with almost everything left for Erev Shabbos, and much especially left for the hours close to shabbos, is comparable to the second level of chessed in which the Mitzvah is properly performed, but lacks the grand level of excellence attributable to our forefather.

The third level, of course is the person who does not seem to get it all together on time and is “caught by the bell” (or the siren), having done what he could under the circumstances, but entering into and experiencing shabbos with something lacking, just as the one not recognizing or properly dealing with the chessed opportunities that have presented themselves to him….

Avos 2:6: Floating skull

 

Rembrandt: Aristotle contemplating the skull of Homer.

 

He(HIllel) also saw a skull floating on the waters. He said: because you drowned (others) you were drowned and those who drowned you, will (too)drown.

 This is such a difficult passage that Rashi says that in some places they did not include it. The following are some of its many difficulties:

1.Why is it in Arameic, coming in the middle of other teachings of HIllel, which are all in Hebrew?

2.He also(af)! What does "also" mean?

3.How did Hillel know that man drowned others? Perhaps he committed another transgression that is punished by drowning, such as adultery. If it is an involate principle that those who kill others are killeld, what sin did Hevel committ that he was murdered?

4.Why did the gentle scholar HIllel accuse this skull of such a heinous transgression? If it was to teach a lesson, why is he directly addressing the skull and not delivering the teaching to the bystanders?

Various answers are given. Rashi in Sukkah 53a says that Hillel must have recognized this skull as belonging to a known murderer. Presumed phrenological powers aside, this still does not explain how Hillel knew that murderers of this murderer will themselves be drowned? How did he know that he was drowned and not killed elsewhere and cast into the water? Similarly, Ari wrote that this was the skull of Pharaoh who attemtped to drown the Jews in the Red Sea and was himself drowned.

The construction of a sentence starting with "Also" is preserved in Sukkah 53a. The first two teachings are different than in our mishna. There it is says:

"It was taught, Of Hillel the Elder, It was said that when he used to rejoice at the Rejoicing at the place of the Water-Drawing, he used to recite thus, ‘If I am here, everyone is here; but if I am not here, who is here?’

 He used to recite thus, ‘To the place that I love, there My feet lead me: if thou wilt come into My House, I will come into thy house; if thou wilt not come to My House, I will not come to thy house, as it is laid, In every place where I cause My name to be mentioned, I will come unto thee and bless thee’.

He also once saw a skull floating upon the face of the water. ‘Because’, he said to it, ‘thou didst drown others, they have drowned thee, and they that drowned thee shall be drowned too’."

What you see from here is that when you already have two statements in the name of one rabbi, the third statement of his is introduced with "also(af)", for stylistic and syntactic reasons. This construction is found as well in Yoma 37a

שני גורלו' של אשכרוע היו ועשאן בן גמלא של זהב והיו מזכירים אותו לשבח בן קטין עשה י"ב דד לכיור שלא היה לו אלא שנים ואף הוא עשה מוכני לכיור שלא יהיו מימיו נפסלין בלינה מונבז המלך היה עושה כל ידות הכלים של יוה"כ של זהב הילני אמו עשתה נברשת של זהב על פתח היכל ואף היא עשתה טבלא של זהב שפרשת סוטה כתובה עליה

There a number of other examples of this syntactic device as well as examples that do not follow this pattern and where "af" , means not 'also' but "even".

I think that a curious aggadata in Sanhedrin 104a may provide some insight. Talmud explains why King Yehoakim, who was a very evil king, is not listed among those kings who lost their protion in the World-To-Come. It is because of the degradation that he suffered that expiated his sin.

Now, R. Perida's grandfather found a skull lying about at the gates of Jerusalem, and upon it was written, 'This and yet another.' So he buried it, but it refused to be buried [i.e., it re-emerged]; again he buried it, and again it would not remain buried. Thereupon he said, 'This must be Jehoiakim's skull, of whom it is written, He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem.'  'Yet,' reflected he, 'he was a king, and it is not meet to disgrace him'. So he wrapped it up in silk and placed it in a chest. On his wife's seeing it, she thought that it must be the skull of his first wife, whom he could not forget. So she fired the oven and burnt it. This is the meaning of the inscription: 'This and yet another."

There are two ways that I would explicate this strange aggada. If readers are aware of published explanations in seforim, I'd appreciate if they share them.

The simplest is that the back of the skull is the bone luz, which according to Chazal is never destroyed and from which the resurrected body will arise in Techias Hameisim. Some explain that luz is in the lowest back(Bareishis Rabba 28:3, Tosafos B"K 16a-b) but others say that it is the back point of the skull(LikuteiAri, Parshas Shoftim, Likkutei Shas on Rosh Hashana). This is really the same explanation. These two points are the two ends of "bending the body like a snake" in Shmone Esrei and also the path of Chochma as it comes down the spine in the 32 paths of Wisdom (Commentaries to Sefer Yetzirah 1:1). In Shmone Esrei we conduct Wisdom down the spine throughout the body, from Above to Below. Hindus recognize it by sitting on chakras, which direct spiritual energy in the opposite direction, from lowest spine toward the head; this is the idolatrous reversal of a Jewish mystical teaching.

Accordingly, Hillel was contemplating the luz and commenting on the eternal and immutable nature of Divine Law of Retribution, "middah kneged middah", as Rambam points out in his commentary to this verse.

Another direction to understanding of the symbolic meaning of a skull is its presence in many medieval and renaissance paintings. It signifies permanence of death and the fleeting significance of earthly existence.

Why Arameic? Well, the teaching of Hillel was directed to bandits and potential murderes, who presumably were more fluent in Arameic than in Hebrew. Interestingly, it was reported that the well-known collector Shlomo Moussaieff acquired two Talmudic era earthenware bowls, the open ends of which were adjoined to form a kind of case—inside the case was an ancient human skull. A magic incantation, written in Aramaic, was inscribed on the skull.

There may be more to this Mishna than we can figure out.

 

A Tangent on spines and snakes

By the way, the spine-snake analogy is deeper than it first seems. There is of course that echo of the Primordial Serpent of Kabbalistic thought. The Gemora (Bava Kamma 16) cites a braisa: The spine of a deceased person becomes a snake after seven years, if he does not bow down for the modim prayer.

Tosfos explains that this is measure for measure. Rav Sheishes (Brochos 12b) said that when he bowed down during Shemoneh Esrei, he would bow like a rod (in one swift motion), and when he straightened up, he would straighten up like a snake (which raises its head first and then slowly raises the rest of its body). Tosfos brings another explanation: The Midrash says that there is a vertebra in the spine of a person from which he is resurrected in the World to Come. This bone is so strong and hard that fire cannot consume it. And now, when that bone becomes a snake, he will not be resurrected and will therefore not live in the World to Come.

Tosfos rejects this explanation, for it is not logical to say that one will punished so harshly for committing this minor transgression, for we have learned that all of Israel has a share in the World to Come.

Rav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch wrote in a letter: "Anyone who reads this Gemora finds it laughable, but Pliny says the same statement almost word for word, “After a number of years the human spine turns into a snake”. Chazal, however, used a recognized scientific fact to teach a moral (my note: or mystical) lesson. To any mind it is clear that every similarly surprising statement of Chazal, if we look into it, was accepted as true by the scholars of the time."

Maharal writes:

The snake originally walked with an upright posture, for he was originally the king of the beasts. But because he persuaded Man to become a complete heretic (Sanhedrin 29a), and to refuse to bow down to Hashem, the snake was cursed. His curse was that he must walk upon his belly; that he should lose his upright posture. Therefore anyone who does not bow down before Hashem, his spine will also become a snake; he will lose his upright posture.

(Maharal of Prague, Netivot Olam, Netiv HaAvodah, ch. 10)

 

According to this, one who does not subjugate his lower desires located at the base of the spine by drawing down from the head to the lowest spine through Prayer, becomes like a snake that lost its ability to transcend the earthly and lives in one plane alone and can only swish around spiritual power laterally and not from Above to Below or even Below to Above.

 

  

 

 

 

 

Who is afraid of R. Yirmiah?

Hat Tip to MenachemMendel

Bava Basra 23b

בעי ר’ ירמיה: רגלו אחת בתוך נ’ אמה ורגלו אחת חוץ מחמשים אמה, מהו? ועל דא אפקוהו לרבי ירמיה מבי מדרשא

.R. Yirmiah asked a question about fledgling birds found near a privately-owned nesting box; the gemara rule that fledglings within 50 amot of the nesting box belonged to the owner of the box, but fledglings beyond 50 amot belonged to the finder. R. Yirmiah asked about the status of a fledgling found straddling the 50-amah line. His colleagues threw him out of the study hall

See B"M 21a

Overheard: Warm Heart

Setting: In the Mikvah. An older Litvak and a Chassidishe youngerman are conversing. This Litvak is not a simple Litvack; he is in the Mikvah on a regular weekday morning.

Youngerman: They said it's going to be so cold outside and it''s really not so cold.

Litvak: No?

Youngerman: I was prepared for REAL cold, so I didn't feel so cold.

Litvack: Oh... low expectations

Youngerman: ????

Litvak: They always say,"Lower expectations!". With lower expectation you'll always be happier.

Youngerman, not getting it: The most important thing is to have a warm heart. With the warm heart you'll always be OK.

Litvak: No, not always.

Youngerman, wonderingly: Where wouldn't a person with a warm heart be OK?

Litvak:, voice trailing When he is among people with cold hearts. Man with a warm heart will NOT be OK among people with cold hearts.

 

Altz is Gott: Is this classic Rabbinic theology?

The conventional view of Rabbinic theology is that it accepts a distinction between the physical and spiritual world. The spiritual is above and the physial is below. Divine Presence rests on the Ark, which measures 10 tephachim high. Never had Glory (Shekhina) descended below and never had Moshe and Eliahu ascended to above, as it says” The heavens are heavens of the L-rd and earth he has given to the sons of men (Tehilim115) (Sukkah 5 and in the Mekhilta D.Rabbi Yishmoel, Yisro). Revelation is perceived as ocurring within the boundary between the physical below and the spiritual above. We find an example of this phenomona in this week’s parsha, Yisro.

…You have seen that from heavens I have spoken to you (Shemos 20,19) One verse states: “that from heaven” and another one says:”…and Hashem descended upon the mountain Sinai (Shemos 19,20)…” How shall both verses be reconciled? A third verse comes and mediates between them - from heaven He made you hear His voice to chastise you and His fire he made you see on the earth and His words you heard from within the fire (Devarim 4) - these are words of R. Yishmoel. R. Akiva says: “This teaches that the Holy One Blessed be He spread upper heavens on top of the mountain and spoke to them from heaven as it says “and He spread heavens and descended and darkness under his feet (Tehilim 18). Rebbi says: “and Hashem descended on Mount Sinai -top of mountain “and He called to Moshe” - to the top of the mountain “and Moshe went up” - you may think as it sounds, no, just like one who employs helpers can reach to places personally or through helpers, so much more the Glory of One who spoke and the world came into being (in other words, some messenger angel carried out Hashem’s commands and He Himself was not present at the top of the mountain)

Rebbi’s wording is somewhat obscure. I follow the explanation of Hagahos uBiurim.

Rabbi Yishmoel, as Rashi explains in his comments to this verse, understands that “His Glory is in heaven and his fire and power are on the earth”. In other words, what concerns R. Yishmoel is an obvious contradiction between G-d being described as located both on the top of the mountain at Revelation, in the physical realm,  and Him being heard from heaven, presumably far above the mountain. The solution is likewise straightforward - He was seen on the mountain but His voice emanated from heaven. R. Akiva, on the other hand, resolves the contradiction by positing the folding over of heaven on top of the mountain. The spiritual was stretched and folded on top of the physical.

Similarly in an earlier comment, “…and all the people see the voices (20,15)”. They see that which is visible and they hear that which is audible - words of R. Yishmael. R. Akiva says: They see and hear that which is visible. There is nothing that comes from the Mouth of the Almighty and (was not) inscribed on the tablets, as it says “the voice of G-d inscribes flames of fire”(Tehilim 29). Thus, here too R. Yishmoel simply points out that they saw the fire which was at one place, on top of the mountain, and they heard the sound that came from another place, from the heaven. R. Akiva, on the other hand, suggests that they saw and heard that joining of the physical and heavenly that was at that moment taking place on the top of the mountain. In Rashi’s words - “they saw the audible, something not possible in another place”

We realize, however, that R. Akiva is also addressing a completely different issue when we compare his words with an anonymous Tanna quoted in parsha 4 of the Mekhilta (19,20).

‘’...and Hashem descended on the mount Sinai”. You may think that the Glory literally descended and that He spread it over the mountain - it says to teach us - “for from heaven”. That teaches us that the Holy One Blessed be He spread the lower heaven and higher heaven on the mountain and that the Glory descended and spread them (the heavens) on mount Sinai as a man folds a pillow at the head of a bed and as a man who speaks from the top of that pillow. So it says: as the melting fire, fire bubbles water(Ishaia 64) and it says (ibid) in your making things of wonder”.

The most outstanding difference in formulation between this Tanna and R. Akiva is that the former describes a process of folding upper and lower heaven while the latter mentions only the upper heaven. The issue, perhaps, is whether there exists an intemediate substance, what philosphers called, ether (hiyuli), that is made of such fine particles that it is in some ways almost spiritual.This substance is the Lower Heaven. The interaction of the Heavenly and Earthly is portrayed as the touching of two opposite - fire and water. Nevertheless, though the twain shall never meet, they come together and are united at the boundary: the bubbles of boiling water.

It seems to me that R. Akiva is not as much troubled by the contradiction between verses as he feels the need to address the philosophical and religious difficulty that they present. Every religion must present a compelling vision of how the spiritual or heavenly realms can interact with the physical and the earthly. It does not matter whether the physical is the top of a mountain or the lowest valley and it should not matter whether you conceive of the spiritual as the highest or lowest heavens; the twain should never be able to meet. Yet history and human experience demonstrate unequivocally that in some way the physical and the spiritual intertwine, or at the very least, touch each other.

There are two ways of describing this relationship. The first one sees the spiritual as a dimension above and beyond the physical. To explain this, imagine a world that is completely two dimensional, consisting of length and width and nothing else. Imagine also that it is populated by two dimensional intelligent beings, sort of cut-out paper characters that operate and move solely along a two-dimensional plane. How would these beings perceive a man walking about in their world?

Well, first of all they see him as a set of footprints, unaware of the vast dimensions above their two dimensional space. More importantly, what they do percieve, seems to randomly disappear and then miraculously reappear far from where it was originally sighted. This is because they are only aware of him when he steps on their plain; they are blind to the process of walking that occurs above and outside their dimension.

R. Akiva sees the spiritual as a dimension above our world. Sefer Yetsira (5,2), attributed by many sources to R. Akiva (Pardes1,1) expresses this view in these words:”…depth of beginning and depth of end (dimension of time), depth of good and depth of evil (moral), depth of above and depth of below (height,) depth of east and depth of west (width), depth of north and depth of south (length)…When the dimensions, for a moment, connect, we perceive them as miraculous events - and that is what took place at Sinai. For more on this see here.

Chazal speak of Shkhina as "resting" upon a prophet. Avos are the Merkavah (Genesis Rabba 47:6). Just like the Shekhina rides upon the Keruvim, so can the Holy Spirit rest and touch a human being. Once you admit of it entering a human being, however, you are in the realm of the idolatrous, of incorporation of the spirit within a body, of a human becoming divine. Pagans believed in Possession, a spirit dwelling within the body as an uneasy guest, and Incarnation, a spirit entering the body as it sole element of vitality.

Chazal would never accept these concepts. There is no commentator (with the sole exception of R. Bachaya, which deserves a separate discussion) that would even consider explaining that the three men who visited Avrohom were incarnated beings.

There is, however, another solution to the problem of physical and spiritual. It is possible to see the spiritual as present within the physical and the physical as enveloping and enclothing the spiritual, and this is key, in a continuous process. Take for example, a concept such as kindness. Now, kindness does not exist in a physical sense; it cannot be touched, measured or tasted. It is, therefore, a spiritual entity.

One cannot, however, grasp the concept of kindness without understanding the concept of free choice to be kind or otherwise; in this sense, the concept of kindness enclothes the concept of choice within it. The concept of free choice itself cannot be grasped without knowing the concept of good and evil, without which choice mean nothing. Good and evil themselves presuppose a system of moral authority or a Divine Being from Whom it stems. The concepts of a Divine Being is enclothed within the concept of moral choice etc.

Thus, an observable physical act of kindness enclothes the concept of kindness, which itself enclothes a concept of choice, within which dwells the understanding of good and evil and the concept of a Divine Being. (I set up an example to consist of 4 stages corresponding to the 4 Kabbalistic worlds, but, of course, the act of kindness also envelopes many other concepts of different levels of complexity, analogous to the Kabbalistic idea of Partsufim).

The anonymous Tanna resolves the difficulty of the spiritual physical connection that is resident in the concept of Revelation in the manner just described. The higher heaven are folded into the lower heaven, G-d speaks, as if from a pillow above the double covering. In other words, spiritual comes in a series of "levushim", or, we might say is enclothed in various garments, some just a membrane, like a pillowcase, others thick and obscure, like the pillow itself. In kabbala, there is a disagreement whether this is true only of the spiritual worlds or even of the physical world. In other words, some believe that there is no discontinuity between the spiritual and the physical, so that the physical is sumply the end product of emanation. Others, hold that it is ony true of the spiritual worlds and the physical world was created through a separate process, as Creation, not as emanation.

The impression one gets from Chazal is like the latter view. It would be desirable to find the former view in the words of Tannaim as well, so as to legitimize it before all. The way in which we explained the view of the Anonymous Tanna may serve that purpose.

There is a well known diagreement between R. Yosi and Chochomim in Shevuos 35b. whether the name Tsva(k)os, which means Hosts, is a Holy Name of G-d of merely means hosts and is not holy. R. Yosi says that the name Tsva(k)os is not holy and can be erased, whereas Chochomim says it is Holy and cannot be erased (and this is the halacha). The Rogatchover once explained that the disagreement is the same one as about whether Tsimtusm is Kephsuto or not. If Tsimtsum Kipshuto, G-d withdrew from the world and allowed a space for physical beings to exist in it. He interacts with them from outside this "space" and hosts that are within it are not holy. All the things, (hosts) within it are physical bodies and are not holy. If not kepshuto, He remains within the physical space just as before the withdrawal, physical adn piritual are identical in essence, though not in degree, and both the name Hashem and Tsva(k)os are equally Holy.

 ת"ר כתב אלף למד מאלהים יה מיי' ה"ז אינו נמחק שין דלת משדי אלף דלת מאדני צדי בית מצבאות ה"ז נמחק רבי יוסי אומר צבאות כולו נמחק שלא נקרא צבאות אלא על שם ישראל שנאמר (שמות ז) והוצאתי את צבאותי את עמי בני ישראל מארץ מצרים אמר שמואל אין הלכה כרבי יוסי

In other words, is it that there is a separate G-d and there is a multiplicity of mundane events and beings in our world, the former is Holy and the latter are not. Or, is it that Holiness pervades all worlds, including our own and all the physical beings within it.

The anonymous Tanna and R. Akiva may be disagreeing about the very same point.

 

 

False Memories

I saw this quoted in Mishpacha:

I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.

Mark Twain
US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910)

Moral: Some of the terrible things we remember did not really happen as we remember them.

Our perceptions and our rmemories are largely under our control.

 

Don't worry, Be happy!

Avos 2:6, Integrity

In the place where there is no man, strive to be a man.

We previously explain this phrase as the closing phrase of the mishna, the key to understanding all its disparate elements; that is, saying that each of the qualities discussed in it requires a proper vessel to contain it. Undoubtedly, it also alludes to the fact that where there is no one else doing a particular good thing, one must be a man; in other words, one must call upon the masculine elements of perseverance, independence and courage. This is how the word is often used in Tanach. See , for example, Radak an Rav Hirsch to Tehillim 49 (גַּם-בְּנֵי אָדָם, גַּם-בְּנֵי-אִישׁ), or this verse :  ִתְחַזְּקוּ וִהְיוּ לַאֲנָשִׁים, פְּלִשְׁתִּים--פֶּן תַּעַבְדוּ לָעִבְרִיםin Shmuel I:3

I very much like an explanation brought in Midrash Shmuel, that this means that one must behave the same way among people as when there is no man around. This introduces the concept of Integrity.

Integrity come from the word integer, which is a whole number - not a part of a number and not a fraction of a number but a whole number. What it means is that a person who is torn inside, who follows two sets of valeus at the same time, finds it easier to make right choices when others are watching but is often subverted from the "right and narrow" when no one else is watching. At such times, he is torn between what is easiest and most immediately rewarding and what is hard but just. A person of this sort is not a "Man" because he does not possess courage, conviction and integrity. The mishna tells us to be a Man even when no one else is around, even if there are no other "Men" who walk with integrity, even when things are difficult and trying.