Author: devora

Excerpted from Rabbi Shmuel Goldin’s Unlocking the Torah Text – Bamidbar, co-published by OU Press and Gefen Publishers

Blow Your Horn

Context

Finally, the nation stands poised to leave Sinai and begin its historic journey. One final set of divine directives, however, must yet be given.

God turns to Moshe and states: “Make for yourself two chatzotzrot kesef, trumpets of silver; of beaten work shall you make them; and they shall be for you for the summoning of the assembly and to cause the camps to journey.”

Sounded by the priests, these silver trumpets will be used to herald a journey, gather the nation, strengthen the people in the face of challenge and mark the commemoration of festivals and celebrations.

Based upon the specific language “Make for yourself,” the rabbis discern a striking distinction between the trumpets and all other utensils fashioned by Moshe in the wilderness. While other utensils were appropriate for use in future generations, Moshe’s trumpets were his alone, to be used only during his lifetime. Each future generation would have to fashion its trumpets anew.

Questions
One can’t help but be a bit disappointed by the final laws given at Sinai….

Firstly, why do the trumpets merit mention in the Torah text at all?

The Altar, the Menora, the Table and other similar utensils described in the text are clearly unique, sanctified objects to be used in conjunction with the worship of God in the Sanctuary. Their inclusion in the Torah is certainly understandable.

The trumpets, however, seem to be primarily utilitarian in nature: “And they shall be for you for the summoning of the assembly and to cause the camps to journey.” Other practical tools must have been fashioned by the Israelites over the course of their wilderness journeys. Why are only the trumpets mentioned?

Secondly, the chatzotzrot occupy a powerfully pivotal place in the text. The laws concerning their creation and use represent the last directives given by God before the Jewish national journey begins. One would expect the final edicts transmitted at Sinai to be particularly significant, culminating commandments, designed to set the nation on its way. Even if the instructions concerning the chatzotzrot do belong in the text, why are they placed here? Couldn’t God have found a more significant mitzva with which to launch our nation’s journey?

Finally, why are the chatzotzrot generation-specific? Why are we not permitted to pass them down, like all other sacred utensils, from one generation to the next?

Approaches
A
A close reading of the text reveals that there is much more to the function of the chatzotzrot than first meets the eye. While the initially recorded use of the trumpets does seem utilitarian, their later recorded role is much more complex:

And when you go to wage war in your land against the adversary that oppresses you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, and you shall be recalled before the Lord, your God, and you shall be saved from your foes.
And on the day of your gladness, and on your festivals, and on your new moons, you shall sound the trumpets over your burnt offerings and over your feast peace offerings; and they shall be a remembrance for you before your God; I am the Lord, your God.

The sounding of the trumpets described in these passages is far from ordinary. Here, the chatzotzrot are apparently used to communicate with God, their sounding a form of wordless prayer, designed to pierce the heavens.

B
As our understanding of the role of the chatzotzrot expands, a fascinating pattern begins to emerge.

The Torah identifies two distinct sounds created by the chatzotzrot:
1. The tekia: A long, unbroken sounding of the trumpet; associated in the text with congregational assembly, leadership assembly and communal celebration.
2. The terua: A broken sounding of the trumpet; associated with a call to travel and the advent of war.

Apparently, even the initially mentioned usage of the trumpets is not solely utilitarian. The sounds of the chatzotzrot consistently mirror the mindset of the people at the moment of their sounding. Times of comfort and stability – such as occasions of assembly and celebration – are marked by a tekia, an unbroken sound of certainty. Times of uncertainty, challenge and distress, on the other hand – such as occasions of journey and war – are associated primarily with the terua, a broken, uncertain sound.

C
The concept of connection between ritually created sounds and the mindset of those sounding and hearing them finds further support from another, more familiar halachic source, recognizable to most Jews.

The broken and unbroken blasts created by the chatzotzrot are the same sounds created by the blowing of the shofar on the yearly “Day of Judgment,” the festival of Rosh Hashana, the “head” of the Jewish year. In Temple times, in fact, the sounding of the shofar was actually accompanied by the simultaneous sounding of the trumpets.

While both the tekia and the terua are sounded on Rosh Hashana, however, only the latter is clearly connected to the festival in the Torah text. So central, in fact, is the association between the broken sound of the shofar and Rosh Hashanah that the Torah refers to this holy day as Yom Terua, a day of terua, and Zichron Terua, a remembrance of terua. The message is clear. The aura of Rosh Hashana, the yearly Day of Judgment, is captured by the terua, the broken, uncertain sound of the shofar.

The deep bond between Rosh Hashana and the terua sound underlies the rabbinic attempt in the Talmud to define the actual nature of this broken blast. Tellingly, the rabbis identify the terua either as a series of nine short, staccato blasts, symbolizing an individual in the act of sobbing, or as a series of three somewhat longer sounds (a series known to us as a shevarim), symbolizing an individual in the act of sighing. According to both positions, the broken sound of the shofar dramatically depicts the image of a “broken” individual, standing in spiritual and emotional distress before the Heavenly Court.

Just as the notes of the chatzotzrot mirror the internal state of the Israelites at the time of the trumpets’ sounding, so, too, the blasts of the shofar reflect the internal turmoil of each individual standing on Rosh Hashana, in judgment before God.

D
The message emerging from this imagery, however, strikes even deeper. Once we thematically connect the trumpet and shofar blasts, further consideration of the sounding of the shofar on Rosh Hashana can help us better understand the role of the chatzotzrot. The blasts of the shofar, after all, are not meant to simply mirror the internal struggle of an individual standing in judgment before God. These sounds are instead designed to awaken, cultivate and develop that very struggle.

The halachic verdict in a fascinating rabbinic debate mirrors this understanding of the mitzva. Some authorities maintain that the blessing to be recited before the sounding of the shofar should read, “Blessed art Thou, Lord our God, Who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to sound the shofar.”

The Rambam and others, however, argue for the text “Blessed art Thou, Lord our God, Who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to hear the sound of the shofar.” Furthermore, the Rambam explicitly and repeatedly states that the mitzva is to “hear the sound of the shofar.”

In practice, the Rambam’s position is adopted as law and the blessing is universally pronounced “to hear the sound of the shofar.”

Numerous authorities amplify this halachic decision. Clearly, they maintain, the shofar blasts are not only a form of wordless prayer directed to the Almighty, but also sounds that we direct to ourselves.

The Rambam himself proclaims: “Although the sounding of the shofar on Rosh Hashana is an unexplained edict of the text, a lesson is embedded within it: ‘Awaken slumberers from your sleep…examine your ways…return to and remember your Creator…. Look into your souls, examine your ways and actions, and let each one of you abandon his evil path.’ ”

Set at the beginning of the year, as our personal journeys begin again, the sounding of the shofar is designed to arouse the one element essential to all religious striving: our own human spirit, our heart and our soul. That awakening accomplished, the shofar sounds then reflect our spirit back to God in wordless, heartfelt prayer.

E
Here, then, is the key to the mitzva of the chatzotzrot. Like the shofar sounds, the blasts of the trumpets are designed to awaken and to reflect the one final component essential to the success of the Jewish journey: the indomitable human spirit lying in the heart of each Israelite.

As the people prepare to depart Sinai, God turns to Moshe and says: I have given you all that I can. The laws, the symbols, the rituals and the legal process are all in place. Now, however, you must add the one ingredient that I cannot; the one essential element that must come from each of you, of your own free will.

Create for yourself chatzotzrot…sound them again and again…and let those trumpets awaken your spirit, in times of certainty or doubt, in times of celebration or conflict. Meet each of these vastly different circumstances with the same inner strength and devotion. Above all, remember that all that I have given you will be meaningless without the investment of your spirit and your soul….

And if you are successful, then the notes of those trumpets will themselves be transformed into wordless prayer, piercing the vaults of the heavens and reaching My Heavenly Throne. For those sounds will represent your spirit and soul as no words can.

F
There could be no more appropriate mitzva with which to leave Sinai than the mitzva of the chatzotzrot: trumpets designed to awaken the spirit of the Israelites as their historic journey begins; trumpets that will be forged anew, over and over again, as each generation rouses its own unique spirit to meet the challenges of the day.

Points to Ponder

Two areas of consideration can be suggested as we consider the mitzvot of the shofar and the chatzotzrot.

I. Chatzotzrot: Awakening
I recently attended a rabbinic meeting called to consider the national agenda of the American Orthodox Jewish community. The question posed to us, a small group of rabbis gathered from across the United States, seemed straightforward enough: “Out of the multitude of possible religious, social, communal and national concerns facing the Jewish people today, what are the principal issues that we should be addressing most directly? What are our priorities, our burning concerns?”

It didn’t take long at all, however, for the discussion to take an unexpected, extraordinary turn. Almost to a one, those present suggested that we had missed a step. Before we could discuss issues of concern, we felt, first we had to discuss how to cultivate concern in the first place. We each described common experiences – a sense that, together with our congregants, we were going through the motions, absent the passion and spark.

The older among us reminisced about our experiences during the Soviet Jewry movement, when an energized global Jewish community rallied around a common cause. We bemoaned the fact that today, in spite of the myriad issues confronting the State of Israel, national organizations are reluctant to convene major rallies for fear of disappointing turnout.

We all spoke of the challenges we face in our attempts to arouse the passion of our respective communities around the experiences of Shabbat, Torah study and prayer. “I just wish that my congregants could become half as passionate about their spiritual search,” said one participant, “as they are about their sports teams.”

Perhaps we rabbis are partially at fault for failing to properly convey the excitement that should accompany searching for God’s will in all aspects of our lives, entering the eternal Jewish discussion through the portal of textual study, reaching beyond ourselves in heartfelt prayer and so much more. Perhaps times are different and “taking to the streets” has yielded to more sophisticated approaches, such as lobbying on Capitol Hill. Perhaps in our intellectual communities, we automatically look askance at emotionalism and fervor within religious worship.

Nonetheless, God’s final commandments to the Israelites as they prepare to depart Sinai speak to us all. Absent the spark, spirit and passion that has characterized our people’s relationship with God across the ages, our own personal religious experience is sorely lacking.

When it comes to the awakening of our spirit, we can hand the task to no one else. Each of us is challenged to fashion and sound our own symbolic chatzotzrot in order to truly experience the adventure of Sinai in our day.

II. The Clarion Call of the Shofar
Why is the shofar of Rosh Hashana always sounded in sets of three? The pattern is uniform: a broken sound of the shofar (a terua, shevarim or a combination shevarim-terua) unfailingly encompassed by two unbroken tekiot.

According to one position in the Talmud, the answer lies in a fascinating linguistic anomaly associated with the sounding of the chatzotzrot.

As indicated in our study, wilderness journeys were marked by the sounding of a terua on the trumpets. In recording this instruction, however, the Torah does not use the verb derived from the term terua, but rather the verb derived from the term tekia. In addition, the verb appears in the text both before and after the mention of the terua. Based upon this textual phenomenon, the rabbis conclude that a broken sound of the shofar is never sounded alone. Each time a terua is sounded, whether on the chatzotzrot or on the shofar, it is always to be preceded and followed by an unbroken tekia.

While neither the Torah nor the rabbis offer a rationale for the consistent enclosure of teruot within tekiot, two suggestions might be offered.

Firstly, and most obviously, this halachic detail mirrors the faith-based optimism that permeates our entire tradition. The broken sounds of the trumpets and the shofar never appear in isolation. No matter how difficult the times may be, no matter how overwhelming the challenge, we believe with a full heart in God’s personal care for us and in His promises to our people. Even though a terua may define our present experience, the tekia will eventually be heard.

Secondly, the threefold sounding of the chatzotzrot and the shofar speaks to the way that Jews view time. To the outside world, only the present is certain. The past is a dim memory, the future hidden in mists of mystery. To the Jew, however, the opposite is true. The past is as certain as the clarion call of the shofar at Sinai; the future, as certain as the tekia that will herald the Mashiach. The only thing that is uncertain is the here and now. What role will I play in the unfolding drama of my people?

The threefold sounding of the shofar squarely presents the Jewish vision of past, present and future for our consideration on Rosh Hashana. We are reminded that the task of each individual Jew is to transform his own personal terua into an unbroken tekia, thus uniting the clarion call of the past to the clarion call of the future, which is certain to come.

Excerpted from Rabbi Dr. Norman J. Lamm’s Derashot Ledorot: A Commentary for the Ages – Numbers, co-published by OU Press, Maggid Books, and YU Press; edited by Stuart Halpern

Aristocracy in Jewish Society*

The quality and the character of a society can usually be measured by the kind of people it chooses to honor. A nation’s heroes are normally a good index of its mores. You can know a people by observing whether it esteems bull fighters or poets, cloak-and-dagger operatives or philosophers, politicians or musicians, men of wealth and success or spiritual personalities.
With this in mind, it is instructive to inquire what kind of society Judaism envisions for us and how successful we Jews have been, in practice, in conforming to this normative society and the ideals laid down for it by our faith.

At the end of the last portion, Bemidbar, we read the commandment to take the census and assign duties to the family of Kehat, of the tribe of Levi (4:2). This morning’s sidra, Naso, continues with the commandments of the census and assigns the duties to the family of Gershon.Now, it has been asked: Why is Kehat given precedence over Gershon, especially since Gershon is the firstborn? The Rabbis of the Midrash (Numbers Rabba 6:1) put it this way:

Although Gershon was the firstborn, and we find in every place that Scripture grants honor to the firstborn (kavod labekhor), due to Kehat being the one assigned to carry the ark, which contained the Torah, he was given precedence over Gershon.

We learn, therefore, that kevod haTorah is greater than kavod labekhor – that scholarship in Jewish life ranks over primogeniture.

Jewish law clearly lays down the priorities of respect and honor granted to different categories of people, and this order represents the ideal hierarchy of Jewish society. In it, primacy is given to the sage, the wise man, the scholar. Unlike Plato, the Rabbis did not place at the apex of society the Jewish version of the “philosopher-king.” They did not identify the man of intellect with the man of political authority and civic sovereignty. Rather, they gave the highest esteem to the ĥakham, the Jewish equivalent of a philosopher, and second to him was the melekh, the king.

We are taught in the Tosefta (Horayot 2:8) that the order of priority is: sage, king, high priest, prophet. These four are the heroes of Jewish society.

Consider the prophet. The reverence for him is clearly established in our tradition. Indeed, as part of the blessings over the haftara, we bless God who “chooses the Torah and Moses His servant and Israel His nation and His prophets of truth and righteousness.” Yet, the prophet remains subordinate to the other three. Why is this so? Because prophecy is a response to negative conditions. Prophecy is not, as with soothsayers or magicians in other cults, a matter of forecasting or predicting the future, but primarily its task is to reproach and reprove and rebuke the people and summon them back to God and to Torah. The prediction of future consequences is but one aspect of the prophet’s task of toĥakha, of rebuke. Hence, the whole office of
the prophet is called into being only when the people reveal profound inadequacies and failures and backslidings. That is why the Rabbis said (Nedarim 22b) that if the Israelites had not sinned, they would have had no need for any books besides the Five Books of Moses and the book of Joshua.

The next in order are king and high priest. Notice that the king comes before the high priest. Why is this so? Because Judaism does not assert a sharp dichotomy between the religious and the secular, as other faiths do. We do not believe that we must render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s. All is God’s realm, and the king has his role to play in it. Political leadership has a “religious” function too, namely, that of establishing social peace and harmony and justice. Indeed, the priest has, as his main task, the ordering of the relationship between man and God, bein adam laMakom, whereas the king is charged with establishing proper relationships bein adam leĥaveiro. It is for this reason that the king takes precedence over the high priest.

But at the very pinnacle of the ideal Jewish hierarchy comes the sage, the ĥakham.

The Rabbis (Avot 4:13) told us of three crowns: the crown of Torah, the crown of the priesthood, and the crown of kingship. And in Avot DeRabbi Natan (1:41) we learn that one can never buy the crown of priesthood. Similarly, one can never buy the crown of royalty (although the effort has been made and it has been done – but illegitimately). Actually, both the high priesthood and kingship go from father to son. But when it comes to the crown of Torah, one not only cannot buy it, he need not pay a penny for it. It is available to whoever desires it. All one must do to seize the crown of Torah is to spend his whole life in it, to experience sleepless nights, to suffer for it, to give up all the pleasures of the world that stand in the way of acquiring greatness and wisdom of the Torah. No wonder that an illegitimate child who is a scholar precedes a high priest who is an ignoramus (Mishna Horayot 3:8)!

Of course, not all ĥokhma is creative and constructive. The Jewish tradition knows of a ĥakham lehara, or evil genius (see, for example, Yalkut Shimoni, Genesis, 25). True wisdom remains that which is based upon piety: “The beginning of wisdom is fear of God” (Psalms 111:10).

Not only do I refer to piety in the conventional sense, but also to any intelligence applied to the improvement of man’s life in the face of God. Thus Jeremiah told us (9:22-23):

Let not the wise man (ĥakham) glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches. But let him that glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises mercy, justice, and righteousness, in the earth; for in these things I delight, says the Lord.

True wisdom is the imitation of God, and God’s personality is one which seeks the establishment of love and justice and righteousness in the world. Hence, any human being who uses his mind and heart and intellect and will in order to realize and implement these great qualities is a wise man. Judaism hence approves of the ĥokhma of the scientist who improves life as an act of ĥessed; the intelligence of the philanthropist and the wisdom of the jurist and the businessman or any citizen whose goal is mercy, justice, and righteousness. But, above all others is the ĥakham, the wise individual who is learned in the ways of Torah, who exposes himself to the direct message of the will of God.

Have we Jews succeeded? The answer is a fluctuating one. Generally, I believe that the answer is more positive than negative. For instance, European Jewry, especially pre-Emancipation Jewry, and the part that remained in the shtetl of Eastern Europe, as well as central Europe in some cases, was one which came close to realizing this social hierarchy of Judaism. The greatest dream of parents was not that their children become doctors or lawyers or engineers or very wealthy people, but that they become talmidei ĥakhamim. Jewish children were put to sleep in their cradles with the lullaby “Toyreh is the best seĥoyreh,” “Torah is the best reward.”

Israel today, with all its problems and its military needs, still reverences learning. Of the four presidents of Israel, the first incumbent, Chaim Weitzman, alav hashalom, and the present president, Prof. Katzir, are both men of science. The other two, Dr. Ben Zvi, alav hashalom, and that great Jew, Zalman Shazar, achieved renown in Jewish scholarship.

In the United States, we were not so fortunate. It used to be that any national Jewish organization – even Orthodoxy, or perhaps especially Orthodoxy – felt that no convention meeting could be complete without a guest speaker who was preferably wealthy, non-Jewish, and either a politician or a humorist. Organizations vie with each other in getting “name” people in the hope that by honoring them some of the honor would reflect back on themselves. But the people they chose to honor were certainly not those who could fit the prescription of the ideal Jewish structure.

Fortunately, the pendulum is swinging away from that kind of self-abnegation and unworthy attitude. A younger generation is more sophisticated, more accepting of its Jewishness, more understanding, and less sycophantic. They understand that true Judaism calls for the ĥakham to have the highest rank in the Jewish world.

At Sinai we were told that we were going to be and must be a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6), a people who emphasized priesthood and prophecy. Yet our special pride above all else was told to us by Moses before he died:

For this is your wisdom (ĥakhmatkhem) and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, that, when they hear all these statutes, shall say: “Surely this great nation is a wise (ĥakham) and understanding people. (Deuteronomy 4:6)

 

 

 

---

*June 9, 1973. This sermon is largely based on the ideas of the late Prof. Feivel Meltzer.

Excerpted from With Liberty and Justice: The Fifty-Day Journey from Egypt to Sinai by Senator Joe Lieberman with Rabbi Ari D. Kahn, co-published by OU Press and Maggid Books

Day 45 – Ruth, A Love Story and an Allegory

Most Jewish communities read the Book of Ruth during morning services on Shavuot. A beautiful, romantic story, it fittingly reflects the rabbinic view that the giving of the Ten Commandments and their acceptance was like a marriage ceremony between God and the Israelites.

The Book of Ruth begins with a man named Elimelekh, who, when famine strikes Israel, uproots his family from their hometown of Bethlehem and leaves his country and people behind.

The names of the characters and places in the book of Ruth are instructive, indicative even of divine justice. Elimelekh leaves behind the city of Bethlehem – Hebrew for “house of bread.” Ironically, as the story opens, there is no leĥem, “bread,” in Bethlehem. According to the Midrash, Elimelekh, who was wealthy, apparently abandoned his town to protect his fortune from the appeals of suffering neighbors. He takes his wife, his sons, and his wealth to the Plains of Moab. Soon afterward, Elimelekh dies; his sons Mahlon, a name meaning “diseased one,” and  Kilion, “eradicated one,” marry Moabite women, and they too die.

Elimelekh’s widow, Naomi, decides to return to Israel. Initially, both of Naomi’s daughters-in-law offer to return with her, but Naomi presents them with the harsh realities that argue against their kind proposals. Orpah, which means “nape of the neck,” relents and returns to her father’s house in Moab. But Ruth is not swayed by Naomi’s attempts to convince her to stay in Moab as well. She declares in beautiful, now famous words:

Do not entreat me to leave you. Wherever you go I will go…your people is my people, and your God is my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. So may the Lord do to me and so may He continue, for nothing but death will separate me from you. (Ruth 1:16–17)

Ruth’s devotion is absolute as she accompanies her elderly, now impoverished mother-in-law to a strange new land. Ruth also embodies loyalty and kindness, the very traits Elimelekh and his sons lacked.

Back in Bethlehem, Boaz, a relative of Elimelekh, notices Ruth collecting stray stalks of wheat in his fields, as poor people were permitted to do. He is impressed by Ruth’s demeanor and respect for Jewish customs. He asks about her and learns that this young immigrant from a foreign land has taken it upon herself to care for her mother-in-law, Naomi. Instead of xenophobically rejecting Ruth, or gloating over the downfall of Elimelekh’s household, Boaz instructs his workers to look out for this “stranger” and be sure that she, and Naomi, have plenty of food. He warns his field hands that she must not be harmed or molested in any way.

In an ironic reversal, Ruth is extended the support and protection of a wealthy landowner willing to assume the role shunned by Elimelekh. Boaz is a man of principle, and he rewards Ruth for the kindness she has shown Naomi.

The Book of Ruth is ultimately the story of those who embrace and embody the values of the Torah and the Ten Commandments, represented by Ruth, who chooses to adopt Jewish law and values, and Boaz, who reflects the best social justice values received at Sinai. In the end, Boaz marries Ruth and they (and Naomi) live happily ever after. In fact, they merit to establish the Kingdom of the House of David, through their great-grandson David who, according to tradition, was born and died on Shavuot.

Over the centuries, several reasons have been given for reading the Book of Ruth on Shavuot. One of the most obvious is that the story of Ruth occurs in an agricultural setting at harvest time, as does the counting of the Omer, and the celebration of the First Fruits on Shavuot.

Another explanation is that the Book of Ruth is an allegory for acceptance of the Ten Commandments and Torah by the Israelites at Sinai, and the fulfillment of the covenant between Abraham and God. On Shavuot at Sinai, the Israelites accepted the Torah and became the Jewish nation, just as Ruth chose to join the Jewish people and accept their laws and values.

Today, when controversy about what constitutes a valid conversion to Judaism abounds, I will not be the first or last to note that Ruth’s conversion seems to be based on the simple, sincere declaration: “Your people is my people, and your God is my God.”

I believe that the most important reason why Ruth is read on Shavuot is to remind us that the religion that Ruth accepted is about the values of love, honor, and kindness that are the essence of the Law given at Sinai. The Law can be stern, mechanical, and dry, but the values it aims to spread are as personal, emotional, and compelling as the Book of Ruth.

Excerpted from Rabbi Dr. Norman J. Lamm’s Derashot Ledorot: A Commentary for the Ages – Leviticus, co-published by OU Press, Maggid Books, and YU Press; edited by Stuart W. Halpern

So Help Me God*

Our sidra of this morning opens with the commandment to the kohen that he not defile himself by contact with the corpse of any person save his closest relatives. These include his father, mother, son, daughter, brother, and unmarried sister. Before these, however, appears one category which presents a problem. The Torah expresses this as “she’eiro hakarov eilav,” which most English translations render as, “his kin who is nearest to him” (Leviticus 21:2). This would indicate that this expression is but an introduction to the detailed list of relatives that follows. However, our tradition (Yevamot 22b) has declared that the word “she’eir” refers to one’s wife who, therefore, is the first instance of a relative to whom a kohen may, indeed must, defile himself in order to accord her her last honor.

The question is: Why did the Torah not say directly and explicitly that the kohen may defile himself for his wife? Why this peculiar idiom? And if indeed “she’eir” does mean a wife, why is it in the masculine form?

The answer offered by the Keli Yakar – and anticipated by the Rashbam in his commentary to the Talmud – is rather prosaic; in fact, so prosaic as to be almost banal. Yet, it says something to us of great significance. “She’eir” means a wife because, he tells us, the word originally means “food,” as in the Biblical expression “she’eira kesuta ve’onata” (Exodus 21:10).

But why does the Torah use the word “she’eir” for “wife,” when it means “food”? And the answer that is offered is: because it is she who prepares her husband’s food for him!

What a disappointing and pedestrian answer! But what he means is clearly more than the reduction of the role of the wife to chief cook and bottle washer. On the contrary, the reference to a man’s “she’eir,” his wife, as “hakarov eilav,” as one who is close to him, indicates that the wife’s occupation as “she’eir” somehow attains a significance that makes her exceedingly close to her husband, closer than any two beings can otherwise be to each other.

In support of his answer, the Keli Yakar quotes a remarkable passage in the Talmud (Yevamot 63a) in which we are told that Rabbi Jose met (in a mystical vision) the prophet Elijah. Rabbi Jose presented to the prophet some of the problems that were bothering him. He said to the prophet: In the Torah it is written “e’eseh lo eizer kenegdo,” that God, noticing the loneliness of Adam, said, “I shall make for him a helpmeet for him” (Genesis 2:18). Now, in what way is a wife a help for her husband? (A strange question, but a question nonetheless.) To this the prophet answered: When the husband comes home from the field and brings with him wheat, can he eat the wheat as it is? Does he not require the service of his wife in threshing it, grinding it, baking it, and thus making it fit and palatable for him? Or, he comes home laden with flax. Is it possible for him to wear the flax as it is, without his wife weaving it into a proper garment for him? By means of her  assistance, she “brings light to his eyes and puts him on his feet.” Thus, the function of a wife, in the material sense, is to take the raw material provided for her by her husband and make it palatable and usable for him and her family.

One wonders – for such an interpretation of the function of a wife we need the prophet Elijah? But if we look a bit deeper, we find that we have here indeed an insight of rare wisdom. For, in order to truly be one who enlightens the eyes and places a man on his feet in stability, a wife must take not only the raw material that her husband gives her, but the raw material that her husband is, and transform every great potential within him, every advantageous possibility that he possesses, into a creative reality. That is why the wife is called “she’eir.” For just as nutritionally she converts the wheat into bread, just as her fingers weave the flax into clothing, so psychologically she must draw out all hidden talents from her husband, she must bring out the best in him. When she has done that, in this larger sense, then indeed she is one who “brings light to his eyes and puts him on his feet.”

This, then, is the true meaning of eizer, a helpmeet. One who “brings light to his eyes and puts him on his feet” is not a servant, or an assistant, or simply an extra pair of hands. Rather, such a woman is a catalyst of human development and progress, one who can creatively elicit from the deepest resources of a person that which is valuable, constructive, and enduring. Such an individual is an artist whose medium is the human personality, one who helps to release untapped human energy or, in the language of the Kabbala, an agent of the emergence “min hane’elam el hagalui,” of that which is hidden to that which is revealed.

Hence, the true wife is the kind of she’eir who is “hakarov eilav,” who is indeed close to her husband, closer than words can describe, because she is a veritable “eizer kenegdo,” a helpmeet for him. Just as she takes the raw food and transforms it into a palatable delicacy, so she is even closer in that she takes the raw potentialities that he brings to her – and no living, dynamic human being is ever complete and perfect – and encourages the emergence of his underdeveloped abilities. And this dynamic works both ways – in a marriage, each partner is a she’er for the other, bringing out the best in the other.

The same even holds true, although perhaps to a lesser extent, for any devoted relative or teacher or friend – not the least of which is a parent. The role of such a person, no matter what the relationship, is to teach not in the sense of informing, but in the sense of molding and shaping and directing the inner life so that it emerges more developed and more finely oriented.

What is true for individuals holds true for communities as well. Thus, the relationship of Israel to the United States is, or ought to be, that of husband and wife, that of one who “brings light to his eyes and puts him on his feet.” On this Sabbath before Israel’s Independence Day, we of course are concerned about Israel’s military security and economic well-being. But over and beyond that, each country must help bring out the best in the other – each must assist the other in focalizing its major concerns and directing its energies creatively instead of squandering them diffusely. Israel must help American Jewry survive with its moral concern for other Jewries intact, and not to imagine that it is sufficient to be complete Americans of Jewish persuasion. And American Jewry must help Israel realize the purpose of its existence, which is much more than being just another Levantine state, by placing demands on its spiritual reservoirs and demanding a certain quality of life therein.

As in marriage, this creative agency of helping to bring out the best is usually through sweet reasonableness and encouragement; but sometimes, it works also through criticism and reproach and rebuke. Sometimes indeed the best way to be an eizer is by being kenegdo, over against a mate; so each of us – Israeli and American Jewry – must not be hypersensitive to criticism. It is quite alright to be kenegdo, provided the purpose is always to be an eizer. Only thus can we be for each other one who “brings light to his eyes and puts him on his feet,” enlightening and stabilizing.

But most of all the greatest eizer is God Himself. Thus we read in the Psalms (121:1) words which are known to us through the prayer book, “shir lama’alot, a song of ascent, I lift up my eyes to the hills (el heharim), from where shall my help come? My help comes from the Lord who makes heaven and earth.” The greatest eizer is God Himself.

Our Rabbis in the midrash on this psalm (Yalkut Shimoni, Psalms 879) pointed out that unlike the other psalms in this section, this one is introduced by the words “shir lama’alot” rather than “shir hama’alot,” “this is a song for the purpose of steps” – that is, this song is that which assists the righteous man in rising up the steps from his own soul to the divine Throne of Glory. This psalm tells us how to bring out the best in ourselves, ascending the ladder of the spirit.

God, Torah, and faith provide for us a sense of purposefulness which enables us to harness all our energy towards one goal, like a magnet acting on a disoriented group of iron molecules, focusing all of them in one direction – or like a laser beam, which, by causing all the light rays to go in one direction, gives us a tool of unprecedented power.

Moreover, the midrash saw in this psalm about eizer a historical reference of great tenderness and pathos. They say that it was uttered for the first time by our father Jacob, and the word should be read not “harim” but “horim,” not mountains, but parents. When Jacob was about to meet his beloved Rachel, he thought of the time that his father first met his mother. “I lift up my eyes el heharim (or horim)” means, I lift up my eyes and recall the time that my parents first met. How different were their circumstances! When they met, Isaac had Eliezer as his servant or ambassador bearing carloads of gifts and jewels and gems for his wife Rebecca. They began life with all the economic advantages that any young couple could ever want. And here I am, coming to my beloved Rachel as a fugitive from a hateful brother, fleeing for my life, in tatters, hungry and tired with not a penny to my name. “From where shall my help come?”

And his answer came: My help, my “she’eir,” comes from the Lord, “who makes heaven and earth.” God, who fashioned and ordered the world out of the primordial chaos, the “tohu vavohu,” He will do the same for my own life. It is He who will be my eizer by bringing out the best in me and allowing this best to emerge from the depths of my heart and soul to overcome my infirmities and my poverty and the harshness of life about me. Indeed, Isaac and Rebecca started out life with a great deal of wealth – yet they were not altogether happy. Somehow their relationship was not quite smooth – they often failed to communicate with each other. Whereas Jacob and Rachel, despite the difficulties that beset them in the beginning, despite the harshness of their few years together and the tragedy which brought early death to Rachel, managed to attain a life which was blessed with love and affection. The quality of their relationship was sublime – many decades after her death, Jacob was to remember with warm affection the immortal bonds that held them together. No doubt the quality of their relationship was largely the result of the fact that they had to struggle during their early years, that he had to work seven years and seven years again in order to win the hand of his beloved wife, and that in this mutual struggle together each was an eizer for the other, each one brought out the best in the other.

This too was the way in which God proved to be an eizer to Jacob. He taught Jacob how to bring out the best in himself and in his wife. Indeed, the greatest gift from God is not outright blessing, but an indirect blessing in which God teaches us how to approach the raw material of life and fashion something of enduring value. We read “ezri mei’im Hashem,” “My help is [literally] from with the Lord,” not “mei’eit Hashem,” “from the Lord.” God does not usually answer our prayers
by sending us miraculous deliverance or depositing a fortune at our doorstep. Instead, the experience of being with God, of entrusting our confidence in Him, of being aware of his presence at all times, gives us the strength to reorient our lives, to redirect all our energies, to refocus all our desires towards Him. This was the way in which Jacob’s prayer was answered and his eizer came to him from the God who was the Creator of heaven and earth. Even as he prayed to God, saying, “As You helped my parents, so help me O God,” and his prayer was answered when God proved to be his eizer, by bringing out the best in him – so may our prayers be answered.

We too pray for the divine eizer. Our hope is that He will grant us that same assistance whereby, as a result, we shall be the beneficiaries of the enlightenment of our eyes and the stability of our feet.

---

*May 13, 1967.

Excerpted from Rabbi Dr. Norman J. Lamm’s Derashot Ledorot: A Commentary for the Ages – Leviticus, co-published by OU Press, Maggid Books, and YU Press; edited by Stuart W. Halpern.

Aspects of Creativity*

The most wondrous miracle in the course of life is the appearance of life itself – the birth of a child. If, therefore, when a child is born, he or she is greeted with simĥa, with happiness, this is as it should be – for a child is the very highest expression of joyous creativity. No wonder the Jewish tradition teaches us that the father and mother of a child are partners with God in His creation – for the act of childbirth is the most significant creative act in human life. According to some of our classical commentators, the meaning of the biblical verse that man was created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26) means that just as God is creative so does man have the capacity to build and create. The most God-like of all human activities is that of creativity.

It is interesting therefore, and somewhat perplexing, to note the somewhat remarkable law which comes at the beginning of the first of the two portions which we read this morning, namely, that a woman is considered in a state of ritual impurity, or tuma, for a specified period of time after childbirth. If, indeed, the creative act is an imitation of God, why should the act of childbirth, the most creative natural act of which a human being is capable, bring with it, as a side-effect, a state of tuma?

What the Torah wanted to teach us, thereby, is that every creative human act, no matter how noble, inevitably brings with it certain negative features. Destructivity is one of the aspects of creativity, for creativity is a reorientation of the koĥot hanefesh; it disturbs the equilibrium of the inner workings of the soul, for what is new can be produced only by upsetting the status quo (this idea has been elaborated psychoanalytically by Freud in Civilization and its Discontents), and from the same reorganization which produces creative results there also emerge destructive consequences. You cannot have yetzira (creativity) without tuma. The creative act involves an area of shade, something negative, an element of pain and agony and frustration. The seed must rot for the plant to grow. When you carve wood, you must expect splinters. The sculptor must chip away part of the block and discard it in order to have the figure, which his imagination has conceived, emerge.

In the very creation of the world, according to the Kabbala, the same principle held true; the Creation was accompanied by what the Kabbala called the “shevirat hakeilim,” the breaking or bursting of vessels – meaning that just as God gave life and vitality to all the world in His holiness, so did some of this life-giving holiness become entrapped and ensconced in evil. God gave rise to the world, and, as a side-effect, there arose evil as well. Tuma, uncleanliness, accompanied the cosmic act of yetzira.

The establishment of great nations, great ideas, and great institutions likewise follows this pattern. American democracy came into being at the expense of bloodshed and revolution. French democracy, a most creative element in world history, carried with it the tuma of Robespierre and the symbol of the guillotine. The people of Israel were created in the house of slavery of Egypt. And when we left, there came along with us the eirev rav, the riffraff, those who did not deserve integration into our people. It is they who, according to the Jewish tradition, were responsible for the making of the golden calf and all the other sordid features that characterized the history of our people in those early days. No creation is possible without an element of impurity.

That is why the Torah gives us, in this week’s sidra, the laws of impurity as they relate to the yoledet, the mother who has just given birth to a child. The Torah wishes to inform us, by observing the most creative of all acts, childbirth, that every element of yetzira has the adhesions of impurity, teaching us thereby to expect them and thus avoid their negative consequences.

Parenthood itself contains risks of impurity. Some parents imagine that their children belong to them, and fail, even in later years, to allow a child to develop as an independent personality – even as some parents fail in the opposite direction, by abandoning responsibility for guiding and directing a child through being overly permissive. How many parents really feel they have completely succeeded in raising their children without making any mistakes? In order to prepare young parents to expect mistakes, and to try to avoid them, the Torah stresses tuma right after childbirth.

Thus too it reminds the person building a business that if he does not take care, he is liable to build the business at the cost of his ethical integrity, or at the expense of psychological tranquility. That person may become so totally involved in his work that other aspects of his personality wither away. It warns the person in public life that he may create a great deal of good for the community, but if he is not aware of the principle of tuma that adheres to creativity, he may neglect his family while paying exclusive attention to the larger human or national community. It warns the writer or the novelist that in the throes of creation and in the intense dedication necessary to produce something of enduring value, he is liable to disturb the inner recesses of the soul and to allow repressed demons to emerge; he may thus end up ignoring moral responsibilities as an artistic creator. All too often modern writers, sometimes Jews more than others, allow their literary creations to wallow in all kinds of obscenity, all sorts of verbal tuma.

Perhaps this too is the explanation of the remarkable law in this week’s sidra, that the mother’s period of impurity is twice as long upon the birth of a baby girl as upon the birth of a baby boy. The question of this difference in time span intrigued our Rabbis of old. When the question was asked in the Talmud (Nidda 31b), the answer given was, enigmatically, that when a boy is born everyone rejoices, and therefore seven days of impurity is sufficient. But when a girl is born, there is an element of sadness, and therefore the impurity lasts twice as long.

But what does this mean? Surely not every parent always wants a boy and not a girl – ordinary experience proves that. Even in the antiquity, it was recognized that the human race could not survive without the female portion of its population.

The Maharsha, the famed commentator on the Talmud, explains this as follows: When a girl is born, the mother in her own pain and agony of childbirth realizes that this young infant will someday have to undergo the same excruciating experience, and therefore, despite all her happiness at the gift God has given her, she is already saddened because her daughter will have to repeat the same experience.

I would prefer to interpret that just a bit differently. Because creativity implies impurity, therefore the greater the creation, the longer and more intense the period of impurity; the greater the light, the more marked is the shadow. When it comes to this most significant of all examples of natural creativity, it is the female of the species who is more creative; it is she who gives birth, not the male. Therefore, when a daughter is born, the creative act is at its greatest and most intense, for a woman has given birth to a child who herself possesses the capacity for human creativity – in other words, the ability to give birth to yet another generation in its own time. Because the birth of a daughter is so much more a creative act than the birth of a son, the period of impurity is twice as great for the mother. Hence, the additional length of the period of tuma is not an indication of the relative value of a son or a daughter as such, but, quite to the contrary, a commentary on the greater creativity-value the Torah ascribes to womanhood.

It is with these thoughts in mind that our hearts turn in gratitude to the Almighty for having given us, fifteen years ago, the gift of the State of Israel at such a crucial point in the history of our people. The State of Israel was the most creative achievement of our people, in a national sense, in the last two thousand years. Not only is the State itself the creation of the people of Israel, but this creation itself possesses the potential of further creativity in generations to come. Itis truly bat Tzion – the “daughter of Zion.” And the idea we have been expressing, that creativity inevitably has a proportionate aspect of impurity, should be for us both a source of solace and a warning.

All of us who love the State of Israel and admire it and are thankful to Heaven for it, accept it as an immensely creative contribution to the life of our people. And yet anyone who refuses to surrender his critical faculties will be able to find negative features in the life of the State. Certainly it is by no means the messianic goal and the fulfillment of the thousands of years of striving, dreaming, hoping, and prophesying of our people. The religious complexion of the State is by no means stable, and not yet that which we have prayed and hoped for. The creation of the State resulted in a sudden lessening of the idealistic fervor which brought it into being. There are other areas of shade that one can find.

What our sidra of today tells us is that this is to be expected, and that it would be completely unnatural were such a historically creative act not to have a concomitant of “impurity” – and that if we are aware of this, we can look for these elements of tuma and rid ourselves of them.

How can we dispose of this spiritual impurity, this residue of galut that has come along into the free State of Israel from the many lands of our dispersion?

The answer is by following the same pattern that the Torah described for the purification of the yoledet, she who gave birth.

One element is time: The Torah specifies a number of days, no more, no less. You can’t hurry up the process. You simply have to wait. Anyone who expects or expected that the State of Israel would suddenly come into being as a full-fledged messianic state was simply daydreaming and completely out of touch with reality. It will take time until impurities that have attached themselves to us during the last 100 years that Jewish souls have wandered off into the labyrinthine channels of strange ideals and systems are gone, and the tuma is spent, and the population of the State of Israel is ready for a great period of reawakening and teshuva. Nothing can hurry that natural process of maturation and purification.

The second element is tevila, immersion, purposeful purification of ourselves. It means that we must consciously seek to wash away from ourselves all the accretions of alien ideologies that have disrupted the normal development of our spiritual life in the State of Israel and in the Diaspora as well. “Ein Mayim ela Torah,” “Water refers to Torah” (Bava Kama 17a). The waters of immersion, which the Torah prescribes for the mother who gave birth, symbolize the purification through Torah of the Jewish people throughout the world, they who are the mother of the State of Israel. All Jews can rid themselves of the spiritual impurity of our times not only by waiting for the natural process to take place, but also by dipping our souls into the waters of Torah and the “Sea of Talmud.” We must return to our primordial spiritual origin and there cleanse our souls and our spirit and be prepared for the great purification of the people of Israel in the great and glorious future ahead of us.

The beloved President of Israel, Yitzĥak Ben Zvi, who passed away this week, represented both these elements. He was, first, a leader of infinite patience, a forbearing father of his people in whose presence all tempers were stilled and troubled spirits calmed. And, second, he had a love for Torah and a deep reverence for its scholars. He was a synagogue-Jew, a student of Talmud, and an oheiv Yisrael, a lover of Israel. He represented an element of tahara – of purity and purification in the life of the fledgling state. May his blessed soul return pure to its Creator.

And so our hearts turn to the Almighty in prayer that He guide the State of Israel and her leaders in the right path; that He send consolation to her grieving citizens; that He protect her from her many enemies so ominously surrounding her from all sides; that He purify her spiritual life with the pure waters of Torah, and allow all of us to “draw the waters joyously from the wells of salvation” (Isaiah 12:3).

 

---

*April 27, 1963.

Excerpted from Rabbi Shmuel Goldin’s Unlocking the Torah Text-Shemot, co-published by OU Press and Gefen Publishers

Understanding Shabbat

Context

As the curtain rises on Parshat Vayakhel, Moshe assembles the nation in order to convey God’s commandments concerning the construction of the Mishkan.

Suddenly, however, he opens his remarks with the following directives concerning Shabbat:

Six days work may be done and the seventh day shall be holy for you, a Shabbat, a day of complete rest for God; whoever does work (melacha) on that day shall be put to death. You shall kindle no fire in any of your dwellings on the Shabbat day.

Questions

As is evident from the body of Parshat Vayakhel, Moshe’s clear purpose in assembling the nation at the beginning of the parsha is to launch the construction of the Mishkan.

Why, then, does Moshe abruptly insert the subject of Shabbat?

While Shabbat is certainly a hugely important topic, why must it be mentioned, apparently out of context, specifically at this historic moment?

Approaches

The abrupt, seemingly arbitrary pairing of Shabbat and the Mishkan at the beginning of Parshat Vayakhel is not an isolated phenomenon. Earlier, in Parshat Ki Tissa, on the summit of Mount Sinai, God follows His commandments to Moshe concerning the construction of the Sanctuary with the immediate warning “However, you must observe my Sabbaths…” This admonition introduces a series of further directives concerning Shabbat. In the book of Vayikra, Shabbat and the Sanctuary are again connected without explanation in the passage “My Sabbaths you shall observe and my Sanctuary you shall revere – I am the Lord.”

This repeated pairing of themes, clearly intentional, serves as the source for a series of foundational halachic observations on the part of the rabbis.

A
Commenting on the opening passage of Parshat Vayakhel, Rashi verbalizes the most immediate halachic lesson learned from the encounter between Shabbat and the Sanctuary: “[Moshe] prefaced the commandments concerning the work of the Mishkan with a warning concerning Shabbat – to convey [that work within the Mishkan] does not supersede Shabbat.”

B
The halachic decision granting Shabbat supremacy over the Sanctuary is more far-reaching than it may seem, playing a major role in the legal definition of Shabbat observance itself.

To understand, we must recognize the challenge created by an apparent omission in the Torah text.

Over and over again, the Torah prohibits the performance of “melacha” (usually translated as “work”; see Points to Ponder, below) on Shabbat. The problem is, however, that nowhere does the Torah directly define or quantify the term melacha. The list of activities prohibited on Shabbat is never cited within the text. Left to our own devices, with only the written text to guide us, we simply would not know what tasks to refrain from on this sanctified day. Shabbat observance would be impossible.

Thankfully, the Oral Law (see Yitro 5) comes to the rescue. Based upon the repeated juxtaposition of the themes of Shabbat and the Sanctuary in the text, the rabbis learn, not only that the tasks associated with the Sanctuary must cease on Shabbat, but that the very definition of the activities prohibited on Shabbat is determined by the tasks that were connected to the construction (and, some say, the operation) of the Mishkan.

Specifically, the rabbis delineate thirty-nine avot melacha – major categories of creative labor – associated with the construction of the Sanctuary, which are, consequently, prohibited on Shabbat. These thirty-nine general categories of melacha and their derivatives serve as the basis for the laws of Shabbat.

The encounter between Shabbat and the Sanctuary, orchestrated by Moshe at the beginning of Parshat Vayakhel, is far from arbitrary. Emerging from the intersection of these two foundational phenomena are the laws which define the observance of Shabbat itself.

C
On a philosophical plane, the message which emerges from the encounter between Shabbat and the Mishkan is significant, as well.

Shabbat and the Sanctuary represent two different realms of potential sanctification within Jewish tradition: the sanctification of time (e.g., Shabbat, Rosh Chodesh and the festivals) and the sanctification of space (e.g., the Mishkan, the Temple, the Land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem). Through the observance of God’s laws, man is challenged with the investiture of holiness into each of these central domains.

And yet, while both of these realms are clearly significant, when a choice between them must be made, the sanctification of time reigns supreme. That is why the observance of Shabbat supersedes the construction of the Sanctuary.

The primacy of time sanctification is indicated in other ways in the Torah, as well.

Not by chance, the phenomenon of kedusha (sanctity) is first mentioned in the Torah in conjunction with Shabbat, an example of the sanctification of time.

As we have also seen, the first mitzva granted to the Jewish nation is Kiddush Hachodesh (the sanctification of the new moon), an example of the sanctification of time (see Bo 3).

While the clear transcendence of time sanctification over space sanctification remains unexplained in the text, a rationale may be offered from our own experience: the single most precious and tenuous commodity we possess in life is time. Our moments are limited; each moment exists…and before we know it, that moment is gone.

There could, therefore, be no greater expression of our belief in and our loyalty to God than the dedication of some of our limited moments specifically to His service. The sanctification of time – the dedication of time solely to our relationship with God – is one of the highest religious acts possible, transcending other acts of sanctification.

When Moshe, therefore, underscores the laws of Shabbat immediately before the launching of the construction of the Mishkan, he reminds the people to remember their priorities. As monumentally historic as the launching of the Mishkan may be; as overwhelmingly important as the Mishkan and all of its symbolism will be across the face of history; even more precious to God is the dedication of our own moments of time to His service.

D
Another message of prioritization may well be included in Moshe’s words, as well.

By specifically stating, “You shall kindle no fire in any of your dwellings on the Shabbat day,” Moshe underscores the primacy of that fundamental unit – the centrality of which is underscored, over and over again, at critical points in Jewish history – the Jewish home (see Bereishit: Vayechi 4, Approaches B, Points to Ponder; see, as well, Bo 4, Approaches A1).

Even as the nation congregates for the stated purpose of launching the central concept of the Sanctuary within Jewish tradition, Moshe cautions:

As central as the Sanctuary and Temple will be in your experience, their role will pale in comparison to that of your homes and your families. Within your homes, new generations will learn of their affiliation to our people and its traditions; observance will be taught through example; children will be raised, deeply connected to their proud past and prepared for their challenging futures.

The Sanctuary is meant to inspire and to teach, but the lessons it teaches will reach their fulfillment only within your homes… 

Never believe the Mishkan to be more important than your personal observance of a single commandment: “You shall kindle no fire in any of your dwellings on the Shabbat day.”

Points to Ponder

What is the secret of Shabbat? What is the ultimate purpose of this all important, weekly holy day?

The answer, it would seem, should lie within the laws which define the day. As we have seen, however, approaching Shabbat through the law is a difficult task, a path shrouded in mystery. The Torah does not clearly classify the term melacha, the term used by the text to refer to the Shabbat prohibitions. The ultimate definition of melacha, derived through association with the Sanctuary, is technical, with no apparent philosophical base.

Popularly, the term melacha is often defined as “work” – and the logical claim is made that “work” is prohibited on the “day of rest.” This explanation, however, is clearly insufficient. Using the classical definition of work – “an activity in which one exerts strength or faculties to do or perform something” – we would be hard-pressed to explain why, for example, one is allowed to lift a book on Shabbat but prohibited from flipping a light switch; why one can move a chair or walk up stairs but cannot rip a paper towel.

In his short, classic work, The Sabbath, Dr. Dayan I. Grunfeld analyzes sources in the oral tradition and arrives at the following working definition of the term melacha: an act which shows man’s mastery over the world by the constructive exercise of his intelligence and skill.

We might, based upon those same sources, suggest a further refinement of Dr. Grunfeld’s definition: melacha represents an attempt by man to transform his environment through a thought-filled act of physical creation.

The Torah tells us that, on the “seventh day” of the world’s birth, God stops creating in the physical realm. To mark that divine cessation, we are commanded to cease physical creation, each week, on the “seventh day,” as well.

What specifically, however, is accomplished by this mandate? Why would God commands us to commemorate His “day of rest” with our own?

The brilliance of the Shabbat concept can best be understood, I believe, by considering two dangerous philosophical extremes towards which each of us can easily gravitate. At one end of the spectrum lies our tendency to develop, to use Torah terminology, a kochi v’otzem yadi complex. Towards the end of his life, Moshe warns that, upon successful entry into the Land of Israel, the Israelites should not falsely conclude, Kochi v’otzem yadi asa li et hachayil hazeh, “My power and the might of my hand made me all of this wealth.”

How easy it is, particularly in our era, to lose our way at this extreme. Mind-boggling scientific discoveries, ferociously fast-paced technological advancement, define the world in which we live. Our mastery over our physical surroundings grows exponentially with each passing day. Never before has man been as “powerful” as he is today.

At the same time, at the opposite end of the spectrum, lies our deep capacity for despair in the face of our “powerlessness” – the moments when, standing beneath the vault of the heavens, we contemplate the stars above and mark our own apparent insignificance. How many galaxies, suns, planets, stretch out around us? In the face of such unimaginable vastness, how can we even contemplate the notion that we are important or powerful?

Much of Jewish tradition is designed to place us exactly where we belong, in the middle between these two extremes.

Tefilla (prayer), for example, reminds the individual suffering from a kochi v’otzem yadi complex that he is dependent upon God for continued health, sustenance and so much more. At the same time, prayer addresses the individual in despair by sensitizing him to his own value. He is a unique, independent being of inestimable potential value, capable of discourse with a responsive God.

Our weekly observance of Shabbat is carefully crafted to help us maintain a proper balance between power and limitation, as well.

One day a week, we remind ourselves of our creative limitations. Through the cessation of physically creative acts we testify to the true mastery of the Divine Creator. We recall the creation of the world on Shabbat  and we recognize that only God has the power to create yesh mei’ayin (something from nothing), while man, at his best, can only create yesh mi’yesh (something from something).

During my college years at Yeshiva University, excitement ran high in the scientific community, which felt itself to be on the brink of the creation of life (specifically a virus) in a test tube. Such an accomplishment, many scientists proclaimed, would constitute an assault on the very heavens, proof of man’s God-like powers to create life itself. Deeply concerned, we raised the issue to one of our teachers – a Talmudic scholar who possessed significant scientific background as well. “I see no issue,” he responded. “If scientists could take an empty test tube and conjure life within, that would present a theological challenge. What they propose to do now, however, is to take God’s hydrogen, God’s oxygen, God’s nitrogen, etc., and mix them together to create their virus. That does not make them, God forbid, God; it makes them good chefs.”

A kochi v’otzem yadi complex is impossible to maintain in the face of Shabbat. The observance of this day reminds us that, in the final analysis, only God is the true Creator.

At the same time, however, while Shabbat sensitizes us to the limitations  of our power, this very same day reminds us how truly powerful we really are.

Throughout the week our lives are, in so many ways, controlled by the forces surrounding us. Work, school and other responsibilities pull us along at a frenetic pace. Cell phones, BlackBerries and e-mail keep us in constant contact. The demands on our time and energy, from all sides, are overwhelming. We feel out of control, powerless to set these pressures aside.

And then…Shabbat arrives. The cell phones, computers and BlackBerries are shut down and put on the shelf. Work, school and other responsibilities are set aside for another day. Time is spent, at ease, with family and friends. We reconnect with community. We are given the opportunity to regain control of our lives. Our cessation of physically creative acts becomes a freeing experience, enabling us to truly recognize the power we possess to define and control the quality of our lives.

This empowering aspect of Shabbat was driven home to me many years ago through the example of a friend whom I will call “Bill.” Bill was a chainsmoker who went through several packs a day. Come sundown each Friday night, however, he would lay down his cigarettes. He would light his first cigarette of the next week, Saturday night, from the Havdala candle (the candle used as part of the ceremony marking the end of Shabbat).

If you asked Bill at any point of the Shabbat day whether he missed his cigarettes, he would look at you as if you were crazy and say, “Of course not – it’s Shabbat.” He could not, however, replicate this abstinence on a weekday. Shabbat freed my friend from a habit that controlled him every other day of his adult life.

Tragically, Bill failed to learn the full lesson that Shabbat is meant to convey. The true power of this day lies in its potential effect beyond its borders. If on this one day of the week, we are successful in reaching proper perspective – in striking a healthy balance between our power and our limitations – then we can strike that balance on the other days of the week, as well.

The genius of Shabbat, in the final analysis, is evident from its laws. Through the cessation of melacha, this holy day teaches us how to reclaim proper life perspective.