Yonason Goldson
I'm a Talmudic scholar and professional speaker, as well as a former hitchhiker and circumnavigator, applying ancient wisdom to the challenges of the modern world. I've published seven books, including, Proverbial Beauty: Secrets for success and happiness from the wisdom of the ages.
Homepage: http://yonasongoldson.com
The Way Tshuva Works
Posted in Philosophy on October 17, 2008
Ideally, we repent by recognizing how our biases and impulses have led us into corruption, and that it’s in our own best interest to return to the straight path by correcting our ways and deeds. Usually, however, it works this way.
The Divine Harmony of the Simchas Beis HaSho’eiva
Posted in Holidays, Philosophy on October 15, 2008
LaMinatzayach, proclaims King David, introducing no less than 55 of his Psalms with the dedication, to the Conductor. And who is this Conductor to whom Dovid dedicates his songs of praise? Rashi identifies him as the Levi who serves in the Temple in Jerusalem. The sages identify the Conductor as the Almighty Himself (Pesachim 119a).
Yet we need not find these interpretations contradictory. For is it not the Master of the World who arranges and directs every movement in the great orchestra of Creation? And was it not the Leviim who sat upon the 15 steps leading into the courtyard of the Beis HaMikdash, composing and rendering melodies for the 15 Shir HaMa’alos of Dovid’s Tehillim? Indeed, it is these 15 very songs that symbolize the ascension of the Jewish people, who are compared to the moon, which waxes through the first 15 days of the month until it shines full in the sky.
Finally, who better to dedicate songs of praise to HaShem and to His master musicians than Dovid HaMelech, the “sweet singer of Israel”? (2 Shmuel 23:1)
Both Dovid and the Leviim shared the understanding that words of praise alone are inadequate unless accompanied by music. But what is this power of niggun – melody – which restored prophecy to Elisha at the moment of his anger and despair, which merited Serach bas Asher eternal life for singing words of comfort to her grandfather, Yaakov Avinu, and for which Navos HaYizr’eli merited death for withholding his incomparably beautiful voice from the Levitical choir?
I will solve my riddle with the harp, says Dovid (Tehillim 49:5). HaShem created the world with seven heavenly emanations, or sefiros, beginning with the three fundamental qualities of the patriarchs – chesed (kindness), gevurah (inner strength), and tiferes (splendor) – and culminating in malchus (kingship). This pattern asserts itself through the sights and sounds of Creation: visible light refracts into seven colors with three primary bands (red, blue, and yellow), while audible sound divides into the seven notes of the scale with three primaries forming the major musical triad (C, E, and G). And just as the integration of the colors of the spectrum produces pure white light, the successful integration of sound produces perfect harmony. The seventh sefirah, kingship, corresponds to Dovid, founder of the messianic dynasty and “sweet singer of Israel.”
What is harmony? If every musician in the orchestra were to play continuously at full volume, the resulting cacophony would offer no more esthetic pleasure than the horn-blowing of rush-hour traffic. Inspired musical arrangement, however, with some instruments contributing more and some less, some loud and some restrained, produces a symphonic masterpiece that touches the soul in a way beyond words, beyond pictures, beyond thought.
Just as the foul odor of the chelbanah, the galbanum, contributed to the transcendent fragrance of the incense offering when mixed together with other spices, an otherwise uninspiring note may produce the most exquisite harmony when it completes a perfect chord. Both are allegories for HaShem’s multifaceted world, in which seemingly purposeless or corrosive elements play an indispensable role in the workings of nature and society. More than any other medium, music enables us recognize the hand of the Creator in the unfathomable intricacies of creation and teaches us to relinquish the primacy of our own desires for a more subtle contribution to the spiritual harmony of the universe.
Set to music, words of praise acquire a power far beyond their simple verbal meaning. And so we see that, as they passed through the sea to escape Pharaoh’s chariots, the Jewish people found no greater expression of praise and thanksgiving than singing to HaShem. In the same way, Devorah sang her praises for the victory over Sisera, Chanah sang her gratitude for the birth of her son, Shmuel, and Dovid sang his appreciation for the establishment of his kingdom. Tragically, because Chizkyahu merely recited the verses of Hallel rather than arranging them into notes of Shira, he merited only salvation from the army of the Assyrian king Sancheriv but failed to fulfill his destiny of becoming Moshiach.
Such was the musical exultation of Sukkos in the Beis HaMikdash that one who has not witnessed the celebration of the Beis HaSho’eivah (the water-drawing ceremony) has never seen true joy. The Talmud describes the drawing of water from the spring of Shiloach in preparation for the nisuch haMayim, the water libation of the Sukkos Festival: the people would dance and sing in the courtyard, holding torches in their hands, while the Leviim would stand below on the 15 steps leading from the ezras Yisroel to the ezras nashim … playing their harps, lyres, cymbals, trumpets, and other instruments, singing songs of praise throughout the night (Sukkos 51a).
Elyahu Kitov explains that, over the course of the year, the evil inclination blinds us with pride and desire, separating us from HaShem and from one another, sowing discord and disharmony among the Jewish people. But with our collective repentance on Yom Kippur, we acquire the opportunity to recover our national unity and return to spiritual purity. Having thus freed ourselves from the dominion of the yeitzer hara, we come under the wings of the Divine Presence as we enter the sukkah, demonstrate our renewed commitment to Klal Yisroel by taking the arba minim (the Four Species), and pour water upon the altar to symbolize our untarnished return to the service of HaShem.
As we celebrate our spiritual renewal, the sweet harmonies of the Leviim echo the harmony between each Jew and his fellow, between each Jew and his Creator. Awake, my glory! declares Dovid. Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn (Tehillim 57:9). The instrumental harmony of the Leviim inspires the inner harmony of the soul and the cosmic harmony of the heavens in a joyous celebration unparalleled in human experience.
In recent generations, musical expression has become associated with the niggunim of the Chassidic masters of Europe. And indeed, it was the early Chassidic movement that resurrected both musical harmony and the joy of divine service from a painful dormancy.
Ivdu es HaShem b’simcha, boyu l’fonov bir’nonoh, proclaimed Dovid in his Tehillim, Serve HaShem with gladness, come before Him with joyous song (ibid. 100:2). In the days following the depression and disillusionment of the false messiah Shabbtai Tzvi, the rabbinic leaders of Europe suppressed expressions of emotion, fearing that unbridled enthusiasm might give rise to similar charlatans who would again shatter the hopes of the Jewish people. Instead, they admonished their communities to seek HaShem through Torah study and meticulous halachic observance.
Such a formula may have proven successful for the few who were scholars. But for the average Jew of modest education, Jewish life devolved into a monotony of uninspired routine. True, Jews might be protected from false hope, but they found little genuine hope in their joyless lives.
It was the radiant light of chassidus that dispelled their spiritual darkness. Teaching that even the most poorly educated Jew can attain divine intimacy through prayer and song, the Ba’al Shem Tov founded the Chassidic movement and reawakened the soul of the Jewish people, restoring spiritual harmony through the harmonies of Lecha Dodi, Keil Adon, the plunging, soaring niggunim of the rebbe’s tisch, and the quiet intensity of the kumsitz.
And so, as we greet each new day, as we enter into each new season, let us sing with the same passion as the Leviim in the Temple: Awake, my glory! Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn.
Is Nothing Rotten in Denmark?
The Happiness Quotient – Psychologists’ research would have us believe Danes are the happiest people on earth. A lesson from Sukkos suggests otherwise.
The Audacity of Irrational Hope
When idealists cry from the soapbox that they have the solutions to all the country’s problems, it’s hard not to give them a hearing. Maybe they’re right. Maybe we can fix our education system, our health care system, our political system, and our economy. But when they insist that we can solve all the problems of the world through diplomacy — that all our differences with hostile nations and cultures stem from misunderstanding and can be reconciled through sensitivity and a meeting of minds — then we have to wonder whether their other solutions have any more grounding in reality than the Philosopher’s Stone or the Fountain of Youth.
As evidence of the superiority of diplomacy over aggression, they point to the failures in Iraq. True, the US adventure there foundered badly. But this was because of mismanagement and not because the plan was fundamentally unsound. It’s easy to claim that, since results were not what we had hoped, we never should have gotten involved in the first place. But we never know what might have been, and there is good reason to believe that inaction would have produced even worse results.
The late Alistair Cook, who witnessed the folly and tragedy of Neville Chamberlain’s Munich Agreement with Adolph Hitler, saw the parallel even before American troops went into Iraq. His observations should be required reading for every advocate of appeasement.
One can only imagine how the pacifists seventy years ago would have wailed and wrung their hands over every casualty and setback had the allies struck preemptively against the Third Reich. But with the wisdom of hindsight, who would dispute how much human suffering might have been prevented?
It is not the threat from fanatics that poses the greatest danger to the world today. A far greater danger comes from the Pollyanna fantasies of “visionaries” who believe we can make peace with the merchants of violence who seek our destruction. The only possible approach to a culture of terrorism was addressed in Jewish philosophy 3300 years ago with the Torah’s response to the attack by the nation of Amoleik: there can be no peace with radical extremists who eagerly die in the cause of sowing death.
During the autumnal Festival of Sukkos, traditional synagogues around the world read publicly the prophet Ezekiel’s vision of a vast army called Gog and Magog, assembled from among all the nations of the earth to march forth against the people of Israel in the ultimate battle of mankind, the great war of the messianic era.
Over a century ago, the brilliant 19th century thinker Rabbi Samson Rafael Hirsch explained that the essence of this confrontation is not an engagement of military powers but a cultural battle of ideas. In Hebrew, the word “gog” means “roof.” In the context of Ezekiel’s prediction, it represents the philosophy of secular progressivism, the ideology that man defines his own standards of right and wrong, of good and evil, of virtue and corruption. It believes in the supremacy of human reason and human accomplishment, in an autocracy of intellectual elitism. Above all, it rejects any concept of a higher authority, the sanctity of life, or personal responsibility. It deifies convenience without commitment, moral equivalence without moral judgment, and personal autonomy without accountability. It is, plain and simple, the philosophy of moral anarchy.
It is this ideology that the prophet tells us will rise up in the End of Days in an attempt to conquer the world. Opposing it will be a very different ideology — the philosophy of Sukkah.
These little huts — sukkas — usually constructed of thin wooden panels and covered with branches of palm or bamboo, become home to the entire community of Torah observant Jews for seven days after the conclusion of the High Holidays. With only the most insubstantial shelther, the Jew is forced to recall that even the most solid structures of human design cannot guarantee security or protection. Every force of nature hastens to perform the Divine Will, and there is no place secure enough to hide from its power … as the victims of hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes would testify. Only by living lives of virtue according to the absolute standards of good and evil can we reasonably hope to merit safety and redemption — at least in the next world, if not always here on earth.
The danger of well-intentioned irrationalism flourishes, ironically, in proportion not only to the imminent danger from extremist movements, but also in proportion to economic and social chaos. The collapse of financial institutions ruined by their own irrational exuberance and the decay of inner city communities pulled down by their own abandonment of basic family structure would seem to cry out for measured responses and the wisdom of experience. Instead, powered by unshakable faith in a brave new world of hope and change, rhetoric conquers qualification, charisma conquers character, and form conquers substance as grand schemes of breathtaking impracticality gain traction day by day. The foundations of civilized society are increasingly eroded by fanciful notions of utopian universalism.
Sadly, the outcome of unfounded hope is usually prolonged and exacerbated hopelessness.
The respect for life, charity tempered by accountability, social consience that sprouts forth from traditional values — these are the characteristics that will come increasingly under attack as human beings allow themselves to be seduced by their own cleverness and their own moral judgment. We needn’t look too far to conclude that the signposts of the messianic era have already appeared before us. And we needn’t look too far or think too deeply to recognize which qualities of leadership are necessary to prepare us for the approaching storm.
Asking the Right Question — Parshas Ha’azinu
Posted in Weekly Parsha on October 10, 2008
So ask yourselves: Is this how you would repay G-d? O withered people who lack wisdom.
Deuteronomy 32:6
This is the question Moses places before the Jewish people, alluding to the future when they will turn away from the path of righteousness and then blame the Almighty for the misfortunes that follow.
The verse is written with an oversized letter, the “hei” that changes the meaning from a statement to a question. Rav Hirsch explains this as a hint, admonishing the people for asking the wrong question. Instead of asking why G-d has changed in His behavior toward them, they should be asking themselves how they have changed to elicit such unpleasant consequences.
Is there a better message for after Yom Kippur? Have we changed? Will those changes endure? What changes must we seek to make next?
Or perhaps, if our fortunes seem to have stayed the same, we need to ask ourselves if we have changed at all. If not, it’s past time to start.
Jonah’s Flight
Posted in Holidays on October 7, 2008
Commanded to proceed to the great Assyrian capital of Nineveh, the prophet Jonah chose instead to flee across the ocean. Why did he seek to escape the word of G-d?
Jonah had two reasons for his flight. First, he feared for his own reputation and safety. If he prophesied the destruction of the city, and the people responded with repentance and thereby averted their fate, they might indict him as a false prophet and perhaps even seek his death.
Second, Jonah feared for his Jewish brothers. If the Gentiles responded to the words of the prophet with repentance, how poorly would this reflect upon the Jews, who had ignored generations of warnings from their own prophets and persisted in their corrupt ways?
The narrative of Jonah’s flight records a series of divine decrees: the Almighty designated a storm to turn back Jonah’s ship, a great fish to swallow him when he was cast into the sea, a large tree to grow miraculously over his head to give him shade, a worm to attack the roots of the tree so that it should die the day after it came into being, and finally an east wind to wither the foliage over Jonah’s hut and expose him to the unrelenting rays of the sun.
Each of these communicated a lesson to Jonah. The storm taught him that he could not escape the word of G-d. His incarceration in the belly of the fish taught him to reflect upon his errors and to repent. The tree taught him that G-d’s mercy arrives in the blink of an eye, and the worm taught him not to take G-d’s mercy for granted. Finally, the east wind taught him that all human effort comes to nothing if not by the grace of G-d.
Together, this series of events taught Jonah the value of every creature under the sun. Jonah’s attempt to leave the inhabitants of Nineveh to their fate, even with the intention of protecting the Jews from divine wrath, came from his failure to recognize that every human being is created in the image of G-d, and that even the beasts of the field serve the Almighty by following their natural inclinations. G-d does not grade on a curve, but judges every individual according to his own merit.
The message of Jonah on Yom Kippur is that each and every one of us has a mission designated by the Almighty, and that no matter how we may try to chart a course in some other direction, the winds of Divine Providence will steer us back again and again to confront the purpose for which we were created. The word tshuva, usually translated as “repentance,” literally means return. With infinite patience, G-d will direct us back however many times it may take, until we willingly return to that path He has laid before us.
We may resist. If so, like Jonah, we will find no shortage of obstacles blocking us at every turn, and urging us to return to travel the road we were created to follow.
From this month’s Jewish Observer
Posted in Holidays on October 6, 2008
An in-depth discussion of Sukkos investigating the essence of physical and spiritual exile.
The Goat for Azazel
Posted in Holidays on October 5, 2008
Aharon shall place lots upon the two goats: one lot “for G-d” and one lot “for Azazel.” Aharon shall bring close the goat designated by lot for G-d and make it a sin-offering. And the goat designated by lot for Azazel shall be stood alive before G-d, to provide atonement though it, to send it to Azazel into the wilderness.
Leviticus 16:8-10
One of the most puzzling and disturbing rituals in Jewish practice is the goat “for Azazel” of Yom Kippur. Two goats are brought before the Kohein Gadol, the High Priest. By lot, one is chosen to be placed upon the altar as a sin-offering, and the other is chosen to be taken out into the desert and thrown alive off the edge of a sheer cliff.
What possible purpose could reside in such a practice?
In truth, the symbolism of this ritual is astonishingly simple and frighteningly relevant. The two goats, identical in every way, symbolize the two possible futures of a single human being. Like the two goats that appear indistinguishable from one another, the path any one of us will choose cannot be determined when we are young. Every child demonstrates qualities of virtue, and every child demonstrates qualities of selfishness. Which character will win out in the end can never be predicted with certainty.
Only over the course of a lifetime will it become evident whether the individual has chosen the path of righteousness, dedicating his life “to G-d,” like the goat offered up on the altar, or has chosen the path of wickedness, wandering through life into the spiritual wasteland of moral confusion and making himself into an offering “to Azazel.”
Rav Hirsch explains that the name Azazel can be understood as a composite of two words: az azal— “wasted strength.” Rather than devoting his life to the ways of virtue defined by G-d’s law, a person may use his human potential for self-serving ends, for pleasure seeking, for ego-gratification. By doing so, he squanders the resources of physical health, intellegence, and imagination for temporal rewards that leave him with nothing of value to show for his efforts. He will have wasted his life, as surely as the life of the goat flung over the precipace in the wilderness comes to a wasted end.
And, like that goat, his life will have served no purpose except as a warning to others. On this Day of Atonement, we have the opportunity to reflect upon our past and our future, to contemplate the awesome indictments of the Day of Judgment that we have only just survived, and to consider how we might still soften the verdict of the Celestial Court in determining our fate for the coming year. Will we choose to offer ourselves on the altar of divine service by committing ourselves to take greater care in our speech, in our actions, and in our thoughts, to show more consideration for our fellow men and conduct ourselves with modesty and humility? Or will we continue on as we have, like the goat wandering blindly into the wilderness of oblivion, persisting in the habits of spiritual and moral insensitivity that will lead us to the brink of eternal devastation?
It should be an easy choice. In fact, it’s as easy or as difficult as we make it.
The State of Communication
Posted in Culture on October 5, 2008
Remember Orwell’s premise that if we can’t speak clearly then we are incapable of thinking clearly. Then consider how modern communication provides the opportunity to exchange information and ideas to unprecedented numbers of people instantaneously. Finally, take a look at this and reflect upon what we’re doing with our almost unlimited potential.
Hakheil: the renewed covenant – Parshas Vayeilech
Posted in Weekly Parsha on October 2, 2008
At the end of seven years, at the time of the Shmittah year, during the festival of Sukkos … you shall read this Torah before all Yisroel. Gather together the people – men, women, even infants – and the converts in your city, so that they will hear and they will learn, and they will fear HaShem, your G-d, and be careful to perform the words of this Torah.
Deuteronomy 13:10-12
Over the past year, Torah observant farmers in the Land of Israel have had to deal with the complicated and seemingly-impractical laws of Shmittah – the Sabbatical year. The Torah mandates that the land must have a year of “rest,” in which both agricultural work and the merchandising of produce are forbidden. The word shmittah literally means cessation: the Jew’s involvement with physical labor, and with all the burdens and anxieties that accompany it, comes to a stop until the beginning of the next agricultural season.
The Shmittah year ends as it begins – with Rosh HaShonah, the Jewish New Year. Two weeks later, when the entire nation would come together in Jerusalem to conclude the cycle of pilgrim festivals with the holiday of Sukkos, the Jews gathered in the Temple courtyard to hear the king himself read from the Book of Devarim (Deuteronomy) before the entire assemblage of his nation. This was the mitzvah of hakheil.
What is the connection between the conclusion of the Shmittah year and the public recitation by the king? And why is the Book of Devarim singled out to the exclusion of the first four books of the Torah?
The sages have referred to the Book of Devarim by a different name: Mishneh Torah, literally the Repetition of the Law. Although many laws previously taught in the Torah are indeed repeated in Devarim, many others are not; many laws are taught there for the first time. The term “repetition,” therefore, seems an imperfect description of the Book of Devarim.
Rav Hirsch explains the necessity of any repetition at all. Many of the Torah’s laws, most notably the agricultural laws, together with business and civic laws, had little relevance during the 40 years the Jews wandered in the desert. The festivals as well gained an agricultural context when the Jews entered their land that had not existed in the desert.
Consequently, as the Jews encamped on the east side of the Jordan River, Moses transmitted those laws yet untaught because of their limited practical application in the desert, and recapitulated those laws that would acquire a new dimension when the Jews began to settle their land.
Moreover, when the Jews had lived in the desert, theirs had been an existence of open miracles and the revealed presence of the Almighty. In that era, the commandments of the Torah did not serve as they do in our everyday lives – as the means of connecting to divinity that is concealed behind the veil of the natural world. For this reason, Moses had to “reteach” the Torah so that it could be fully understood and appreciated for its unique relevance to living a spiritual life while immersed in the responsibilities of a material world.
Herein lies the connection to the Sabbatical year. The Shmittah year was not a time of natural existence. It was a time of miraculous blessing, preceded by a double-harvest that allowed the people to involve themselves in spiritual pursuits without the distractions or worries of earning a living. To come back from that kind of extraordinary lifestyle to the mundane existence of plowing and reaping, the Jewish people required a kind of “refresher course” in practical spirituality.
For this reason the king would read from the Book of Devarim, reawakening the people to the changed reality that awaited them in the coming, post-Shmittah year, just as Moses had done when he originally addressed those same words to the Jewish nation before they entered the changed reality of their land for the very first time.
And for us, today, who don’t recognize the miracles of Shmittah, the mitzvah of hakheil reminds us that unlimited spiritual potential resides within every commandment, and that every mitzvah provides a priceless opportunity for us to unlock and to realize that potential.
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