Archive for category Philosophy
The White Fedora
Posted by Yonason Goldson in Philosophy on November 16, 2008
Fate, doom, karma, destiny, Divine Providence — Jewish philosophy has its own name for the guiding hand of the Almighty: hashgocha pratis. It’s easy to dismiss as happenstance. But here’s how an instant of impulse shopping led me to imagine what it might be like if we could see the outcome of every situation.
Parshas Vayeira — Of Trials and Banners
Posted by Yonason Goldson in Philosophy, Weekly Parsha on November 10, 2008
The sages tell us that the Almighty tested our father Abraham with ten distinct trials. But why? Since G-d knows the future, He knew that Avrohom would pass each test. What then was G-d’s purpose in testing him?
As with everything else G-d does, trials are for us, not for Himself. Interestingly, the Hebrew word for test, nisoyon, shares its grammatical root with the word neis, which is commonly translated as “miracle,” but which literally means “banner.”
A banner is that which rises above the confusion below to rally people to a common destination point. Similarly, the Almighty occasionally reveals Himself through open miracles when we need reminding that the confusion of the material world is not a true representation of spiritual reality.
Finally, when G-d places obstacles in our path that try our resolve, our patience, or our ability, He does so not so that He can find out whether or not we will succeed but so that we can set our sights above all the impediments to personal growth and fulfill our true potential. It is based upon this understanding that the sages tell us that G-d never gives a person any test he is unable to pass. The test itself is the banner that draws our attention to how much we are able to achieve.
And what of those external challenges that are clearly beyond our ability? What of incurable diseases, personal tragedies, and global crises over which we have no control?
In fact, the trials G-d gives us never require us to overcome those obstacles that are indeed insurmountable. Sometimes, as difficult as it may be for us to hear, G-d’s tests may require us to accept the inevitability of unpleasant eventualities. Just as Avrohom could not change the famine that drove him from the land, the untimely death of his wife Sarah, or the seeming illogic of G-d’s command that he sacrifice his son, similarly we cannot fathon the logic or reason behind many of the circumstances that throw our own lives into disarray. Nevertheless, we can learn from Avrohom how to find the inner strength to persevere through trust born from logic: by recognizing that the Creator of the complex and unfathomable world in which human beings live most ceraintly has sound reasons, even for that which defies human understanding.
Tests are not easy. But the effort required to pass them transforms us from insigificant creatures of mere flesh and blood into truly heroic spiritual beings.
Teaching the Fallacy of Moral Relativism
Posted by Yonason Goldson in Education and Parenting, Philosophy on November 9, 2008
Where are they now? It might make a good follow-up story, but in the meantime …
Welcome to 15th Century Spain: a post-mortem
Posted by Yonason Goldson in Culture, Philosophy, Politics on November 4, 2008
All right, I’ll say it — I have hope. And here’s why:
On March 31st, 1492, the Jews of Spain learned that they had three months before their lives would be turned unimaginably upside down. They had been ordered to choose between either leaving their country and their homes or conversion to Christianity. The Edict of Expulsion had set the date for July 31st.
However, when King Ferdnand learned that Tisha B’Av, the Jews’ national day of mourning, would arrive two days later, he extended the deadline to August 2nd, believing that this would break the heart and the spirit of the Jews.
In fact, his decree had the opposite effect, giving the Jews hope that the Almighty was indeed running the world, that their expulsion was not caused by the whim of yet another capricious ruler but part of the master plan designed and directed by the Master of the World.
With that in mind, the following post means something very different today from what it meant yesterday. Don’t miss it.
Here’s the punch line: Obama’s extraordinary rise from an unknown and undistinguished local politician to capture the White House in four short years defies natural explanation. Moreover, the single moment that marks his arrival on the national scene was his speech at the Democratic National Convention, on July 27, 2004. According to the Hebrew calendar, it was Tisha B’Av.
It’s difficult not to take note of obvious historical parallels, even at the risk of being accused of hyperbole or fear-mongering:
In retrospect, historians have come to view what we call World War I and World War II not as two separate wars but as a single global conflict with a twenty-year armistice in the middle. The political and economic causes of WWII grew directly out of WWI, and WWI began in the summer of 1914 — on Tisha B’Av.
Two decades later, under the leadership of a charismatic leader with no credentials who had never accomplished anything of significance, a crushed and humiliated German state grew in six short years into the most powerful military force in the world. The next half-decade would see the devastation of Europe, the deaths of tens of millions, and the extermination of a third of the Jewish population of the world.
This is not to suggest by any means that Barak Obama is likely to perpetrate atrocities or has an agenda of either injustice or persecution. He may indeed be a well-intentioned man who sincerely believes that he can bring peace and prosperity to a troubled country and a troubled world. But consider the lessons history has taught again and again: that the diplomacy of naivete will be perceived, correctly, as weakness, that those who seek peace are easily manipulated by those who have no desire for peace, that Utopian visions inevitably disintegrate into social and political chaos. Then consider Hegel’s observation that the great lesson of history is that no one ever learns from it.
No one on earth knows what this presidency will bring, or what might have happened had the election gone the other way. Palgei mayim lev melech b’yad HaShem, says King Solomon — Like streams of water is the heart of the king in the hands of the Almighty. Our ultimate consolation comes from our conviction that all human events are guided by the King who reigns over kings, and that rulers who appear to wield supreme power are nothing more than pawns moved from square to square by Divine decree.
The Talmud recounts how the sages could not contain their astonishment when Rabbi Akiva laughed upon seeing the ruins of the Temple and Jerusalem. But he explained that, since the prophecy of utter devastation has already come true, then we should rejoice at how much closer are we to the Ultimate Redemption.
You have comforted us, Akiva, they replied. You have comforted us.
Shmini Azteres — on one foot
Posted by Yonason Goldson in Holidays, Philosophy on October 19, 2008
The Talmud records a now-famous episode in which a prospective proselyte comes to Hillel the Elder and says he will convert on condition that the sage teach him “the whole Torah on one foot (al regel achas).”
Hillel responds by saying: “What is hateful in your eyes, do not do to your neighbor. The rest is commentary; go learn it.”
Reb Yisroel of Ruzhin offers this tantalizing, novel interpretation. He explains that the proselyte was really posing a question of much greater sophistication. He understood the cycle of the Shalosh Regalim— the three Pilgrim Festivals of Pesach, Shavuos, and Sukkos — and how they fit together so that the Jewish people could reexperience annually the physical and spiritual redemption of their ancestors.
What he did not understand was the regel echad— the One Festival of Shimini Atzeres, which is attached to Sukkos but not really part of it. His play on words, asking for an understanding “on one foot (regel),” was really an inquiry into the nature of the one Festival (regel) that remains apart from the other three.
Hillel answered him this way. Each of the Festivals celebrates a specific event and is defined by specific practices. Pesach commemorates the exodus from Egypt through the commandment to eat matzah; Shavuos commemorates the giving of the Torah at Sinai through the custom of staying up through the night learning; Sukkos commemorates the miracles through which the Almighty sustained the Jews in the desert by commanding us to move out of our homes into little huts.
Once all that is done, once we have reawakened and, we hope, revitalized our relationship with our Creator, one essential step remains: to revitalize our relationship with our fellow Jews. And so the Torah added an extra regel — festival — not commemorative of any event nor defined by any specific practice. By extending the festival season for an extra day, we have the opportunity to remind ourselves that, no matter how much we may strive to perfect our relationship with the Master of the Universe, we accomplish nothing unless we strive equally to perfect our relationship with our neighbors and fellows.
If we aren’t cautious, religious fervor and passion can become a source of dissension and division in the Jewish community. We are allowed our differences in how we adhere to Torah law; we are required to make distinctions between authentic Torah practice and those interpretations that have strayed from legitimate tradition. But in our conduct toward our fellow Jews, and in our passion for promoting unity within the Jewish community, there is not justification for not fighting against divisiveness with the same zeal we may have for attaching ourselves to the One G-d who charged us all, together, in His service.
The Way Tshuva Works
Posted by Yonason Goldson 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 by Yonason Goldson 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.
Not in Heaven — Parshas Nitzavim
Posted by Yonason Goldson in History, Philosophy, Weekly Parsha on September 24, 2008
This commandment that I set before you today is neither remote nor inaccessable from you. It is not in heaven, so that you should say, “Why shall ascend to the heavens and bring it down to us so that we can understand it and keep it?” It is not beyond the sea, so that you should ask, “Who will cross the sea and bring it back for us so that we can understand and keep it?” Indeed, it is very close to you — it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can keep it.
Deuteronomy 30:11-14
One of the most enigmatic episodes in the Talmud is based on these verses. The following explication is excerpted from the forthcoming history (G-d willing), In a Single Glance.
During the era that shaped the form and structure of the Talmud, the ideological differences between two great Torah academies, Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai, never diminished the respect and affection the scholars of either house felt for the scholars of the other. Despite the Talmud’s description of their debates as battles fought “with swords and spears,” neither school ever resorted to any means other than sound Talmudic reasoning to advance its position.
Among members of the Sanhedrin, however, differences of opinion did not limit themselves to simple halachic interpretation. Disputes between the sages reflected the core of Talmudic philosophy, upon which the preservation of the Oral Law depended. To what extent will halachic leniency erode respect for Torah? To what degree must individual sages submit to the majority opinion by relaxing their own personal standards of Torah observance? Concerns such as these influenced not only isolated halachic rulings, but the very fabric of the Torah nation. The sages understood that their decisions would shape the attitudes of entire generations of Jewish society.
Given the need to set standards for future generations, individual sages would sometimes perceive the determination of a seemingly inconsequential halachic debate as if the future of halachic integrity depended solely upon its outcome.
One such dispute arose between the members of the Sanhedrin and Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrkanus, a sage so revered that his colleagues referred to him as “Rabbi Eliezer HaGadol — the Great.” Rabbi Eliezer asserted that a certain type of oven could not acquire tumah, ritual impurity, but even with his superior scholarship he failed to convince any of his colleagues. Frustrated by the failure of his arguments, Rabbi Eliezer proceeded to invoke a series of miracles: he made a carob tree uproot itself and walk across the garden; he made water in a stream run uphill; and he made the walls of the Lishkas HaGazis (the chamber in which the sages convened) tilt inward over the heads of the sages.
The sages remained unmoved and resolute in their collective opinion. Finally, at Rabbi Eliezer’s command, a heavenly voice rang out in the chamber declaring that the halacha followed the ruling of Rabbi Eliezer.
Rabbi Yehoshua, the Av Beis Din, arose in his place. Seemingly unimpressed, he declared: “Torah lo baShomayim hi — the Torah is not in heaven.”
In other words, it was irrelevant whether Rabbi Eliezer possessed greater insight into the divine will or whether he had attained such a high spiritual level that G-d Himself testified on his behalf. The Torah itself mandates that responsibility for its interpretation and application rests in the hands of the sages of each generation and depends upon their judgment. They, through consensus, both assess and determine the spiritual level of the era in which they live. Consequently, it is the majority opinion of sages that determines halachic reality and nothing else. An individual scholar may be “right” in an absolute, metaphysical sense, but if he cannot convince the majority of his colleagues through logical and textual proofs, then his own opinion is inconsistent with the spiritual potential of his generation. The system handed down from G-d to Moshe at Sinai may never be overruled — not even by the G-d who gave it.
Indeed, although any sage may debate halacha as far as his reason allows and his conscience demands, every sage must ultimately accept the majority decision once the Sanhedrin has ruled. By invoking miracles, Rabbi Eliezer demonstrated a contempt for the halachic process that his colleagues could not sanction. Rabbi Eliezer’s refusal to accept majority rule left the Sanhedrin no alternative other than the painful decision to place their revered colleague in cherem, imposing upon him the ban of excommunication.
As a result, none of the sages had any contact with Rabbi Eliezer for the rest of his life. Only as Rabbi Eliezer lay on his deathbed did the sages relax the cherem to visit him before he died. All of the Torah knowledge he possessed but had not yet taught went with him to the grave, and his bitterness over the verdict of the sages contributed to the early death of Rabbi Yehoshua — his own brother-in-law. Nevertheless, in the eyes of the Sanhedrin these tragedies were the lesser evil; nothing warranted the risk of irreparably compromising the integrity of Torah should the Jewish people learn from Rabbi Eliezer’s example that halachic decision is ever negotiable.
However, so exceptional was Rabbi Eliezer in his scholarship and righteousness that one of the sages, Rabbi Nosson, doubted whether the harsh response of Rabbi Yehoshua and the Sanhedrin had been justified. Rabbi Nosson sought out Elyahu HaNovi (the prophet Elijah) and asked how the Almighty had reacted when the sages overruled Rabbi Eliezer and the heavenly voice. Elyahu told him that G-d had declared: “nitzchuni bonai — My children have defeated Me.”
Far from being angry, the Creator rejoiced at the sages’ demonstration of the immutability of the system of Torah law G-d Himself had established. Once that system had been entrusted to Moshe as representative of the Jewish people, no force in the universe could alter it. By proclaiming that the Torah is not in heaven, Rabbi Yehoshua had shown future generations the extent and power of rabbinic authority.
But that was not all. The word netzach can be translated not only as “victory” but as “eternity.” Interpreted this way, nitzchuni bonai would mean, “My children have made Me eternal.” The Oral Torah allows for Jewish law to adapt itself to a constantly changing world while the Written Torah keeps Jewish law anchored with unalterable moral and legal axioms. Without concrete limits, Jewish practice would continually change until it retained no resemblance to the Divine Word given at Sinai. Without flexibility, Jewish law would calcify, losing all relevance to the present.
By overruling Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Yehoshua demonstrated not only the immutability of the Torah but its eternal relevance. Because the sages interpret the Torah according to the spiritual level of each generation, the Torah never becomes outdated, never becomes inapplicable, never requires editing or revision. The law is the law, forever and without exception. And it is the eternity of the law that keeps the Jewish people eternal.
The Candles and the Stars
Posted by Yonason Goldson in Culture, Holidays, Philosophy on September 16, 2008
The Candles and the Stars
By Rabbi Yonason Goldson
And HaShem said, “Let there be light!” and there was light (Bereishis 1:3).
Even as the first words of Creation set the stage for everything that will follow, they also set themselves apart from everything that will come. After every other stage in the genesis process, the Torah reports that HaShem spoke, vayehi chein – “and it was so.” But after the creation of light, instead of saying vayehi chein, the Torah reports vayehi ohr – “and there was light.”
The Malbim explains that vayehi chein implies permanence: every act sealed with this expression would endure forever. The heavens and the earth, the water and the land, the vegetation and the birds, fish, and mammals – all these would last until the end of days. But not the light.
The kabbalists tell us that the light of Creation was not the light of photons that illuminate our physical world. The light of the First Day was, rather, the ohr haMakif, the divine light of HaShem’s radiance projected into the spiritual void that preceded the existence of the physical universe. This was the “light” that enabled Adam to “see” from one end of the universe to the other, to perceive the true essence of the world and everything in it.1 It was the light of absolute knowledge and absolute power.
But HaShem foresaw that, after Adam’s sin, this divine light would threaten the very existence of the world. Used irresponsibly, such power could wreak incalculable destruction. HaShem therefore concealed the light, storing it away for the tzaddkim of future generations.2 Before the process of Creation had ended, the light of Creation had been hidden away.
On the fourth day, however, HaShem created the sun, moon, and stars – the luminaries whose physical light would substitute for the spiritual light of the first day. But how can mere physical light take the place of the light of kedusha? How can the lights of the sky replace the spiritual illumination of the soul? And precisely where did HaShem hide the original light of Creation?
HaShem hid His light in the Torah, preserving it there for the sages and scholars who, through diligent study, would one day reveal the brilliance of divine wisdom before all the world once again.3
Until then, the physical luminaries would have to suffice, with optic vision providing a barely adequate replacement for the spiritual insight of Torah wisdom. Through their familiar and uninterrupted passage above us, these heavenly bodies serve to reassure us that the light of Creation, temporarily removed, can be permanently restored by the luminaries of Torah, the bright lights of scholarship and wisdom who light the Jewish people’s way through the generations.
Thus Moshe says to his people: “HaShem, your G-d, has multiplied you and behold, you are today as the stars in the heavens” (Devarim 1:10).
Was this so? Standing at the boundary of Eretz Yisroel on the east side of the Jordan, the Jewish nation was still relatively small, the numbers by no account comparable to “the stars in the heavens.” Comes Rashi to explain that Moshe meant something else entirely. The Jews were not as numerous as the luminaries of the heavens; rather, Moshe declared that they were as permanent and as enduring as the sun, the moon, and the stars.
Rashi’s allegory seems to echo the narrative of Creation, in which we understand the sun, moon, and stars as an allegory for the Torah scholars who would bring back the light of kedusha to a world of spiritual darkness.
If so, perhaps the connection goes even further.
In addition to the idea that HaShem hid the light of Creation in the Torah, the B’nei Yisoschar suggests that HaShem hid the primordial light in the candles of Chanukah. The thirty six flames of the menorah correspond to the thirty six tzaddikim hidden in every generation, for it is through them that the light of kedusha is most prominently revealed.
This interpretation dovetails with the Midrash that finds within the narrative of Creation an allusion to the four kingdoms that would rule over the Jewish people in exile. In the opening description of Creation, the Torah records that “there was void and nothingness, with darkness upon the surface of the deep” (Bereishis 1:2). Void alludes to Babylon, nothingness to Persia, and the deep to Rome.
Darkness alludes to Greece, whose secularist wisdom darkened the eyes of the Jewish people.4
It was the light of the menorah, restored by the Hasmoneans, that pierced through the darkness of Greece, just as the Torah of the sages returns the light of kedusha to the world.
As a commentary on the verse in question, however, Rashi’s allegory presents a problem. Since Moshe compared the Jewish people specifically to the stars, why did Rashi feel it necessary to include the sun and the moon? Indeed, HaShem Himself made reference only to the stars in His promise to Avrohom.5 Why did Rashi consider the allegory of both HaShem and Moshe insufficient?
In truth, we do find allegories similar to Rashi’s scattered through Chazal. Adam and Moshe are compared to the sun.6 Yehoshua and Dovid are compared to the moon.7 Although the Jewish nation as a whole is compared to the stars, individuals within it are compared to the sun and the moon.
Consequently, Rashi may have recognized something deeper within Moshe’s metaphor for eternity: an allusion to the unique influence of successive historical eras upon the fortunes of the Jewish people. If so, perhaps we can articulate a precise correlation between the celestial luminaries that dispel the darkness of night and the Torah luminaries that dispel the darkness of exile.
The quality shared by Adam and Moshe is their proximity to the Master of the World. Adam was the prototype for all mankind, the first and only human being created directly by divine decree. Moshe Rabbeinu was the only human being after the expulsion from Gan Eden to speak “face to face” with the Creator, the only individual entrusted to bring HaShem’s Torah to the world. These two alone occupied a spiritual level so exalted that they radiated their own intrinsic kedusha, like the sun.8
All other human beings aspire not to radiate, but to reflect. It was Yehoshua who replaced Moshe, leading the Jewish people not only into a new land but into a new kind of existence, one without open miracles, in which the glory of HaShem was recognized indirectly through the workings of nature and divine providence. In this new world, the kedusha of HaShem was no longer projected by leaders like the sun but reflected by leaders like the moon.
As with Yehoshua, Dovid HaMelech also is described as a disciple of Moshe.9 Not only does the moon reflect merely a fraction of the sun’s light, it also lacks the sun’s constancy, waxing and waning as it courses through its monthly cycle. HaShem placed Adam and Moshe at the pinnacle of human existence and charged them with preserving the perfection of Eden and Sinai respectively. In contrast, HaShem charged Yehoshua and Dovid with negotiating the peaks and valleys of human uncertainty. Rise and fall, victory and defeat, transgression and redemption – these describe the complex pattern of human life symbolized by the changing faces of the moon. As the radiance of kedusha dimmed, the universe became darker. But as the universe became darker, fainter lights could shine bright.
And indeed, the darkness intensified. Sancheriv drove the ten tribes into exile. Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the Beis HaMikdash. Prophecy disappeared from the world. And the spiritual darkness of Greece spread over the earth, disguising itself as a new aesthetic wisdom and seducing mankind with its self-serving, pleasure-seeking, and empty sophistry.
What had become of the luminaries? Without teachers like Moshe, without disciples like Yehoshua and Dovid, who would rally the Jewish people against their enemies? Without either sun or moon to guide them, how would the Jews ever find their way?
They found their way by the stars.
A single star offers little light. But a thousand, a million, a billion stars burning bright across the canopy of the heavens — here is light enough for all eternity. With each star shining like a single flame, adding its tiny pinprick of radiance to the light of a billion others, the darkness of night gives way before a soft, intangible glow of illumination. So too, a single Jewish neshoma, shining bright by resisting the seemingly irresistible descent of spiritual darkness, combines with other Jewish souls to prevent the light of kedusha from being extinguished. One neshoma added to another and another, like the individual flames of the Chanukah menorah, suddenly explodes into the silent darkness like a symphony of light.
In the depths of exile, we have no single leader to shine like the sun, nor even to reflect the sunlight like the moon. But the hidden tzaddikim, each revealing the primordial light of Creation concealed by HaShem in the Torah, each according to his own capacity and his own efforts, collectively shine forth with enough brilliance to drive away the darkness of corruption and impurity and superficiality.
We allude to this every day of Chanukah in al haNissim, when we declare that HaShem delivered
the impure into the hands of the pure,
the wicked into the hands of the righteous,
and the wanton into the hands of those who diligently study Your Torah.
Rav Nachman Bulman zt”l suggested that the parallelism in this arrangement appears to be flawed. On the side of our enemies, the levels of evil are ascending: the merely impure are less evil than the wicked, and the wicked are less evil than the wanton – those motivated not by simple desire but by a philosophical commitment to do evil. On the other side, however, the levels of righteous seem to be descending, with the tahor – the servant of HaShem who has attained purity and perfection in his divine service – having more merit than the mere tzaddik, who nevertheless has greater merit than the simple Jew who struggles in his study and observance. Superficially, we would expect to find the pure paired off against the wanton and those who study Torah paired off against the impure.
But this, explained Rav Bulman, is precisely the point. Although darkness descends when we have neither sun nor moon to push back the night, in the absence of great luminaries the myriad tiny lights begin to shine, showering their radiance as one until, collectively, they have conquered the darkness.
The Torah testifies that Moshe Rabbeinu was “extremely humble, more than any man upon the earth” (BaMidbar 12:3). What made Moshe so humble? The Zohar tells us that he saw the last generation of galus before the coming of Moshiach.10 For Moshe Rabbeinu, who spoke to HaShem “face to face,” who lived amidst open miracles and the revelation of the Sh’chinah, who witnessed the redemption of his people from slavery after 210 years of crushing servitude, belief and trust in HaShem posed little challenge. For Moshe, even so exalted a quality as yiras Shomayim was easily acquired.11
But to live in the depths of galus, in an era of such spiritual blackness that HaShem’s presence seems not merely a distant memory but a flight of pure fancy, and to retain under such circumstances the slightest sensitivity to kedusha, much less the devotion to Torah and mitzvah observance – before this, even Moshe Rabbeinu found himself in awe. The knowledge that a generation would succeed in doing so left him profoundly humbled.
At once humble and exalted are, like the stars of the sky, the lights of Chanukah and the neshomos of the Jews prior to the end of days. Flame upon flame and light upon light, they ignite one by one in a common purpose, joined together by a common foundation, illuminating the darkness of galus with the sparks of HaShem’s mitzvos, and spreading the light of His wisdom by revealing the light of His Torah.
1. Chagigah 12a; Bereishis Rabbah 12:6
2. Rashi on Bereishis 1:4 from Chagigah 12a and Bereishis Rabbah 3:6
3. Tanchuma, Noach 3
4. Bereishis Rabbah 2:4
5. Bereishis 15:5
6. Zohar 1:142b and Baba Basra 75a
7. Baba Basra 75a and Rosh HaShonah (with Rashi ad loc)
8. Although Shimshon was also compared to the sun, we might suggest that this was not for what he accomplished but for the messianic potential he possessed to permanently restore HaShem’s light to the world. See Sotah 10a and Bereishis Rabbah 98:14.
9. Shocher Tov 14:6
10. Ki seitzei 3:282b
11. Berachos 33b
Originally published in the Jewish Observer
Half-way Home
Posted by Yonason Goldson in Education and Parenting, Holidays, Philosophy on September 15, 2008
I don’t pay much attention to my birthdays, but last week’s was particularly significant. I could pontificate on my years now equaling the number of prophets in mentioned in scripture, but I’ve long been anticipating this milestone for a different reason.
With this birthday, I have now been Torah observant for half my life.
Approaching Rosh HaShonah, we can’t (and shouldn’t try to) escape Rambam’s famous allegory of the scales of merit upon that will determine our fortunes for the coming year. Every one of us should consider himself 50/ 50 — half meritorious and half guilty, with the next action tilting the scales one way or the other. Every action could mean the difference between a good decree and a bad decree, between health and illness, between wealth and poverty, between continued exile and redemption, for ourselves as individuals and, possibly, for a world that is also evenly balanced.
Latecomers to Yiddishkeit haven’t necessarily lived wicked lives. Some of us even sought truth before we found it, and we may have tried to live lives of virtue even before we had the Torah to guide us. But hit-or-miss righteousness is hardly reliable, and even the best of us probably found that the temptation and impulse defeated our most sincere intentions before we developed a solid defense against them.
So the image of 50/ 50 carries a special poignancy for me this year, as I reflect on half a lifetime of playing catch-up, learning aleph-beis two decades too late, struggling with ritual and halacha, and trying to help my children and my students benefit from the double-vision glasses through which I see the world of Torah and the world of no-Torah. It’s painful to witness how casually many who are born into Torah society take Torah for granted, see it more as an inconvenience than an inheritance, and treat it with careless indifference.
It would be easy for me to claim that I’ve more than tipped the scales toward the side of merit. But with the scales evenly balanced in years, what better moment than now to reflect on the catastrophic consequence of one false move, or the incalculable heroism of a single step at the right moment in the right direction?
Torah Ideals 
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