Mrs. Miriam Jaffe at Blitstein Institute of HTC
Learn
and Live – a woman’s program
Justice and Judgment – Yomim Norayim
Davening: Yom Kippur
Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan wrote that Rosh Hashanah is the birthday
of the mankind, while Yom Kippur is the birthday of bnei Israel,
children of Israel. The reason for this,
he explains, is that on Yom Kippur Avraham had his Bris Milah,
covenantal circumcision. To understand
this reason we have to understand 1) what is Bris Milah, and 2) who are bnei
Israel. [I guess as a mother of a
teenage boy I should be able to write about circumcision without mincing
words].
Some may say that this is impossible, because according to the
Midrash the angels visited Avraham on Pesach, and he was recovering from Bris
Milah, so the Bris Milah of Avraham happened on Pesach – that
contradiction we cannot answer in the scope of the shiur.
What is Bris Milah: according to Midrash, when Adam was
created he had a perfect human body without the foreskin. But after he sinned, the foreskin grew on him
as a sort of a barrier between him and the Holy One Blessed Be He.
The Hebrew word arlah, translated as ‘foreskin’, also
means impediment, or barrier. So when
Moshe was a child and happened to play with Pharaoh’s crown, Pharaoh presented
him with a test to find out whether Moshe was driven for royal power or just
liked to play with shiny things. Little
Moshe was offered a plate of golden coins and a plate of shining burning
coals. He first reached for the coins,
but the angel moved his hand and he grabbed at the coals. In self-consolation he then put his hand to
his mouth and burned his lips, and that caused him aral sfatayim –
impediment of the lips.
On Yom Kippur, we pray asking G-d to remove arlah from
our hearts, circumcise our hearts, remove impediment between us and the
Almighty. Just as attractive rich fatty
foods cause plaque buildup in our arteries, there are also spiritual arteries
within us, and we ask umol, circumcise, remove barriers from our
hearts. On Yom Kippur Hashem commanded
Avraham to perform Bris Milah to remove the spiritual barrier.
Who are bnei Israel?
Isra-el means an officer of G-d.
The Midrashic translation of bereishit bara Elokim… reads that in
the mind of G-d He created the world.
Hashem wanted all mankind to be Israel, His officers. The role of an officer is twofold: an officer
listens to his commander and passes the command to his reports. Adam failed this test – he did not listen
well to his commander and did not pass the command effectively. Noah listened to the command, but did not
convince others to follow. Nimrod was
able to organize people under him to build the tower of Bavel, but did not
listen to the voice of G-d.
Avraham listened and passed the message to people, except
for his son Ishmael. Same with Isaac –
he listened to the voice of G-d, but failed to teach Esau. Yakov Avinu listened and passed the
commandments to all his children.
Yakov fought the angel that symbolized his lower nature, the
angel of Esau, and when he defeated the angel he did not let him go until he
got the blessing, and as a blessing the angel changed his name to Israel – the
officer of Hashem. So the bnei Israel
are the children of Yakov. And who
inspire Yakov – Avraham. Avraham wanted
to remove all barriers between him and Hashem, and so he did the Bris Milah at
the age of 99, on Yom Kippur.
The theme of Yom Kippur is removing barriers from the path
of teshuvah, so that we may return.
Mrs. Jaffe shared with us a powerful image of teshuvah. Imagine a field of daisies – I am on one end
of it, and Hashem is on the other end, and I am trying to run towards Him. What are the barriers between us? What distractions make me lose my way and
miss the point of meeting? The
distractions create the arla, barriers that would not let me reach
Him.
The first human being who did teshuvah was Adam. After Adam sinned he was in the garden on
Friday afternoon and the sun started to set, and he realized that he brought
the darkness into the world. The next
morning, on Shabbos, the sun rose up, and Adam sang mizmor shir l’yom
Shabbat – the Shabbos song of praise.
Freud and the Reality of Kedusha
It happened that on
the same day before coming to Mrs. Jaffe’s shiur I listed to a lecture a
Freud and his philosophy expressed in one of his most famous books
“Civilization and its Discontent”. The
circumstances of my work changed in a way that now I drive to the office in
Schaumburg four days a week and so make the commute somewhat enjoyable I listen
to the philosophy tapes from The Teaching Company, available to borrow for any
of my friends who are kind enough to share my interests.
After thoroughly
denying religion as one of the worst types of neurosis, Freud developed a
theory of the tripartite self: the animalistic aggressive id, the
idealistic perfectionist overarching super-ego, and the reasoning ego,
weak, struggling and acting as a broker pulled between equally strong and irrational
id and super-ego. How is this
categorization of human personality different from the Jewish teaching of
yetzer hara, yetzer tov, and the fragile tortured anguished human soul
struggling in between?
According to Freud the
human being driven by insatiable id and oppressed by super ego is by definition
unhappy, suffering, and to relieve this essential suffering the human mind uses
three types of coping: intoxication, isolation and sublimation. All three according to Freud are essentially
deceitful and don’t bring any true satisfaction, never as much as direct
satisfaction of one’s animal instincts.
And this is where I
almost stopped the car, thinking I disagree.
I disagree that the sublimation of instincts, or sanctification of the
nature, is a lie. It is not. It is the one and only real truth in the
world. When a human being sanctifies his
nature, brings holiness into his or her life, they reach out for something very
powerful and real. When a man strives to
connect to the higher reality by going against his lower nature, by spending
time in contemplation and prayer, by loving one’s neighbor and helping others,
he connects his soul to the greatest force in the world, to the Soul of the
Universe that runs everything, from the blade of grass to the highest
mountains, from the child’s first words to the laws of gravity. A person connected to that force has strength
to overcome any barrier, becomes physically and mentally stronger. Faith changes not only the inner world but
the very concrete external appearance as well as physical circumstances.
Psalm 34:6 הִבִּיטוּ אֵלָיו וְנָהָרוּ וּפְנֵיהֶם אַל יֶחְפָּרוּ
They looked to Him and they became radiant,
and their faces will not be ashamed.
Freud
had such pessimistic view of human nature, that had he not died in 1939 from
the cancer of mouth and jaw, the same mouth that proclaimed faith a neurosis,
had he lived to see Aushwitz, he would not be surprised. He would have said that this is the human
being in his most true authentic state. We’d
say this is the human being separated from G-d, abandoned to the forces of
nature.
We
don’t have a Temple and an altar to bring the karbanos, animal sacrifices,
to come closer to Hashem. All I can
bring is the beating bleeding heart, the only exchange currency accepted
in the higher world. The animal
sacrifices used to symbolize the animalistic nature of the man, in a display of
faith denying reliance on the animal for agricultural success. But one had to have an animal to bring the
sacrifice. The same way, one has to have
a strong nature, a life force, with all its passions and desires, to have
something to sacrifice that is worth accepting.
Sublimation,
sanctification of natural impulses is not just a coping mechanism, not an
illusion. Kedusha, holiness is
not a lie, not a self-deception. It is
an attempt, a striving to connect to something real, something great, awesome
and holy. Even intoxication, the lowest
coping mechanism in Freud’s theory, is a misguided attempt to get there. Why do people get intoxicated, addicted,
obsessed against their better judgment?
Because in the bottom of the heart of even the lowest bum there is a
knowledge that there is something great out there, something holy and awesome,
a source of all love and goodness, kindness and compassion – they just don’t
know the way to get there, they are trying to get through a back door, take a
shortcut, an easy way – if they only knew how awesome it is they’d trek through
the desert for 40 years, just to get a glimpse of it.
How
is it even possible for a lowly man to rise above his nature if not for a
divine soul connected to the higher source, that is stronger than instincts,
stronger than death, that allows a human being to go on, that tells him to
choose good, to love thy neighbor, to respect the property and boundary of
others, to not stand upon your neighbor’s blood, not to ignore when a friend is
down, that connects one soul to another in inexplicable unbreakable embrace. How sublimation is possible for a human ego
if not for the existence of the sublime Being Who created the world by His
word? How could one go up if there were
no “Up”? How could one choose good if
there were no “Good”?
Freud listed the isolation as a second type of a coping mechanism to relieve suffering, referring to the meditation practices of the east. The person he said isolates himself to get away from the misery of the world and annoyance of common people with all their anxiety, neurosis, trauma. Not so, the person isolates himself to be alone with G-d, to better hear His voice above the noise.
At the end of the shiur Mrs. Jaffe showed us a short film about an athlete, a runner, who was first in the race, and just before the finishing line he stopped in his tracks, having torn his hamstring ligament. He was running so fast, faster than anyone else, almost flying, and the next second he was lying on the ground in excruciating pain. The emergency team came for him with the stretcher, but upon seeing them he made an effort to get up and started to hobble, slowly and painstakingly, but steady to the finish line. It was painful to even watch him hobble along. Suddenly an older man broke through security and joined the athlete, lending him a shoulder and a helping hand. This was his father. The father did not ask him to stop, to spare himself. The father's face combined pride and compassion, understanding and steady loyalty. So is Hashem with us in distress. When pain is unbearable, but we still hobble along, Hashem comes down from the bleachers to lend a helping hand.
I have a very close friend who can be very helpful and most nobly compassionate when I am down, but who has rather lukewarm reaction to my success, like “you are fine, you don’t need me that much” (you know who you are!). And I have other friends who encourage me in all my undertaking and striving upward, to whom I immensely grateful, but whom I don’t dare bother with my troubles. Why does G-d come down to meet the man only when we are in distress? Why cannot He be with us and share our joy, exuberance, our pride, why does Adam Two have to be so desperately lonely crying out of the depths to reach His ears? I need You not only when I am down, I need your love and encouragement and support even when I am fine! I need you to rejoice with me, to praise my cooking, to admire my writing, however amateurish it may be, to compliment my clothes, to be proud of my striving and achievement. But He says: “Your being fine is an illusion, you are too comfortable in galut, enjoying yourself in a self-imposed exile. Are you truly happy when you are ‘fine’? What is it all worth?” This is not only about aliya, although there must be something to be said about living too comfortably abroad. This is about true redemption, when the all-powerful G-d who supports the downtrodden and heals the broken-hearted will smile with pride at our success, secure in our loyalty, enjoying the taste and smell of our feasts, admiring the beauty of Yaphet in the tent of Shem.
Shana Tova U'Metukah
Devorah
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