Ben Adam V'Makom

When I was practicing aloud my lesson on the Amida blessing of Slicha – Forgiveness, my husband asked an interesting question: why the sins between man and G-d are called ben adam v’makom – why the term makom was used in this case?  To answer this question requires going back to the blessing of Kedusha – Holiness, and the explanation of the two key phrases in Kedusha:

1.       Kadosh,               kadosh,                kadosh,                Hashem               tzvaot

Holy,                     holy,                      holy                       is the Lord           of hosts:

M’lo                      kol                          ha-aretz               kvodo

Filled is                the whole             earth                     with His glory. 

2.       Baruch                  kevod                    Hashem               mi-m’komo

Blessed is            glory of                the Lord               from His place

 

The first verse is from Isaiah (6:3), when the prophet saw the Master of the Universe in the Temple when the priests performed the service and the Levites sang their song.  It was a time of blessing and success. Everyone could see the resting of Divine Presence, and angels called to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord … the whole world is filled with His glory”

The second verse where G-d is referred to as makom is found in the prophecy of Ezekiel.   The word of G-d came to Ezekiel in exile; he was in mourning, a prisoner of war.  Standing on the banks of the river Chebar, he saw a fierce wind come from the north, a great cloud, and a blazing fire.  Instead of priests and Levites, he beheld war and destruction. He does not declare that “the whole world is filled with His glory”, that every detail bears witness to the Holy One.  Rather, G-d is hidden in the seven firmaments, and Ezekiel hears a voice of a great rushing say: “Blessed be the glory of the Lord from His Place, mi m’komo” (Ezekiel 3:12).  This prophecy was at a time of hester panim, hiding of the divine face.

 Rabbeinu Yonah in Shaarei Teshuvah writes on the principle of shame (first gate), that when the person commits transgression “the Blessed One is far from his consciousness”.  We can compare it to the blessings of Kedusha.   A righteous person’s mind is filled with awareness of G-d’s presence “the whole world is filled with His Glory”.  But when a person is in such state of mind that wrong feels right, then the desire fills his or her world, and G-d’s presence is remote, in His place of a narrow window in the corner of the mind, mi m’komo, this is why ben adam v’makom. 

When you arrive in the Land

Numbers 15:2 Speak to the children of Israel and say to them: When you arrive in the Land of your dwelling place, which I am giving you… ki tavo el eretz…

The Torah portion Shelach is famous for the episode of the spies – the 12 delegates of every tribe of Israelites are sent by Moses to spy on the land of Israel. They see the land, they bring the fruit, and 10 of them complain that the land is impossible to conquer, it is inhabited by giants, “a land that consumes its inhabitants” (13:32). Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before the entire congregation, Joshua and Caleb tore their clothes (14:5-6), the entire congregation threatened to pelt them with stones (14:10), and the Lord appeared in all His magnificent glory and anger.  Moses pleaded before the Lord, invoking His attributes of Mercy, and Hashem relented “I have forgiven them in accordance with your word – salachti ki’dvarecha” (14:20).  However, the errant generation who perceived Divine glory and witnessed the miracles in Egypt is doomed to wander and die in the desert.

14:33 your children shall wander in the desert for forty years and bear your defection until the last of your corpses has fallen in the desert.

How then can we understand ki tavo el eretz – when you arrive in the Land, and all the laws of living in Eretz Israel?  Whom does G-d address – is He talking to the children who will arrive in the land, is he talking to Joshua and Caleb, the two spies who spoke well of the land and were allowed to enter it after 40 years of wandering, or is He addressing the entire nation, listing the whole set of agricultural laws that are only applicable in the land? The chapter starts with:

The Lord spoke to Moses saying: Speak to the children of Israel and say to them: When you arrive in the Land of your dwelling place, which I am giving you (Num. 15:1-2)

Depending on who is listening, this statement sounds either like a cruel sarcasm, or like a glimmer of hope – maybe He does not really mean it, maybe there is a chance to turn back the wheel…

Just as the curse of corpses dropping in the dessert is repeated twice in 14:29 and 14:32, so is the implied promise “When you arrive in the Land to which I am bringing you” is repeated in 15:2 and 15:18, and the second implication is even more generous than the first:

15:2-3 when you arrive in the Land of your dwelling place, which I am giving you, and you make a fire offering to the Lord…

15:18-19 when you arrive in the Land to which I am bringing you and you eat from the bread of the Land…

It is so easy to slip into an anguished despair: what do You mean “when you arrive”? You said that our corpses will drop in the desert, we are walking through this desert for so long already, and we will never reach the Promised Land!  That was the common thinking of many people, including the man who went to gather wood on Shabbat, snapping in disregard for everything sacred, giving up, not giving a damn, throwing a party, a drunken orgy, a Woodstock in the shadow of the nuclear Holocaust. 

But here we are, we still exist, we call ourselves Jews, for better or worse.  We are descendants of those who went through fire and water, who survived and preserved the identity, who did not convert into coercive religion backed by the power of tyrannical state, nor married foreign women to dissolve into the ocean of nations. We persevered, because those ancestors, doomed to die in exile, chose to cling to the glimmer of hope, to believe in the promise of prophecy, to hold on to the blue thread of techelet connecting a Jew to the source of holiness. 

Speak to the children of Israel and you shall say to them that they shall make for themselves fringes on the corners of their garments, throughout their generations, and they shall affix a thread of sky blue [wool] on the fringe of each corner.  This shall be fringes for you, and when you see it, you will remember all the commandments of the Lord to perform them, and you shall not wander after your hearts and after your eyes after which you are going astray. So that you shall remember and perform all My commandments and you shall be holy to your G-d. (Num. 38-40)

In the darkest time when all hope is lost, when the deepest strongest desire is out of reach, we can still choose to retain our connection to G-d, because when everything else is lost, this is all we have. 

 

Gabe and Ellyn's Wedding

As we flew to Dominican Republic I was reading Rabbi David Fohrman's book The Beast that Crouches at the Door and in it I found a perfect passage for the dvar Torah to deliver at the wedding reception.  I wanted to say something special, but did not plan a speech in advance, and here it was right in front of me, flowing from the pages of the book.  The wedding ceremony was lovely.  The bride and groom put a great deal of effort to seal the bond of the Jewish marriage in a way that was meaningful to both of them.  I can only hope that my dvar Torah added blessing to this joyous event. 

What if Eve turned to G-d? What if she turned to man?

When the first man was created, G-d planted a garden of Eden and placed the man to work and to guard it.  Two trees did the Lord G-d plant in the garden of paradise: the tree of life in the middle of the garden, and also the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  

G-d created a woman out of man's side, to be his helper opposite of him, ezer k'negdo  (opposite of man, or opposite of G-d?).   A serpent, more cunning and smooth than all animals of the field, came to the garden and asked Eve: Even if G-d said do not eat of any tree of the garden? (Genesis 3:1)

We know the rest of the story - Eve ate from the tree, her eyes opened, she let the man try, man, woman and the snake were cursed and exiled from the garden, and the guardian angels with rotating flaming swords were placed at the garden gates to protect the tree of life, so that the man won't become immortal. 

When a man is presented with temptation there are two choices - to say Yes and succumb to it, or to say No and refuse - right?  What if there were a third choice - to turn away from the snake and to ask G-d - Why?  Why did You present me with this temptation? Why did You plant the tree of knowledge of good and eve in the garden? Why did You make it available to me and forbidden at the same time?  Why did You plant desire in my heart?  Why did You create me in such way that I am so confused - the desire that whispers with Your voice within me, which lights me with the fire of life, and Your words of explicit prohibition?  Why did You create the serpent and brought him on my path?  The list of questions can go on and on…  This is a dialog with G-d that keeps going for as long as man lives.  The majority of people, yours truly included, are neither righteous nor evil, but we are all engaged in the dialogue with G-d, whether consciously or not.   The whole history of human thought, of philosophy is this ongoing conversation - who am I, why am I like this, why am I struggling between the law and desire, why is not life easy and clear, why did You plant anguish in my heart? 

 

But here is what happens when a man consciously engages in this dialog and gets really into it - the dialog itself acquires a life of its own and becomes appealing to man to the point that he forgets about the temptation.  So the next time the snake comes around with his un-holy propositions, Eve may say - thanks for the offer, but I have something better going on here, I am talking to G-d!

 

What's in it for the Snake?

Excerpts from the book of Rabbi David Fohrman The Beast that Crouches at the Door

Notes from Chapter 5
What's in it for the Snake

 The story about the two trees begins in preceding chapter 2:9, 2:16-17. 

After the pasuk about the trees, G-d declares that 2:18 "it is not good for man to be alone" and sets about trying to find a mate for him.  2:19 And the Lord God formed from the earth every beast of the field and every fowl of the heavens, and He brought [it] to man to see what he would call it, and whatever the man called each living thing, that was its name.  Adam does not choose a mate from all the animals, G-d creates Eve out of his rib, and only then the story returns to the Forbidden Fruit.  The snake comes along and offers the fruit to Eve. 

Why does Adam's search for a mate interrupt the story about the Tree of Knowledge?

Adam's rejection of all beasts of the field is crucial to the story of the Forbidden Fruit. 

The snake was the smartest of all animals, but Adam did not choose him as his mate.

Midrash Bereishit Rabbah, quoted by Rashi, says that the snake hoped that Eve would pass the fruit to Adam before partaking it, because the snake wanted to assassinate Adam and marry Eve.  Midrash is allegorical, sages often convey deep truths through the mysterious, allegorical garb of Midrash.  

Because Adam rejected animals in favor of Eve, the animal world - with the snake as its smartest representative - leveled a challenge to the first humans: "What makes you so special? What makes you so different from us that you stand alone and require one another as mates? We can be your soul mates, too…"

The Tree and the Idea

3:6 And the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes (toava la-einaim), and the tree was desirable to make one wise (nehmad le-haskil); so she took of its fruit, and she ate, and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.

What was so attractive in the tree?  Good for food is simple to understand, delight to the eyes, tantalizing - OK, people do get drawn to the shiny objects, only to forget about them later.  But what does it mean nehmad le-haskil, delight to the intellect, desirable to the mind - a tree is not a person that one can talk to, what's in a tree that makes it so desirable intellectually, what kinds of mysterious secrets did the tree hint at? 
I thinks it is the idea of unlimited power and freedom that eating from the tree symbolized, the idea expressed by the serpent earlier in 3:5 For God knows that on the day that you eat thereof, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like angels, knowing good and evil. 
The idea that one can eat from the tree, or do whatever he wants, that is nehmad le-haskil.  A juicy piece of ham, an attractive object, is a toava la-einaim, but the idea that you can walk into any restaurant and order any food you want, the cultural idea,  the meme, that you can do whatever you want in your personal life, that is nehmad le-haskil. The idea is promoted from Ayn Rand to Shakira and Beyonce, the latter not incidentally featured on the cover of Time magazine in the list of the most influential people of the year. Man dreams of power and freedom.  3:1 Even if G-d indeed said so …

Becoming a Living Soul

I started re-reading the first chapters of the book of Bereishit in preparation for the next week's women class on Knowledge, speaking about the knowledge of good and evil in light of Rav S. R. Hirsch's brilliant commentary on Chumash.  Predictably, the very first verses in Chapter 2 struck me with what seemed like a logical inconsistency.  It starts with the declaration that on the seventh day G-d completed all His work that He did. 

2:1 Now the heavens and the earth were completed and all their host

But then in verse 5 it says that there was no man to work the soil:

2:5  Now no tree of the field was yet on the earth, neither did any herb of the field yet grow, because the Lord God had not brought rain upon the earth, and there was no man to work the soil.

Was not the creation completed on the seventh day?  Was not the man already created on the sixth day? 

1:26-27 And G-d said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and they shall rule over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the heaven and over the animals and over all the earth and over all the creeping things that creep upon the earth."  And G-d created man in His image; in the image of G-d He created him; male and female He created them.

Is this a contradiction?  Here at the end of Chapter 1 the man was created in the image of G-d, on the sixth day, but then in the beginning of Chapter 2, after the seventh day, we read that "there was no man to work the soil." 

The original man, Adam 1.0, was created to "rule over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the sky and over all the beasts that tread upon the earth" - to rule, not to work the soil! 

In Chapter 2, after Hashem blessed the Shabbos day, He "formed man of dust from the ground, and He breathed into his nostrils the soul of life, and man became a living soul."  A living soul, capable of love and longing, suffering and pain, ridden with doubt and searching for truth, is the one who can work the soil, one whom Hashem "placed  in the Garden of Eden to work it and to guard it."

A man is born to rule and reborn to work.  The transition from an admired child to a responsible adult is painful, tragic, unclear, full of confusion and despair, triumph and fall, and many failures, but these are all growing pains on the path to greatness.  

One recurrent motive in Torah is a story of a matriarch as a barren woman, who waits and prays for many years to conceive a child.  Patriarchs and prophets were born to such women.  Why could not life go smoothly, according to a normal human timetable, for Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel, Hannah? Things that come easy are often less appreciated.  Young parents get annoyed by little children, spouses get tired of each other, inherited fortunes get squandered, but what comes to a sensitive adult as a result of hard work, after much struggle and failure, is valued and rises to greatness. 
 

 י. לֹא בִגְבוּרַת הַסּוּס יֶחְפָּץ לֹא בְשׁוֹקֵי הָאִישׁ יִרְצֶה
 רוֹצֶה יְהֹוָה אֶת יְרֵאָיו אֶת הַמְיַחֲלִים לְחַסְדּוֹ:

We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt

From Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik, "An Exalted Evening".
עבדים היינו לפרעה במצרים
Avadim hainu l'phar'oh b'mizrayim
We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt

We were slaves to Pharaoh, not Pharaoh's slaves.  The former would be only a juridic-social description; the Jews belonged to Pharaoh legally, but spiritually we were free people with our own individual minds and an independent approach to reality. However, when we state that someone is "Pharaoh's slave," we identify his whole personality with Pharaoh. Serving Pharaoh is not just incidental; it is the whold purpose of his life.  Pharaoh's Egyptian slaves are called "avdei Phar'oh".  Our service to the Almighty is not something foreign and incidental, but rather something indispensable to our existence, something intrinsic and inseparable from our ontological awareness. That is why the term "eved Hashem, G-d's servant" is used in the Bible. We are only servants of G-d, and nothing else.

An Esther Moment

It’s crazy - I've read three Purim books this season: Esther: A Breslov Commentary on the Megillah, that my husband picked after a shiur of visiting Breslov Chasidim; Purim and the Persian Empire, used in preparation to teach a Sunday school and women’s class; and The Queen You Thought You Knew, that I picked up accidentally at the store because it looked cute, which turned out to be the best as it related to the ideas in the other two books.   And after reading all three books, here was my Esther moment.  After requesting time off from the not-so-friendly boss for the Passover holiday, I receive an e-mail that read verbatim “What is Passover holiday?”  After a few deep breaths, I put together a polite response “It is a Jewish religious holiday that people of my faith observe every year, along with a number of other holidays when we cannot work.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passover”. 

Orphan Souls

Contemplating the untimely passing of Rabbi Daniel Moscowitz, I thought how frustrating it must have been to preach to the diverse crowd of people many of whom were coming to Chabad mainly to socialize and eat the sumptuous Kiddush, unburdened by synagogue membership fees or obligations to keep mitzvoth. Of course Rabbi Moscowitz was on a different level and would not hold the grudge, but even Moses was frustrated at times with the "stiff-necked people". And then I thought ...that the greatest mesiras nefesh-level Mitzvah of Rabbi Moscowitz and people like him is caring of the orphans. Because when a Jewish soul, a holy neshama, is born into this world, into a secular family, a society of atheists and skeptics, she is like an orphan. A orphan soul may be placed in a pampered body with well engaged mind, but the soul - the soul yearns for something bigger, seeks higher purpose, starving for mitzvoth, thirsty for the word of Torah - and the mind is either unaware of this condition or is greatly confused.

The mitzvah of taking care of the orphans is unqualified by any conditions. Torah does not say to care about orphans only if they are nice, if they keep Shabbat, learn Torah, pray every day - it says to take care of the orphans and widows and welcome a stranger - unconditionally, because we were slaves and strangers in a strange land.

Eshet Chayil - linen and purple wool

That Friday I felt completely empty and cut off, as if all bridges were burnt and there was nothing going on except the daily grind.  I spent Friday afternoon at a particularly absurd, meaningless “all hands” meeting, half-reading a shiur on the company-owned smart phone, half listening to a new and improved strategy to cut down costs and lower the bottom line, as if I were not at the bottom already. 

I almost forgot that we were hosting two yeshiva boys, invited to read Torah at the synagogue the next morning.  My son let them in and showed around.  I walked into the house an hour before Shabbat to the sound of trope – the boys were practicing reading the Torah portion of the week, reading different sections, aliyot, in adjacent rooms.  Wow! I felt back in Yerushalayim.  The house felt so different, as the ancient words and melody harmonized across the hall.  I left my coat in the laundry room and tiptoed into the kitchen to warm up food for Shabbat, careful not to be heard, not to break the enchantment by my presence.  Observation changes the outcome, better not to be seen or heard to sustain the magic. 

My husband usually reads Eshet Chayil in English, and as nice as it sounds, it loses in translation.  Hearing the boys sing Eshet Chayil in Hebrew with traditional melody, two words caught my ear: shesh v’argamon levushah­ – the English translation has it as “her clothing is of fine linen and luxurious cloth”, but the Hebrew word argamon actually means purple wool, and linen and purple wool are two of the fabrics that made the panels of the Mishkan! I brought this to young people’s attention, and they knowingly confirmed that yes, the panels of the Mishkan - the portable sanctuary of the desert at the time of Exodus, were made out of four fabrics: shesh – linen, tehelet – sky-blue wool, argamon – purple wool, and toalat shani – crimson red wool, all luxurious cloth, but of distinctly different color.  They did not know why two out of four were chosen for the clothes of Eshet Chayil, the woman of valor.  Interestingly, I was reading rabbi Moshe Weinberger’s shiur about the Ish Chayil, a man of valor, during the boring meeting earlier, as if there are coincidences.   The blog I was reading also had a story of Phoenix, as a reminder that a Jew can always recreate oneself. 

I kept thinking about the colors of the Mishkan the next day, Shabbos, as my son was leading mussaf, a big honor, his grown up voice sounding serious and deep. At that moment I  realized that Eshet Chayil has only two out of four colors because it is written about a woman, a wife – half of the family.  The other two colors belong to the man – tehelet is the original thread in the tzitzit, the color of loyalty and devotion, while the toalat shani, crimson read, stands for husband’s passionate love for his wife.  As for the colors in Eshet Chayil – shesh, white linen, signifies purity, while argamon, purple, implies her mystery.

Love that Person in the Mirror

Outrageously selfish thoughts from a yoga class – hope they prove contagious and rub off on all my beautiful friends.

My yoga teacher must have achieved her goal today.  After a half-day of fasting, ridden by shame and guilt, I came to the class in a perfect no-self state – empty, feeling only the aching body muscles and hollow stomach.  I kept fixing my shirt through the warrior 1 flipping to warrior 2 poses, pulling the reluctant rolling up fabric down over the belly. Glancing into the mirror to check my posture, I suddenly was amazed by what I saw.  That unassuming figure with flabby stomach, pale round face, frizzy hair all of sudden looked amazingly beautiful.  Maybe it was a serotonin rush from yesterday’s jog, first after a brutally cold winter, combined with the light-headedness of the fast. For whatever reason, I just felt absolutely in love with myself - the person who looked back at me from that mirror.  The blue eyes under the golden curls radiated subtle beauty, the round cheeks were nicely accentuated with blush, and I particularly liked the softness around the hips that reminded me of my two amazingly beautiful children, however far or close they may be at the moment.   

CHANGING SEASONS

A beautiful poem by my daughter Miriam:

CHANGING SEASONS

A never ending winter,
When the cold is so cold it numbs us.
The snow falling lights up a dark world.
I search within to find my inner flame,
A flame that will never go out no matter how strong the wind may blow.

Spring is just around the corner.
As the rain begins to fall,
Washing away the darkness,
I'm inspired to grow,
To bloom into a beautiful flower.

Vitality flowing through my veins,
My heart beating with a love for life.
I pick up the shattered pieces of my life,
Glue them back together,
And frame my masterpiece.
Holding the key to my life,
I unlock my potential for living a whole and happy life.

Ledge in the Cliff

Most of the thoughts that become content of my blog come to my mind at various points during the day. I carry them around like cash in the pocket, or like precious jewels in a leather pouch, then write them down late at night, after the dinner is served and bills are paid.  But some thoughts, that are very special, pop up during morning davening (prayer), when after expressing my trivial needs I pause and let the voice on the other side of the curtain speak to me. Sometimes I don't say anything, just pause and listen. 

The allegory that made this particular essay emerged this way on Wednesday morning, before a long conference meeting at work, during which it was typed between agenda items.

The side effect of such activity is that it leaves me rather exhausted, vulnerable and slightly light-headed, and I apologize for any impulsive actions I've done in such intoxicated state, and for any distress or discomfort this caused.  I hope that at the end of my life it won’t diminish the value of the words I write, because these words don’t come from me. 

Love is a ledge in the steep cliff of ascent. You are climbing up, higher and higher, and the cliff gets steeper and smoother, and you are afraid to look down, to slide into mindless oblivion, and suddenly you see a ledge, a comfortable wide step covered in lush grass and pretty flowers, or a tiny slippery indent you can hardly fit your hand in and hang suspended in the air.  You are afraid to let go of that ledge and climb higher, because the cliff above you is vertical and smooth and you have no idea how to keep going up that shiny smoothness, and you are so afraid to fall down, to loose your inspiration, your spark, fall into mindlessness of mundane, the life of a slave, you don't want to be buried in the daily grind where the only salvation is the imagination or addiction and it's all a constant struggle for survival.  You feel so high when you are on that ledge, you are on top of the world, you feel so strong, full of energy, you don't get tired even a bit - because you are not climbing.
Keep climbing.  Even when your arms are hurting, when you are exhausted and thirsty and almost ready to give up - you have it in you, the strength of the core, the magnetic power in your limbs that keeps your on that rock.  You'll be tired, and you will keep looking down on that ledge, on many small and big ledges covered in flowers, whimsically, with yearning, a pinch in the heart or a lump in the throat - go back to climbing, keep looking up, and suddenly your arms will spread into the wings and you'll be flying.

Treasure of Tears

I was walking in the forest and found a treasure chest hidden in a tree.  And in that treasure chest were tears of a beautiful child.  He was crying for a star that flew away from him.  For a rose among the delightful garden who did not want him to take care of her.  He was crying for his beloved, and I was crying for him. If I could only see his happy smile, I'd write the most beautiful poem for his wedding.
 

I wanted to wipe out his tears, but he was far away and did not want to talk to anyone.  Now he is roaming the uncharted lanes of the universe looking for another star to love.  I hope she is kind to him and will love him back. I hope he finds his star and does not settle on a planet.  Do not pretend to be someone else, someone more likeable.  If one remains true to himself, the right people will appear in his life, eventually.  And when you meet that special person, the one and only, let her feel as if she is the only star in the universe, because when you meet her, nothing else will matter.

I was not searching for the treasure, I just saw it glistening among the leaves, tiptoed to open it – it was not meant for me to see, and I am sorry for reading, recognizing and writing about it.  I just happen to live in that forest and stumble upon its treasures accidentally – as if anything is accidental.  The forest is the cyber world – bodiless, ephemeral, beautiful and dangerous - so new and so familiar, binding us all into a net, like the panels of the Mishkan, attached by the bonds of friendship so that the Mishkan becomes one.

See also: Ledge in the Cliff

Uniqueness - Breslov on Megillat Esther

After the Sunday morning services my husband found himself in a mild intellectual discomfort attending a lecture by a group of visiting rabbis from the Breslov Institute, and to alleviate the feeling of guilt he bought for me one of their books, sold as part of a fundraising campaign.  It was Esther: A Breslov Commentary on the Megillah, the exact kind of book I was looking for to use as a source for the mini-scroll write-up to enclose in the Mishloach Manot packages for the shul fundraiser. 
Here is the excerpt from the book:

Mishlei – from Ethics to Cosmology

Mishlei starts slowly, mimicking the way a wise old person would teach, slowly, punctuating every word, elaborating on each statement.  The first two chapters of Mishlei speak about the precious value of wisdom and understanding.  Chapter 3 starts spelling out what the wisdom is:

Ki Tisa part 2 - Golden Calf

Exodus 32:1 When the people saw that Moses was late in coming down from the mountain, the people gathered against Aaron, and they said to him: "Come on! Make us gods that will go before us, because this man Moses, who brought us up from the land of Egypt we don't know what has become of him."

34:29-30 And it came to pass when Moses descended from Mount Sinai, and the two tablets of the testimony were in Moses' hand when he descended from the mountain and Moses did not know that the skin of his face had become radiant while He had spoken with him, that Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses and behold! the skin of his face had become radiant, and they were afraid to come near him.

Tetzaveh - Leora and Rafi's Sheva Brachos dinner

I was very much honored, and humbled, when Madeleine asked me to speak at this dinner.  We have always been looking up to the family of the bride, and I cannot imagine a greater honor than to speak on behalf of my family and the community of Darchei Noam on the occasion of Leora and Rafi’s Sheva Brachot celebration. 

First of all, I wanted to wish you a long and happy life together, a life full of Torah and Mitzvoth, a life full of people whom you love and who love you, healthy children who will love Torah and Judaism, who will be kind and respectful, and wise, a life full of joy and good deeds, gemiluth hasadim.

The Torah we’ve been reading these past few weeks in the book of Shemoth, is all about the design of material things that are used for sacred rituals.  We read about the design of the Mishkan, and the clothes of Kohen Gadol and his sons, bigdei kodesh.  The design, the blueprint, of the Mishkan and the bigdei kodesh, are all in the mind of Hashem, shown in a vision to Moshe on har Sinai.  It is easy to be lost in the abundance of details, but if we read carefully the Torah portions of Teruma and Tetzaveh, we realize that the ritual objects described in Torah are all very beautiful.  The Mishkan is full of colors, covered by the curtains made of fine wool of turquoise blue, purple and crimson red, with pure white linen, and the objects in the Mishkan are all made of pure gold, lit by the candle light of the golden Menorah.  The holy of holies is like a magical golden room of indescribable beauty.  And the clothes of Kohen Gadol and his sons were also made of fine blue wool and gold, designed to represent majesty and splendor, to dazzle and impress. 

Moshe, the prophet, was humble and unassuming, the most humble person in the world, the one who was able to commune with G-d.  Human soul is immaterial, very sensitive and fragile.  We believe that Almighty G-d is incorporeal, like the Soul of the universe.  It takes a very humble and gentle person to be a prophet, to approach G-d.  But Aaron, the high priest, had to pass the message to people, people who are bound to the material world, who could only come to G-d when jolted out of their ordinary existence by encounter with extraordinary beauty that was represented by Kohen Gadol.  At the wedding and on Yom Kippur we sing:

כְּוֶרֶד הַנָּתוּן בְּתוֹךְ גִּנַּת חֶמֶד מַרְאֵה כֹהֵ  K'vered hanatun betoch ginat chemed Marei Cohen

As the rose in the midst of a delightful garden, was the countenance​​​​​​​​​​ of the pries​t.

כְּנֵר הַמֵּצִיץ מִבֵּין הַחַלּוֹנוֹת מַרְאֵה כֹהֵן  Kener hametzitz mibein hachalonot Marei Cohen

As the light that gleams in the windows, was the countenance​​​​​​​​​​​ of the priest.

The chattan and kalah, the newlyweds are very beautiful.  The light of G-d shines upon the Kallah when she walks down the aisle, and on the groom when he is greeting her in the chuppah.  It is the light of Shabbos, the light of Yerushalayim, the light that filled the Mishkan and the Beit HaMikdash.  I bless you to carry this light throughout your lives and pass it to your children. 

You know, some people are sweet because they are beautiful.  They are born beautiful, and everyone is nice to beautiful children, and they are nice and sweet to everyone in return.  And some people are beautiful because they are sweet.  Kindness and compassion, modesty and Torah learning makes people beautiful, love makes them beautiful.  I’d like to bless you with this kind of beauty, that is real and lasting, the inner beauty that shines through your eyes and your smiles. 

The Torah portions about building the Mishkan are sometimes difficult to learn, because they are full of minute details.  Love, marriage, is all about the details.  When you love somebody very much, you remember details about them: the turn of head, the corner of a smile, favorite food, clothes, the brand of toothpaste and shampoo they like to use, favorite jokes and expressions.  When you grow together, you learn more and more details about each other. And even when you are far away, you carry these details in your mind to remember your beloved, like the memory of Yerushalayim. This is the secret of marriage – pay attention to details about each other, and remember to thank each other for that attention – like buying a favorite snack, or making tea, or covering feet with a blanket, or cleaning a car from snow, these small details accumulate and sustain your love.

In Hebrew the word for “paying attention” is sim lev, literally “to set heart” – when you pay attention to each other you set out your heart for the other person.  Another important expression in Hebrew is “ledaber al lev” – speak to the heart, meaning to speak gently and with love, like one soul speaking to another soul.  It is in the words of Yeshayahu hanavi, the prophet Isaiah, “Nahamu, nahamu ami, ko omar Elokecha, dabru al lev Yerushalayim, v’kiru eilecha”  “Console my people, says Hashem, speak to the heart of Jerusalem and call out to her”. 

We live in amazing, incredible time, when things change fast, great things happen unexpectedly, we plan big events in advance, but all of a sudden a wedding has to be planned in 10 days and instead of waiting until summer you are married already – this is how Mashiach will come, we are living our lives, planning various events, busy with scheduled tasks, buried in work, and all of a sudden miracle happens, and we’ll have to drop everything and come to Yerushalayim, like our ancestors who all of sudden stopped their avodah in Egypt and got up and went out with half-baked Mazot.  Your wedding is like the coming of Mashiach – sudden, unexpected, shocking and disruptive, beautiful and full of joy, and this is how geula will come – fast and unexpected, against all odds, impossible to plan, but we must prepare for it every day of our lives. 

Wishing you and your families, your parents and grandparents, and your siblings much happiness and joy, so we’ll only hear kol sason v’kol simcha many more times.  Leora, Rafi, we love you very much and we are all so glad to have you both as part of our community, Mazal Tov!!!!!

P.S. Many ideas in this dvar Torah come from the book by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach The Soul of Chanukah.  See also in this blog Shlomo Carlebach on Beauty and The Golden Room
 

Shlomo Carlebach on Beauty

"We see what is, because the Tree of Knowledge knows only good or bad. The Tree of Knowledge doesn't know about beauty.  Beauty is deeper than if something is good or bad.
When I want someone to get closer to Yiddishkeit and closer to Eretz Yisrael, if I tell them that Eretz Yisrael is good, they won't come. Nobody comes merely because it's good. But if I tell them "Gevalt, is it beautiful!" then what a drawing card I have!
Look at how big tzaddikim look at people! They can see how beautiful Yidden are, how beautiful Yerushalayim is, how beautiful the Beis HaMikdash is.
I'll tell you something very deep. Babies aren't always so clean. They get dirty all the time, but why is a baby so beautiful? What is it that we see in a baby? We see so much light from heaven.
When a bride goes to the chuppah, G-d's light is shining upon her. She is so beautiful. This heavenly light is more beautiful than anything in the world.
Some people know everything in the world, but inside their heads they are dark. Sometimes a Yid knows just a few things, but those few things mean so much. That's because there's light behind them.
What's the light behind it?
When do I know I am tuned into beauty? When I learn something and it's full of light, it lifts me up to a higher level, beyond levels, beyond the story, beyond everything. 
Who cares if I thought I knew it before? Suddenly, I'm beautiful."

From Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach "The Soul of Chanukah", Ch.2 Shining Souls.