The Sfas Emes remarks on his commentary on the Chumash that “the preparation for a mitzvah can take ‘l’olam’ – forever.” I think the Sfas Emes is saying that while the performance of a mitzvah is “1,2, 3, gamarnu (done)!” one can spend their entire life working on having the right kavannah (intention) and preparing the mitzvah so it is done more and more perfectly.
Moreover, it is imperative to understand that the kavannah is everything. Although in most cases it is better to do a mitzvah without kavannah (in the hope you will eventually have the kavannah) than to not do the mitzvah at all, there is one exception: when the kavannah you have is negative. That is, if you do the mitzvah grudgingly, if you are not happy and excited to do the mitzvah, it is not counted as a mitzvah.
Let me give an example. Suppose a wife gets sick in the middle of the night, and after some hours of trying to go back to sleep, realizes that she must have a certain medication in order to go back to sleep.
Scenario #1: her husband, although tired and groggy, dutifully gets up, runs to the local drug store, and comes home with his prized possession. He portions out the medicine for her with a glass of water, and they go back to sleep together.
Scenario #2: her husband loudly complains about how tired and groggy he is. He gets up, runs to the local drug store, and comes home with the medication. He hands her the bottle, practically throws a glass of water at her, and goes to sleep. She takes the medicine and falls asleep sometime later.
The husband got her the medication in the middle of the night in both scenarios. The difference was his kavannah, what he was thinking as he performed the mitzvah. But, you say, there were other differences too! The whole WAY he got her the medicine was different! Exactly. It is exceedingly difficult to perform a mitzvah perfectly without the correct intention, because you simply won't be engrossed in the mitzvah enough to understand the details of what need to be done. Therefore, the more perfect the kavannah, the more perfect the mitzvah itself will be.
Let’s take this further. Imagine the difference in the wife’s reaction to each scenario. In Scenario #1, she is probably able to fall asleep not only because of the medication, but also because of the wonderful manner in which her husband acted. The mitzvah brought her and her husband closer. In Scenario #2, she is probably angry. “After everything I do for him,” she thinks, “he can't do a thing for me when I need it! I would have gone myself if I knew he was going to act this way.” Her frustration probably makes it harder to fall asleep and prolongs her pain, as she lies looking at her “insensitive” husband sleeping peacefully once more.
Does the mitzvah have the same reward in each case? Certainly not. While his wife has the medicine in Scenario #2, she is not happy about it, it does not increase the affection she has for her husband, and it actually distances them further.
The same is true when we do mitzvot. Mitzvot are meant to perfect us and bring us closer to Hashem. When we do them b’simchah, with joy, this is certainly achieved, and Hashem rewards us accordingly. However, when we do mitzvoth in the manner of the husband in Scenario #2, not only do we not get the reward for the mitzvah, Hashem is angry with us, just like the wife is angry at her husband, even though he did get up and get the medicine.
This also explains the verse in the Torah: “these curses shall come upon you because you did not serve the Lord your G-d with joy.” When mitzvot are not done with joy and gladness, with a happy heart that is glad to be able to make Hashem “happy” (Scenario #1), then not only are we not blessed, we are cursed!
Therefore, as the Sfas Emes remarks, we must strive l’olam, forever, to constantly perfect our kavannah and do mitzvot with increasing joy. And in turn, the more we perfect the kavannah, the more perfect the mitzvah itself will be done as well.
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Baseball Rules; Rabbi Rules
This year’s World Series, and indeed a number of White Sox games that led them to the World Series, beautifully illustrates a very difficult Jewish concept. In fact, this concept is something I continue to struggle with in my understanding of Yiddishkeit.
There is this interesting concept that “Torah lo bashamayim hi” – the Torah is no longer in Heaven. As illustrated in a fascinating Gemara where Rabbi Eliezer “proves” through miracles and even a Bat Kol, a “voice from Heaven,” that his ruling is correct, the ruling goes in favor of the majority. Why? The Torah is not in Heaven anymore.
But if Rabbi Eliezer was correct, if his ruling was the ruling accepted in Heaven, as proven by the Bat Kol saying that this is so, then how could we actually poskin (rule) in a different way? Why does it matter that the majority didn’t agree, even when the majority is wrong?
Come back to baseball. There were a number of calls made by umpires that were proven through the hi-tech zoom cameras of the TV station to be incorrect. The correct call, the Truth (if you will) was (although perhaps not easily) clearly shown through the video. However, the incorrect call of the umpires stood.
But how could that be, if the video showed that the umpire was wrong? Why didn’t the call get changed to reflect the reality, the Truth?
The answer is that baseball rules give the umpires the sole discretion to decide the proper call(s) for each play. Although we certainly hope that they get each call right, and usually they do, the game isn’t based as much on Truth as much as each umpire’s truth: what they saw. In effect, the CAMERA wasn’t given the ability to decide; the UMPIRE was given the ability to decide, even if that seems to contradict the camera.
Similarly, when Hashem gave the Torah to the Jews, He put the creation of law into the Jews’ hands, and out of His own. Of course, Hashem also gave Moshe directions on how law was to be made, and one of those directions is: the law shall follow the majority. Just like the umpires “lay down the law” in baseball, whether that seems to match reality or not, so too the Rabbis “lay down the law” following the directions given to them by G-d. Just like one could say that the umpires are shlichim (messengers) of the game to enforce the law the game gives them, so too G-d installed the Rabbis as shlichim of law for the Jews, and they are given full discretion to rule according to the laws and rules G-d gave them.
There is this interesting concept that “Torah lo bashamayim hi” – the Torah is no longer in Heaven. As illustrated in a fascinating Gemara where Rabbi Eliezer “proves” through miracles and even a Bat Kol, a “voice from Heaven,” that his ruling is correct, the ruling goes in favor of the majority. Why? The Torah is not in Heaven anymore.
But if Rabbi Eliezer was correct, if his ruling was the ruling accepted in Heaven, as proven by the Bat Kol saying that this is so, then how could we actually poskin (rule) in a different way? Why does it matter that the majority didn’t agree, even when the majority is wrong?
Come back to baseball. There were a number of calls made by umpires that were proven through the hi-tech zoom cameras of the TV station to be incorrect. The correct call, the Truth (if you will) was (although perhaps not easily) clearly shown through the video. However, the incorrect call of the umpires stood.
But how could that be, if the video showed that the umpire was wrong? Why didn’t the call get changed to reflect the reality, the Truth?
The answer is that baseball rules give the umpires the sole discretion to decide the proper call(s) for each play. Although we certainly hope that they get each call right, and usually they do, the game isn’t based as much on Truth as much as each umpire’s truth: what they saw. In effect, the CAMERA wasn’t given the ability to decide; the UMPIRE was given the ability to decide, even if that seems to contradict the camera.
Similarly, when Hashem gave the Torah to the Jews, He put the creation of law into the Jews’ hands, and out of His own. Of course, Hashem also gave Moshe directions on how law was to be made, and one of those directions is: the law shall follow the majority. Just like the umpires “lay down the law” in baseball, whether that seems to match reality or not, so too the Rabbis “lay down the law” following the directions given to them by G-d. Just like one could say that the umpires are shlichim (messengers) of the game to enforce the law the game gives them, so too G-d installed the Rabbis as shlichim of law for the Jews, and they are given full discretion to rule according to the laws and rules G-d gave them.
Friday, August 05, 2005
Losing the Ikkar for the Toful: Forget the Hat!
Recently, two friends of mine recounted to me the following stories:
The first is directly from a friend of mine for whom it was his father’s yahrzeit. He lead Maariv (Evening Prayers) & Shachris (Morning Prayers) without issues, and then went to a minyan that often needs help getting 10 men for Minchah (Afternoon Prayers). He told the Gabbai of the shul that it was his father’s yahrzeit and that he would like to lead davening. The Gabbai asked him: “How is your Hebrew?” He replied that it was “OK” – certainly good enough to lead davening but no professional either. After some consultation with other members he was told that he could not lead davening. The Rabbi of the shul later explained that the minyan was particular about proper pronunciation and did not feel comfortable with just anyone leading the minyan.
The second comes directly from another friend, who was telling me a story about his father. It seems his father also desired to lead davening for his father’s yahrzeit, but he was in another area of town and unable to daven at his usual shul. He went to a shul near where he was - and was flatly told that he could not lead because was not wearing a black hat – only a standard black yarmulke. He asked if he could borrow someone else’s hat and lead – and again was refused.
These two stories strike a similar chord of discontent in me. Firstly, each of these men had a very specific chiyuv (obligation) to lead davening, usurped only by someone in shivah or shloshim (the first week or 30 days after the death of an immediate family member). As one friend put it, “Does my father’s neshamah matter less than theirs?” Both times, a primary mitzvah was ignored for a preference of some sort.
Where are our priorities? First of all, although under normal circumstances it is better to have someone lead services who can speak Hebrew perfectly, it is not a requirement. The only requirement is that the person leading services pronounce the Hebrew well enough to be understandable and that the Hebrew be basically correct. To my understanding, in the case of my first friend, the shul’s desire to be exacting on a mitzvah actually led to a blatant disregard for halachah! Forget my friend’s feelings as well.
In many ways, though, the second story bothers me more. I’ll never forget, I was speaking with a Rabbi about someone I knew in the beginning stages of learning about Judaism from being outside the fold. I asked him if I should tell this person to wear a kippah. The Rabbi responded “What, that? Certainly not. Don’t bug him about a Rabbinical chumrah. He has much more important things to focus on right now.”
Now, granted that the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed because of sinas chinam – baseless hatred – I am going to make the assumption that sinas chinam in every form is the most despicable in Hashem’s eyes. Many times I have learned that Hashem will forgive just about any transgression against Him if only we will get along with each other. What the shul did to my friend’s father in the second story is flat out sinas chinam. He had is head covered, there’s no halachah stating such and such black hat is the only proper way to cover one’s head.
Now follow my logic. 1) Hashem hates discord among Jews 2) He will more easily forgive aveiras against Him than sinas chinam 3) A man wearing a head covering is not even directly from the Torah, but Rabbinic (Rabbinic law should still be followed, but it is not held to the same level as Torah law) 4) Jews are constantly fighting about proper headcovering, and stereotyping Jews based upon it – to the extreme of someone not being able to fulfill a mitzvah because he was fulfilling the mitzvah differently than others (and still fulfilling the mitzvah, mind you!) – I would argue that Hashem would rather us burn all of our kippas and stop hating someone because he wears a different type of hat/kippah/whatever than you, than wear the kippah and fight! Keep the orange ones for the time being, it’s a great statement, but I think you get the picture. I’m not saying kippas don’t matter, I'm saying if the kippah (trying to do a mitzvah) leads you to an aveira (sinas chinam) – forget the stupid kippah! “A mitzvah that comes through an aveira is not a mitzvah.”
Practically, I don’t suggest everyone burn their headcoverings immediately. I do think we need to re-think our priorities and what all of our chumras are leading to given the philosophical understanding I just explained. If the chumras lead to good, then fantastic – and if they don’t, maybe we need to reconsider our priorities, maybe something needs to change. The change might only be the way we approach the mitzvah – wearing whatever headcovering we choose and respecting others choices as well, for instance. But try to remember what’s essential and what’s not – and choose accordingly.
The first is directly from a friend of mine for whom it was his father’s yahrzeit. He lead Maariv (Evening Prayers) & Shachris (Morning Prayers) without issues, and then went to a minyan that often needs help getting 10 men for Minchah (Afternoon Prayers). He told the Gabbai of the shul that it was his father’s yahrzeit and that he would like to lead davening. The Gabbai asked him: “How is your Hebrew?” He replied that it was “OK” – certainly good enough to lead davening but no professional either. After some consultation with other members he was told that he could not lead davening. The Rabbi of the shul later explained that the minyan was particular about proper pronunciation and did not feel comfortable with just anyone leading the minyan.
The second comes directly from another friend, who was telling me a story about his father. It seems his father also desired to lead davening for his father’s yahrzeit, but he was in another area of town and unable to daven at his usual shul. He went to a shul near where he was - and was flatly told that he could not lead because was not wearing a black hat – only a standard black yarmulke. He asked if he could borrow someone else’s hat and lead – and again was refused.
These two stories strike a similar chord of discontent in me. Firstly, each of these men had a very specific chiyuv (obligation) to lead davening, usurped only by someone in shivah or shloshim (the first week or 30 days after the death of an immediate family member). As one friend put it, “Does my father’s neshamah matter less than theirs?” Both times, a primary mitzvah was ignored for a preference of some sort.
Where are our priorities? First of all, although under normal circumstances it is better to have someone lead services who can speak Hebrew perfectly, it is not a requirement. The only requirement is that the person leading services pronounce the Hebrew well enough to be understandable and that the Hebrew be basically correct. To my understanding, in the case of my first friend, the shul’s desire to be exacting on a mitzvah actually led to a blatant disregard for halachah! Forget my friend’s feelings as well.
In many ways, though, the second story bothers me more. I’ll never forget, I was speaking with a Rabbi about someone I knew in the beginning stages of learning about Judaism from being outside the fold. I asked him if I should tell this person to wear a kippah. The Rabbi responded “What, that? Certainly not. Don’t bug him about a Rabbinical chumrah. He has much more important things to focus on right now.”
Now, granted that the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed because of sinas chinam – baseless hatred – I am going to make the assumption that sinas chinam in every form is the most despicable in Hashem’s eyes. Many times I have learned that Hashem will forgive just about any transgression against Him if only we will get along with each other. What the shul did to my friend’s father in the second story is flat out sinas chinam. He had is head covered, there’s no halachah stating such and such black hat is the only proper way to cover one’s head.
Now follow my logic. 1) Hashem hates discord among Jews 2) He will more easily forgive aveiras against Him than sinas chinam 3) A man wearing a head covering is not even directly from the Torah, but Rabbinic (Rabbinic law should still be followed, but it is not held to the same level as Torah law) 4) Jews are constantly fighting about proper headcovering, and stereotyping Jews based upon it – to the extreme of someone not being able to fulfill a mitzvah because he was fulfilling the mitzvah differently than others (and still fulfilling the mitzvah, mind you!) – I would argue that Hashem would rather us burn all of our kippas and stop hating someone because he wears a different type of hat/kippah/whatever than you, than wear the kippah and fight! Keep the orange ones for the time being, it’s a great statement, but I think you get the picture. I’m not saying kippas don’t matter, I'm saying if the kippah (trying to do a mitzvah) leads you to an aveira (sinas chinam) – forget the stupid kippah! “A mitzvah that comes through an aveira is not a mitzvah.”
Practically, I don’t suggest everyone burn their headcoverings immediately. I do think we need to re-think our priorities and what all of our chumras are leading to given the philosophical understanding I just explained. If the chumras lead to good, then fantastic – and if they don’t, maybe we need to reconsider our priorities, maybe something needs to change. The change might only be the way we approach the mitzvah – wearing whatever headcovering we choose and respecting others choices as well, for instance. But try to remember what’s essential and what’s not – and choose accordingly.
Friday, July 29, 2005
The New Chacham
Gedolei HaTorah are that only in the strictest sense right now, in my mind. People are so focused on Gemara to the exclusion of everything else, the situation with Gush and everything else gets ignored. A friend of mine asked a friend learning in Israel about the situation. The person responded "Forget about it. Bittul Torah." You cant expect people to focus solely on Torah & ignore the world and then expect them to do something to change the world, even when their abdication of everything non-Gemara means other Jews are getting hurt and the entire country is at stake. Torah has become defined as Gemara (for men) and Chumash (for women). You're right - if they were Gedolei HaTorah in the broad meaning - meaning Torah as the blueprint of the Universe, representing justice & truth - they would be doing more. They are Gedolei HaGemara. Doing something besides sitting and collecting money would be "Bittul Torah."
Someone who learns Torah at the expense of everything is is not a TalmId Chacham in my mind - but a TalmUdChacham. Give them credit, they know a lot. But they're students of Talmud, not Torah. Of course there are people who are both. There are lots of frum people involved serious issues and matters besides Gemara. But anyone who focuses on learning to the exclusion of everything else is not on the path of Torah – because learning Torah is the greatest mitzvah because it leads to every other mitzvah. If and when it doesn’t lead to other mitzvot, something is wrong in my mind. It may be information, it may be of Torah content, but don’t call it Torah.
Someone who learns Torah at the expense of everything is is not a TalmId Chacham in my mind - but a TalmUdChacham. Give them credit, they know a lot. But they're students of Talmud, not Torah. Of course there are people who are both. There are lots of frum people involved serious issues and matters besides Gemara. But anyone who focuses on learning to the exclusion of everything else is not on the path of Torah – because learning Torah is the greatest mitzvah because it leads to every other mitzvah. If and when it doesn’t lead to other mitzvot, something is wrong in my mind. It may be information, it may be of Torah content, but don’t call it Torah.
Sunday, July 17, 2005
Fences
Just a brain-meld on “fences” – the Rabbis building guidelines around issurim from the Torah to make sure they are not transgressed…
On the one hand, the need for fences is obvious. With no boundaries, it’s exceedingly easy to make all sorts of mistakes. Anyone building a bridge knows there must be guardrails. Well, if life is “gesher tzar meod” – a very narrow bridge – it makes perfect sense to erect guardrails and create a cushion between the bridge and the abyss. The argument that “it was an honest mistake” is certainly understandable, but in many situations the counter-argument that “you should have had the foresight to take precautions” also holds. So I don’t have a problem with fences per say.
The question now becomes more sticky. How high should the fences go, and how wide should the cushion be? Safety is an issue, but so is feasibility and maneuverability. Granted that in this schema the borders of the bridge are defined and cannot be widened – the daled amos (four feet) of halachah – the more cushion, the less room to actually walk. Using the metaphor of the bridge as four feet across – if the cushion is 6 inches on the outside, you have 3 feet left in which to move. If the cushion is 1.5 feet, you get only 1 foot to walk in.
It seems to me, that in the Rabbi’s minds, safety was the only consideration to be made. Every generation has extended the cushion, so that today there is only a tiny amount of room left to walk in, and leeway in halachah and lifestyle is extremely limited. The extent to which the cushion can be extended is practically limitless provided there’s still one person who is willing to accept it all and call it Torah (e.g. a Rabbinical opinion that in order to be absolutely sure one is fulfilling the mitzvah of eating matzah on Pesach, one should eat an entire pound!). And the Torah, which should be freeing and light in our arms, has become a burden, literally a yolk tied around our necks.
This results in the majority of the people who don’t fit the one mold left find themselves alienated by their own heritage. Those who don’t buck the entire system choose some other model that leaves them more room to be themselves. However, these systems also choose to ignore or change many halachos outright. Hence, in the name of safety to never transgress anything in the Torah, to never veer outside of the daled amos accidentally, the vast majority of Jews choose to refute the entire system and ignore daled amos altogether. If you’d like to argue that many Jews never learn about halachah growing up (I know, I grew up Reform) I’d like to point to their grandparents – and to the throngs of Jews leaving Orthodoxy in their teens and early adulthood as well.
What about current Modern Orthodoxy? My current issue is that a significant chunk of people who consider themselves to be Modern also don’t seem to be within daled amos on a number of issues. Maybe I’ve just never heard these opinions – I am planning to delve into them more in the coming months - but it seems in an effort to expand the framework of halachah, people have gone too far here as well. Moreover, in the effort to embrace secular thinking, the purpose has been forgotten – to use the secular to expound on Torah, to bring the elements of truth from the big wide world into our understanding of Torah. What I have experienced is a certain amount of the secular taking precedence over Torah, not being integrated. For example, I have found many more “modern” Shabbos table conversations centered around TV shows and stocks than around Torah or even something secular but meaningful to life, which to me still fulfills the purpose of a reflective, restful Shabbos. This doesn’t cut it for me either.
I think the main answer is that there should be no one answer. There needs, instead, to be a framework, a much-widened framework, that does not compromise halachah to secular ideas, but does compromise halachah to the fact that people should be living joyful, healthy lives that give them room to channel their G-d given gifts, not be told they have no place in Judaism. I don’t believe in a system that desires I give up the essential self G-d gave me in the name of the safety to never transgress anything, but I can't stand TV shows as a stand-in for Torah on Shabbos either. There must be some way to give people more room to live without losing the essence of halachah and Torah.
So I'm exasperated and looking for answers. But these are my thoughts. Feel free to comment.
On the one hand, the need for fences is obvious. With no boundaries, it’s exceedingly easy to make all sorts of mistakes. Anyone building a bridge knows there must be guardrails. Well, if life is “gesher tzar meod” – a very narrow bridge – it makes perfect sense to erect guardrails and create a cushion between the bridge and the abyss. The argument that “it was an honest mistake” is certainly understandable, but in many situations the counter-argument that “you should have had the foresight to take precautions” also holds. So I don’t have a problem with fences per say.
The question now becomes more sticky. How high should the fences go, and how wide should the cushion be? Safety is an issue, but so is feasibility and maneuverability. Granted that in this schema the borders of the bridge are defined and cannot be widened – the daled amos (four feet) of halachah – the more cushion, the less room to actually walk. Using the metaphor of the bridge as four feet across – if the cushion is 6 inches on the outside, you have 3 feet left in which to move. If the cushion is 1.5 feet, you get only 1 foot to walk in.
It seems to me, that in the Rabbi’s minds, safety was the only consideration to be made. Every generation has extended the cushion, so that today there is only a tiny amount of room left to walk in, and leeway in halachah and lifestyle is extremely limited. The extent to which the cushion can be extended is practically limitless provided there’s still one person who is willing to accept it all and call it Torah (e.g. a Rabbinical opinion that in order to be absolutely sure one is fulfilling the mitzvah of eating matzah on Pesach, one should eat an entire pound!). And the Torah, which should be freeing and light in our arms, has become a burden, literally a yolk tied around our necks.
This results in the majority of the people who don’t fit the one mold left find themselves alienated by their own heritage. Those who don’t buck the entire system choose some other model that leaves them more room to be themselves. However, these systems also choose to ignore or change many halachos outright. Hence, in the name of safety to never transgress anything in the Torah, to never veer outside of the daled amos accidentally, the vast majority of Jews choose to refute the entire system and ignore daled amos altogether. If you’d like to argue that many Jews never learn about halachah growing up (I know, I grew up Reform) I’d like to point to their grandparents – and to the throngs of Jews leaving Orthodoxy in their teens and early adulthood as well.
What about current Modern Orthodoxy? My current issue is that a significant chunk of people who consider themselves to be Modern also don’t seem to be within daled amos on a number of issues. Maybe I’ve just never heard these opinions – I am planning to delve into them more in the coming months - but it seems in an effort to expand the framework of halachah, people have gone too far here as well. Moreover, in the effort to embrace secular thinking, the purpose has been forgotten – to use the secular to expound on Torah, to bring the elements of truth from the big wide world into our understanding of Torah. What I have experienced is a certain amount of the secular taking precedence over Torah, not being integrated. For example, I have found many more “modern” Shabbos table conversations centered around TV shows and stocks than around Torah or even something secular but meaningful to life, which to me still fulfills the purpose of a reflective, restful Shabbos. This doesn’t cut it for me either.
I think the main answer is that there should be no one answer. There needs, instead, to be a framework, a much-widened framework, that does not compromise halachah to secular ideas, but does compromise halachah to the fact that people should be living joyful, healthy lives that give them room to channel their G-d given gifts, not be told they have no place in Judaism. I don’t believe in a system that desires I give up the essential self G-d gave me in the name of the safety to never transgress anything, but I can't stand TV shows as a stand-in for Torah on Shabbos either. There must be some way to give people more room to live without losing the essence of halachah and Torah.
So I'm exasperated and looking for answers. But these are my thoughts. Feel free to comment.
Saturday, July 09, 2005
What's the Derech?
I've heard a lot about “the derech” or “the path” of Torah since I started becoming religious five years ago. Recently I came to a startling realization – this “derech” of Torah, which usually stands to mean keeping “Torah & mitzvot” (quotations because exactly what that means is also a discussion). “Torah & mitzvot” usually means the religious Orthodox lifestyle, with its three pillars – Shabbat, Kashrut, and Taharas Mishpachah (the laws of family purity). Things like praying on a regular basis, tzniut (modest dress and behavior) and learning Torah on a regular basis, and everything else, can get thrown in here as well.
There’s just one teensy tinsy problem. These things are all external. You could keep all these things and it doesn’t say one thing about you – you could be “on the derech” and yet be G-d forbid an abuser, a molester, or any other number of things. Is someone who commits adultery on the path of Torah because he wears a black hat and doesn’t drive on Shabbat? And yet I see this type of thinking everywhere. Something is desperately wrong! The community that should be a model of G-dliness and holiness in the world is a place I am running from because it so backwards & corrupt. And I am dangerous because I hold myself to a moral calling and refuse to forgive injustice because Rabbis are considered to be above the law since “we have to trust in our leaders and give them the benefit of the doubt.” Where did it all go wrong, and if this isn’t Torah, how do I know what is?
Then I remembered a story in the Talmud about Rabbi Hillel. A man came to Hillel and asked – teach me the Torah on one foot. Hillel answered: that which is hateful to you do not do to your brother, the rest is commentary – now go and learn. THIS is my basis for Torah. Anything and anyone that does not answer to this statement, and its counterpart positive statement of “love your brother as yourself” IS NOT TORAH. I will not associate with a self-aggrandizing community that poses itself as the end-all-and-be-all of Judaism and does not follow this most basic precept.
Please note that Hillel did not cite anything external and none of the pillars I described earlier. I still believe these things are important, in my mind they are commandments by G-d and to be treated as such. But they must answer to fundamentals. People who live by outward commandments and not by the former statement are, in my mind, not on the path of Torah. I don’t care what title they have and how much Gemara they’ve learned or how tzniut they dress. My question to them is: I see that you LEARN Torah. But do you LIVE Torah? And not just the OUTSIDE of Torah, but the INSIDE as well?
I don’t know how this will all end up, but I certainly know that I will not be in any way involved in or associate with a community that is staging the greatest Chillul Hashem (desecration of G-d’s name, of Torah, of everything holy) that my Polyanna mind can conceive of. And this is not just one group of people in one area – they are using popular Orthodox ideas as their backing, and using those ideas successfully. This shows me very clearly that the issue is not one group of people, but an entire system of thought that has at its root true concepts, but mixed in are elements of falsehood that allow for and create the situation I am now facing.
It is also tremendously ironic to me that many people, perhaps even you, are wondering whether or not I’ll end up “off the derech” in the traditional sense of the word. The funny thing is I think I've been off it, and I'm once more searching for it. This is not a rebellion against G-d and Torah, but a search for it. And my credo comes from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged – "Accept the fact that...your mind is fallible, but becoming mindless will not make you infallible...that an error made on your own is safer than ten truths accepted on faith, because the first leaves you the means to correct it, but the second destroys your capacity to distinguish truth from error...any knowledge man acquires is through his own will & effort, and that is his distinction in the universe...learn to distinguish the difference between errors of knowledge and breaches of morality-make every allowance for errors of knowledge, do not forgive any breach of morality." Thanks, Ayn, for reminding me that no credo, no religion, nothing can ever own my mind or tell me to submit to the “daas Torah” of others because my mind is too little and too subjective to comprehend it. Of course I’ll still be the inquisitive person, asking questions and seeking advice, that I've always been. But I own my mind, I make my own decisions, and I will not allow anyone’s reality to impose upon my own, I will not bend what I know to be true to others who tell me it’s not.
P.S. This may sound even more amazing than the last few paragraphs. I plan on moving, I am not sure where to yet, because I have discovered that there are people, a significant number of them, who are out to convince me that what I witnessed and experienced with my own eyes, ears, and body is a lie. That I heard every word wrong, that I misunderstood every aspect of entire conversations. That the previous attempts to alter my understanding of reality did not happen that way either. And that if I have the audacity to continue to speak the truth, with mounds of evidence behind me, to those who need to know reality in order to be protected from it – that my reputation will be destroyed because I cannot be allowed to continue to spread – you got it – a warped version of reality. And of course that’s not a threat or an ultimatum designed to shut me up, it wasn’t meant to be taken that way, it’s just that we have to protect ourselves you see, it really isn’t wrong, it just feels that way… Somehow these guys missed that the more you bang against my sense of right & justice, the more energy I’ll have to do absolutely everything in my power to stop it. No, I won't cower because I'm dealing with cowards who have to use force & fear & lies in order to rule, since they own nothing else. The kicker – this is the result of an “investigation” into my claims. Oh yes, people are actually buying that I was stalked, harassed, and inquired about because they wanted to “protect me.” Now if that’s not brainwashing, I don’t know what is. And of course destroying my reputation will have to include defamation, I have done nothing wrong except to do what I felt was right when no one else would…I think speaking out & taking action against injustice when others keep silent is a tremendous part of being Jewish…And you say these people are on the derech, while I am going off it…
"Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong."
- Francisco d'Anconia, Atlas Shrugge
There’s just one teensy tinsy problem. These things are all external. You could keep all these things and it doesn’t say one thing about you – you could be “on the derech” and yet be G-d forbid an abuser, a molester, or any other number of things. Is someone who commits adultery on the path of Torah because he wears a black hat and doesn’t drive on Shabbat? And yet I see this type of thinking everywhere. Something is desperately wrong! The community that should be a model of G-dliness and holiness in the world is a place I am running from because it so backwards & corrupt. And I am dangerous because I hold myself to a moral calling and refuse to forgive injustice because Rabbis are considered to be above the law since “we have to trust in our leaders and give them the benefit of the doubt.” Where did it all go wrong, and if this isn’t Torah, how do I know what is?
Then I remembered a story in the Talmud about Rabbi Hillel. A man came to Hillel and asked – teach me the Torah on one foot. Hillel answered: that which is hateful to you do not do to your brother, the rest is commentary – now go and learn. THIS is my basis for Torah. Anything and anyone that does not answer to this statement, and its counterpart positive statement of “love your brother as yourself” IS NOT TORAH. I will not associate with a self-aggrandizing community that poses itself as the end-all-and-be-all of Judaism and does not follow this most basic precept.
Please note that Hillel did not cite anything external and none of the pillars I described earlier. I still believe these things are important, in my mind they are commandments by G-d and to be treated as such. But they must answer to fundamentals. People who live by outward commandments and not by the former statement are, in my mind, not on the path of Torah. I don’t care what title they have and how much Gemara they’ve learned or how tzniut they dress. My question to them is: I see that you LEARN Torah. But do you LIVE Torah? And not just the OUTSIDE of Torah, but the INSIDE as well?
I don’t know how this will all end up, but I certainly know that I will not be in any way involved in or associate with a community that is staging the greatest Chillul Hashem (desecration of G-d’s name, of Torah, of everything holy) that my Polyanna mind can conceive of. And this is not just one group of people in one area – they are using popular Orthodox ideas as their backing, and using those ideas successfully. This shows me very clearly that the issue is not one group of people, but an entire system of thought that has at its root true concepts, but mixed in are elements of falsehood that allow for and create the situation I am now facing.
It is also tremendously ironic to me that many people, perhaps even you, are wondering whether or not I’ll end up “off the derech” in the traditional sense of the word. The funny thing is I think I've been off it, and I'm once more searching for it. This is not a rebellion against G-d and Torah, but a search for it. And my credo comes from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged – "Accept the fact that...your mind is fallible, but becoming mindless will not make you infallible...that an error made on your own is safer than ten truths accepted on faith, because the first leaves you the means to correct it, but the second destroys your capacity to distinguish truth from error...any knowledge man acquires is through his own will & effort, and that is his distinction in the universe...learn to distinguish the difference between errors of knowledge and breaches of morality-make every allowance for errors of knowledge, do not forgive any breach of morality." Thanks, Ayn, for reminding me that no credo, no religion, nothing can ever own my mind or tell me to submit to the “daas Torah” of others because my mind is too little and too subjective to comprehend it. Of course I’ll still be the inquisitive person, asking questions and seeking advice, that I've always been. But I own my mind, I make my own decisions, and I will not allow anyone’s reality to impose upon my own, I will not bend what I know to be true to others who tell me it’s not.
P.S. This may sound even more amazing than the last few paragraphs. I plan on moving, I am not sure where to yet, because I have discovered that there are people, a significant number of them, who are out to convince me that what I witnessed and experienced with my own eyes, ears, and body is a lie. That I heard every word wrong, that I misunderstood every aspect of entire conversations. That the previous attempts to alter my understanding of reality did not happen that way either. And that if I have the audacity to continue to speak the truth, with mounds of evidence behind me, to those who need to know reality in order to be protected from it – that my reputation will be destroyed because I cannot be allowed to continue to spread – you got it – a warped version of reality. And of course that’s not a threat or an ultimatum designed to shut me up, it wasn’t meant to be taken that way, it’s just that we have to protect ourselves you see, it really isn’t wrong, it just feels that way… Somehow these guys missed that the more you bang against my sense of right & justice, the more energy I’ll have to do absolutely everything in my power to stop it. No, I won't cower because I'm dealing with cowards who have to use force & fear & lies in order to rule, since they own nothing else. The kicker – this is the result of an “investigation” into my claims. Oh yes, people are actually buying that I was stalked, harassed, and inquired about because they wanted to “protect me.” Now if that’s not brainwashing, I don’t know what is. And of course destroying my reputation will have to include defamation, I have done nothing wrong except to do what I felt was right when no one else would…I think speaking out & taking action against injustice when others keep silent is a tremendous part of being Jewish…And you say these people are on the derech, while I am going off it…
"Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong."
- Francisco d'Anconia, Atlas Shrugge
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Emes Has Been Thrown to the Ground
I've always had a principle: it’s easy to be swayed by grandiose philosophies, and hard to see the flaws and issues in them. Therefore, if you really want to know what something is, take it all the way out, and see where it shows you.
For instance, you can look at Christian and Muslim theology to know what it’s really about behind all the talk about love and peace. When Christianity was the main religion and the Church ran the state you got: the Dark Ages. Doesn’t look like emes to me. And the Muslim state? You get Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority – warring gangs, suicide bombers, “honor killings” of women and the general oppression of women, and mass chaos. Doesn’t that look like the perfect hand of G-d too? Not really. And if you look at Judaism you get the reign of King Solomon, when there was general peace in the land, courts of law, justice, and a functional society.
In my mind, the story always ended there. However, I've recently been confronted with a disturbing reality. The peace and chesed (acts of loving-kindness) that I used to see in the religious community I know understand to be a façade. If everyone really keeps the Torah, and to the extent that you do, one can truly reach great spiritual heights. But I don’t see the mainstream religious community doing so, and in fact, I see the opposite. The community LOOKS religious and LOOKS like they’re keeping the Torah, and yet something has gone terribly terribly wrong. These same people commit horrendous crimes against fellow Jews and non-Jews alike, and such fraud is often institutionalized and protected by the communities around it. I have some ideas about what ideologies are taught as Torah that are really sheker, but in the end all and be all I cannot be the final judge and jury of those issues. I can say the system doesn’t work and it doesn’t look like emes to me, and therefore I am disassociating myself with that system for this big picture alone. This simply cannot be what Hashem wants and I refuse to be associated with it.
But now I have a problem. With eyes wide open, I still see tremendous flaws in the other main paths of Judaism that I know about. I still believe that traditional halachah should have a serious bearing on my life and I happen to be most comfortable with a relatively machmir path, although I fully recognize that other paths are acceptable within halachah as well. I am not comfortable with any stream of thought that does not maintain at least the most lenient acceptable opinion. Feel free to call me a feminist, but I am not comfortable anywhere where I am minimized as a woman. I am not talking about mechitzas, aliyas, or learning Gemara. I am talking about being recognized as more than a wife and mother, as someone with opinions that matter and skills that can be used to help others that should not be discounted because “it’s not my place,” as someone who should not be excluded from classes because my presence would detract from the comradery of the men (aka Old Boys Club). G-d doesn’t deal in cliques and clubs, and trying to be extra-stringent in relations between the sexes shouldn’t preclude women from being able to develop themselves, because inevitably it is the women who lose. So where is the life of emes?
I am brought back to a Gemara (no, I haven’t learned it inside so I can't quote you where) that says when Hashem created the world and after Adam’s sin, Hashem realized that emes and shalom couldn’t both stay in Shamayim because the world could not continue to exist being held to such a level. So He “threw emes to the ground” - which is why in the prayer Sim Shalom, we ask Hashem for “bishlomecha” – YOUR peace. Shalom is still in its purest form, in the Heavens, in G-d’s realm. But emes has been exiled to the Earth, where it no longer exists in its purest form. This is why one can, in certain situations, lie for the sake of peace – in the end all and be all, shalom must remain pure while emes can be broken.
I see clearly that because emes no longer exists in its pure form, I will not find a perfect path to Torah existing in the world. Every one will have its issues, every community will have its faults, every person (including me) will have their weaknesses. And right now, the world is at such a low level I don’t know of anything that comes even close to functioning like emes. So I can't rely on some person or movement to try and explain Torah to me. I know it is a dangerous path and fraught with issues of its own, but I feel that the only way I have a chance of being able to live out Torah in a way that’s true to my inner compass is to do it by associating with people and places but not with ideas, movements, and labels. “Asai l’cha Rav” – one interpretation of this statement is that you should make YOURSELF into a Rav. I feel each one of us must makes ourselves into Rabbeim – not in the most literal sense, but in the sense of Teachers and Masters of Torah. And not in the sense of being able to quote a book (pick any and all of them) but in LIVING the Torah, in living emes, because “Toras emes” and “the seal of G-d is emes.” It’s all in the Torah, but people are obviously not reading it correctly, because people are LEARNING TORAH but they’re not LIVING TORAH. Keeping a bunch of laws and wearing a black suit doesn’t mean you’re living Torah. You have to be yashar first and foremost, and keeping the external laws will help refine and protect that. So from here on out, I’m going to keep learning and keep living Torah, even though that means I'm going to be doing it without a community, because I think the only way for me to live emes is to not be intimately associated with communities of sheker. Emes has been thrown to the ground – I'm not going to find it here. I'm going to have to go up and find it myself.
For instance, you can look at Christian and Muslim theology to know what it’s really about behind all the talk about love and peace. When Christianity was the main religion and the Church ran the state you got: the Dark Ages. Doesn’t look like emes to me. And the Muslim state? You get Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority – warring gangs, suicide bombers, “honor killings” of women and the general oppression of women, and mass chaos. Doesn’t that look like the perfect hand of G-d too? Not really. And if you look at Judaism you get the reign of King Solomon, when there was general peace in the land, courts of law, justice, and a functional society.
In my mind, the story always ended there. However, I've recently been confronted with a disturbing reality. The peace and chesed (acts of loving-kindness) that I used to see in the religious community I know understand to be a façade. If everyone really keeps the Torah, and to the extent that you do, one can truly reach great spiritual heights. But I don’t see the mainstream religious community doing so, and in fact, I see the opposite. The community LOOKS religious and LOOKS like they’re keeping the Torah, and yet something has gone terribly terribly wrong. These same people commit horrendous crimes against fellow Jews and non-Jews alike, and such fraud is often institutionalized and protected by the communities around it. I have some ideas about what ideologies are taught as Torah that are really sheker, but in the end all and be all I cannot be the final judge and jury of those issues. I can say the system doesn’t work and it doesn’t look like emes to me, and therefore I am disassociating myself with that system for this big picture alone. This simply cannot be what Hashem wants and I refuse to be associated with it.
But now I have a problem. With eyes wide open, I still see tremendous flaws in the other main paths of Judaism that I know about. I still believe that traditional halachah should have a serious bearing on my life and I happen to be most comfortable with a relatively machmir path, although I fully recognize that other paths are acceptable within halachah as well. I am not comfortable with any stream of thought that does not maintain at least the most lenient acceptable opinion. Feel free to call me a feminist, but I am not comfortable anywhere where I am minimized as a woman. I am not talking about mechitzas, aliyas, or learning Gemara. I am talking about being recognized as more than a wife and mother, as someone with opinions that matter and skills that can be used to help others that should not be discounted because “it’s not my place,” as someone who should not be excluded from classes because my presence would detract from the comradery of the men (aka Old Boys Club). G-d doesn’t deal in cliques and clubs, and trying to be extra-stringent in relations between the sexes shouldn’t preclude women from being able to develop themselves, because inevitably it is the women who lose. So where is the life of emes?
I am brought back to a Gemara (no, I haven’t learned it inside so I can't quote you where) that says when Hashem created the world and after Adam’s sin, Hashem realized that emes and shalom couldn’t both stay in Shamayim because the world could not continue to exist being held to such a level. So He “threw emes to the ground” - which is why in the prayer Sim Shalom, we ask Hashem for “bishlomecha” – YOUR peace. Shalom is still in its purest form, in the Heavens, in G-d’s realm. But emes has been exiled to the Earth, where it no longer exists in its purest form. This is why one can, in certain situations, lie for the sake of peace – in the end all and be all, shalom must remain pure while emes can be broken.
I see clearly that because emes no longer exists in its pure form, I will not find a perfect path to Torah existing in the world. Every one will have its issues, every community will have its faults, every person (including me) will have their weaknesses. And right now, the world is at such a low level I don’t know of anything that comes even close to functioning like emes. So I can't rely on some person or movement to try and explain Torah to me. I know it is a dangerous path and fraught with issues of its own, but I feel that the only way I have a chance of being able to live out Torah in a way that’s true to my inner compass is to do it by associating with people and places but not with ideas, movements, and labels. “Asai l’cha Rav” – one interpretation of this statement is that you should make YOURSELF into a Rav. I feel each one of us must makes ourselves into Rabbeim – not in the most literal sense, but in the sense of Teachers and Masters of Torah. And not in the sense of being able to quote a book (pick any and all of them) but in LIVING the Torah, in living emes, because “Toras emes” and “the seal of G-d is emes.” It’s all in the Torah, but people are obviously not reading it correctly, because people are LEARNING TORAH but they’re not LIVING TORAH. Keeping a bunch of laws and wearing a black suit doesn’t mean you’re living Torah. You have to be yashar first and foremost, and keeping the external laws will help refine and protect that. So from here on out, I’m going to keep learning and keep living Torah, even though that means I'm going to be doing it without a community, because I think the only way for me to live emes is to not be intimately associated with communities of sheker. Emes has been thrown to the ground – I'm not going to find it here. I'm going to have to go up and find it myself.
Saturday, June 11, 2005
They Just Don't Get It
BS"D
It’s funny how sometimes Hashem tries to teach me the same thing from all aspects of my life. It’s times like this I really do feel like I'm living in some sort of TV-sitcom, where inevitably the same issue rears it head EVERYWHERE, all at once.
A quick disclaimer before I begin my thought – the following may somewhat smack of arrogance and this is not my design. I will attempt to explain my viewpoint with a balanced approach, but intrinsically, some value judgment must be made in order to make my point. So while different is great in general, in the following examples, different has some really negative aspects I wish to highlight, and I'm not trying to claim complete superiority by highlighting these failings.
The first situation is at work, with a co-worker who…well…let’s just say we’re oil and water. She’s been with the company for over 10 years and I’ve been here for about 14 months, and she’s got more than that on me in age. She’s someone who has slowly worked herself into her current position, and continually puts in effort to keep moving. While she is frequently missing from her desk, when she’s there she at least looks like she’s working and she’s somewhat of the bosses pet, and gets away with just about everything. Very cynical, and very by the book.
Enter – me. At the very beginning of my career, lots of energy, creative, motivated, with a go-get-em attitude. I don’t work for eight hours straight. I work for an hour, get a ton done, and then take a break. Repeat throughout the day and you get lots of productivity in not so much time, but the breaks are essential to my work style. In the end, the work still gets done and gets done well. Add in a bit of renegade, some rambunctious, and the confidence to speak up, and you should be able to see the issue clearly.
She’s constantly complaining that I don’t look like I'm working, and I'm not professional, etc. etc. I say – the work is getting done faster than the people I give my work to can process it. I keep my headphones to myself and limit my breaks as much as possible. What’s the issue?
And then it hit me this morning – the issue is FOCUS. If you don’t have an inner compass, something inside that propels you intrinsically, you have to have an external focus. Work is done only when I SEE you working. Listening to music is not professional because it doesn’t LOOK good. You have to work the external eight hours, even if it halves your productivity, because it’s all about the EXTERNAL. If you’re not all there on the inside, the external is all you have left, and therefore becomes your focus.
Now, having an eye for the external isn’t an issue as long as it’s properly balanced with an understanding of what the external is supposed to be doing inside – because in my mind, it’s the inside that’s the ikkar (essence). Where the external helps you get to the internal – that’s it’s purpose.
The problem is that if they clash, a totally external focus then loses the ikkar to the toful (secondary) and you’re left with an empty shell. If you make me work 8 hours straight, you get a shell of looking like I'm working with very little productivity, because I can't sustain it. If you start with the internal and build an external that works with that reality, you get a little more break time with exponentially more productivity.
So essentially, the fight between my co-worker and I is – what is the focus? External, or internal? Work looking like it’s getting done, or actual productivity? She harps on my lack of external and I harp on the fact that the internal is there anyway, and forcing me to your external makes me lose the internal, which is the point.
It’s like a candle. The external is the candle itself, while the internal is the flame. No candle means de facto no flame. You need external rules and structure. But if the candle is built in such a way that the flame cannot be sustained, you don’t have anything either. The external has to serve the purpose of the internal, it does not have its own intrinsic value.
So you get to my situation at home as well. The issue of working the structure of halachah (Jewish law) to keep your internal spiritual flame alive is far too large a subject to tackle here, but there are a couple points I’d like to make.
Certainly, there is a point in Jewish law beyond which I believe you cannot go, not for any reason, even your own “spirituality.” In these places, the energy needs to be re-channeled – not lost, but not made the focus either. We do not have sufficient understanding of the spiritual to really weigh the options, and if we did, we would realize staying within halachah is the spiritual thing to do.
However, I think there is A LOT more room in halachah to accommodate each individual flame than people feel comfortable admitting. The derech (path) that many religious people may work for many people, and that’s fantastic. But life is not simple and G-d made the world with ten statements, not one. There are many gates to Jerusalem, not one. The tzaddik is not necessarily the one who is the most stringent on everything external. The tzaddik is the one who best uses the external to create the most internal growth and purity.
Finally, the saddest part to me is the loss of the internal as a reality at all. The point of prayer is to TALK TO G-D. The written word in the siddur (prayerbook) is important, we have to say it. But we have to just talk to G-d too! If G-d stops at our skin we’ve missed the point. If being G-dly is about the suit, hat, saying the right words, saying the blessings, doing the physical actions, but they never go IN, we’ve lost. We have to do all those things and they are a very important START. G-d forbid I’m not saying don’t do it. I’m saying do it and THINK, do it and let G-d IN, and give yourself the freedom to find the way within halachah that lets you do with the most geshmack - be it the most stringent or more lenient. If you’re really in touch with yourself, you will find that there are some things you love being mekdakik (very detailed & careful) on. You just don’t have to force yourself to be that way all the time, in everything, if that’s not you. Because in the end, G-d doesn’t want robots who are all stringent, He doesn’t want robots who are all lenient, and He doesn’t want every Jew doing everything the same. He wants YOU. So are you going to give Him your skin, or are you prepared to give Him everything and discover yourself in the process?
So in the end, my co-worker and I just try to avoid each other. Sadly, if you don’t understand a reality beyond your skin, if you don’t know the inside, if you only believe what you can sense with the five limited senses, and you look to the outside to be your guide, you’re the only one who can change that. No one can truly teach you about the inside until you discover it for yourself. And until then, we’ll consider to look at each other and think “she just doesn’t get it…”
It’s funny how sometimes Hashem tries to teach me the same thing from all aspects of my life. It’s times like this I really do feel like I'm living in some sort of TV-sitcom, where inevitably the same issue rears it head EVERYWHERE, all at once.
A quick disclaimer before I begin my thought – the following may somewhat smack of arrogance and this is not my design. I will attempt to explain my viewpoint with a balanced approach, but intrinsically, some value judgment must be made in order to make my point. So while different is great in general, in the following examples, different has some really negative aspects I wish to highlight, and I'm not trying to claim complete superiority by highlighting these failings.
The first situation is at work, with a co-worker who…well…let’s just say we’re oil and water. She’s been with the company for over 10 years and I’ve been here for about 14 months, and she’s got more than that on me in age. She’s someone who has slowly worked herself into her current position, and continually puts in effort to keep moving. While she is frequently missing from her desk, when she’s there she at least looks like she’s working and she’s somewhat of the bosses pet, and gets away with just about everything. Very cynical, and very by the book.
Enter – me. At the very beginning of my career, lots of energy, creative, motivated, with a go-get-em attitude. I don’t work for eight hours straight. I work for an hour, get a ton done, and then take a break. Repeat throughout the day and you get lots of productivity in not so much time, but the breaks are essential to my work style. In the end, the work still gets done and gets done well. Add in a bit of renegade, some rambunctious, and the confidence to speak up, and you should be able to see the issue clearly.
She’s constantly complaining that I don’t look like I'm working, and I'm not professional, etc. etc. I say – the work is getting done faster than the people I give my work to can process it. I keep my headphones to myself and limit my breaks as much as possible. What’s the issue?
And then it hit me this morning – the issue is FOCUS. If you don’t have an inner compass, something inside that propels you intrinsically, you have to have an external focus. Work is done only when I SEE you working. Listening to music is not professional because it doesn’t LOOK good. You have to work the external eight hours, even if it halves your productivity, because it’s all about the EXTERNAL. If you’re not all there on the inside, the external is all you have left, and therefore becomes your focus.
Now, having an eye for the external isn’t an issue as long as it’s properly balanced with an understanding of what the external is supposed to be doing inside – because in my mind, it’s the inside that’s the ikkar (essence). Where the external helps you get to the internal – that’s it’s purpose.
The problem is that if they clash, a totally external focus then loses the ikkar to the toful (secondary) and you’re left with an empty shell. If you make me work 8 hours straight, you get a shell of looking like I'm working with very little productivity, because I can't sustain it. If you start with the internal and build an external that works with that reality, you get a little more break time with exponentially more productivity.
So essentially, the fight between my co-worker and I is – what is the focus? External, or internal? Work looking like it’s getting done, or actual productivity? She harps on my lack of external and I harp on the fact that the internal is there anyway, and forcing me to your external makes me lose the internal, which is the point.
It’s like a candle. The external is the candle itself, while the internal is the flame. No candle means de facto no flame. You need external rules and structure. But if the candle is built in such a way that the flame cannot be sustained, you don’t have anything either. The external has to serve the purpose of the internal, it does not have its own intrinsic value.
So you get to my situation at home as well. The issue of working the structure of halachah (Jewish law) to keep your internal spiritual flame alive is far too large a subject to tackle here, but there are a couple points I’d like to make.
Certainly, there is a point in Jewish law beyond which I believe you cannot go, not for any reason, even your own “spirituality.” In these places, the energy needs to be re-channeled – not lost, but not made the focus either. We do not have sufficient understanding of the spiritual to really weigh the options, and if we did, we would realize staying within halachah is the spiritual thing to do.
However, I think there is A LOT more room in halachah to accommodate each individual flame than people feel comfortable admitting. The derech (path) that many religious people may work for many people, and that’s fantastic. But life is not simple and G-d made the world with ten statements, not one. There are many gates to Jerusalem, not one. The tzaddik is not necessarily the one who is the most stringent on everything external. The tzaddik is the one who best uses the external to create the most internal growth and purity.
Finally, the saddest part to me is the loss of the internal as a reality at all. The point of prayer is to TALK TO G-D. The written word in the siddur (prayerbook) is important, we have to say it. But we have to just talk to G-d too! If G-d stops at our skin we’ve missed the point. If being G-dly is about the suit, hat, saying the right words, saying the blessings, doing the physical actions, but they never go IN, we’ve lost. We have to do all those things and they are a very important START. G-d forbid I’m not saying don’t do it. I’m saying do it and THINK, do it and let G-d IN, and give yourself the freedom to find the way within halachah that lets you do with the most geshmack - be it the most stringent or more lenient. If you’re really in touch with yourself, you will find that there are some things you love being mekdakik (very detailed & careful) on. You just don’t have to force yourself to be that way all the time, in everything, if that’s not you. Because in the end, G-d doesn’t want robots who are all stringent, He doesn’t want robots who are all lenient, and He doesn’t want every Jew doing everything the same. He wants YOU. So are you going to give Him your skin, or are you prepared to give Him everything and discover yourself in the process?
So in the end, my co-worker and I just try to avoid each other. Sadly, if you don’t understand a reality beyond your skin, if you don’t know the inside, if you only believe what you can sense with the five limited senses, and you look to the outside to be your guide, you’re the only one who can change that. No one can truly teach you about the inside until you discover it for yourself. And until then, we’ll consider to look at each other and think “she just doesn’t get it…”
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
STRIKE
I give you official notice: I am currently on STRIKE!!! Excuse the ironic tone but there's a good reason why I haven't posted in awhile.
Please check out my thoughts on why I'm on strike. I would love your honest opinion and comments - feel free to email, call, or even better - get a comment discussion going! I'm not trying to lecture, I'm trying to get an honest discussion going about topics no one wants to tackle.
http://www.geocities.com/rzippy32/strike.htm
That's about it.
Rachel Tzipporah
Please check out my thoughts on why I'm on strike. I would love your honest opinion and comments - feel free to email, call, or even better - get a comment discussion going! I'm not trying to lecture, I'm trying to get an honest discussion going about topics no one wants to tackle.
http://www.geocities.com/rzippy32/strike.htm
That's about it.
Rachel Tzipporah
Thursday, January 27, 2005
Visage
So here I am. January 2005. I’m looking into my first full year working. Last year was tough, and I got pretty burned. But I have learned a lot, and I have some good opportunities on my plate. For growth, for learning, for advancement. It seems pretty enticing.
And yet here I am today. I wore a business suit for the first time in months, and actually did a little makeup for work. I definitely look the corporate part today. Even though I always dress business formal, the suit adds a very different dimension.
And suddenly, I feel terribly out of place. Before, I loved wearing business suits – so much that I occasionally wore them on Shabbos. It was exciting, an adventuresome part of me that was just being developed and felt oh-so-grownup and oh-so-good. Now, I feel somehow misplaced. I look in the mirror and see an immaculately dressed adult woman who looks almost too corporate. I’ve got it down pat.
But inside, I hate it. When it comes right down to it, inside I do not feel like a corporate woman. My dream is not to be an EVP of whatever corporation and make x amount of money and do x amount of deals or whatever. I look into the working world and I see corruption, a zeal for money, and a never-ending wheel of money. Work to buy things so others can work to buy things and lend money so businesses can hire people to work to buy things and make things people work to buy…Utter emptiness. I am whittling away my time every day doing – what, exactly? Yes, yes, making money so I can live. Not to belittle that, but it isn’t a very deep satisfaction either.
So here I am, in this business suit. In this office where I really don't connect to anyone on anything more than a superficial level. I am a Jew. I have to remain separate. I do not eat what they eat, I do not talk like they talk, I do not care about what they care about, I do not think about what they think about. Trying to make it in this corporate maze I don't understand and fundamentally don't care to understand. Could I understand it? Could I work to understand the people in my office, to network, to gain a support system? Yes, of course. But I don't want to. I don't want to have to.
Even more, I don't want to make some corporate visage. I’ve worked my entire life to get that image out of me, to uncover who I really am and live that person. The last thing I feel like doing right now is rebuilding it! Who I am is who I am, and I don't want to reshape that for some job. I expect myself to be the best me, and I am working on bringing that into reality, in my personal life as well as in the office. Where office skills meet personal skills, change is welcomed. But to alter myself solely for the purpose of a job, in ways I don't want to otherwise? To put myself in compromising situations with non-Jews, with men in particular, with people I don't want influencing me, in immodest and non-kosher (in food and in appropriateness) environments? Uh, uh. I do what I can do to get and keep a job within the confines of what is appropriate and acceptable by G-d. But I’m not going to tread on shaky territory when after all, Hashem is ultimately my employer. I work for Him. I do as He instructs, I know He’ll take care of me. I start worrying when I have to do questionable things for some job. It shows I’m putting my trust in people, and not in Him.
So again, back to the business suit. I looked at me in it and thought – who are you? You don't look like the me inside, the me I picture myself being. You look like a corporate woman. But you don't look like me. I looked in the mirror and thought – I know it’s corny but it really works:
Look at me
I pass easily for a working girl
In a corporate world
But can it be
I’m not meant to play
This part?
Now I see
That if I were truly
To be myself
I will never get very far
Who is that girl I see?
Staring straight
Back at me
Why is my reflection someone
I don't know?
Somehow, I cannot fight
Who I am
Deep inside
When will my reflection show
Who I am
Inside
And yet here I am today. I wore a business suit for the first time in months, and actually did a little makeup for work. I definitely look the corporate part today. Even though I always dress business formal, the suit adds a very different dimension.
And suddenly, I feel terribly out of place. Before, I loved wearing business suits – so much that I occasionally wore them on Shabbos. It was exciting, an adventuresome part of me that was just being developed and felt oh-so-grownup and oh-so-good. Now, I feel somehow misplaced. I look in the mirror and see an immaculately dressed adult woman who looks almost too corporate. I’ve got it down pat.
But inside, I hate it. When it comes right down to it, inside I do not feel like a corporate woman. My dream is not to be an EVP of whatever corporation and make x amount of money and do x amount of deals or whatever. I look into the working world and I see corruption, a zeal for money, and a never-ending wheel of money. Work to buy things so others can work to buy things and lend money so businesses can hire people to work to buy things and make things people work to buy…Utter emptiness. I am whittling away my time every day doing – what, exactly? Yes, yes, making money so I can live. Not to belittle that, but it isn’t a very deep satisfaction either.
So here I am, in this business suit. In this office where I really don't connect to anyone on anything more than a superficial level. I am a Jew. I have to remain separate. I do not eat what they eat, I do not talk like they talk, I do not care about what they care about, I do not think about what they think about. Trying to make it in this corporate maze I don't understand and fundamentally don't care to understand. Could I understand it? Could I work to understand the people in my office, to network, to gain a support system? Yes, of course. But I don't want to. I don't want to have to.
Even more, I don't want to make some corporate visage. I’ve worked my entire life to get that image out of me, to uncover who I really am and live that person. The last thing I feel like doing right now is rebuilding it! Who I am is who I am, and I don't want to reshape that for some job. I expect myself to be the best me, and I am working on bringing that into reality, in my personal life as well as in the office. Where office skills meet personal skills, change is welcomed. But to alter myself solely for the purpose of a job, in ways I don't want to otherwise? To put myself in compromising situations with non-Jews, with men in particular, with people I don't want influencing me, in immodest and non-kosher (in food and in appropriateness) environments? Uh, uh. I do what I can do to get and keep a job within the confines of what is appropriate and acceptable by G-d. But I’m not going to tread on shaky territory when after all, Hashem is ultimately my employer. I work for Him. I do as He instructs, I know He’ll take care of me. I start worrying when I have to do questionable things for some job. It shows I’m putting my trust in people, and not in Him.
So again, back to the business suit. I looked at me in it and thought – who are you? You don't look like the me inside, the me I picture myself being. You look like a corporate woman. But you don't look like me. I looked in the mirror and thought – I know it’s corny but it really works:
Look at me
I pass easily for a working girl
In a corporate world
But can it be
I’m not meant to play
This part?
Now I see
That if I were truly
To be myself
I will never get very far
Who is that girl I see?
Staring straight
Back at me
Why is my reflection someone
I don't know?
Somehow, I cannot fight
Who I am
Deep inside
When will my reflection show
Who I am
Inside
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Thoughts on Snow & Torah - WEBSITE
Don't forget to check out my new website: www.geocities.com/rzippy32! And onto the real posting...
As I was tramping through the snow last week and looking out at the beautiful foot or more snow drifts of sparkling white, I started pondering the fact that snow is crystallized rain, which is water.
Water is symbolic of Torah.
Snow is the metaphor we use for white, because indeed it can be so glaringly white it hurts your eyes.
So, if you take water (Torah) and freeze it – slow down the particles, thus condensing it, you get ice. Which, depending on the process of freezing, either becomes crystal clear or white as snow. Either way, it’s absolutely pure . As anyone in the North knows, snow any other color than white is because of another substance which is tainting the natural whiteness. So, if you condense Torah, you’re left with perfect clarity, and perfect whiteness – totally free of sin or any blemish. “Toras Hashem temima” – the Torah of Hashem is pure (Tehillim). As pure as the whitest snow.
And what if you heat water up? It becomes steam, a gas. Again, it’s totally clear and even if you don't realize it’s there, just cool it down and it becomes water all over again. Torah can never be lost. It can only be diluted or tainted, c’v. In fact, through all these processes, water never changes chemical structure. Hence, water (Torah) has Hashem’s seal – emes. Emes also never changes. And so too, Torah never changes.
Furthermore, if you really condense ice – like in a glacier – the ice actually becomes blue again. And blue is illustrative of a sapphire, which has many connections to Torah. Some opinions hold that the area under G-d’s Throne of Glory is the bright blue of a sapphire, and some also hold that the luchos, the Tablets the Ten Commandments were written on by G-d, were made of sapphire. In fact, there’s something called a “Star Sapphire” – a super-polished sapphire that reflects light back out in a shape. Guess the shape? A magen david. (Wow. What a coincidence…)
Finally, snow is a magical agent when it comes to farming. Because it traps air, it actually keeps the ground beneath it warmer, allowing the seeds sown during the fall to not freeze over. Farmers love snow because it saves their crops. Similarly, Torah keeps the light of our neshamas (souls) burning, even when we’re in the dark, cold night of exile.
Just my thoughts while looking out at this beautiful winter landscape.
As I was tramping through the snow last week and looking out at the beautiful foot or more snow drifts of sparkling white, I started pondering the fact that snow is crystallized rain, which is water.
Water is symbolic of Torah.
Snow is the metaphor we use for white, because indeed it can be so glaringly white it hurts your eyes.
So, if you take water (Torah) and freeze it – slow down the particles, thus condensing it, you get ice. Which, depending on the process of freezing, either becomes crystal clear or white as snow. Either way, it’s absolutely pure . As anyone in the North knows, snow any other color than white is because of another substance which is tainting the natural whiteness. So, if you condense Torah, you’re left with perfect clarity, and perfect whiteness – totally free of sin or any blemish. “Toras Hashem temima” – the Torah of Hashem is pure (Tehillim). As pure as the whitest snow.
And what if you heat water up? It becomes steam, a gas. Again, it’s totally clear and even if you don't realize it’s there, just cool it down and it becomes water all over again. Torah can never be lost. It can only be diluted or tainted, c’v. In fact, through all these processes, water never changes chemical structure. Hence, water (Torah) has Hashem’s seal – emes. Emes also never changes. And so too, Torah never changes.
Furthermore, if you really condense ice – like in a glacier – the ice actually becomes blue again. And blue is illustrative of a sapphire, which has many connections to Torah. Some opinions hold that the area under G-d’s Throne of Glory is the bright blue of a sapphire, and some also hold that the luchos, the Tablets the Ten Commandments were written on by G-d, were made of sapphire. In fact, there’s something called a “Star Sapphire” – a super-polished sapphire that reflects light back out in a shape. Guess the shape? A magen david. (Wow. What a coincidence…)
Finally, snow is a magical agent when it comes to farming. Because it traps air, it actually keeps the ground beneath it warmer, allowing the seeds sown during the fall to not freeze over. Farmers love snow because it saves their crops. Similarly, Torah keeps the light of our neshamas (souls) burning, even when we’re in the dark, cold night of exile.
Just my thoughts while looking out at this beautiful winter landscape.
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Tsunami Thoughts
I’m still numb from reports and pictures of the tsunami and the aftermath. A few things that I have been thinking about:
The reading on the richter scale – 9
Number of countries affected – 11
9...1…1
For anyone who thought that perhaps the date of the WTC was random, or chosen solely by the Muslims, think again. It seems G-d is sending us a message: these messages are from Me!
And if we think the messages are someone else: Hashem only sends messages that will be heard by those whom He is trying to speak to. The goyim don't understand the message. Even the secular Jews aren’t getting the message. The emergency call for tshuvah – is coming to the Orthodox Jews, you and me. So I’m sitting here, trying to figure out what more I can do, especially bein adam l’chaveiro. The Jews only merit the geulah when we’re united, and when there is shalom.
Moreover, the tsunami happened on Yom Rishon, Parshas Shemos. Parshas Shemos begins with Hashem telling the people that He is with them in their pain. The Gemara mentions that when Hashem feels the pain of His people, He sheds a “tear.” How is that tear felt on Earth? Through an earthquake.
Hashem is sending us a message that He has heard our crying and our pain, and He is with us in our time of need. He is telling us that the redemption is near, that the world has entered Shemos.
Rabbi Kaduri of Israel, a leading Kabbalist, says that we are currently in year four of the seven years of the geulah, according to the calculations of the Vilna Gaon. Either way, it seems clear that in coming months and years, Hashem will be “shaking the foundations of the Earth” and our job is to hold on tight, no matter what befalls us.
May we see the geulah shleima bimheira v’yameinu!
The reading on the richter scale – 9
Number of countries affected – 11
9...1…1
For anyone who thought that perhaps the date of the WTC was random, or chosen solely by the Muslims, think again. It seems G-d is sending us a message: these messages are from Me!
And if we think the messages are someone else: Hashem only sends messages that will be heard by those whom He is trying to speak to. The goyim don't understand the message. Even the secular Jews aren’t getting the message. The emergency call for tshuvah – is coming to the Orthodox Jews, you and me. So I’m sitting here, trying to figure out what more I can do, especially bein adam l’chaveiro. The Jews only merit the geulah when we’re united, and when there is shalom.
Moreover, the tsunami happened on Yom Rishon, Parshas Shemos. Parshas Shemos begins with Hashem telling the people that He is with them in their pain. The Gemara mentions that when Hashem feels the pain of His people, He sheds a “tear.” How is that tear felt on Earth? Through an earthquake.
Hashem is sending us a message that He has heard our crying and our pain, and He is with us in our time of need. He is telling us that the redemption is near, that the world has entered Shemos.
Rabbi Kaduri of Israel, a leading Kabbalist, says that we are currently in year four of the seven years of the geulah, according to the calculations of the Vilna Gaon. Either way, it seems clear that in coming months and years, Hashem will be “shaking the foundations of the Earth” and our job is to hold on tight, no matter what befalls us.
May we see the geulah shleima bimheira v’yameinu!
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