A wise one pointed out to me last week that we tend to identify ourselves with the big players in the Tanach – Moshe, Avraham, David. We must at least consider our identification with other players in the story. For example, Rebbe Nachman pointed out that there are two kinds of brit, the upper which is Avraham and the lower which is Eliezer. And we cannot assume we are on the level of the upper brit just yet. And even if we are, Rebbe Nachman says we have to work on the upper and the lower. So let us consider Eliezer for a moment.
Chapter 24 verse 2 reads “And Avraham said to his servant, the elder of his house who governs (HaMoSHeL) in all that is his [Avraham’’s]…” The word for “governs”, HaMoSHeL, can be read HaMaShaL, the analogy. The perfect servant is a MaShaL of his master. As Eliezer left as a messenger for Avraham he was to attempt to embody Avraham’s ideals, not his own. He besought Hashem’s chesed in the name of his master, Avraham, for he was merely a vessel for carrying out Avraham’s mission. When Eliezer offered his own idea, to take Yitzhak outside of Yisrael to find a wife, Avraham made him swear that he would not do so. Eliezer has an independent mind with his own motives and obectives that must be subdued in order to be an effective servant and a true MaShaL.
We, too, are MaShaLiM of our Master. The Ba’al HaTanya, when he wishes to demonstrate how Hashem runs His world, the relationship between worlds, the levels of Hashem’s “thought speech and action” (Ki’bi’yachol), since to describe this is impossible, he calls up a MaShaL, an analogy, which is the human being and his complex system of worlds, levels of soul, relationship to speech, thought, etc. He gives us a MaShal of Himself as (if) a Man Sitting on a Throne. However, Bireishit 1:27 does not read “And Elokim created man in his MaShaL.” It reads “B’TzaLMo” – in his image. What is the difference between a MaShaL and a Tzelem? It is the difference between Eliezer and Yitzhak.
Eliezer is encouraged to subdue his personality in order to serve his master. Yitzhak inherently has a way of serving Hashem that is unique to him, and though it certainly is connected to his father’s avodah, it is totally unique. In fact the yir’ah, awe, of Yitzhak is a necessary vessel for the chesed of his father Avraham. It could even be said that it is a garment of that chesed. We, too, have the capacity to be garments mamash for Hashem’s chesed in the world. But we accomplish this by our own contraction, like Yitzhak’s gevurah, as he agreed to be a vessel for the highest ideal of chesed, which his father embodied. As we all know, this submission to a higher ideal does not negate the personality of the carrier; rather it enhances the personality of the carrier.
So what, then, is the difference between servant and son? Eliezer, too, is enhanced by his mission. The difference is that Eliezer still maintains his own will and desires, which relegates him to the role of servant. Only when HaMaShaL, the analogy, becomes LiShMaH, for the sake of the mission itself, not the task itself, can the gap between son and servant be bridged (and can one become HaShaLeM, the complete one, a true SiMLaH, garment, for Hashem’s chesed, and develop a relationship of love with Hashem, like ShLoMoH). When the servant embodies the ideals of his master as his own, when it becomes his mission and not just a job, when his will is truly the will of his Master, then he is like a son. But the son is not a servant; he is made in the image of his Father. We are said to come from the inner chochmah of Hashem, according to the Ba’al HaTanya. And part of this Image is, like Hashem is Unique, so we are each unique. We must strive to truly understand and embody Hashem’s will by studying His Torah, and then really make it our own. For there is no other way to truly embody it but to make it our own. So long as it is a task, it is outside of us. Until we feel the pain and the joy of Hashem’s world as our own pain, we are servants.
Yet we do find that being a servant is also necessary – that we are necessarily both. As we say in davening, “Hashivenu Avinu L’toratecha, v’karveinu malkeinu l’avodatecha” which is rendered “Return us, our father, to Your Torah, and bring us close, our King, to Your service.” Hashem is Father and King. I bless us all that we should merit to know when Hashem, as King, wishes us to lose ourselves and only carry out his missions and when He, as Father, wishes us to take His missions into our own hands and put the stamp of our own personalities on them.
Rav Gavriel Goldfeder
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Rav Gavriel Goldfeder is one of the first semicha recipients of the yeshiva. A graduate of Drew University in Religious Studies, he came to Bat Ayin after stints in other yeshivot and found a spiritual and intellectual home. Here he met his wife, Ketriellah, who was a student in our short-lived Women's Yeshiva. Upon graduation, Gavriel took the position of rabbi of the Aish Kodesh Congregation in Boulder, Colorado and together with Ketriellah and their growing family, they are busy creating (in Gavriel's words), "a community infused with Torah values, passion for learning and prayer, consideration of one another, and action, as well as deep celebration of the joys of life." |