The Zohar tells us a deep thing about Avraham Avinu with whom we travel with this week. G-d blessed him with the deepest wisdom from the deepest place of chochma - and he used it to find out the spiritual root of every country and place. He wanted to know from where every place got its sustenance. When he got to surveying the Land of Israel - he realized it was from a very deep spiritual place that this land got sustenance. So he began traveling toward the land with his family. When he got closer, as he was contemplating, he realized he would never grasp the depth of the root of sustenance of this holy land. The Zohar tells us that this is because this root is G-d's Essence which can never be grasped by man. So Avraham... stopped in Charan.
That is when G-d said "lech lecha" - go to yourself - to your deeper level - the level on which you can touch the root of the land of Israel. The Zohar is teaching us a deep thing - wisdom and understanding are very deep but in the end with them alone one cannot go the full distance. What did Avraham need - what do we need to "make it to the Promised Land"?
(The following is a translation of a piece from Rebbe Natan of Breslov's Likutei Halachot - Laws of Ribit (interest on loans) V - which holds a deep teaching for us about this):
'The main thing is that the truth not keep one from the truth of the truth. Because the main distancing that keeps one from the essence of the truth of the truth is done by truth itself. As we see with our senses, that all disputes are through the truth - that the opponents say that they have the truth... For there are two kinds of truth. There is the truth of the truth where one grasps and knows the thing as it really is, but there is also another kind of truth, the intent of which is truly good but is really mistaken... Therefore, in this world, the essence of the completion of truth is emunah (faith). For the main part of truth is to know that one cannot grasp the essence of truth, for the essence of truth is G-d alone... And this is not possible to grasp. The main part of the truth is to know that we cannot grasp the essence of the truth - an aspect of "the ultimate knowledge is to not know", and therefore the main completion of truth is faith...And this is all the work of man in this world is to come to truth and faith in completion in the truth of the truth.'
So, I believe, the truth of the truth can only be reached by going to that place - the place G-d wants us to go when G-d says "Go to yourself" - that place of faith, of emunah. And may we all be blessed to go and come to the land that G-d shows us - the Promised Land - bimhera beyameinu.
Rav Raz Hartman
|
Rav Raz Hartman, born to Israeli parents, grew up in Southern California. He was attending U.S.C., majoring in Music Peformance, when he met Rav Natan Greenberg. That meeting eventually result in Raz's coming to the Bat Ayin Yeshiva, where he studied for six years and was given Semichah in 2003. He is married to Leah, and they live, with their three children, in Nachla'ot, Jerusalem. Raz serves as Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Simchat Shlomo, and founder of the v'Ani Tefillah minyan. He has produced several albums of Jewish music. |