On display now at the Israel Museum is an exhibit of biblical paintings. Paintings from around the world, and around the ages, depicting man's interpretation of the famous stories and their immortal characters. One of the most striking pieces was a 1594 piece by Cornellis Van Haarlem. This Dutch Painter had set our Exodus from Egypt against a backdrop of 16th Century Netherlands and the Dutch quest for freedom from Spanish rule. Sadly, my initial response was "ezeh chutzpah," what a nerve. How can this Dutch guy mess with our heritage, how can he impose his issues on the sacredness of our liberation? But something I learned this week changed my mind.
Each week at Bat Ayin, a different student has a chance to give over "student chassidut," a glimpse into the Torah from their particular perspective. This week, Nati P. shared the story of Julia and Luna. Julia is a young woman in the Northwestern U.S. who lived (yes, lived) in a redwood tree for over two years. She named the tree Luna. One day, amidst a raging storm, she found herself all but thrown off her perch, hanging on to Luna by a limb. It was then that Luna spoke to her, "Let go," she said, "only if you let go and sway in the breeze can you survive this storm." So Julia did, and she weathered the storm unscathed. When a tree branch dies, it becomes brittle and fragile, but when it is pulsing with life, it is limber enough to bend and sway with the weather.
Rav Kook also touched on this idea. Torah, he says, is true holiness, for it emerges from the "yesod hachayim," the source of life. The source of life, though, is not a fixed place. Rather, it exists in every place and at every time in which transformation is occurring. God did not design the world via a fixed blueprint. The world sprang forth from a design that pulsed and fluxed as each creation awoke and sent out its roots into the world. Thus, Torah fills our entire being with its inner essence as we learn it, as we're changed by it. Even when I'm learning what seems to be an abstract Talmud "sugyia" (passage) about land acquisition, I'm being infused with love for my chavrusa (learning partner), with lessons about communication, and with a deeper connection to God's will. That's what is unique about Torah. It fills me, it lives and breathes with me, and shrivels and dies without me. That source of life is the glue that keeps me together as I bend and sway in the world. The deeper I delve into Torah, the more places are created to which I can sway, and the more the tissues of my mind and body are transformed into muscle to help me bend and reach those places.
My buddies Cornellis and Luna taught me incredible lessons this week. Torah is bursting forth from every cell in every bug on every leaf on every tree. And only because Torah is so incredibly holy is it able to hold its integrity, its truth, even when it is stretched to the limit of 16th Century European History. Our job is to realize that if I'm not probing to find new ways of bending the branches of Torah, I'm not giving it any reason to live. What good are bendable branches if there's never any wind, if there's never someone who needs their support. Chanukah is just around the corner. The Torah speaks of the menorah's candles all bending to shine their light toward the middle, toward to center, toward the source. May all our bending be from our source, aimed at our vision, and motivated by holy chutzpah.