So gevalt, what a parsha this week. So very much happens. I'd like to focus though on a small but deep storyleh - Aharon comes up to meet Moshe, and they kiss.
Sweet. So the Ishbitzer Rebbe explains that the depth of what was happenning was that really, in the inside, in the greatest depths of creation when God was creating the world, he asked Emet (Truth) - "Should I make the world?" And Emet answered - "NO! It's gonna be too full of falsehood!" So He asked Chessed (Lovingkindness), "Should I create the world?" And Chessed answered - "Yes! There's gonna be so much opportunity for the deepest Chessed!" And He asked Shalom, "Should I create the world?" And Shalom said - "No! It's gonna be full of squabbles!" And Tzedek (Justice) said - "Yes! There'll be such opportunity to bring justice to the world!" So the Midrash ends saying: "And God threw Emet down to the earth, and then created the world." So the question is - what happened to Shalom?
So basically, says the Ishbitzer, Moshe Rabeinu was Emet and Tzedek. Aharon was Chessed and Shalom. So each have aspects that are both pro and against the creation of the world (remind you of anybody?) So the Izhbitzer explains that Moshe was so True that really he couldn't handle this world. He couldn't be a good leader until he learned to tolerate people with their faults. He was such a righteous revolutionary and so deeply idealistic that he had no room for people who were below par. So the whole week he spent at the burning Bush (yes, the Midrash say s it was a full week!), God was modelling for him how to be tolerant - by showing him this awesome bush that was burning without being consumed - being tolerant. Truth, the ideal, abstract truth which is too much for real people to stand in its harsh light, needed to be thrown down to the earth. Moshe needed to learn to love, to tolerate and understand a (deeper) SUBJECTIVE truth, a human truth - truth which is different for each person. Says the Izhbitzer - Emet BECOMES Tzedek, just as a TRULY righteous person (a Tzadik) is someone who understands and appreciates subjective human reality. Justice, balance, yes to creation, yes I can love you, even though by my ideal standards you fall short - still I appreciate YOUR own deep place of the truth of your subjective experience. This is what it means to say "yes" to creation.
Aharon was the master of this character trait of tolerance and love, for him it was Chessed. So when Aharan and Moshe meet, this is a deep moment where the inner drive for Truth meets with Chessed after learning to respect this world and to bring justice. And then they kiss - and now Shalom - the inner awesome peace within Aharon which couldn't say yes to the world until Truth also said yes, for what is Peace with no Truth? But now that Truth has been thrown to the ground, down to earth as they say, and Truth itself IS Tzedek saying yes to the world, so now Shalom smacks him on the cheek. In our lives, we don't want to open our own inner secret bottle of deep Shalom and peaceful living until the Emet inside us says yes to our imperfect lives, says "yes" to Creation. How long will we spend being overly-exacting and self-critical before we learn to throw our unapproachable ideal-Emes down to the earth and respect and love our deep subjective truth, and thus allow Shalom out of her confining bottle? Well, even Moshe himself took a week, and that was with a Godly revelation. Rebbe Natan of Breslov says: the secret is - through your holy friends.