Friends - Every once and a while, the subjects of the discussions in R. Daniel's halacha class will gravitate towards some of the more "worldly" aspects of human existence? the proper disposal of bodily waste, the covering and management of nakedness, etc. to only name a few. We only discuss these things, of course, in the context of a larger discussion about how to be better Jews - for example, should your average Yid recite blessings or say the Shema within the general vicinity of a dirty diaper or a string bikini? If so, how far away should he/she distance themselves before making the blessings? Should the aforesaid objects simply be put out of *sight*, or should they be completely removed from within his/her presence? How exactly do we define "waste" and "nakedness," and how do we know to separate ourselves from them?
Interestingly, these two subjects form the template that characterizes our problems in the Garden of Eden. As we know, when Adam ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, he became a) mortal, and b) embarrassed of his own nakedness. Mortality, a condition exemplified by our inability to completely absorb and benefit-from the life-giving materials that we eat (thus leaving behind bodily waste, symbolizing our inability to perpetuate our lives indefinitely), was given to Adam along with the realization that, embarrassingly enough, his physical desires mandated a level of modesty (i.e. clothes) beyond his initial impluse to just run away and hide. As we know, these two new conditions uprooted the very foundations upon which Garden of Eden was constructed - eternal life and eternal innocence - and so Adam and his wife were dismissed.
There's an opinion in the Midrash that says that the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge was wheat, because when a young child first begins to eat wheat products, he becomes a "bar da'as," a child of "knowledge." At that point, because the nature of his digestive process has changed dramatically, he now (however prematurely) recognizes of his own mortality, and it becomes forbidden to recite blessings or say the Shema in the vicinity of his waste (which is affected by the wheat). When Adam ate this wheat for the first time, he not only realized his own mortality - he was told, "By the sweat of your brow shall you eat your bread." According to R. Matis Weinberg, that's exactly what Adam wanted - to work for himself, to feel himself involved in the process of his own sustenance, rather than to feel spoiled by God's all-giving, all-benevolent providence. He wanted to feel independent, free, responsible, accountable; he wanted to sense a distinguishment between eternal providence and the rest of the Creation - even at the cost of his own mortality and embarrassment.
According to R. Weinberg, that's exactly what he got - a world and universe that runs down, that becomes exhausted when its energy is spent, in which all things die - but this entropy, in and of itself, was the greatest gift he could have hoped to receive! Because of entropy, "every moment in time is unique. If time was infinite, there would be no uniqueness; there would be no meaning to any particular event. Entropy gives us an absolutely unique coordinate that allows us to have lives that are unique, that are inimitable; they're not ever going to happen again. Now that's REAL eternity! In other words: that which is infinite has no real meaning, while that which is finite is actually infinite because - it has eternal meaning." (quoted from last's year's Shavuot shmooze tape)
At this time in the Jewish yearly cycle, we focus very sharply on our relationship to wheat, which can be called the staple crop of our finite infinity; our lives move from a process of passively receiving undifferentiated Divine providence on Pesach (symbolized by the offering of barley, a food for animals of undifferentiated consciousness) to a process of choosing and participating in the receipt of a specifically delineated Divine providence on Shavuot (symbolized by the offering of loaves of wheat bread, a food for humans of uniquely delineated consciousness). We strive to return to a state of receptivity in which, through our own efforts, we can reconstruct and re-enter the Eden-like environment of relationship with each other, the world, and its Creator, in which mortality and embarrassment are dismissed because we have CHOSEN to dismiss them, and in which we can infuse our unique, finite existence with the eternal significance of being created in the image of the Most High. God willing, we should be blessed and merited with success this Shabbat, this year, this life!
Jerry Silverman
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Jerry Silverman is a former student of Yeshivat Bat Ayin. He is working in new media, designing and managing media projects. He lives in Riverdale, NY with his wife Sarah and their two children. |