Rebbe Nachman says in Torah 53 that there are five differences between Hashem’s “knowledge” and our knowledge. One of them is that Hashem can know that which is infinite, while we cannot. We have inside us a need to know Hashem, even a commandment, as it says in Hosea, “And I will betroth you to me forever; and I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in judgement and in kindness and in mercy; and I will betroth thee to me in faithfulness; and you shall know Hashem.” But Rebbe Nachman has told us that we cannot know that which is without limit, and Hashem is without limit! How, then, can we hope to know Him?
The haftarah of fast-days taken from Yeshayahu that we read on the tenth of Teves, begins “Seek out Hashem where he may be found.” It continues “Let the unrighteous abandon his thought and return to Hashem.” The next sentence, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, and your way is not My way.” We see from this that if we are to be able to know Hashem it must be in a different way than we are used to thinking. Where he may be found is not in the realm of thought that we are familiar with. Where, then, is He found?
Perhaps the secret is revealed in the second verse of Song of Songs: “He will kiss me with the kisses of His mouth, for Your love is better than wine.” Notice that the pronoun changes from He to You. When we refer to Hashem as He or as Hashem, we refer to Him in his unknowability. When we refer to Hashem as You it is referring to Hashem in a more knowable or tangible state. (Notice, for example, the dichotomy in the prayer Ashrei.) By first accepting that Hashem is ultimately unknowable we may then address Him as You, The Unknowable One. We say “You” with full knowledge that our understanding does not in any way include the totality of Hashem. If we say “You” to Hashem and pretend that we know Him, it is idolatry. Yet we must say “You” to Hashem, in that we are supposed to say one hundred blessings every day: “Blessed are You, Hashem….” When we say “You” we must realize that we are put in a tight spot between the impossible/idolatrous and the required. It is a narrow bridge and requires full consciousness. By saying in Hashem’s presence “Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth,” admitting that He is ultimately unknowable, then He might turn to us and we might say, with humility, “For Your love is better than wine.”
A wise one at this yeshiva said, “Hashem is not your friend.” This is not to say Hashem does not sometimes give us a feeling of closeness which feels like friendship, or something even closer than friendship. But that is for Hashem to give us, not for us to assume for ourselves. This is true in all forms of service of Hashem: prayer, speaking to Hashem in our own words, meditation, etc. Let us be intellectually honest; Hashem is King of Kings, Master of the Universe. Interaction with Him (which is inevitable) or mere mention of His Name is no joke. We should start with yir’ah – awe-fear and work our way inward rather than the other way around, as it says “The beginning of wisdom is the yir’ah of Hashem.” And it also says “Know before whom you stand.”
We must start from this place of yir’ah for it is emes, true, that Hashem is ultimately unknowable. The relationship to Hashem, and to other people and all reality, is a combination of emes, truth, and emunah, belief. We must know what we can know; we must not pretend to know what we cannot know. If I am honest in my relationship I will be more able to receive clearly from the other. If I am deluded about the other and have a constructed image of who they are and how they relate to me, I may limit them severely, by not seeing how it is they relate to me in truth. We know surprisingly little about even our closest friends – great! That means I can believe that Hashem might use my friends to bring me new awareness. If I think I know everything about somebody, I have closed him in. People sense it when they are closed in; they may find it hard to relax and be themselves. They may then find it difficult to let go and bring down something unexpected. Your loss.
Yosef is often associated with the attribute of yesod, which is loosely interpreted as connection (and Yosef is therefore connected to tikkun habrit, the perfection of the covenant of relationship, including the sexual relationship). But the word yesod actually means foundation. We cannot examine the manifestations of a relationship between ourselves and another until we examine the foundation of the relationship. If I know you are jealous of my bicycle, I cannot criticize you for your poor communication toward me. But if I know that we are connected very strongly deep down, then we can address practically any aspect of our relationship. So too with Hashem – it would be strange for me to go out and complain to Hashem that I feel disconnected from Him if I have not been as honest as I can about at least my end of the foundation of our relationship. Am I aware of the fact that He created me and I am a creature among creatures? Am I aware that I am not so motivated to go out of my way to serve Him with joy? Perhaps my expectations have led me astray. With this foundation of emes, truth, I may (and should) have emunah, faith, that our relationship will bear fruit. As it says, “And I betroth thee in faith; and you shall know Hashem.”
Sometimes, when it seems the connection is falling apart, we need to have faith in the foundation. Though your words hurt, I must trust that they are coming from a place of love. Interestingly, Yosef seems to have experienced a faltering of this trust in his father Yaakov. When Yaakov goes to bless Yosef’s two children, he rests his right hand, usually reserved for the elder son, on the head of Ephraim, the younger son. “Not so,” Yosef said to his father, “but this one (Menashe) is the elder. Put your hand on his head!” The commentators imply that Yosef really thought his father was mistaken. His father refused, and said, “I know, my son, I know.” (Our local Yosef points out that Yosef the Biblical had enough faith in the relationship to speak his mind and not be afraid of making a mistake.) In our relationship to Hashem, we may think He should bless us in one way, while He wants to bless us in another way. We may even think Hashem should bless us in the way that is logical to us – like Yosef; “This one is the elder, bless him with the right hand!” Shouldn’t Yosef have known, shouldn’t we all know, that throughout the generations the father has blessed the second-born with the blessing of the first-born (Yitzhak, Ya’akov, Yosef himself at that very moment!!)? Reuven logically deduced that, when Rachel died, surely Yaakov would move his main dwelling into Leah’s tent. When he found out Yaakov had moved into Rachel’s maid’s tent rather than his own mother’s, he angrily moved Yaakov’s bed into his mother’s tent. Reuven was punished for this mistake by receiving neither the blessing of the first-born, nor the kingship, nor the preisthood. Yaakov himself seemed to think he would experience “the good life” in Canaan, when it turned out the good life (as illuminated by the 17 years in Mitzrayim, the numerical value of the word “good”) was waiting for him in Mitzrayim.
We simply must allow Hashem to bless us the way He wants to, not the way we think He should. This is true in all areas – parnasa – income, love, learning, healing, etc. It is difficult, because we do not know exactly how Hashem wants to bless us (only that He does want to!) So we must be aware at all times and prepared to receive blessing from any number of sources. We are not totally in the dark, though. The members of the Great Assembly gave us some guidelines of where to look. In the 19 prayers of the amidah, we do not just ask for, say, healing or peace. We ask in very specific ways – for example, in the Prayer for Peace, we say “Bless us our Father as one in the light of Your face, for in the light of Your face you gave us, Hashem our G-d, the living Torah, the love of kindness, and righteousness, and bl, and mercy, and life, and peace.” Hashem has already indicated to us the way toward peace - in unity, Torah, kindness, righteousness, and life.
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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." |