Generally, when penning an article for the illustrious publication that you currently peruse, I'll finish around 2:30 AM Thursday, edit, re-edit, re-re-edit, proof, re-proof, re-re-proof, and then send it off to everyone. And when I'm done, I feel great. My sense of self-worth and connection to myself, Torah, Judaism, Am Yisrael and Ha Kadosh Baruch Hu Himself gets a uniquely powerful jolt of positivity that I rarely encounter with other sorts of endeavors. It's wonderful and very, very high - however, less than 48 hours after press time, my feelings of self-esteem and connection will, seemingly of their own volition, invariably find occasion to plummet themselves oblivion-wise, dramatically cascading into heretofore unknown depths of uncertainty, anxiety and wobbliness.
In this week's parsha, the Jewish people experience one of the highest highs in their collective history, immediately followed by one of the lowest lows - they see that "a fire went forth from before Hashem and consumed upon the Altar the elevation-offerings and fats (of the Tabernacle's inaugural ceremony, and) the people saw and they praised and fell on their faces (9:24)." This prayer and supplication symbolized their ecstatic glee at the long-awaited intimacy with G-d that this heavenly fire signified for them - we've worked so long and painstakingly hard putting this Sanctuary together so that G-d would dwell lovingly within us, and look - His fire consumes our first offerings! We did everything right for once, woo-hoo!!! Exactly two verses later, "A fire came forth from before Hashem and consumed (Nadav and Avihu, the beloved sons of Aharon), and they died before Hashem (10:2)." Immediately, we are plunged into horrible confusion, mourning, a state of national calamity - I thought we were tight with You - how could this happen so soon after we were SO close?!?
In our lives, we could ask, "Why does this always happen to us?" or "Can't we somehow prevent things like this from happening?" But the truth is, as the Breslov Haggadah tells us, we can only live life, we can't control it. Simcha (joy) and connection to G-d are gifts that He bestows upon us, and no matter how hard we try, we simply cannot force G-d's hand. Look what happened to the builders of the Tower of Babel - they wanted their man-made artifice to poke a hole in shamayim, so they could climb up into the supernal cockpit and hijack the world, and in response, G-d climbed into their cognitive "cockpits" and hijacked their very ability to use the most fundamental man-made artifice -- language. So we should be in no hurry to stretch pantyhose over our heads and go terrorizing Har HaBayit in search of designing our own fate (lest G-d stretch heavenly nylons over His face, as it were, and terrorize us, G-d forbid!). We should instead invest ourselves in the task of mediating our own natural inclinations to conflict with G-d's design, with trying to reconcile and transcend our own inborn opposition to G-d's creation of seemingly irreconcilable oppositions.
The Rambam tells us, in The Guide for the Perplexed, that we should never conceptualize G-d as disparate or disunified, even though our life's circumstances sometimes appear too contradictory to attribute to a unified Oneness. He asks: would we ever think to question the unity of a flame? It's true that a flame can whiten some substances while simultaneously blackening others, or soften some substances while simultaneously stiffening others, but that should never cause us to question the flame's objective unity. Likewise, G-d makes us white and black, soft and stiff, euphoric and dejected - but He's definitely not six different gods!
In an uncharacteristically chassidic moment this week, Rashi points out, in reference to Aharon's two blessings (the first of which he gave to the people after descending from having completed the inaugural service on the Altar, and the second of which he gave after coming to the Tent of Meeting to learn about the incense-offerings from Moses), that "both descending and coming require a blessing," and "Just as descending is related to Divine service, coming, too, is related to Divine service." We must acknowledge and strive to emulate the ultimate root-source of unity that underlies existence, both when we come toward it and when we descend from it (like it says in the Kriyat Shma, you should love G-d "when you lay down and when you rise up."). We must know that both coming close and falling away are necessary to serve our Creator in truth, and that both are worthy of blessing, and that the deepest service of all derives from the level of tranquility and acceptance we attain in our struggle to perceive the unity within the multiplicity.
-- With thanks to Rav Poupko
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. |