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Being Strong

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Question: I am a lay leader at my temple. Since our rabbi is away, I will be leading this week’s Shabbat service. I have beginner-intermediate skills for chanting Torah. Your pasha page was very helpful. Could you define the words “Chazak Chazak Venis-chazeik,” so that I can explain it to the congregation?

The Aish Rabbi Replies: Upon completing a public reading of one of the Five Books of Moses, everybody stands up and shouts “Chazak! Chazak! Venis-chazeik!” which translate as “Be strong! Be strong! And may we be strengthened!”

Rabbi Hayim Halevy Donin (in To Pray as a Jew) explains that this is a cry of encouragement to continue with the reading of the next book, and to return to this one again in due course. The triple use of the word “Chazak” may symbolize past, present and future.

Be strong and may you be strengthened!

“Completing a Book of Torah”
from the “Ask the Rabbi” series
Aish.com

Simchat Torah is the occasion in religious Judaism on which the very last portion of the Torah is read before immediately proceeding back to the beginning and starting another annual cycle. As was explained in the quote above, at the end of the reading of each book of Torah, it is customary to say, “Chazak, chazak, venitchazek” which translates as “Be strong, be strong, and may you be strengthened.”

But be strengthened for what?

Synagogues throughout the world will reverberate this Shabbat with the communal outcry of “Chazak, chazak, venitchazek” as the final words of Chumash Shemot are read.

This rallying cry to strengthen ourselves as we move from one Chumash to another is especially relevant to Jews living in Israel. Faced by the relentless terror from our enemies and the complacence of a world towards those who wish to destroy the Jewish State, there is truly an urgent need to remain strong in spirit as well as in defensive capability.

But this strength must have its source in our Torah, which gives us an undeniable right to our Land. The more that Jews see that there is a direct relationship between loyalty to Torah and security there will be a strengthening of our ability to enjoy Israel forever.

-Rabbi Mendel Weinbach
“Chazak, Chazek, Venitchazek”
Ohr Somayach

We see that this cry of encouragement isn’t just to gather strength to continue with the reading of the next book of Torah. For Jews, this is summoning the strength to continue to face adversity, crisis, and the seemingly perpetual efforts of the nations of the world to exterminate the Jewish people and their state.

I recently read an article about Cyber attackers targeting Iranian oil platforms. My attention was drawn to a particular quote in the article, which was originally published by the British news agency Reuters.

Mohammad Reza Golshani, head of information technology for the Iranian Offshore Oil Company, told Iran’s Mehr news agency that a cyber attack had targeted the offshore platforms’ information networks.

“This attack was planned by the regime occupying Jerusalem (Israel)…

So now the Jews are the regime occupying Jerusalem.” Even this quote from a seemingly innocuous news story takes pot shots at the legitimacy of the Jewish state and the right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel. Yes, it takes a great deal of strength to be Jewish and particularly to be Jewish in the Middle East.

But what about the rest of us? More specifically, what about we Christians? Is there any relevancy for us in “Chazak, Chazek, Venitchazek?”

I suppose not specifically, since the traditional reading of the Torah cycle is foreign to most churches. Still, if we widen our focus, I think we can consider the principle behind the statement of encouragement to have some meaning for us.

A life of faith is not an easy one. While unlike the Jews, the rest of the world isn’t actively seeking to destroy Christians and Christianity (although there are some parts of the world where Christians are directly persecuted), we aren’t exactly well-loved, either. That’s to be expected, even of the best of us, since holding to a moral standard isn’t exactly a popular sentiment in a world that worships relativity in its morals and ethics.

But then again, what we are most often criticized for is our faults, not our virtues. We are criticized for our hypocrisy, our hostility, our judgmentalism, our bigotry, our sexism, and so on. Much of the time, our critics are right about us. When we compare our actual behavior to our stated values, we come up short. How often are we “caught” feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, providing water to the thirsty, showing respect for the aged and infirm, comforting the grieving, and so on?

Oh, it’s not that we don’t perform the deeds taught to us by our Master. It’s that we don’t make them central to our lives. It’s embarrassing when we see atheists who outshine us at actually behaving with “Christian values.” Where is our strength under these circumstances?

For me though, the need for strength is in trying to sort out my own unique role and place in the world around me and in the Kingdom of Heaven. To employ a well-known aphorism, I’m “neither fish nor fowl.” My self-declared identity is as a Christian, but if I actually showed up in a church, ten seconds after I opened my mouth, I’d fit in about as well as a square peg in a room full of round holes. The same would go for me attending a synagogue, since I’m only marginally familiar with the actual Hebrew prayers and customs and in any event, my presence would make the missus far more uncomfortable than it would me.

I keep toying with the idea of going back to a church. I’ve got one picked out as a likely candidate, but then, given how embarrassed my wife is at the mere fact that I’m a Christian, my actually attending a church would likely add insult to injury. There are a variety of barriers involved which I won’t go into, but if my wife feels uncomfortable in inviting Jewish friends to our home, how would she feel if I joined a church and then invited a few Christians over?

I frankly don’t see a way around all of this and hence the need for personal encouragement. Be strong, be strong, and may we (or rather I) be strengthened. For that matter, may my wife be strengthened so that she can return to the Jewish community and participate in worshiping God among her people.

If the encouragement is generally for a Jew to continue from one book of Torah to the next, then I’ll interpret it for myself (an arrogant conceit, I must admit) as the encouragement to continue as an individual person of faith from one day to the next. I’ll consider it the strength to continue writing meditations from one day to the next.

Joshua was encouraged by God to be strong and courageous, and he had both God and the Children of Israel to support him in taking the Land of Israel for the Jews as was promised by the God of Abraham. Most married couples who are religious are religious in the same direction, attending the same house of worship, and adhering to the same basic expression of faith, whether that is Christian, Jewish, or anything else. Even many intermarried couples will attend both his house or worship and hers, at least on occasion.

Like I said, I’m neither fish nor fowl. This is a season of beginnings for religious Jews. For me, it’s another day, another morning. How many more should I anticipate? How many more should I plan for? Where is the end of the trail and upon reaching it, will God and I part company or is there a future for both of us together?

Some people mistakenly think they have a natural need for approval and there is nothing they can do to overcome it. The truth is that the adult need for approval is based on demand. If a person decides he needs only his own approval and not that of others, he is able to focus on the question, “What is the proper thing for me to do now?” He does not ask himself, “How will other people look at me?”

This change in focus can be difficult, but once you accept it is possible, you will be able to change your attitude.

-Rabbi Zelig Pliskin
“Focus On What’s Right, Daily Lift #602”
Aish.com

Good question, Rabbi. “What is the proper thing for me to do now?”

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Journey to Reconciliation, Part 1

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Had the Hebrew roots movement started off on a different trajectory, there would never have been a need for me to say this. To most Christians, saying that “the Church is good” will sound ridiculous in its self-evidence. Yet the Hebrew roots movement’s rhetoric against Christianity and the church as been escalating for years and shows no signs of abating. For someone who is just learning about the movement, this rhetoric is often an immediate turn off – and rightly so. There is nothing anti-Christian or anti-church about the authentic core message of the Jewishness of Jesus.

-Boaz Michael,
President and Founder of First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ)
from an early manuscript his forthcoming book “Tent of David”

I had only been a Christian for a few years when I was introduced to the Hebrew Roots movement. I probably wouldn’t have entered the movement at all if not for my wife’s involvement (which she has long since exited). I was just finally getting comfortable in my church. I was just beginning to feel like I was fitting in. I was more at ease about participating in discussions in Sunday school. I had been asked to be one of the ushers during services. I was making friends. I felt like I belonged.

But through a long string of circumstances (not unlike the long string of circumstances that resulted in me becoming a Christian after the age of forty), I started attending a “Messianic Jewish” congregation. This was in the late 1990s and frankly, I didn’t know Messianic Judaism or Hebrew Roots (related concepts, but not the same thing) from anything else. But it was new and exciting and they said and taught such amazing things about Jesus, or rather “Yeshua” as he’s referred to in Hebrew. Everyone was nice (just like at church) and it was a small enough venue to where I could meet and get to know everyone fairly quickly.

But among the things I learned about was that our hands are stained with blood. More to the point (and I’m borrowing that phrase from Michael Brown’s somewhat famous book on the topic), the church is stained with blood; Jewish blood.

I won’t take this opportunity to recount to you the long and troubling history of the Christian church, especially in how it treated the Jewish people, the pogroms, the inquisitions, the spreading of the vast net of supersessionism across the world, the frightening twists of such a theology that in part, made the Holocaust possible. Others have chronicled all of this information exacting detail. I have no need to do so here.

But back then, I had no idea.

I began to realize that although I maintained my faith in Jesus, the method of my introduction to the Jewish Messiah occurred in a place that was actively opposed to his being Jewish. It was actively opposed to the Jewish people. It taught that the Jews were no longer the chosen ones of God and that they had been replaced by the Gentile Christians. How could I possibly stand for that? My wife and three children are Jewish.

It was a horrible realization.

So I went to a “congregation” and not a church. I was a “Messianic Gentile,” not a Christian. I only called the Jewish Messiah “Yeshua,” never Jesus. I wore a kippah when I went to worship and donned a tallit gadol when I entered into prayer. I haltingly prayed in very bad Hebrew using photocopied pages of a transliteration of the prayers. I only read the Apostolic scriptures (never calling it the “New Testament”) using David H. Stern’s The Complete Jewish Bible. I read the Tanakh, not the “Old Testament.”

My departure from my old church wasn’t clean. We still attended both congregations. My kids were very well-integrated into the church’s youth group and it would have been difficult to just abruptly detach them from the relationships they had there. I started to talk to my Christian friends about Yeshua, and the Torah, and Moshe, and how Paul was really “Rabbi Shaul” who taught the Gentile disciples to obey Torah.

I was treated politely but the distance began to grow between me and the people who I had just started to feel comfortable around. It didn’t help that the church was going through an upheaval at the time. The board had dismissed the Pastor for not “growing” the church to their ambitions (I still remember Pastor Jerry very fondly) and they hired a dynamic (but not nearly as personable) Pastor who had a degree in “church growth” or something like that. I disagreed with their methods and their reasoning and the rift between me and the church I had come to faith in expanded, finally to the breaking point.

This did nothing but add to the rather negative impression of Christianity I was learning from the Hebrew Roots congregation I was also attending.

I want to make it clear at this point that no one in the Hebrew Roots congregation was hostile or aggressive in terms of Christians, Christianity, or “the church.” They were (and are) all people of good will and faith who sincerely believed everything they were saying. But part of what they were saying is that traditional Christianity had gone astray and was leading many innocent people down the wrong path. The only hope was to leave the church and to form Hebrew Roots congregations that were more in keeping with Torah and the teachings of Yeshua, our Master.

I learned a great deal about Yeshua, Torah, Moshe, and my responsibilities to the mitzvot of God from FFOZ’s Torah Club as it existed back in those days (a lot has changed since then).

I won’t try to describe everything that’s happened in the last twelve years or so. Suffice it to say, I’ve changed quite a bit. I’ve spent a long decade plus investigating, examining, and growing in my faith. At this point in my life, just a few years shy of sixty, I realize how very little I really understand.

Christianity is slowly changing. I know several Pastors of Christian churches who have realized that the replacement theology that has typically been represented and taught in churches is not a sustainable doctrine. They are, much like Anglican priest Andrew White, realizing that we cannot be Christians without knowing that the root of our faith resides in the Jewish people and in Judaism. But that doesn’t mean we have to abandon our churches and our Sunday schools and “reinvent” our faith by creating new congregations which borrow from Jewish religious practices, customs, and identity markers.

I don’t disdain the people in my former Hebrew Roots congregation. I still am friends with them, though we don’t often see each other. I continue to believe that they are pursuing their faith, the Messiah, and the God of Israel in an honest, sincere, and holy manner. The congregation as I left it and as it was every day I attended, never spoke against the church or against Christians. For virtually its entire existence, the congregation met in rooms rented from local churches. One church, which occasionally loaned us the use of their youth building for no cost, felt that helping us was their outreach to the Jewish people (though we had virtually no one attending who was halachically Jewish). All of our High Holiday and other festival celebrations took place in churches. Many Christians, including several Pastors, attended our Passover seders each year.

The church was good to us.

The church is good.

As I’m sure you’re aware, I not only write frequently on topics involving Hebrew Roots and Messianic Judaism, but I visit and occasionally comment on related blogs. I don’t comment on all of them because sadly, some are rather uncomfortable with my opinions and beliefs and some actively speak against the church, Christianity, and Christians. While not all Hebrew Roots congregations (as I’ve mentioned) are characterized by a specific rejection of Christianity, the movement as a whole (and the movement is diverse in the extreme, ranging from highly organized congregations, to fragmented Bible studies and small family living room worship groups) has an identity based on a sense of being victimized by the church.

In my time in the Hebrew Roots movement, I’ve met many people who felt betrayed by their churches and their Pastors. They were (and probably still are) angry and hurt, and their outlook on Christianity is fueled primarily by their emotions and in some cases, by what their Hebrew Roots congregational leaders are teaching to reenforce those feelings.

Again, I want to be extremely careful and say that many, many Hebrew Roots groups are not like this at all, but many, many more are, and the wedge separating Hebrew Roots believers and the traditional church of Jesus Christ is getting wider every day.

Ironically, this doesn’t mean that the relationship between Hebrew Roots as a whole and the traditional Jewish synagogue is getting any closer. Having ties in both the local Reform and Chabad groups, I can tell you that it’s much more likely for a traditional Christian to visit and be accepted in a Shabbat service or Hebrew class than it is someone from the Hebrew Roots movement, especially if the Hebrew Roots person begins “explaining” to the Rabbis what they’re doing wrong, criticizing the Talmud, or otherwise appearing to denigrate (even without meaning to) how Jews practice and understand Judaism.

So where is Hebrew Roots today and what exactly went wrong?

I haven’t sent out questionnaires or performed a scientific survey of the entire Hebrew Roots movement as it currently exists, but based on everything I’ve said so far (and over a decade of experience within the movement, including contact with dozens of congregations), I’d have to say that Hebrew Roots is wholly isolating itself both from Christianity and from Judaism.

Startling, I know. I’m sure I’ll get some “pushback” for saying that.

Again, this isn’t absolutely true of each and every Hebrew Roots congregation, but the movement as a whole, including all of the highly diverse and mixed groups, families, and individuals involved, is drifting further away from unity with both its “Hebrew” root and its “Apostolic” root.

How can this be fixed?

There are two basic populations in Hebrew Roots. The first population, and in fact, the vast, vast majority population, is Gentile Christian. That is, people who are not Jewish who came into Hebrew Roots from the church. Only a tiny minority could be considered authentically Jewish, according to accepted halachah, by having a Jewish mother. Most of the “Jewish” members may have a Jewish grandparent or more distant relative and by virtue of that relationship, consider themselves Jewish, but they were never raised in a Jewish home, never had a traditional Jewish education, and otherwise, never experienced anything “Jewish” until entering the movement.

(I should say at this point that the Hebrew Roots movement has been around long enough to where there are young adults who have been raised in Hebrew Roots, so their background, family experience, and education comes from that source…but that’s not the same as being raised by two Jewish parents who are observant in any form of religious Judism).

How this can be fixed depends on who you are, where you come from, and what you are willing to tolerate. To prevent this blog post from growing beyond all reasonable bounds, I’ll continue this presentation in tomorrow’s “morning meditation.”

There’s hope. There’s a way out of this mess, I promise you. The path leads to our being able to serve God, both Jew and Christian alike. There is a resolution between the church and the synagogue and between Christianity and true Messianic Judaism.

That’s the journey we will continue tomorrow with Part 2.

 

 

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The Unmixing Bowl

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Many MKs opened their mailboxes on Monday morning and were appalled to find a New Testament inside, sent to them by a messianic organization.

The Bible Society in Israel, a messianic Judaism institution for research, publication and dissemination of holy books, sent a “Book of Testaments,” which combines the Tanach and New Testament in one, leather-bound volume, published with references in Hebrew for the first time.

While the sect incorporates elements of religious Jewish practice, it holds that Jesus is the Messiah.

MK Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) sent a letter of complaint to Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin, writing that “it cannot be that missionary materials can be distributed in the Knesset.”

“Texts that were used to persecute and harass [Jews] cannot be distributed through the front door of the State of Israel,” Hotovely fumed.

Christian Allies Caucus chairman MK David Rotem (Yisrael Beytenu) said the mailing is “not missionary work, but an act of foolishness.”

Shas MK Nissim Ze’ev did not receive a package, but said the society had crossed the line between free speech and proselytizing.

-Lahav Harkov
“Missionaries in the Knesset?”
07/16/2012
The Jerusalem Post

Sending a bunch of “Christian Bibles” to all the Jewish members of the Knesset was, depending on the reaction you expected, predictably a bad idea. At best (as you read in the quote from the article), it would be seen as “foolishness.” At worst, it would be taken as Christians proselytizing Jews, which is deeply offensive. Think of how many Jews were tortured and even murdered by the church in the past thousand years in attempts to force Jews to convert to Christianity. So, do you think sticking a Christian Bible under the noses of a group of Jews is a good idea?

Anything that even hints of Christian “missionary work” among the Jews is going to trigger a hostile response. Even my attempt at discussing this issue on Facebook drew several passionate responses. After all, Judaism and Christianity are completely incompatible religions and lifestyles.

Or are they?

I’ve started reading Daniel Boyarin’s The Jewish Gospels, which has drawn its own “passionate responses” in the Amazon reviews section for the book. The fact that Boyarin is a Jewish educator and the Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture and rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley hasn’t helped calm the obvious emotional commentary this topic inspires from both Christians and Jews. After all, what Jew, let alone a noted and respected Talmudic scholar, would approach the Christian New Testament with anything but disdain?

I’m barely past the Introduction of the book, but while it is a short work at 224 pages, so far, it is extremely dense with content.

If there is one thing that Christians know about their religion, it is that it is not Judaism. If there is one thing that Jews know about their religion, it is that it is not Christianity. If there is one thing that both groups know about this double not, it is that Christians believe in the Trinity and the incarnation of Christ (the Greek word for Messiah) and that Jews don’t, that Jews keep kosher and Christian don’t.

If only things were this simple.

…The question was not “Is a divine Messiah coming?” but only “Is this carpenter from Nazareth the One we are expecting?” Not surprisingly, some Jews said yes and some said no. Today, we call the first group Christians and the second group Jews, but it was not like that then, not at all.

-Daniel Boyarin
from the Introduction of his book
The Jewish Gospels

Boyarin is suggesting the unthinkable to both Jewish and Christian readers. He’s suggesting that at one point, what we now call Christianity was a form of Judaism, and it was accepted among the different forms or sects of Judaism that existed in the late Second Temple period in Roman occupied “Palestine.” Rabbi Shmuley Boteach tried to reintegrate Christianity into its original Jewish framework in his recent book Kosher Jesus, but it wasn’t well received, either by Jewish audiences (and particularly the Chabad) or by Christians. In my opinion, not having even started Chapter 1 in Boyarin’s book yet, I think he does a much better job than Rabbi Boteach. Although Boyarin is hardly accepting of Jesus as the Messiah, he seems to be able to communicate that a non-trivial number of first century Jews could see that the son of a carpenter from Nazareth might possibly be the Moshiach. Many groups of Jews were divided on this issue in those days, but that’s not particularly unusual according to Boyarin.

Some believed that in order to be a kosher Jew you had to believe in a single divine figure and any other belief was simply idol worship. Others believed that God had a divine deputy or emissary or even a son, exalted above all the angels, who functioned as an intermediary between God and the world in creation, revelation, and redemption. Many Jews believed that redemption was going to be effected by a human being, an actual hidden scion of the house of David–an Anastasia–who at a certain point would take up the scepter and the sword, defeat Israel’s enemies, and return her to her former glory. Others believed that the redemption was going to be effected by that same second divine figure mentioned above and not a human being at all. And still others believed that these two were one and the same, that the Messiah of David would be the divine Redeemer. As I said, a complicated affair.

I would love to see Boyarin’s research from exclusively Jewish sources that supports his understanding of these different factions of Jews, some of whom held beliefs that so mirrored a Christian’s vision of Jesus as divine and as God’s son. You don’t typically hear that sort of viewpoint from Jewish scholars and sages, particularly in modern times.

In other parts of the book’s introduction, Boyarin indicates that he sees the final crystallization of Christ occurring in the church in the late 4th century, specifically at the Council of Nicaea, where the last few nails were driven into the coffin of “Jewish Christianity.” Prior to this, Boyarin believes there were groups of Jews who continued to honor Jesus as the Messiah and the sent one of the God of Jacob; that faith in Jesus was not inconsistent with being a halakhic Jew. In fact, quoting a letter of St. Jerome (347-420 CE) written to St. Augustine of Hippo, Boyarin thinks there where a few small “Christian Jewish” sects that survived into the early 5th century.

In our own day there exists a sect among the Jews throughout all the synagogues of the East, which is called the sect of the Minei, and is even now condemned by the Pharisees. The adherents to this sect are known commonly as Nazarenes; they believe in Christ the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary; and they say that He who suffered under Pontius Pilate and rose again, is the same as the one in whom we believe. But while they desire to be both Jews and Christians, they are neither one nor the other.

Boyarin points out that sadly, Jerome was unable to reconcile Christianity and Judaism, even at this early stage in the history of the church, and yet these “minim” (sectarians) and “Notzrim” (Nazarenes) were Jewish people who lived halachically Jewish lives, keeping kosher, observing the Shabbat, and performing the other mitzvot according to the Torah of Moses…and lifting up this carpenter from Nazareth as the Messiah, who came once and will come again.

Anyone familiar with Christianity’s history and how it is intertwined (rather tragically) with the history of post-Second Temple Judaism, knows something of how the schism between Gentile Christians and diaspora Jews was formed, widened, and eventually ruptured across the pages of the Bible and the Talmud in a bloody, awful mess.

My wife and daughter (sometimes with the “help” of my three-year old grandson Landon) are avid bakers. They have their specialized tools and devices to assist them in their craft, much as an expert carpenter has his coveted power tools. A great deal is made of the mixing bowl and the various mechanisms and peripheral elements that stir delicious substances together, this way and that, in order to produce the correct result that is fit for baking (but first, fit for sampling, at least if it’s cookie dough, by the small “helper” in the kitchen…and occasionally by grandpa).

History has provided for us the converse; an “unmixing bowl” of something that was once an acceptable and perhaps even integral ingredient in the “dough” of ancient Judaism. The portions of that “dough” which eventually became Christianity are now as popular among the descendants of Jacob as a bowl of flour on the kitchen table of a Jewish home during Passover week.

And so, when a “Christian Bible” was sent to each of the Jewish MKs in Jerusalem a few days ago, all the wheels fell off the cart, so to speak, and the stories and letters telling the tales of the man who many Jews once believed was the Messiah is now treated as an object of scorn and insult.

And ultimately trashed.

But there are a few, very few Jews who are re-examining the mixing bowl to see if there is anything left over at the bottom or clinging to the rim, that may serve as a reminder of the “Maggid of Natzaret;” the one who may have been much more than a small town carpenter turned itinerant teacher, or a failed revolutionary who came to a bad end. What if the story of Jesus Christ is really a Jewish story? Could such a thing be possible? Can a modern Jewish Talmudic scholar breach the separating wall between Christianity and Judaism and find this man, or more than a man, waiting in the shadows?

That’s what I’m going to find out as I continue to read Boyarin’s book.

For in discovering the Jewish story of the Jewish Jesus, we may all find out who we really are as people created in His image. And by finding our own face in the mirror, we can find his face, and we can take ownership of the reality of the Lord, Savior, and Messiah, who was sent not just for Israel, but for the entire world.

You need to take ownership of those things important in life—the charity you give, the kind deeds you do, the Torah you learn and teach.

You can’t just say, “This is G‑d’s business, He has to take care of it.” It has to hurt when it doesn’t work out; you have to dance with joy when it does.

That is why G‑d created the “I”—so that we would do these things as owners, not just as workers.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“My Thing”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

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The Pious Fraud

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In a reply to a yechidus query in the winter of 5635 (1874-75), my grandfather said to my father: The yetzer hara, (the evil impulse), is called “animal soul,” not because it is necessarily a brute animal. At times it may be a fox, the most cunning of beasts, and great wisdom is needed to perceive its machinations. At other times it may clothe itself in the garb of an earnest, straightforward, humble tzadik, possessing fine traits of character.

The animal soul manifests itself in each person according to his individual character. One person may suddenly experience a powerful longing to study Chassidus or to meditate deeply on some chassidic concept. The truth is, however, that this is nothing more than the yetzer hara’s counsel and the animal soul’s machinations to prevent him from engaging in the avoda of davening or a similar activity.

Take this as a general principle and remember it always: Any matter that is effective towards or actually leads to active avoda, and is confronted with opposition of any sort, even the most noble, that opposition is the scheming of the animal soul. My father concluded: Until then I had not known that there can be a “pious” animal soul, let alone a “chassidic” animal soul.

“Today’s Day”
Shabbat * Sivan 23, 5703
Compiled and arranged by the Lubavitcher Rebbe
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of righteous memory, in 5703 (1943)
from the talks and letters of the sixth Chabad Rebbe
Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, of righteous memory
Translated by Yitschak Meir Kagan

The nature of good vs. evil and the nature of the human soul is somewhat more complicated in Judaism than it is in Christianity. I’m not going to spend any time trying to delve into these explanations, since there are people much more knowledgable and wiser than I am who have already made those distinctions. I do want to talk about how as human beings, we tend to fool ourselves, though. I know a lot about that.

It’s interesting to consider that even a very righteous person who desires to study Chassidus (If you’re Christian, think of it as studying the Bible, though that is a woefully inadequate comparison) could actually be caving into his “evil impulse.” I mean, what’s wrong with studying the Bible, folks? Or, what’s wrong with praying, or going to your local house of worship?

According to the commentary, even the desire to do something praiseworthy may be masking something else we’re trying to avoid, including our own awareness that we’re not being forthright in our motivations.

Really?

Think about this.

I want to read and study the Bible or some online commentary on the Torah. Being who I am, I’ll probably start writing a blog about it just because it’s in my nature to turn Bible study into blogs. But the floor needs to be vacuumed. Or my daughter needs a ride to work. Or my grandson is visiting and wants me to play with him. Or something is bothering my wife and she wants to talk with me about it. Or…

Well, you get the idea.

There’s nothing wrong with studying. There’s nothing wrong with blogging about Biblical or faith-based topics…unless they get in the way of “the weightier matters of the Torah,” which almost always involves actually doing some sort of good deed for another human being.

Imagine an extreme case where a person studied the Torah to the exclusion of all other considerations, including earning a living and supporting his family.

For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. –2 Thessalonians 3:10 (ESV)

But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. –1 Timothy 5:8 (ESV)

But most of us aren’t that extreme. We do however, know how to appear pious and holy to the outside world and still have defective motives though.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. –Matthew 23:27-28 (ESV)

Jesus was addressing people who knew they were being hypocrites and they didn’t mind behaving that way. What about those of us who truly believe we’re doing the right thing, but are really serving our own interests? We may really tell ourselves that studying Torah is more important than getting a job or getting a better job so we can support our families. We may tell ourselves that studying the Bible is more important than doing the vacuuming, washing the dishes, making dinner for the kids, or helping our neighbor with her yard work. I suppose, on a certain level, we can make a convincing case for it, too. After all, what’s wrong with studying the Word of God? What’s wrong with being immersed in the Bible? What’s wrong with being consumed and even obsessed with a life of faith?

What? But doesn’t a life of faith involve actually doing something about it? Doesn’t mowing your neighbor’s yard override praying, at least sometimes? Should we always ignore people for the sake of something we consider a higher ideal?

It’s probably not clear-cut in every single situation, but often we are so clever, we convince ourselves to do what we want to do, something that is indeed praiseworthy, so we can get out of doing something we don’t want to do that is equally praiseworthy.

The ego of man is cannibalistic in essence. At worst, it destroys everyone and everything in its path in order to attain its selfish goals. At best, as in the case of a civilized, refined and tolerant individual, it acknowledges its status as one among many, avows its support of the “human rights” of its fellows and concedes the legitimacy of pursuits other than its own. But even the most liberal-minded of men cannot escape the trappings of the ego: he will always see his fellow through the prism of self. His (seemingly) objective mind will point out that he shares the planet with billions of others, that there exist countless perspectives and callings in addition to his own. Deep down, however, the self will remain the gravitational center of reality, its ultimate point of reference. He will see others as necessary, perhaps crucial, but always secondary cogs to the kingpin of self.

Commentary on Ethics of Our Fathers
“The Contemporary Cannibal”
Sivan 23, 5772 * June 13, 2012
Chabad.org

This is part of a direct commentary on the following:

Rabbi Chaninah, deputy to the kohanim, would say: Pray for the integrity of the sovereignty, for were it not for the fear of its authority a man would swallow his neighbor alive. Rabbi Chaninah son of Tradyon would say: … Two who sit and exchange words of Torah, the Divine Presence rests amongst them…

-Ethics of the Fathers, 3:2

On the surface, it doesn’t seem as if there’s a connection between our need for a sovereign in order to curb man’s aggressive nature and studying words of Torah, but with just a little thought, the link becomes apparent.

So anyone who views the universe as an ownerless, arbitrary existence will never transcend the moral and intellectual cannibalism of the ego. For without a supreme authority that creates, defines and gives direction to all of creation, the self and its perceptions are the sole judge of right and wrong; inevitably, one’s vision of others will be tinted with the color of self.

It is only through the fear of G-d, only through the acceptance of the sovereignty of the King Of All Kings, that man can grow beyond the prejudice and anarchy of the ego. It is only by sensing an Absolute Truth before which all are equally insignificant, but which grants significance to the countless individual roles that fulfill the Divine purpose in creation, that an individual can genuinely see his fellow as his equal.

And because the naturally self-centered consciousness of man is, by definition, incapable of truly seeing beyond itself, this truth it is not something that one can understand and feel with the contemporary tools of his mind and heart. One must therefore “pray for the integrity of the sovereignty” in his life. One must concede that the transcendence of self is beyond his humanly natural capabilities, and humbly request that he be granted a higher, ego-free vision of his fellow.

It is only by acknowledging the absolute sovereign of the universe and submitting to His will that we can stop, look at what we’re doing, and realize what is really important in our lives and in the lives of those around us. Studying the Bible is important. Praying is important. Playing with your three-year old grandson is more important. God’s Bible is always there and is vital in helping us understand the importance of our roles, but once a moment in a child’s life has passed, you never get it back again.

You need to decide what you are. If you believe yourself to be angel, be prepared for some disappointment. If you think of yourself as a beast, you may well become depressed.

Best to know you are human. Stay away from situations you can’t handle, and face up to the mess when you fall down. That’s even higher than the angels.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Identity”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

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God as a Teacher

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Talmud StudyThe metaphor of God as teacher and human beings as His pupils, a metaphor that gains prominence in the rabbinic period, is also an apt means of describing the covenantal relationship. God as teacher encourages His pupils to think for themselves and assume intellectual responsibility for the way Torah is to be understood and practiced. The fact that the rabbis not only declared that the age of prophecy had ended, but insisted also that the talmudic sage ranked higher than the prophet, seems to suggest that the community has a higher appreciation of its covenantal relationship to God when it sees Him as its teacher than when it sees Him as an authoritarian voice dictating His will through the prophets.

God as a loving husband and the devoted teacher do not require reward and punishment to play a significant role in the covenantal relationship. They are not frameworks of absolute power of one covenantal partner over the other, but frameworks in which the integrity of both partners is recognized and the human partner is enabled to feel personal dignity and to develop the capabilities of responsibility.

-Rabbi David Hartman
from the Introduction of his book
A Living Covenant: The Innovative Spirit in Traditional Judaism

Are you a God-fearing man, Senator? That is such a strange phrase. I’ve always thought of God as a teacher; a bringer of light, wisdom, and understanding.

-Erik Lehnsheer/Magneto (played by Ian McKellen)
X-Men (2000)

I just did two strange and different things, at least from a Christian point of view. I used Rabbi Hartman’s quote to describe God as primarily a teacher, and I quoted a comic book movie to do the same thing. Strange. Interestingly enough, the character of Eric (Magneto) Lehnsheer is portrayed as a Jewish Holocaust survivor, so his perspectives may have a place in today’s “meditation.”

It’s not as if Judaism doesn’t see God as a Judge, but He is not only a Judge (and I need to be careful here, since I’ve mischaracterized aspects of Judaism before). The Bible is replete with “marriage metaphors” in which God is portrayed as a loving husband to a sometimes faithless Israel. While this metaphor is occasionally used by Christianity to justify the supersessionist view that the church (the loyal wife) has replaced Israel (the faithless wife), in fact, God has also said that He will take back Israel when she turns back to Him and that He will never permanently abandon her.

However, I’m less interested in discussing the topic of supersessionism and more interested in exploring God as our teacher. As Rabbi Hartman seems to say, this casts God in a completely different light than the one by which we are accustomed to viewing Him. It also nicely fits into how Judaism sees the role of human authority within the realm of faith. I continue now with Hartman as he speaks in his book’s Introduction.

When Christian ministers ask me at what age or on what occasion I received my calling as a rabbi, I often find myself hesitating over how to respond. If I answer it began when I entered yeshivah at age five to study Bible and Talmud, they might believe that I am likening myself to Jeremiah, who received his prophetic calling as a child. If I tell them that I never received a calling but was ordained after my teachers concluded that I was intellectually capable of rendering competent decisions regarding what is prohibited and permitted by Jewish law, they might be shocked at meeting a modern version of a Pharisee. They could perhaps find confirmation for the allegation that legalism had replaced the living guidance of God.

…Yet, as a traditional halakhic Jew, I know that a rabbi is a teacher whose spiritual role is premised on possession of an intellectual understanding of the Jewish tradition and commitment to the Jewish people. A direct call from God is not required to legitimize activity as a rabbi in Israel.

I can only imagine that the confusion Rabbi Hartman expects of the Christian ministers he references is reflected in the minds and hearts of any Christians reading this missive. Indeed, Judaism is often seen as a legalistic, works-based, and spiritually “dead” faith for exactly the reasons Rabbi Hartman states. And yet he also says that a “rabbi is a teacher whose spiritual role is premised on possession of an intellect understanding of the Jewish tradition,” presupposing that rabbis actually have spiritual roles in Judaism. So where is the spirituality?

What is spirituality?

According to Wikipedia, spirituality “refers to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” That’s probably not a very helpful definition, but spirituality is difficult to define, largely because the spirit cannot be conclusively demonstrated in a material world.

In some branches of Christianity, spirituality is considered synonymous with emotion, or more specifically, an emotional experience that is inspired by a spiritual encounter with God (or one that bypasses God and focuses specifically on Jesus Christ). We tend to think of spirituality as a “feeling.” Most Christians don’t tend to relate to spirituality as a thought or as something that happens when we study and learn from a teacher or rabbi.

And yet, Rabbi Hartman seems to be saying that learning Torah and Talmud is a spiritual experience. I don’t know if that’s what he’s actually saying, but I think I can make a case for it. I think that in Judaism (this is just my opinion, of course), the sense of a Jew’s identity is inexorably tied to Jewish history, traditional Jewish thought, Talmudic study, midrash, halachah, and understanding. You might even think of the passionate debates that occur in yeshivah as a metaphor for a Jew “wrestling with God.” (Genesis 32:22-32)

The concept of wrestling or debating with God may seem alien and even sacrilegious to a Christian, even though we have ample examples from the Bible. Look at Abraham boldly debating with God over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:16-33) and Moses pleading with God to spare the Children of Israel after the sin of the Golden Calf. (Exodus 32:9-14). Can a Christian even understand this the way a Jew can?

That said, Rabbi Hartman doesn’t see a complete dissonance between Jews and Christians.

…those early experiences were given profound intellectual and philosophical support in the years of my graduate study at Fordham University. Living with the Jesuits, sensing the intellectual and spiritual integrity of my teachers, observing how our different faiths were reciprocally enriched through our encounters – these were experiences that I could not ignore in developing my own appreciation of what it is to stand as a covenantal Jew before God.

I can’t say that all Jews will agree with Rabbi Hartman’s statements and I’m sure not all Christians will either. We see, based on everything I’ve written and quoted up to this point, that Christianity and Judaism conceptualize themselves and their relationship with God on a spiritual level in fundamentally different ways. We see God and how we are supposed to connect to Him from two totally different directions. And yet there are the occasional glimmers when, if we try hard enough, we just might be able to understand that we have a few things in common, as Rabbi Hartman pointed out in his description of his time among the Jesuits.

But God is One. He is the God of the Jews and the nations. He makes the rains descend on not only Jews and Christians, but on the righteous and unrighteous alike. He sent His “only begotten son” “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” (2 Peter 3:0 ESV)

If God is our teacher, is He providing two wholly dissimilar lessons, one for the Jews and the other for everyone else? Christianity doesn’t think so, but their (our) solution is to replace the original lesson God taught at Sinai with the one taught by Jesus at Calvary. Traditional Jews believe that God teaches a larger lesson (the Torah) to the Jews and a subset of that lesson (the Noahide laws) to the nations.

I don’t agree with either viewpoint and believe that it is God’s intention to ultimately reconcile Israel with the nations as co-existing covenant members, Sinai and Messianic, standing side-by-side in front of the throne of God. I don’t know how to completely articulate this relationship yet, especially in terms of our mutually dependent roles being described in scripture, but I believe it is well worth pursuing.

We see that at the end of all things, the ” throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it (the city), and his servants will worship him.” (Revelation 22:3 ESV) I believe those servants are both Israel and we from among the nations who have demonstrated an enduring faith, who have “fought the good fight,” and “have finished the race.” (2 Timothy 4:7)

If God is speaking to both the Jew and the Christian (and indeed, to the entire world), we must discover what the lesson is and what our teacher wants us to learn. Jesus was rightly called “teacher” and “rabbi” and he taught as did the other rabbis during the late Second Temple period in Israel. This was an experience that his disciples found to be completely consistent with how other disciples learned from their rabbis. From what we see in the Bible, it was also consistent with how we Christians experience spirituality, love, compassion, and truth.

Some Jewish thinkers believe that the Second Temple was destroyed, not because of general faithlessness among the Jews, but because of the sin of baseless hatred between one Jew and another. The counterpoint to this sin, and what some believe will aid in the coming of the Messiah, is for Jews to show unrestrained love by…

reaching out to another person – any other person – and showing him care, consideration, and concern. Do a favor for someone else, not because there is a reason to do so, but because you care for him.

“Keeping In Touch: The Three Weeks”
Based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson
Adapted by Rabbi Eli Touger
Chabad.org

If we are trying to hear the lessons being taught by our rabbi and Master, perhaps reaching out to everyone, Jew and Gentile alike, with care, consideration, and concern, might be a good place to start.

A river of life flows through the inner worlds, emerging from there into your own, carrying with it all your needs.

You need to know about that river, for it carries upstream as well.

When you celebrate that river with a blessing for your food, out loud and with joy, then your voice echoes back with even greater force, replenishing all the higher worlds through which the river passes on its way. The channels of life are widened and their currents grow strong.

Take care of your river. Invest in it and reap the dividends.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“The Echo Upstream”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

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The Messiah’s Lament

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Someone once asked the Chozeh of Lublin, zt”l, an interesting question about a well-known statement found on today’s daf. “Our sages tell us that a person who says something in the name of the one who originally said it brings redemption to the world. It seem strange that after all these centuries that the Jewish people have learned Talmud—which quotes the original source for every statement—we have not yet been redeemed!”

The rebbe immediately supplied an excellent reply to this question. “We can understand this in light of what I have already said: that there are two types of redemption. Besides a general redemption for the Jewish people through our righteous redeemer, there is also a personal redemption for every Jew. So the redemption alluded to here is not the ultimate redemption at all. It refers to every Jew’s personal needs, both material and spiritual. When a Jew says something in the name of its originator, he affords this type of redemption to the world.”

Rav Shmuel, the student of the renowned Be’er Mayim Chaim, zt”l, gave a similar response. “It is clear from the very words of our sages themselves that this does not refer to bringing Moshiach. Firstly, it says that it brings גאולה , redemption, not the גואל , redeemer. Secondly, our sages learn this from Esther. When Esther revealed the assassination plot of Bigsan and Seresh to Achasverosh, she told him this in the name of Mordechai. Just as there we find that this led to a specific redemption for the Jews and it was not the actual arrival of Moshiach, the same is true at all times. When someone says something in the name of its originator, a Jew somewhere is saved from difficulty!”

Daf Yomi Digest
Stories Off the Daf
“Bringing Redemption to the World”
Shabbos, June 9, 2012
Niddah 19

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” –Matthew 23:37-39 (ESV)

I’ve written about the connection between Jewish return to the Torah and Israel’s national redemption before, but I still don’t understand it very well. Our “story off the daf” for the previous Shabbat discusses what seems to be a related matter, but while I think it’s interesting and perhaps ultimately important, the ability to fully comprehend what it means against the larger backdrop of Israel, the Messiah, and humanity continues to elude me.

I usually “get in trouble” for two reasons when I opine in this direction. I am usually criticized for “buying into” the various arcane and mystic Jewish writings as if they are fact, and I am accused of applying midrash as if it can be directly attached to the Gospels. While none of this is necessarily true, I do believe it is important to illustrate that general Jewish thought and perspectives on matters such as redemption, the Messiah, and God can be bound by a single though slender thread as we weave our way from ancient to modern times. It’s the thread that’s important because it shows that the destruction of the Second Temple did not disconnect the Jewish people from their faith in or their covenant relationship with God.

What remains mysterious to me though, is how to connect the Jewish vision of Israel’s national redemption and the return of the Messiah back to what we see in the Scriptures. I think there is a clue, albeit a rather faint one, in the Master’s lament over Jerusalem from Matthew 23:37-39. Let’s consider a few things.

The general assumption in Christianity is that the Temple was destroyed and the Jews scattered because they had rejected Jesus as the Messiah. But is that true? Can we find anywhere in either Scripture or Rabbinic commentary that says the Jews will suffer exile for the rejection of the Messiah? If you know where this is found, please point me to it, because I have never seen such a pronouncement in the Bible.

Why do Jews believe the Temple was destroyed and the Jewish nation sent into exile?

Why was the Temple destroyed? One of the reasons given by our Sages was unwarranted hatred. The Jewish people, even during the siege of Jerusalem, remained fractionalized and divided. And on the individual level, there was a lack of concern, love, and respect for each other.

How can this be corrected? By showing unrestrained love. By reaching out to another person – any other person – and showing him care, consideration, and concern. Do a favor for someone else, not because there is a reason to do so, but because you care for him.

“Keeping In Touch: The Three Weeks”
Based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson
Adapted by Rabbi Eli Touger
Chabad.org

There are probably other traditional reasons but this is the one I encounter most often. Notice that a solution to the exile is also offered in showing “unrestrained love” toward your fellow. Our popular culture refers to “random acts of kindness” which sounds like a good idea, too.

Historically and in Scripture, we find that God has promised the destruction of the Temple and Israel’s national exile as consequences for disobedience to Torah and straying after “alien gods,” which of course, has little or nothing to do with a rejection of Jesus as Messiah (Post-Second Temple, the Jewish resistance to pursuing “alien gods” is one of the primary reasons why many Jews have rejected the Christian Jesus). Messiah, in Jewish thought, isn’t the cause of national exile, but the ultimate hope of its end.

Galut means exile. Nearly 2,000 years ago the Jewish nation was driven out of its homeland and sent off into a tear-soaked galut that lasts to this very day. We wait and yearn for the day when our galut and suffering come to an end, when we will be returned to the Holy Land, with the coming of our redeemer, the Moshiach.

-from “Moshiach 101”
Chabad.org

The mashiach will bring about the political and spiritual redemption of the Jewish people by bringing us back to Israel and restoring Jerusalem (Isaiah 11:11-12; Jeremiah 23:8; 30:3; Hosea 3:4-5). He will establish a government in Israel that will be the center of all world government, both for Jews and gentiles (Isaiah 2:2-4; 11:10; 42:1). He will rebuild the Temple and re-establish its worship (Jeremiah 33:18). He will restore the religious court system of Israel and establish Jewish law as the law of the land (Jeremiah 33:15).

–Judaism 101

Now let’s return to the Messiah’s lament over Jerusalem. What does he say is Israel’s “crime?”

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!

In every era of disobedience in Israel, those messengers of God, the prophets, were imprisoned or killed when they brought a message that was intended to turn them from their sins back to God. It wasn’t so much that the identity of the prophets were in doubt, Israel just didn’t want to hear the message. They were not “willing to be gathered.” So too in the time of Jesus. Many believed he was the Messiah and while history records that the level of religious observance during the late Second Temple era was rather high among the general Jewish population, baseless hatred and hostility between a Jew and his fellow was also present. The message of Jesus was to love one another (John 13:34) but largely, the message was rejected.

So what is the consequence for such a rejection of the message of love and repentance? There are actually two. The first is:

See, your house is left to you desolate.

This is exactly what happened when the vast majority of the Jewish population was forced out of Israel. The Land of Israel (“house”) was left desolate, not only of the Jewish people but of the blessings of God. This desolation would continue to be literally true in the land as long as there was not a substantial Jewish presence. The famous American author Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) described such desolation:

“….. A desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds… a silent mournful expanse…. a desolation…. we never saw a human being on the whole route…. hardly a tree or shrub anywhere. Even the olive tree and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.”

from The Innocents Abroad

The punishment it seems, not only affected the Jewish people, but the Land of Israel as well.

But what of the second consequence:

For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’

The common understanding of this is plain. Israel will not see the Messiah again until it declares him (i.e. Jesus) as Messiah and Lord.

I must admit, it’s difficult to connect the national redemption of Israel and return of the Jewish people to the Torah with not only the Messiah’s return, but in Israel’s specifically recognizing Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. So in general, when do Jews believe the Messiah will come. Opinions vary, but the Judaism 101 site offers a summary:

Although some scholars believed that G-d has set aside a specific date for the coming of the mashiach, most authority suggests that the conduct of mankind will determine the time of the mashiach’s coming. In general, it is believed that the mashiach will come in a time when he is most needed (because the world is so sinful), or in a time when he is most deserved (because the world is so good). For example, each of the following has been suggested as the time when the mashiach will come:

  • if Israel repented a single day;
  • if Israel observed a single Shabbat properly;
  • if Israel observed two Shabbats in a row properly;
  • in a generation that is totally innocent or totally guilty;
  • in a generation that loses hope;
  • in a generation where children are totally disrespectful towards their parents and elders;

None of those options seems to directly connect to, “you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'” I must admit to being at a loss, although the first three and particularly the first option seem somewhat promising.

So, either I am unaware of some vital scripture or other piece of information that ties the Messiah’s lament to how Jews understand national redemption of Israel, the Torah, and the coming of Messiah, or there is a really big disconnect between Jewish thought, even within Messianic Judaism, and how the record of the Gospels and the writings of the apostles describe redemption and the return of Jesus.

I’m not writing this “meditation” to offer answers but to pose questions. This is my continued exploration into this topic, and I’m trying to understand without summarily dismissing the Jewish perspective on their own national redemption (as perhaps many other Christians would). I offer this subject up for discussion and commentary, particularly to my friends in the Messianic Jewish movement who may actually have a unifying solution. If there is an answer to the mystery, where can it be found?

Why were we made so small, with such great heavens above our heads? Because He desired creatures that would know wonder.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Why the Heavens?”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org