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The Difference Between Night and Day

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In creating the whole of existence, G-d made forces that reveal Him and forces that oppose Him –He made light and He made darkness. One who does good brings in more light. One who fails, feeds the darkness.

But the one who fails and then returns transcends that entire scheme. He reaches out directly to the Essential Creator. Beyond darkness and light.

And so, his darkness becomes light.

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

How do you tell the difference between night and day? In a literal sense, all you have to do is look outside to see if it is light or dark. You can also check any of the devices that tell us what time it is on a 24-hour clock, usually available through the Internet, so that you know not only whether it is day or night, but the precise time as well.

How do you tell the difference between fact and fiction? Well, we know that the things we see on TV shows and movies such as Star Trek are pretty much fiction. No one can really visit other planets, “beam” to destination from tens of thousands of miles away, or diagnose complex medical ailments with a wave of a “tricorder”. We do know that we can only barely visit the moon, which we haven’t done in manned-exploration in decades, launch rockets to an orbiting space station on a semi-regular basis, and that while modern medical technology can diagnose many illnesses, much of what people suffer from remains a mystery.

How do you tell the difference between truth and falsehood? I don’t mean whether or not a used car salesman is trying to cheat you by lying about the condition of a car you are thinking of purchasing, but what about God’s truth? How do you know what is true about God and what is not? You may think you know the answer to that question in some canned way (“the truth is in the Bible”) but it’s not that easy.

Yesterday, Messianic blogger Derek Leman published a missive called Mainstream vs. Crackpot Scholarship, and I enthusiastically congratulate him on this effort. In virtually every established religious tradition, there is solid, well-researched information that acts as the basis for the beliefs and faith of the adherents of said-religious traditions. There is also a bunch of “junk scholarship” which is based on bad interpretation of holy writings, wishful thinking, and outright lies. Before continuing here, please visit Derek’s blog via the link above and see what he has to say in detail.

Learning in the “information age” has become exponentially confusing. Anyone can create a website, blog, or YouTube video in minutes spouting off their particular brand of theology, philosophy, or teaching on “truth”. The proponents of “black helicopters” are no longer confined to “fringie” TV or radio broadcasts. Now they are available via Google and for the many who lack formal training in Biblical scholarship, it can be very difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff.

How does one tell the difference between junk and quality teaching? Besides consulting reliable sources, which Derek has offered to provide, you might want to start by examining your “wishful thinking”. We all have a “theological ax to grind” so to speak. We all have our sacred cows that we are unwilling to slaughter on the altar of established Biblical reality. There are things that we don’t want to give up in our belief system, not necessarily because they are solid religious truth, but because they make us feel better and they sound just so “cool”.

However “cool” is not necessarily “truth”.

In an absolute sense, we search for truth all of our lives. This isn’t just a statement applied to religious people but to all people. We want to find the meaning and purpose of our lives so that we have some sort of context for our existence and our actions. We want a direction. We want a moral and ethical compass. Where do we find it? Some find their reality in secular humanism and the established scientific facts (and I remind you that facts and truth are not the same thing). Some find it among the plethora of religious disciples that exist in the world today. Some find it in sex, drugs, booze, entertainment venues, or whatever distractions and pleasures we find in the society around us. In the latter case, they don’t concern themselves with a “truth” outside of their personal existence, they just hide in a cocoon of unreality and hope for the best.

Some, as Derek pointed out, seek their truth in the fantastic, the amazing, the “gee whiz” junk scholarship that exists at the far edges of more legitimate religions, as if a faith in the One, Supreme, Creative, God were not “fantastic” enough for their imaginations.

What are we looking for? Truth? Not exactly.

We’re looking for a truth that fits who we think we are. We want a truth that we can easily accept without having to turn ourselves inside out and anguish over having possibly been wrong about our existence and about God for all of our lives up to this point. We want a truth that we have control over. To do that, we have to take truth away from God.

OK, to be fair, there is no one person or one denomination or sect that can say they have absolute ownership of total and untainted truth from God. There are plenty of traditions that make this claim, but none of those claims can be established without question. Within Judaism and within Christianity, there are many different traditions and ways to understand truth but they are not truth in and of themselves. We cannot access “pure truth” from God. Perhaps no person has, not even Abraham or Moses, though they certainly came closer than we have today. I would say that Jesus knew that truth first hand, but the Messiah is unique and though we Christians aspire to be like him, we can only travel up the path but not fully achieve the destination, at least not this side of paradise.

Some people just settle for less and after a time, they pretend that they have discovered what they want. Then they truly believe the illusion is real. Here’s what I mean.

The Midrash Tanchuma in Shemini tells a very striking story about how overindulgence in wine can warp one’s understanding: “When a drunk is inebriated he sits joyfully as though in Gan Eden. There was a pious man whose father drank publicly, much to the humiliation of his son. The pious man said, ‘Father, I will purchase fine wine and bring it to your house if you will only stop frequenting taverns. When you go to such places you shame me and yourself.’ Each day he would bring his father spirits to drink in the morning and the evening. When his father would pass out, the son would place him in bed to sleep it off.

‘One rainy day, as the upstanding man walked through the market on his way to shul, he noticed a drunk lying in the middle of the marketplace. Water was streaming over him as children hit him and threw dirt in his face and stuffed it in his mouth. The son thought, ‘I will bring my father here. Seeing the shame of this drunk will finally cure him of his obsession to drink wine.’ When his elderly father witnessed this spectacle, he bent down to the drunk and whispered in his ear. His son was horrified to over hear his father ask, ‘Tell me, my friend. In which pub did you procure such potent liquor?’ The mortified son cried, ‘Father is that what I brought you here for? Do you not see the incredible embarrassment this man suffers because of his habit?’

“The elderly father replied, ‘My son, I have no pleasure in life besides drinking. This is my Gan Eden!’”

Mishnah Berura Yomi Digest
Stories to Share
“The Drunkenness of Lot”
Siman 128 Seif 37-38

I know a secular person could read what I’ve written so far and say to me that by accepting my religious convictions as truth, I have given up and am pretending that my “fiction” is real. I don’t blame that secular individual, because what any person who has faith and trust in God believes certainly seems fictional to one who is not so oriented. Paul even spoke to this person.

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. –1 Corinthians 2:14 (ESV)

Unfortunately, a person that subscribes to what I consider beliefs based on junk scholarship may also say that the “spirit” revealed these “truths” to him. Some months ago, I wrote a blog post called The Irrelevant Drunkard which addressed many of the issues I bring up today. In that “meditation”, I urged my readers not to judge other variants of our faith too harshly, for how indeed to we know in absolute terms that they are always wrong and we are always right? How do we know that there is only one way to pray and it is the way that we pray? How do we know that there is only one way to conduct a worship service and it is the way we conduct a worship service? How do we know that we have our facts and particularly our truth lined up with God and that only we have the inside scoop to those facts and that truth?

We don’t. But we have a place to start.

We have a way to tell the difference between night and day, but to use it, we have to do something we don’t want to do. We have to temporarily suspend our beliefs and our assumptions, then access established and reliable sources of information about our faith. That means, no matter how attractive and fanciful a source may seem, we have to discard it, if it is on the list marked “junk scholarship”. I said before that no person or tradition has unfettered and unfiltered access to God’s truth and the same goes for God’s Bible. It is interpreted. In Judaism, it is impossible to understand the Bible apart from established tradition. You don’t just get to shoot from the hip and call it “spiritual exegesis”.

When you pray to God for wisdom and truth, try very hard not to imagine how God will answer that prayer. In fact, expect God to answer you in a way that you totally didn’t anticipate. If God responds to you in exactly the manner in which you envisioned, perhaps it’s not the Spirit of God speaking but the “spirit” of your own wants, needs, and desires. God rarely gives us what we want in exactly the way we want it, only speaking to confirm that our human imagination was “right” all along.

What is the difference between day and night? In a way, we spend all of our time looking out the window, going outside, moistening our finger and testing the wind, just to try to find out. There is truth. God is truth. I believe that. I trust that very much. But it is not something that once established, can be safely locked inside a drawer in a cabinet after being filed under “T” for truth. It is something that we examine and pour over every minute of every day, like trying to decipher a code written by men separated from us by thousands of miles and tens of centuries. It’s like attempting to loosen an infinite knot looped and tied within the fabric of an endless and inscrutable reality.

Rabbi Jerome Epstein once wrote:

As a Jew, I believe that the coming of the Messiah does not depend on my belief that he will come, nor does it rest solely in God’s hands. I believe it remains our task to bring the Messiah — that he will arrive only when we are in a state of readiness to bring him, to welcome him, to appreciate him. Salvation must be earned. And thus it is what we do, as Jews, that will determine the time of the Messianic arrival.

Rabbi Epstein’s belief is based partly on the fact that he is a Jew. It’s not as if all Jews believe as he does, but he allows his Jewish identity to define his truth. It is not the same truth as other Jews have and certainly not the same truth people who are not Jewish have. A Christian would not typically accept this truth because the Rabbi says that “salvation must be earned” which goes against the church’s belief that salvation through Jesus Christ is a free gift, as if our relationship with God were a completely passive experience for us.

Truth is something of an active choice. I believe there is an absolute truth in God, but no man can access it. We use our religion and our holy books as a kind of “interface” to allow us access to God, but that interface is somewhat symbolic. It’s like the operating system on your computer provides a “graphical user interface” that allows you come control over the hardware and software of your machine, but not direct and complete access. There are interfaces that are better than others. There are interfaces where the code is better written and that perform better and with fewer errors. Like the wise consumer looking for the best computer with the most useful interface, we go shopping. Pursuing the truth is the same. Even once we have “purchased”, we continue to explore our device by accessing and exploring the interface. We discover errors in the user’s manual on occasion. We locate a bug or two. Most of all, if we’re honest, we differentiate between a bug in the program and our own misunderstanding. We admit that how we thought the interface would work wasn’t actually how is actually supposed to work, according to the manufacturer.

The problem isn’t with the interfaces or the truths or the Bibles or the religions, the problem is with our choices; which ones we make and why we make them. The problem is that, having once made a choice, we stop checking in on the purchase. We stop making sure we understand how it works and what our part is in investigating new “truths” about the interface and what lies beneath. We cannot settle. We cannot arrive at the belief that lying drunk in a gutter is Gan Eden. We have to keep searching for God everyday along our path and we have to choose reliable markers on that path rather than fog and illusion. We have not yet arrived at total truth and we will never arrive until the say of the blowing of the great Shofar that announces the Messiah’s return.

But we have a traveling companion along the path and he urges us everyday to be honest with ourselves. The path to truth begins with sometimes brutal honesty, not in satisfying our dreams and wants. God is truth. We just have to want to listen to Him more than we listen to ourselves.

Then our eyes will be able to see when it is day and when it is night, at least as through a mirror dimly (1 Corinthians 13:12).

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Replay: Getting in the Wheelbarrow

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I first published the blog post “Getting in the Wheelbarrow” last spring on my now defunct Searching for the Light on the Path blogspot. Given the set of challenges I’ve been facing lately, it seemed like a good time to pass this message along again.

There are two words often lumped together and commonly perceived as synonymous, when in reality they are not.

The two are Faith and Trust. In Hebrew, emunah and bitachon. One way of explaining the difference between these words is that the former is the belief that G-d exists. The latter is the knowledge thereof, or, more accurately, the result of that knowledge, in mind, heart, and deed.

Rabbeinu Bechaya (in his book Kad Hakemach) puts it this way: “Anyone who trusts has faith, but not anyone with faith trusts.”

-Mendel Kalmenson
“The Real Answer to the Question, Who Moved My Cheese?”
Chabad.org

This could be a useful answer to a lot of people’s difficulties in their relationship with God. It could be a useful answer to your relationship difficulties with God. It could be a useful answer to my relationship difficulties with God. We tend to think of having faith in God and trusting God as the same thing, but they’re not. Because they’re not, we’re expecting certain things to happen in our lives that aren’t going to happen. It’s like being married. If we believe in our spouse but don’t trust him or her, what kind of a marriage is that? Is it even a relationship at all?

Here’s another example from the same source:

This point can be further illustrated by a parable:

Long before the entertainment industry boomed, tightrope walking was a common form of amusement and recreation.

Once, a world-famous master of the sport visited a particular region. Word spread quickly, and many people turned up for the show. All was quiet as the master nimbly climbed the tree from which he would begin his dangerous trek.

But just before beginning his routine he called out: “Who here believes I can make it across safely?”

The crowd roared their affirmation. Again he asked the question and was greeted by the same response.

He then pulled out a wheelbarrow from between the branches and asked, less boisterously, “Which of you is willing to get inside the wheelbarrow as I cross?”

You could hear a pin drop.

Faith is the roaring response of the crowd; trust is climbing into the wheelbarrow.

It’s easy to have faith in God but not to trust Him. It’s easy to say “God exists and I believe in Him” as long as we don’t have to become personally involved in performing the weightier matters of Torah. We can have an incredible faith that the tightrope walker will make it to the other end of the rope as long as we don’t have to climb into his wheelbarrow.

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that – and shudder.

You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.-James 2:14-24

When James (Ya’akov) says “that a person is considered righteous by what they do”, he’s talking about trust or bitachon. Our problem, is that we “think” about God, and we “feel” all warm and fuzzy about Jesus, but we don’t “do” anything about changing our lives to conform to our thinking and feeling. Here’s another example:

Maimonides is one in a long line of Jewish commentators who have proposed rationalistic interpretations of Scripture. Thus, words denoting place, sight, hearing, or position (of God) are interpreted as mental properties or dispositions. In our own vocabulary, it could be said that Maimonides has attempted to demythologize biblical narrative.

-from Maimonides: A Guide for Today’s Perplexed
by Kenneth Seeskin

Maimonides tends to see Biblical interpretation as either literal or allegorical and his strength as a theologian, philosopher, and sage is in his rational approach to the Tanakh (Jewish Bible). However there is a significant gap in his vision. We can also interpret the Bible and God through a mystic and experiential lens. The mystic seeks to encounter God in an extra-natural realm; meeting Him outside the boundaries of our physical universe, but we can also experience God in our day-to-day life by experiencing ourselves. We can “do” God and not just “think” or “feel” God. We can be the answer to prayer. We can have and live out faith and trust.

We can get in the wheelbarrow.

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The Unburied Light

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You can blunder around in the dark, carefully avoiding every pit. You can grope through the murky haze for the exit, stumbling and falling in the mud, then struggling back to your feet to try again.

Or you can turn on the light. There is a switch to the inner light buried without a doubt inside your heart. Even if it is ever so small, that is not important. Even a tiny flame can push away the darkness of an enormous cavern.

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

This teaching seems fairly appropriate as we approach the close of Chanakuh. The lights and brightness of the menorah increase each night, declaring the glory of the miracles of God with greater illumination. This light also is a reminder to us that our “inner light” must glow and continue to shine brighter, declaring the glory of God and the message of salvation through His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. While it is easy to light the candles each night or the lights on a tree for those of you who have just finished your Christmas celebration, the light inside can be more stubborn to kindle. How many of us, as Rabbi Freeman says, “grope through the murky haze…stumbling and falling in the mud” when we could instead be lighting up our world?

This coming week, we study Torah Portion Vayigash where we find Joseph at last, revealing himself to his brothers.

Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and he cried out, “Have everyone withdraw from me!” So there was no one else about when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. His sobs were so loud that the Egyptians could hear, and so the news reached Pharaoh’s palace.

Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph. Is my father still well?” But his brothers could not answer him, so dumfounded were they on account of him.

Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come forward to me.” And when they came forward, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, he whom you sold into Egypt. Now do not be distressed or reproach Yourselves because you sold me hither; it was to save life that God sent me ahead of you. It is now two years that there has been famine in the land, and there are still five years to come in which there shall be no yield from tilling. God has sent me ahead of you to ensure Your survival on earth, and to save your lives in an extraordinary deliverance. So, it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh, lord of all his household, and ruler over the whole land of Egypt. –Genesis 45:1-8 (JPS Tanakh)

To insert my own metaphor, it’s as if Joseph turned on a switch and shown a light upon himself that revealed his true identity to his brothers when before, they had all been in the dark. Joseph did something else though. He also revealed the light of his character in reassuring his brothers that he bore them no ill will and that their acts of evil against him resulted in God doing immeasurable good. Joseph reveals this light again after the death of Jacob.

When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrong that we did him!” So they sent this message to Joseph, “Before his death your father left this instruction: So shall you say to Joseph, ‘Forgive, I urge you, the offense and guilt of your brothers who treated you so harshly.’ Therefore, please forgive the offense of the servants of the God of your father.” And Joseph was in tears as they spoke to him.

His brothers went to him themselves, flung themselves before him, and said, “We are prepared to be your slaves.” But Joseph said to them, “Have no fear! Am I a substitute for God? Besides, although you intended me harm, God intended it for good, so as to bring about the present result — the survival of many people. And so, fear not. I will sustain you and your children.” Thus he reassured them, speaking kindly to them. –Genesis 50:18-21 (JPS Tanakh)

If Jacob was the last barrier between Joseph’s revenge and his brothers, certainly it was removed upon the death of their father and Joseph was free to lay the entire weight of his awesome authority upon those who had caused him so much harm. Yet it was not Jacob but God who illuminated Joseph’s life and from that light came grace and mercy, not condemnation and death.

How much like the light of the Messiah this is and this light is within each of us who call ourselves disciples of the Master. We know or we should learn, that shining this light upon others inspires them to in turn, become that light, just as the Messiah’s light has inspired us.

Rav Aharon of Belz once hired a certain workman to do some repairs in his home. While the man was busy at his job, the rebbe overheard others in the room say in an undertone, “This Jew works on Shabbos!”

The Belzer Rebbe immediately retorted, “Impossible! And if he did work on Shabbos, it must have been because he thought it was Friday!” He then turned to the workman who had heard the whole exchange and said, “Isn’t that right? You got confused and thought that it was Friday?”

The worker remained silent.

The rebbe again said softly, “You must have mixed up the date and thought it was Friday, correct?”

But the worker still wouldn’t answer. For the third time, the rebbe pleaded, “Didn’t you really believe it was Friday and not the holy Shabbos?”

At the rebbe’s final, exquisitely gentle insistence, the Jewish laborer mouthed, “Yes,” and then burst into tears. The man became a shomer Shabbos from that moment.

Similarly, Rav Shach was once in a taxi with Rav Shraga Grossbard. When Rav Shraga asked the driver if he was a shomer Shabbos, Rav Shach immediately cut him off.

“How can you ask a Jew if he is shomer Shabbos? Of course he is shomer Shabbos!” he exclaimed.

Some time later, Rav Grossbard was in the same taxi and the driver recognized him. The man turned toward the rav and said, “Don’t you remember me? The day that I heard the rav say I must be shomer Shabbos, I became one!”

Mishna Berura Yomi Digest
Stories to Share
“Turning a Blind Eye”
Siman 128 Seif 30-33

That we, as believers, should have an unshakable faith in God is a foregone conclusion, but here we see that in having faith in other people, though they may not deserve it, will yield wonderful rewards, not the least of which will be to turn their hearts to God. We cannot do this by condemning or ridiculing others but in treating even a person who is immersed in wrong doing as if they were already walking in the footsteps of God.

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Forgetting God

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Praying with tefillinChumros are not a simple matter at all. Rav Pinchas of Koretz, zt”l, points out that a person can easily get so wrapped up in chumros that he forgets about Hashem. His hyper-focus on the minutiae makes him forget the goal.

As the Sichos HaRan, zt”l, pointed out two hundred years ago, there are those who spend inordinate amounts of time in the bathroom to ensure that they are clean for davening. Meanwhile, they are obsessively pursuing a goal that wastes a great deal of time and risk missing the zeman tefilah. Is this to the purpose when the only halachic requirement is that one check himself for a short time in the bathroom to ensure basic cleanliness before prayer?

Although chumros can propel someone on a high spiritual level even higher, they can be counterproductive for someone not really on the level. The entire idea of “levels” can be confusing, though, since sometimes a person chooses the path of chumrah not from genuine piety, but because he wants others to see him as such.

The Chazon Ish, zt”l, was known for his chumros, yet he did not advocate taking on extra chumros unless one is on the level. Interestingly, he once illustrated this rather common imbalance of priorities with a statement on today’s daf. “How can one who is not holding by them assume extra chumros? This can be compared to the statement in the Mishnah in Bechoros 40. There we find that having one eye bigger than the other is a halachic blemish. Similarly, one who acts like someone of great spiritual stature in certain regards but is not in others has a skewed view of reality. It would be better if he were to act in accordance with his real level!”

Daf Yomi Digest
Stories Off the Daf
“Balanced Vision”
Bechoros 40

This sort of behavior may be difficult for many Christians to understand. I believe that the Catholic church has a tradition of taking on greater acts of penance to draw closer to Christ, but I don’t believe this is something common among mainstream Protestants except perhaps for fasting and offering additional prayers. However, as noted above, we can become so involved in our “religious practices” that we can forget all about actually serving God. This is a case when our actions take on a life of their own and become divorced from the underlying motivation. It would be as if you took it upon yourself to give to the needy, but your acts of charity became the driving force of your life, along with the thanks and praise of men, rather than the God who commands you to have compassion for the poor.

Of course, regardless of motivation or even if you consider God at all, the poor are fed and cared for by your charity, so it’s not a complete loss. But let’s look at something else for a moment that also isn’t clearly understood by many Christians.

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the Israelites and say to them: If anyone, man or woman, explicitly utters a nazirite’s vow, to set himself apart for the Lord, he shall abstain from wine and any other intoxicant; he shall not drink vinegar of wine or of any other intoxicant, neither shall he drink anything in which grapes have been steeped, nor eat grapes fresh or dried. Throughout his term as nazirite, he may not eat anything that is obtained from the grapevine, even seeds or skin.

Throughout the term of his vow as nazirite, no razor shall touch his head; it shall remain consecrated until the completion of his term as nazirite of the Lord, the hair of his head being left to grow untrimmed. Throughout the term that he has set apart for the Lord, he shall not go in where there is a dead person. Even if his father or mother, or his brother or sister should die, he must not defile himself for them, since hair set apart for his God is upon his head: throughout his term as nazirite he is consecrated to the Lord. –Numbers 6:1-8 (JPS Tanakh)

This is the beginning of the conditions for an Israelite who has taken a Nazarite vow, the purpose of which was to bring the person closer to God. It’s an interesting condition at the end of the vow (which could last for several months) that the Nazir would bring a sin offering. One interpretation of this is that, since God had provided sufficient means in the Torah for any Jew to draw near to Him, there was an actual component of “sin” in becoming a Nazir, as if God’s Torah wasn’t good enough. And yet the Torah itself provides the conditions by which one may become a Nazir. Further, we know that both the Prophet Samuel and Samson the Judge were life-long Nazirs. We also know that the Apostle Paul took upon himself a Nazarite vow (Acts 18:18) and paid the price at the end of the Nazarite vows for four other Jews (Acts 21:20-26).

Today, it’s impossible for a Jew to take a Nazarite vow because there currently is no Temple in Jerusalem and no active Levitical priesthood. We see that taking such a vow has many benefits and perhaps a few liabilities, but one of the dangers of such a vow is that the conditions of the vow may become more important than God Himself. Again, Christianity doesn’t understand this, but maybe we can understand something else.

I remember being in Christian Bible studies. At some point during some of these studies at church, the teacher would ask the class to all close our eyes and to offer up prayers for one reason or another. Knowing that you’re going to speak your prayer to God out loud in front of a bunch of other Christians creates a strange situation. At least for me, I considered what sort of prayer would sound acceptable or even meritorious to the people around me. It was very hard to actually talk to God without worrying what my fellow believers might think. I can promise you that my public prayers were somewhat different and perhaps really different when spoken aloud in front of witnesses than they would have been if it were just God and me.

There are non-Jews who choose to take some of the Jewish mitzvot upon themselves and even a little halachah as they understand it. I’ve known many of these people and while most of them are sincere in their motivations and have hearts sincerely turned toward God, some of them have become diverted by their practice and have all but lost sight of why they are performing the various commandments. I’ve heard such people argue about the proper way to tie tzitzit, whether or not a blue cord should be included, the pronunciation of some of the Hebrew prayers, whether or not a minyan can include women, and on and on and on. The irony mixed in with this tragedy, is that these people who are so consumed with obeying what they see as their obligations to God, have no true understanding of how and why Jews perform these mitzvot. Further, they reject the Jewish traditions associated with the mitzvot and substitute their individual interpretations for the commandments. Somewhere in the shuffle, God becomes forgotten.

The Mishna Berura Yomi Digest for Siman 128 Seif 24 explains that drawing near to God doesn’t have to be all that complicated and that God desires both the scholar and the “simple” man of the earth to have the opportunity to come closer. Judaism provides a solution that might seem unusual to the Christian.

On today’s amud we find that even those simple people who are not present during birchas kohanim are also included in the blessing. Perhaps one of the most important contributions of the Baal Shem Tov was to build up the downtrodden masses. The simple folk who couldn’t learn much are also an integral part of the chosen people. They, too, have a spiritual mission here on earth.

During one of the many times that Rav Meir Arak, zt”l, met with the Imrei Emes, zt”l, of Gur, he asked the rebbe a question that was troubling him. “I do not understand why our sages draw a distinction between the wine libations and other sacrifices. Regarding other sacrifices our sages teach that anyone who learns the laws of the sin or guilt offering is considered to have brought that sacrifice. Clearly the same is true regarding other sacrifices. And presumably, this is also the case regarding one who learns the laws of the libations.

“Strangely, when the sages mention a person who wishes to bring nesachim they do not recommend studying the halachos.

“Instead, they say that one who wishes to pour libations on the altar should fill the throats of Torah scholars with wine. Why is this second point necessary?”

The Imrei Emes replied in an inspiring manner. “Telling people that learning the laws of sacrifices is likened to bringing a sacrifice is only helpful to those who can learn. What about the simple folk who are unable to delve into the complexities of kodshim? It was for them that our sages said that one who supports Torah scholars by providing them with wine is considered to have poured libations on the altar. Doesn’t a simple person also need a way to draw near to Hashem while there is no beis hamikdash?”

Again, the solution presented here probably seems unnecessarily complicated to most Christians, but in a religious world that’s driven by tradition and specific acts crafted to comply with what is believed to be the desires of God, this process works quite well. A man who is no scholar and whose Hebrew is just so-so can still fulfill the mitzvot equivalent to offering the sacrifices and learned study of Torah. Please keep in mind though that any religious activity that involves a sufficient amount of complexity can, if allowed to do so, become more important than the reason for performing it. The solution for the church is to do away with this danger by doing away with the Law. No Torah, no halachah, no complexity equals just you and God, right?

Maybe. Maybe not. It all goes too far in the opposite direction if you believe God does not expect you to change anything in what you do and how you do it in daily and religious living. On the other hand, with the Law completely absent, Christians have found other ways to stray.

I’ve seen Christians focused intently on pleasing God who completely lost their path and who became enamoured with things such as how to teach the best Bible study, how to offer the best public prayers, how to dress with just the right amount of modesty for church services, and just how often to invite the Pastor over for dinner. The activities themselves aren’t bad, but when they take the place of a simple desire to connect to God through behavior, then these acts become almost meaningless. If God is not there in what you do, what’s the point?

The Mishna Berura Yomi Digest for Siman 128 Seif 26-29 provides a different point of view of drawing nearer to God, this time, not from the perspective of the less learned Jew, but from the position of exalted Torah scholars.

We find on today’s daf that sometimes it is preferable to refrain even from saying pesukim.

When the Imrei Emes of Ger, zt”l, returned from his first voyage to Eretz Yisroel, the Rav of Kalish, zt”l, tried to elicit some details about his journey. The Imrei Emes, however, did not seem to be willing to engage in conversation.

“Nu?” prodded the Kalisher Rav. “How does the rebbe feel after his visit to the holy land? Don’t chazal say that even the air of Eretz Yisroel makes one wise?”

The Imrei Emes nodded. “Yes, it’s true,” he answered. “And chazal also said: the protective fence for wisdom is…silence!”

This can also mean that silence is sometimes the best defense, because with it, one can avoid an argument altogether.

A delegation of sefardic rabbis once came to visit the Maharil Diskin, zt”l, the illustrious Rav of Brisk.

As soon as they arrived, the group of sages began to weave a number of intricate arguments about certain Torah subjects, while the Maharil simply sat quietly and did not participate.

Eventually they tired of this, and decided to take their leave. As they left, the members of the delegation shook their heads in dismay and lamented to one another, “What a pity—to see such a great scholar who has gotten old and forgotten his learning!”

What the group didn’t realize was that the gaon of Brisk was just as much a master of silence as he was a master of Torah!

Maybe your religious study and practice is devoted solely to the glory of God or maybe you have accidentally strayed into an area where you glorify yourself above your Master. It’s all too easy to wander away from the true path in the face of fulfilling the minutiae of the various commandments and obligations you believe are important to you. However, if you realize one day in the middle of your prayers, or while reading a Bible commentary, or in the process of delivering a devastating retort to someone’s argument on religious blog comment, that what you are doing is more important to you than to God, please stop. This is like driving your car down the freeway at 80 mph and suddenly realizing you’ve forgotten how to operate a motor vehicle. Under such circumstances, the safest thing to do is to slow down, pull over, come to a stop, and exit the vehicle.

Then wait for help, because you really need it.

It’s like a man who wakes up one morning and discovers that he’s forgotten how to read. He feels fine otherwise, but books, magazines, and newspapers now contain only these cryptic markings that yesterday were words, sentences, and paragraphs. What can be done? In this person’s case, he can go back to the basics of learning his ABCs, then learning to read from a simple primer, and then working up from there. What do we do when our religion has become more important than God? We can stop our religious practice temporarily, return to a simple reading of the Bible and extemporaneous prayer, and learn to love God all over again. I’ve heard many Christians in public prayer saying, “We give you all the glory, Jesus.” I don’t doubt that most of these people are sincere, but if they were to stop suddenly and listen to their own voice, would any of them realize that they were giving more glory to how they sounded in front of a group?

Take time occasionally to unplug from the way you try to connect to God and just connect to God.

If you play for your own glory and not for God’s you have no place here. -A Maggid

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Fearfully in the Hands of God

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You, Hashem, do not withhold your mercy from me; may Your kindness and Your truth always protect me. For innumerable evils have encircled me, my sins have overtaken me and I am unable to see; they have become more numerous than the hairs on my head and my courage has abandoned me. –Psalm 40:12-13 (The Stone Edition Tanakh)

Were He to kill me, I would still yearn for Him. –Job 13:15 (The Stone Edition Tanakh)

Have you ever been sick or hurt? I don’t mean have you ever had the flu or a cold or hit your thumb with a hammer, but have you every really been sick or hurt? Have you been in the hospital? Have you ever worried that you might not see another day, or that your health and well-being would take a permanent turn for the worse?

Imagine Job, who lost everything and was completely bewildered as to the cause. He had always been steadfast in his faith and virtually walked in the footsteps of God, yet in nearly the wink of an eye, he was laid destitute and at death’s doorstep. His friends all turned against him, blaming him for his own misfortune. Even his wife cried out to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die!” Job did not have a happy life during this time and for all he knew, it would all end in his agonizing death. Yet his words recorded in Job 13:15 relate the nature of his faith and trust in God and the character of this man in the face of harsh tragedy.

Rabbi Yaakov Menken at Project Genesis wrote a commentary for Torah Portion Miketz that speaks to this kind of trust and the consequences when we lack it.

We read this week that two years after Pharoah’s wine steward and chief baker had their dreams, Pharoah had one of his own, and as a result, they rushed Joseph from jail.

Obviously Pharoah needed Joseph, but the Torah tells us something deeper: that Joseph was only in jail for the precise amount of time decreed from above. In fact, Joseph would have gotten out of jail earlier, but the Torah tells us that “the wine steward did not remember Joseph, and he forgot him.”

Why did he forget? Rabbi Shimon Yitzchaki quotes the Medrash, which explains that Joseph placed his trust in the wine steward, rather than G-d. For that reason, G-d made sure that the wine steward forgot him.

We celebrate the holiday of Chanukah because Judah “the Maccabee” and his brothers did the opposite. Yehudah may have been strong, but he wasn’t insane. His was a small group, vastly outnumbered by not only the well-trained Greek army, but even by the Hellenized Jews of the era. They went out to wage war, against impossible odds, expressing their trust that G-d would help them.

This, too, drives home the lesson that we discussed two weeks ago — that we are obligated to make our own efforts, but “know that if they succeed, it is only because G-d granted them success.” It doesn’t matter if the person we might trust is a friend or relative or even ourselves… in the end, success comes from a Higher Authority.

Quite some time ago, I wrote about the difference between faith and trust. Faith is knowing God exists. Trust is putting your life literally in His hands. But in spite of the fact that all people of faith desire to have a perfect trust in God, we are frail and mortal; “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:41). When we’re alone and afraid, how many of us can sweep away anxiety and terror with a wave of our hand and summon the full might of God as our courage?

I know I can’t. The best I can do is to try and echo the words of Job (Job 13:15), fearfully acknowledging at such desperate moments that my health, safety, and my very life are completely in His hands to do with as He wills. There is no bargaining with God. Paul quotes Moses (Exodus 33:19) to teach us this lesson.

What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses,

“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. –Romans 9:14-16

Rabbi Menken teaches that we are obligated to make our own efforts, but “know that if they succeed, it is only because G-d granted them success,” so we cannot sit passively and expect God to raise miracles for us. We must participate, as best we can, in God’s efforts but knowing that success is not because of us, but because of Him. Yet there are times when we can do nothing for ourselves and must rely totally on God’s mercy and His will. When someone who is having a heart attack or a stroke is in the emergency room, all they can do is to trust in God for their life, even if it should end in death because that is the nature of man in relationship to God. When a person has cancer, they can undergo various therapies and treatments, but their life remains solely in God’s hands. Job also teaches, “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” (Job 1:21) That we pray for life does not mean that God is obligated to always give life. All people live in His hands and all people die in His hands.

I know this sounds dismal and depressing, especially on the day when the vast majority of the Christian world is celebrating the birth of the King of Kings, but lest we imagine that God is obligated to grant us a perfect, stress free existence, the counterpoint is that we are but dust and ashes; we are grass that is growing today, and tomorrow, is withered and thrown into the fire. In the end, we can try to live healthy lives, lives of faith, devotion, charity, and study; we try take care of ourselves and others, but still, no one knows the hour of his own death.

In those moments of hideous uncertainty or in that final “moment of truth”, we can only summon whatever trust in God we may possess and cry out to Him for His infinite mercy. If he should turn the hand of sickness and death away, we rejoice, and if not, we are with Him.

In His hands are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is His also. –Psalm 95:4 (KJV)

May they rejoice and be glad in You, all who seek You; may they always say, “Hashem be magnified!” those who live Your salvation. As for me, I am poor and destitute, the Lord will think of me. You are my help and my Rescuer, my God do not delay. –Psalm 40:17-18 (The Stone Edition Tanakh)

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Miketz: Dreams and Consequences

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Joseph’s imprisonment finally ends when Pharaoh dreams of seven fat cows that are swallowed up by seven lean cows, and of seven fat ears of grain swallowed by seven lean ears. Joseph interprets the dreams to mean that seven years of plenty will be followed by seven years of hunger, and advises Pharaoh to store grain during the plentiful years. Pharaoh appoints Joseph governor of Egypt. Joseph marries Asenath, daughter of Potiphar, and they have two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. Famine spreads throughout the region, and food can be obtained only in Egypt. Ten of Joseph’s brothers come to Egypt to purchase grain; the youngest, Benjamin, stays home, for Jacob fears for his safety. Joseph recognizes his brothers, but they do not recognize him; he accuses them of being spies, insists that they bring Benjamin to prove that they are who they say they are, and imprisons Simeon as a hostage.

from The Parasha in a Nutshell
Mikeitz: Genesis 41:1-44:17
Chabad.org

A significant part of our parshah (Mikeitz-Genesis 41:1–44:17) is taken up with a pair of dreams dreamt by the king of Egypt. These dreams are actually recounted not once, but three times: first we read an account of the dreams themselves; then comes a more detailed version, as we hear them described by Pharaoh to Joseph; and then comes Joseph’s reply to Pharaoh, in which he offers his interpretation of the dreams’ various components.

And these are but the last in a sequence of dreams detailed by the Torah in the preceding chapters. Joseph is in Pharaoh’s palace interpreting his dreams because of another set of dreams, dreamt two years earlier in an Egyptian prison. Back then, Joseph was incarcerated together with two of Pharaoh’s ministers, each of whom had a dream which Joseph successfully interpreted.

“The Cosmic Fantasy”
From the Chasidic Masters
Based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson
Adapted by Rabbi Yanki Tauber
Chabad.org

We see that the first of Joseph’s dreams (Genesis 37:5-11), though long in coming to fruition, are now rapidly taking shape. Though scorned, hated, almost murdered, and finally sold into slavery because of these dreams, they were nevertheless dreams from God. The only reason those dreams were perceived as a reason to hate Joseph was because of Joseph’s teenage arrogance. Now look at him. Older, wiser, shrewder. After all, when Joseph was finally “remembered” and taken into the presence of Pharoah, King of Egypt at the beginning of Torah Portion Miketz, don’t you think he knew exactly what he was doing?

“Accordingly, let Pharaoh find a man of discernment and wisdom, and set him over the land of Egypt. And let Pharaoh take steps to appoint overseers over the land, and organize the land of Egypt in the seven years of plenty. Let all the food of these good years that are coming be gathered, and let the grain be collected under Pharaoh’s authority as food to be stored in the cities. Let that food be a reserve for the land for the seven years of famine which will come upon the land of Egypt, so that the land may not perish in the famine.”

The plan pleased Pharaoh and all his courtiers. And Pharaoh said to his courtiers, “Could we find another like him, a man in whom is the spirit of God?” So Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Since God has made all this known to you, there is none so discerning and wise as you. You shall be in charge of my court, and by your command shall all my people be directed; only with respect to the throne shall I be superior to you.” Pharaoh further said to Joseph, “See, I put you in charge of all the land of Egypt.” And removing his signet ring from his hand, Pharaoh put it on Joseph’s hand; and he had him dressed in robes of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck. He had him ride in the chariot of his second-in-command, and they cried before him, “Abrek!” Thus he placed him over all the land of Egypt. –Genesis 41:33-43 (JPS Tanakh)

I call Joseph “shrewd” but please remember, that isn’t necessarily a poor trait to have when in “enemy territory”.

“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. Be on your guard; you will be handed over to the local councils and be flogged in the synagogues. On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. –Matthew 10:16-20

Returning to the Torah portion, I’m not saying that Joseph is being entirely self-serving here. After all, he spent years as a slave and more years as a prisoner (though in fairly exalted roles for each position) and that time served to teach the young dreamer humility, but who could blame him for wanting to “butter his bread” a little? Who wouldn’t want to get out of prison? Besides, it’s not like Joseph used his appointment as Viceroy to take advantage of others. Joseph didn’t even retaliate against the chief cupbearer who promised to remember Joseph to Pharaoh after Joseph had interpreted the cupbearer’s dream in his advantage, but who then “forgot” him completely for two years.

Although we see Joseph certainly “challenging” his brothers in this week’s Torah portion as well as in next week’s Parashah, he isn’t “taking revenge” upon them. He could have chosen to have them killed, or make them slaves, or have them rot in prison, yet he refrains.

Joseph’s first dream comes to realization in this week’s parsha. His brothers come down to Egypt and prostrate themselves before him. The dream of the sheaves of the brothers bowing to Joseph’s sheaf is at last fulfilled. But strangely, Joseph does not feel himself satisfied. It is human nature that the expectation of the realization of events is always greater and more exciting than the fulfillment of the realization itself. No vacation or event that we plan for ourselves can live up to our imagination and expectation regarding it. And Joseph is further burdened by the enormity of what has transpired. He has the brothers, who sold him as a slave and were deaf to his shouts and tears and pleas for mercy, in his hands. But what is he to do with them now? And what of his beloved father, the old man, broken in grief, whom he has not seen or communicated with for twenty-two years? Are the brothers telling him the truth about his father’s condition? And what about Benjamin, his younger brother? Is he like the other brothers in attitude and belief or is he different? Does he mourn for his lost brother Joseph or is he sanguine about his fate, as his ten older brothers seem to be? All of these questions plague Joseph at the moment of his seemingly great triumph when his brothers are in his power and abjectly bow before him. His triumph therefore seems somewhat hollow to him at that moment.

-Rabbi Berel Wein
“Vengeance vs. Conciliations”
Commentary on Parashas Miketz
Torah.org

If, as Rabbi Wein suggests, the realization of Joseph’s earlier dreams seems all too hollow, what about our dreams?

I’m not saying that the typical dreams we all experience during sleep are prophesies from God, nor do I believe that the vast majority of people have any Divine gift to interpret prophetic dreams as Joseph certainly did, but when I say “our dreams,” I really mean “our ambitions.” What about the things we want? If we get them, how wisely is our stewardship over them?

In a sense, the 17-year old Joseph’s boasts about this first dreams were acts of “poor stewardship”. He utilized his knowledge to “lord it over” his brothers and father and the result was a wreaked life for Joseph, Jacob, and ultimately (though they didn’t realize it at the time) for all of Joseph’s brothers. When Joseph stood before Pharaoh, we can say that he exercised “good stewardship” of his ability to interpret dreams, which resulted in him not only being released from prison, but being placed in an extremely high position of authority over Egypt. This gave him the unprecedented ability to save everyone in Egypt, Canaan, and the rest of the civilized world, including his entire family, from a seven-year famine.

How we manage our “dreams” and ambitions makes a difference, too. Most of us don’t exercise authority to the same scope as Joseph, but what we want, even if benign and charitable, can have dramatically different results depending on our attitude, intent, and execution. Judaism has the concept of kavanah which generally means “intention”. In Kabbalah, kavanah modifies the sefirot allowing them to be directed, and depending on that direction, a person’s activities, both in the world we experience and in the spiritual realms, can have wildly different consequences. How dreams are managed in Joseph’s early life vs. his later experiences is dramatic proof of this statement.

If the teachings of Kabbalah and Talmudic Judaism are a little difficult for you to swallow, Jesus told many parables on good and bad stewardship including Luke 12:35-48 and Luke 16:1-15 that tell the same story. I think “The Parable of the Talents”, is particularly illuminating.

“Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more. But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.

“After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.’

“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

“The man with two bags of gold also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two bags of gold; see, I have gained two more.’

“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

“Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’

“His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.

“‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ –Matthew 25:14-30

It’s not just what you’re given, but what you do with it that matters. What you do with your resources depends on your character and your intentions. As we see from the example of Joseph, even what you are given depends on how you have managed other, lesser jobs. That’s also the lesson taught by Jesus in his parables. One who was responsible for a lesser task will be given much greater authority. Imagine that, once you were saved, you never told anyone else about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but instead, horded this treasure for yourself?

So when you dream, it’s not so much whether you dream big or small that is the key factor. It’s what you do with your dreams and how you treat other people when your dreams come true. For if you manage well when one dream comes true, much bigger dreams will also be granted you. However keep in mind that such responsibility can come at a price as Rabbi Wein’s commentary points out.

Joseph comes to the great realization that his ultimate triumph over his brothers lies not in punishing them – though he will certainly cause them great anguish on their road of repentance – but rather to eventually conciliate them. Vengeance is momentarily more satisfying than is conciliation. But in the long run, vengeance lies not in human hands. And it will only continue to widen the rift within Jacob’s family. Joseph’s greatness and heroism lies in the fact that he chose the road of healing and conciliation rather than that of punishment and vengeance. Joseph, out of all of the avot and the brothers is called tzadik – righteous and holy. This is certainly due to his behavior in escaping from the clutches of Potiphar’s wife. But Joseph’s righteousness and piety is exhibited not only in that incident. It is apparent in his treatment of his brothers after his dream of their bowing down to him has been realized. He will protect his brothers from the Pharaoh and the ravages of Egyptian society. He will support them physically, financially and spiritually for the rest of his life. He still weeps at the gulf of suspicion that yet exists between him and the brothers. Conciliation is a long and difficult road to traverse. But Joseph realizes that it is the only hope for his family’s continuity and purpose.

Being wise stewards, we should use our gifts to repair relationships rather than destroy them. When we reconcile with even one person who was formerly estranged from us, we also reconcile them and ourselves with God.

Good Shabbos.