Rambam in his book of Mitzvos writes as follows.
The ninth mitzvah HaShem instructed us is to sanctify His Name. The verse in the Torah indicating this is ‘And My Name shall be sanctified in the midst of the Jewish people’. The notion of this mitzvah is that we are charged with publicizing the truth of our faith throughout the world and that we need not be frightened or intimidated into denying our trust in HaShem and in His Unity. This mitzvah is incumbent on every member of our people to sacrifice their life out of our love of HaShem and our trust in His Unity.
In his annotated code of Torah Law, Rambam elaborates on the details of this mitzvah. For the sake of brevity I will enumerate only several details which will hopefully give us an idea of the scope of this mitzvah.
1. The underlying principle with mitzvah observance is that the life of the Jew is more sacred than the performance of the mitzvos. Therefore, if a person falls ill on Shabbos and requires to be driven to the hospital we must drive on Shabbos in spite of the desecration of Shabbos because the ill person’s life is given precedence of the mitzvah of Shabbos. Another example would be if the government would force its citizenry to build a build railroad tracks on Shabbos for the sake of national security under the threat of being shot. In this circumstance we must build the tracks even though we are desecrating the Shabbos because we are sparing Jewish life.
This is true with every mitzvah except the three cardinal mitzvos.
a. adultery
b. murder
c. idol worship
When saving the person’s life requires him to transgress any of these three mitzvos the mitzvah takes precedence and life must be lost.
For example, if I can save my life by killing another person it is forbidden to do so even if my life will be lost. This is true even if the person being killed agrees to be killed it is nevertheless forbidden to do so. (Murder is a sin for two reasons; the first is that you are taking a life without permission of the owner. The second, perhaps the more compelling reason, is that HaShem instructed us not to kill.) This is the issue of taking the heart of a dying person before he actually expires in order to give his heart to another person who will live another 40 years. It is strictly forbidden to remove the dying man’s heart because it is murder. (The exception to this rule is when one person is chasing another person to kill him. In this case we are required to kill the murder in order to save the victim.)
2. The abovementioned principle holds true only when the circumstance of transgressing the mitzvah is circumstantial. However, if the circumstance of transgression is a result of the coercer’s interest in undermining the observance of the Torah then the law changes significantly, as follows.
If the coercion is in the presence of ten Jewish people the Jew being coerced must forfeit his life before transgressing the slightest mitzvah. If, however, there are less than ten Jewish people present, the coerced must transgress the mitzvah and save his life. (We must add parenthetically that obviously if there is the possibility of overpowering the coercer then of course we do that even if we must kill him.)
For example; an army of fervent missionaries enter the synagogue on Shabbos and hold everybody hostage. They call forward the rabbi and order him to smoke a cigarette in presence of all (smoking is a desecration of the Shabbos) or they will kill him. Since their intention is clearly for the purpose of desecrating the Torah and it is in the presence of ten Jews the rabbi must not transgress the Shabbos even though his life is threatened. If, however, there were only 8 people in synagogue that day, even though there are many non-Jews present the rabbi must transgress the Shabbos and save his life.
3. If the above story were to happen during a governmental decree that all Jews must surrender their belief under the threat of the sword then even if there are no Jews present we must surrender our life before surrendering our belief no matter what mitzvah it is. For example, under the Greek empire there was a concerted effort to erase the study of Torah in the hope that the Jewish people would eventually forsake their commitment to HaShem. One of their decrees was that circumcision was prohibited under the threat of death. In this case we are required to observe the performance of circumcision even though if caught people will be killed.
The laws are still more complex but let this small sampling demonstrate the level of commitment to HaShem we are expected to have. Throughout the two millennium of Jewish exile scores of generations were sacrificed by murderous teams of Christians in their frenzy to convert Jews to Christianity. We were killed by the thousands but did not flinch from our commitment to HaShem and to His Torah.
Without this complete commitment of our very life to HaShem and to His Torah there would no longer be a Jewish people. We would have all been converted to either Christianity or Islam just like the rest of the world.
Perhaps the intention of Rambam’s words “The notion of this mitzvah is that we are charged with publicizing the truth of our faith throughout the world” is to include world history not only world geography. Even though for the moment, Jewish blood is spilled and it seems to be lost, the truth is otherwise. When a Jew sacrifices his life out of his love of HaShem there is an eternal energy generated that insures the eternity of our relationship with Him.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Mitzvah 8: To Emulate HaShem.
This mitzvah is described in several of the sources as follows. Just as HaShem visits the sick so you too shall visit the sick. Just as HaShem buries the dead so you shall bury the dead. Just as HaShem marries off couples so you shall marry off couples. And so on. In other sources our mitzvah is described as follows. Just as HaShem is merciful you too shall be merciful. Just as HaShem is generous so you shall be generous, and so on.
From these two descriptions a multi-dimensional mitzvah emerges. On one hand the mitzvah instructs us to imitate HaShem in all His actions. On the second level the mitzvah directs us emulate HaShem. It is not enough to imitate His actions but we must actually become godlike.
Let us compress both components of the mitzvah into one directive; become just like G-D. This implies that we should both emulate and imitate HaShem. We should develop our godly qualities and practice them actively.
The implication of this mitzvah is that there is within every one of us innate godliness. If there would not be innate godliness HaShem would never instruct us to something that is impossible. The only argument that might be made is that perhaps even if there is no godliness in us nevertheless HaShem wants us to become godly by training ourselves. The answer to this is best illustrated by the following story told of Rambam, back in the 12th century.
The Rambam was the royal physician of the Sultan of Egypt. One of the Sultan’s other advisors was quite jealous of Rambam’s close relationship to the ruler. He told the Sultan that Rambam is not entirely open with his highness. Rambam claimed that an animal is animal and can never be trained to be humanlike. This advisor challenged this position claiming that Rambam knew it to be false. The Sultan raised the challenge to Rambam who maintained that his position was correct that it is not possible to train an animal to be humanlike. The jealous advisor set a date when he would have a cat serve a dinner to the Sultan and his guests. Of course Rambam was invited to the dinner. Before coming to the dinner Rambam placed a small mouse in the pocket of his robe.
The time came and all the guests were brought into the royal dining hall. Sure enough a cat, walking on his hind legs began to serve the guests! The first course went with no problems and things were looking bad for Rambam. The second course was soup. As the cat approached the table with the soup in his hands Rambam released his little friend from his pocket and instantly the cat dropped the soup returned to all four legs and chased the mouse leaving a royal mess.
Rambam’s lesson was that an animal is animal and whatever you will teach and train it to do, it will nevertheless remain an animal. If Man has no innate godliness in him that as much as he would try to emulate G.D it would be only imitation not true emulation, because a man can only be a man and not G.D.
Therefore our eighth mitzvah reveals to us that there is a part of us that is innately godly. This part of us is the neshoma (soul).
With this insight let us restate the eighth mitzvah as follows. The Torah instructs us to develop our neshoma to reach its potential by becoming godly. The specific course of action required to achieve this is by emulating and imitating HaShem.
From these two descriptions a multi-dimensional mitzvah emerges. On one hand the mitzvah instructs us to imitate HaShem in all His actions. On the second level the mitzvah directs us emulate HaShem. It is not enough to imitate His actions but we must actually become godlike.
Let us compress both components of the mitzvah into one directive; become just like G-D. This implies that we should both emulate and imitate HaShem. We should develop our godly qualities and practice them actively.
The implication of this mitzvah is that there is within every one of us innate godliness. If there would not be innate godliness HaShem would never instruct us to something that is impossible. The only argument that might be made is that perhaps even if there is no godliness in us nevertheless HaShem wants us to become godly by training ourselves. The answer to this is best illustrated by the following story told of Rambam, back in the 12th century.
The Rambam was the royal physician of the Sultan of Egypt. One of the Sultan’s other advisors was quite jealous of Rambam’s close relationship to the ruler. He told the Sultan that Rambam is not entirely open with his highness. Rambam claimed that an animal is animal and can never be trained to be humanlike. This advisor challenged this position claiming that Rambam knew it to be false. The Sultan raised the challenge to Rambam who maintained that his position was correct that it is not possible to train an animal to be humanlike. The jealous advisor set a date when he would have a cat serve a dinner to the Sultan and his guests. Of course Rambam was invited to the dinner. Before coming to the dinner Rambam placed a small mouse in the pocket of his robe.
The time came and all the guests were brought into the royal dining hall. Sure enough a cat, walking on his hind legs began to serve the guests! The first course went with no problems and things were looking bad for Rambam. The second course was soup. As the cat approached the table with the soup in his hands Rambam released his little friend from his pocket and instantly the cat dropped the soup returned to all four legs and chased the mouse leaving a royal mess.
Rambam’s lesson was that an animal is animal and whatever you will teach and train it to do, it will nevertheless remain an animal. If Man has no innate godliness in him that as much as he would try to emulate G.D it would be only imitation not true emulation, because a man can only be a man and not G.D.
Therefore our eighth mitzvah reveals to us that there is a part of us that is innately godly. This part of us is the neshoma (soul).
With this insight let us restate the eighth mitzvah as follows. The Torah instructs us to develop our neshoma to reach its potential by becoming godly. The specific course of action required to achieve this is by emulating and imitating HaShem.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Mtizvah 7: To Use HaShem’s Name when taking an oath
The Rambam teaches us the seventh mitzvah is that when taking an oath we must do so using His Name.
Rambam writes “Just as making an untrue oath is a prohibition, to make an oath of truth when the circumstance arises that require an oath, is a mitzvah. It is a great act because using HaShem’s Name in this context brings much respect and is a form of serving HaShem.”
It is important to point out that there is no mitzvah to make the oath; the mitzvah is that when a person makes the oath he should do so by invoking HaShem’s Name. This is similar to the mitzvah of slaughtering an animal in the correct manner which is a mitzvah. Although we are not obligated to slaughter an animal at all, nevertheless, when we choose to eat meat then we are obligated slaughter the animal in the proper fashion. Similarly, if one chooses not to take an oath they have that prerogative, nevertheless if they choose to take the oath it is a mitzvah to do so with HaShem’s Name.
There are other mitzvos that deal with the laws of taking oaths. It is noteworthy that Rambam does not list this mitzvah along with those mitzvos. Perhaps the reason for this is because this mitzvah can be classified with the primary mitzvos just as the other mitzvos that are listed with this mitzvah are. I use “primary” to describe mitzvos that deal with core religious issues such as loving HaShem and fearing HaShem rather than the mitzvos that are secondary such as fasting on Yom Kippur and blowing the shofar on Rosh Hashanah.
In order to gain a comprehensive picture of this mitzvah it is worthwhile learning the various types of oaths.
1. Oaths that are administered by a Jewish court;
a. When the plaintiff brings a single witness who testifies that the defendant owes him a sum of money, which the defendant denies
b. When the defendant admits to part of the plaintiff’s claim but denies the rest
c. When a person who accepted responsibility to watch the other person’s article claims that the article was stolen
In these cases the defendant takes an oath administered by the court to the effect of his claim
2. Self administered oaths;
a. A person may take an oath to do something or to refrain from doing something for the purpose of motivating himself to do something good or to motivate himself in refraining himself from being involved in something wrong or harmful.
In all of these oaths the name of HaShem is invoked in the following manner. “By the truth of HaShem I do not owe more 50 dollars to the plaintiff (the plaintiff claimed that I owe him $100)”. “By the truth of HaShem the article was stolen in spite of my careful guarding of it.” “By the truth of HaShem I will not touch a cigarette for the entire month.”
In all of these circumstances there is a mitzvah to make the oath using the Name of HaShem.
Rambam writes “Just as making an untrue oath is a prohibition, to make an oath of truth when the circumstance arises that require an oath, is a mitzvah. It is a great act because using HaShem’s Name in this context brings much respect and is a form of serving HaShem.”
It is important to point out that there is no mitzvah to make the oath; the mitzvah is that when a person makes the oath he should do so by invoking HaShem’s Name. This is similar to the mitzvah of slaughtering an animal in the correct manner which is a mitzvah. Although we are not obligated to slaughter an animal at all, nevertheless, when we choose to eat meat then we are obligated slaughter the animal in the proper fashion. Similarly, if one chooses not to take an oath they have that prerogative, nevertheless if they choose to take the oath it is a mitzvah to do so with HaShem’s Name.
There are other mitzvos that deal with the laws of taking oaths. It is noteworthy that Rambam does not list this mitzvah along with those mitzvos. Perhaps the reason for this is because this mitzvah can be classified with the primary mitzvos just as the other mitzvos that are listed with this mitzvah are. I use “primary” to describe mitzvos that deal with core religious issues such as loving HaShem and fearing HaShem rather than the mitzvos that are secondary such as fasting on Yom Kippur and blowing the shofar on Rosh Hashanah.
In order to gain a comprehensive picture of this mitzvah it is worthwhile learning the various types of oaths.
1. Oaths that are administered by a Jewish court;
a. When the plaintiff brings a single witness who testifies that the defendant owes him a sum of money, which the defendant denies
b. When the defendant admits to part of the plaintiff’s claim but denies the rest
c. When a person who accepted responsibility to watch the other person’s article claims that the article was stolen
In these cases the defendant takes an oath administered by the court to the effect of his claim
2. Self administered oaths;
a. A person may take an oath to do something or to refrain from doing something for the purpose of motivating himself to do something good or to motivate himself in refraining himself from being involved in something wrong or harmful.
In all of these oaths the name of HaShem is invoked in the following manner. “By the truth of HaShem I do not owe more 50 dollars to the plaintiff (the plaintiff claimed that I owe him $100)”. “By the truth of HaShem the article was stolen in spite of my careful guarding of it.” “By the truth of HaShem I will not touch a cigarette for the entire month.”
In all of these circumstances there is a mitzvah to make the oath using the Name of HaShem.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Mitzvah 6; To Attach ourselves to HaShem
The sixth mitzvah that Rambam enumerates is the mitzvah of attaching ourselves to our Torah scholars.
The source of this mitzvah is found in the passage “For you shall observe this entire set of mitzvos that I command you to perform, to love HaShem, to walk in all His ways and to attach yourself to Him.”
Behold! The Torah has set her expectation that we attach ourselves to HaShem! The Midrash asks ‘How can one attach themselves to G.D, is it not impossible?’ The Midrash explains that this mitzvah is accomplished when one attaches themselves to Torah scholars. This Midrash is the basis of Rambam’s enumerating this as mitzvah six.
The obvious question is that the Torah says to attach yourself to HaShem not to Torah scholars. Does the Midrash mean to imply that Torah scholars are some sort of representation of HaShem? Furthermore, how does a Torah scholar fulfill this mitzvah? Are we to suggest that this mitzvah is just for laymen but scholars are exempt?
To answer this question let us examine how Rambam introduces this mitzvah.
“The nature of Man is that his opinions and actions are formed and guided by the people surrounding him. Therefore a person must be careful with whom he associates. One should associate with wise people so as to learn from their ways and distance himself from evil people so as not to learn from their ways. Similarly, if one lives in a region where the people conduct themselves in inappropriate ways move away to a different region. If there is nowhere to go or he is not capable to move due to sickness then he should live by himself rather than mix with the local population.”
Following this introduction Rambam writes; “There is mitzvah in the Torah which instructs us to attach ourselves to Torah scholars and their students in order to learn from their ways. This is intent of the Torah’s passage ‘and in Him you shall cleave’. Therefore one should marry the daughter of a Torah scholar, marry off his daughter to a Torah scholar, do business with a Torah scholar and connect in as many ways possible to Torah scholars…”
From the context presented by Rambam it is clear that the mitzvah of attaching ourselves to HaShem is not some type of religious transcendental meditation by which we connect to the spiritual. Rather the Torah is instructing us to grow and develop our worldly life in a manner that matches G.D’s expectations of us. In other words, HaShem gave us this mitzvah to further our personal character development and to live moral and ethical lives.
That said, we need to ask why does the Torah not instruct us explicitly to attach ourselves to Torah scholars, why associate Himself in the attachment?
The answer is clear. HaShem is the arbiter of appropriate and inappropriate behavior. The maker of the world claims the ultimate Authority of what is right and wrong, good and evil. Therefore, the ideal way to best develop our personal character traits would be to live with G.D and learn from His ways. However, one might find that arrangement quite impossible. The next best arrangement is to attach ourselves to people who learn the Torah of G.D. This is predicated on the notion that Torah is nothing less than the expressed Will of G.D. That being a given, it naturally follows that the greater the scholar and more learned he is in G.D’s Torah the closer his behavior and way of conduct will be in sync with G.D’s.
With this we can appreciate why Rambam writes “to attach ourselves to Torah scholars and their students” note, that he includes the students of the scholars along with the scholars. The reason for this is that the function of the attachment is to learn their ways; the behavior of such students will be similar to their masters.
Let us go back to the question raised earlier; what is a Torah scholar supposed to do? How does he fulfill this mitzvah? I uncovered the answer to this question by personal experience.
I have been blessed to associate myself with several young budding Torah scholars all of whom are half my age and much less than half my years of experience. Nevertheless, the more I interact with them the more dimensions of personal development I discover. Every person has their unique qualities and insights. A person who is studying Torah is, by definition (at least that is the way it was designed), working on his own uniqueness by assimilating the Torah’s values into his persona. No matter how great a scholar may be there is always more greatness to be learned from others. Therefore, when Rambam identifies the mitzvah as attaching oneself to Torah scholars he is talking to Torah scholars as well as everybody else.
(It is noteworthy the distinction between the general concept of religion and Judaism as it is manifest in this mitzvah. Other religions are created by Man to define God; to make God more understandable and more humanlike. The Torah on the other hand, was created by G.D to define Man; to elevate Man to the level of Godliness that lies latent in him.)
The source of this mitzvah is found in the passage “For you shall observe this entire set of mitzvos that I command you to perform, to love HaShem, to walk in all His ways and to attach yourself to Him.”
Behold! The Torah has set her expectation that we attach ourselves to HaShem! The Midrash asks ‘How can one attach themselves to G.D, is it not impossible?’ The Midrash explains that this mitzvah is accomplished when one attaches themselves to Torah scholars. This Midrash is the basis of Rambam’s enumerating this as mitzvah six.
The obvious question is that the Torah says to attach yourself to HaShem not to Torah scholars. Does the Midrash mean to imply that Torah scholars are some sort of representation of HaShem? Furthermore, how does a Torah scholar fulfill this mitzvah? Are we to suggest that this mitzvah is just for laymen but scholars are exempt?
To answer this question let us examine how Rambam introduces this mitzvah.
“The nature of Man is that his opinions and actions are formed and guided by the people surrounding him. Therefore a person must be careful with whom he associates. One should associate with wise people so as to learn from their ways and distance himself from evil people so as not to learn from their ways. Similarly, if one lives in a region where the people conduct themselves in inappropriate ways move away to a different region. If there is nowhere to go or he is not capable to move due to sickness then he should live by himself rather than mix with the local population.”
Following this introduction Rambam writes; “There is mitzvah in the Torah which instructs us to attach ourselves to Torah scholars and their students in order to learn from their ways. This is intent of the Torah’s passage ‘and in Him you shall cleave’. Therefore one should marry the daughter of a Torah scholar, marry off his daughter to a Torah scholar, do business with a Torah scholar and connect in as many ways possible to Torah scholars…”
From the context presented by Rambam it is clear that the mitzvah of attaching ourselves to HaShem is not some type of religious transcendental meditation by which we connect to the spiritual. Rather the Torah is instructing us to grow and develop our worldly life in a manner that matches G.D’s expectations of us. In other words, HaShem gave us this mitzvah to further our personal character development and to live moral and ethical lives.
That said, we need to ask why does the Torah not instruct us explicitly to attach ourselves to Torah scholars, why associate Himself in the attachment?
The answer is clear. HaShem is the arbiter of appropriate and inappropriate behavior. The maker of the world claims the ultimate Authority of what is right and wrong, good and evil. Therefore, the ideal way to best develop our personal character traits would be to live with G.D and learn from His ways. However, one might find that arrangement quite impossible. The next best arrangement is to attach ourselves to people who learn the Torah of G.D. This is predicated on the notion that Torah is nothing less than the expressed Will of G.D. That being a given, it naturally follows that the greater the scholar and more learned he is in G.D’s Torah the closer his behavior and way of conduct will be in sync with G.D’s.
With this we can appreciate why Rambam writes “to attach ourselves to Torah scholars and their students” note, that he includes the students of the scholars along with the scholars. The reason for this is that the function of the attachment is to learn their ways; the behavior of such students will be similar to their masters.
Let us go back to the question raised earlier; what is a Torah scholar supposed to do? How does he fulfill this mitzvah? I uncovered the answer to this question by personal experience.
I have been blessed to associate myself with several young budding Torah scholars all of whom are half my age and much less than half my years of experience. Nevertheless, the more I interact with them the more dimensions of personal development I discover. Every person has their unique qualities and insights. A person who is studying Torah is, by definition (at least that is the way it was designed), working on his own uniqueness by assimilating the Torah’s values into his persona. No matter how great a scholar may be there is always more greatness to be learned from others. Therefore, when Rambam identifies the mitzvah as attaching oneself to Torah scholars he is talking to Torah scholars as well as everybody else.
(It is noteworthy the distinction between the general concept of religion and Judaism as it is manifest in this mitzvah. Other religions are created by Man to define God; to make God more understandable and more humanlike. The Torah on the other hand, was created by G.D to define Man; to elevate Man to the level of Godliness that lies latent in him.)
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Mitzvah 5; To Serve HaShem
The Rambam writes “The fifth mitzvah is to serve HaShem as the Torah states ‘serve HaShem with all your heart’ the type of service that is done by the heart is prayer.”
Behold, the organ of the body that is instructed to perform the mitzvah of prayer is the heart! On one level this makes perfect sense since prayer without intention is meaningless. However, we know that prayer without speaking is not prayer at all. If one were to think all his prayers without ever uttering a word he would not have fulfilled his mitzvah of prayer. How then do we associate the heart as the organ that performs the mitzvah?
Let us look at other mitzvos such as the mitzvah of eating matzo on Pesach, or sitting in the Succah on Succot or blowing shofar on Rosh Hashanah. Every one of these mitzvos is performed by the physical body of the person. We also know that every mitzvah should be performed with the expressed intention of doing it for the sake of HaShem. We can therefore say that there are two parts to the mitzvah; one part is the performance of the mitzvah, the second is the intention of the mitzvah. The first is done by the body and the second is done by the heart.
With prayer the reverse is true. The mitzvah is to be performed by the heart; to serve HaShem with the heart. The mechanism which the heart will use to execute this mitzvah is the mouth. The actual articulation of prayer is the heart carrying out its responsibility by using the mouth.
What needs to be developed is appreciating the nature of serving. How does one serve G.D? Furthermore, if the responsibility of the heart is to serve G.D, why do we fill our prayers with so many requests? Do we serve our boss by making requests and asking for favors for ourselves?
To address this question properly we must get the translation of ‘la-avod’, which means to serve. The root of the word is ‘eved’ which means servant. The connection is obvious; the servant is the one who serves the master.
Let us now find the meaning of serving with your heart. Throughout the Torah the heart is recognized as the organ of understanding and insight. One clear example of this when the Torah states the following mitzvah “You shall know today that HaShem is the Sovereign and bring it to your heart”. The Torah is instructing us to take what we already know on the surface and incorporate it into our very psyche, into our core consciousness. That consciousness is housed in the heart.
This would seem to indicate that when the Torah instructs us to serve HaShem with our heart, the Torah is summoning the heart, the home of our consciousness, to serve HaShem. How is that done?
The way my heart serves HaShem is by incorporating the notion that I am but a servant of HaShem into my core consciousness. The very knowing, on that inner level, that I am HaShem’s servant is the way the heart serves HaShem. When the heart does its job in the service of HaShem this is what occurs the result is this awareness.
Now let us look at the prayer that our Sages composed and see if we can uncover this principle. While there are many parts of our liturgy, the central prayer is the Amidah. This unique prayer is the only prayer that must be recited in a meditative mode in standing position. Our Sages teach us that when one recites the Amidah, the Shechinah (the Presence of G.D) stands directly in front of him. Therefore one must stand with full awareness that he is currently addressing the Shechinah.
The Amidah is composed of three parts. The first part serves as an introduction in which we recite the praises of HaShem. The last part serves as a conclusion in which we express our acknowledgement and gratitude for all the HaShem is to us and all the He bestows upon us. The middle part which is the main body of the Amidah consists of 13 requests that we make of HaShem. Some are personal requests and some are national requests.
Through contemplating and reciting the praises of HaShem in the first part as well as acknowledging the goodness we receive from HaShem in the third part we will certainly gain the consciousness that we are but servants of HaShem. The question is how do we achieve this consciousness through the 13 requests?
When you ask a favor from someone it is implicit in your request that you recognize that the person you are addressing has the wherewithal to provide you with that request. You would not ask a high school student to please lend you $100,000 for a business endeavor. Yet you would ask him to help you with moving your furniture.
The function of articulating these 13 requests is to impress upon ourselves how it is HaShem Who can provide us with these needs. The requests take the lessons of our praise and thanks to a practical level. I recognize that I am the servants of HaShem and I therefore ask HaShem to please help me that I maintain my job and that my deal goes through as hoped for and that my toe infection goes away and that Israel won’t suffer any terrorist attacks and that HaShem will rebuild Jerusalem and establish the throne of David in its appropriate place and so on. We review these requests constantly to remind ourselves that our every need can be addressed by HaShem – by nobody else.
There is no greater exercise Man can do to instill in himself the notion that I am but a servant of HaShem.
Behold, the organ of the body that is instructed to perform the mitzvah of prayer is the heart! On one level this makes perfect sense since prayer without intention is meaningless. However, we know that prayer without speaking is not prayer at all. If one were to think all his prayers without ever uttering a word he would not have fulfilled his mitzvah of prayer. How then do we associate the heart as the organ that performs the mitzvah?
Let us look at other mitzvos such as the mitzvah of eating matzo on Pesach, or sitting in the Succah on Succot or blowing shofar on Rosh Hashanah. Every one of these mitzvos is performed by the physical body of the person. We also know that every mitzvah should be performed with the expressed intention of doing it for the sake of HaShem. We can therefore say that there are two parts to the mitzvah; one part is the performance of the mitzvah, the second is the intention of the mitzvah. The first is done by the body and the second is done by the heart.
With prayer the reverse is true. The mitzvah is to be performed by the heart; to serve HaShem with the heart. The mechanism which the heart will use to execute this mitzvah is the mouth. The actual articulation of prayer is the heart carrying out its responsibility by using the mouth.
What needs to be developed is appreciating the nature of serving. How does one serve G.D? Furthermore, if the responsibility of the heart is to serve G.D, why do we fill our prayers with so many requests? Do we serve our boss by making requests and asking for favors for ourselves?
To address this question properly we must get the translation of ‘la-avod’, which means to serve. The root of the word is ‘eved’ which means servant. The connection is obvious; the servant is the one who serves the master.
Let us now find the meaning of serving with your heart. Throughout the Torah the heart is recognized as the organ of understanding and insight. One clear example of this when the Torah states the following mitzvah “You shall know today that HaShem is the Sovereign and bring it to your heart”. The Torah is instructing us to take what we already know on the surface and incorporate it into our very psyche, into our core consciousness. That consciousness is housed in the heart.
This would seem to indicate that when the Torah instructs us to serve HaShem with our heart, the Torah is summoning the heart, the home of our consciousness, to serve HaShem. How is that done?
The way my heart serves HaShem is by incorporating the notion that I am but a servant of HaShem into my core consciousness. The very knowing, on that inner level, that I am HaShem’s servant is the way the heart serves HaShem. When the heart does its job in the service of HaShem this is what occurs the result is this awareness.
Now let us look at the prayer that our Sages composed and see if we can uncover this principle. While there are many parts of our liturgy, the central prayer is the Amidah. This unique prayer is the only prayer that must be recited in a meditative mode in standing position. Our Sages teach us that when one recites the Amidah, the Shechinah (the Presence of G.D) stands directly in front of him. Therefore one must stand with full awareness that he is currently addressing the Shechinah.
The Amidah is composed of three parts. The first part serves as an introduction in which we recite the praises of HaShem. The last part serves as a conclusion in which we express our acknowledgement and gratitude for all the HaShem is to us and all the He bestows upon us. The middle part which is the main body of the Amidah consists of 13 requests that we make of HaShem. Some are personal requests and some are national requests.
Through contemplating and reciting the praises of HaShem in the first part as well as acknowledging the goodness we receive from HaShem in the third part we will certainly gain the consciousness that we are but servants of HaShem. The question is how do we achieve this consciousness through the 13 requests?
When you ask a favor from someone it is implicit in your request that you recognize that the person you are addressing has the wherewithal to provide you with that request. You would not ask a high school student to please lend you $100,000 for a business endeavor. Yet you would ask him to help you with moving your furniture.
The function of articulating these 13 requests is to impress upon ourselves how it is HaShem Who can provide us with these needs. The requests take the lessons of our praise and thanks to a practical level. I recognize that I am the servants of HaShem and I therefore ask HaShem to please help me that I maintain my job and that my deal goes through as hoped for and that my toe infection goes away and that Israel won’t suffer any terrorist attacks and that HaShem will rebuild Jerusalem and establish the throne of David in its appropriate place and so on. We review these requests constantly to remind ourselves that our every need can be addressed by HaShem – by nobody else.
There is no greater exercise Man can do to instill in himself the notion that I am but a servant of HaShem.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Mitzvah 4; To Fear HaShem
The fourth mitzvah (following the enumeration of Rambam) is the mitzvah “To fear HaShem”. The Torah states in Devarim 6:13 “Es HaShem Elohecho tirah” which translates “HaShem your G.D shall you fear…”
To properly understand the mitzvah it is critical to have a clear definition of tirah. The root of tirah is yirah which carries two connotations. One connotation is fear, and the other is to be awed.
These are two distinct emotions that are inspired from different points. Let us address these two connotations before we delve in the nature of the mitzvah.
Classical fear is the fear that one experiences when encountering a dangerous person, animal or situation. We will call this danger-generated fear. This fear is inspired by the imminent danger or some other negative consequence that we anticipate. Fear is a wonderful gift that HaShem blessed us with. Fear motivates us to make good choices that are for our best welfare. Without fear we would be so much more vulnerable. We protect ourselves from opposing forces because of the fear that we sense.
When we apply this connotation to the fourth mitzvah, the mitzvah takes on the understanding that we should fear G.D because the consequence of confronting G.D can be costly if we are not careful. This fear is referred to as “fear of the punishment”. With such a fear, one adequately fulfills the mitzvah of fearing HaShem.
The second connotation, to be awed, is an awe-generated fear. When one confronts a person, situation or event that is much bigger or greater than him he is overwhelmed with an emotion that we might call fear or perhaps awe. The greater the person, situation or event is the smaller the person will feel and the greater the sense of awe will be. We have all experienced this sense of awe when looking over a mountain range when you can see 40 miles to the left and 40 miles to the right. You are struck with an incredible sense of smallness – you are standing in awe of the greatness that you are beholding. This emotion is experienced when meeting a great person or a great event. Some people are in awe when attending a presidential inauguration for the same reason.
When we apply this connotation to our mitzvah, the mitzvah takes on the understanding that we be in awe of HaShem because of the greatness of HaShem. The awe-generated fear is the optimal way of fulfilling the mitzvah of “Es HaShem Elohecho tirah” because it takes a person to a much higher level of fear/awe.
Now that we have identified the definition of the mitzvah, let us try to get our hands around this mitzvah in terms of practical ways of achieving this mitzvah.
The difficulty in fulfilling this mitzvah is that fear is experienced only when there is an acute awareness of the person or situation that is being feared. For example, before 9/11/2001 America was not afraid of terrorism whatsoever. If there was an alert that people should stay away from lower Manhattan on that morning most people if not every person would have ignored it. It would have been meaningless. Because nobody was aware that terrorism is possible on American soil. Today, however, if the police announce that there is suspected terrorist threat on one building downtown you can be sure that very few people will be near that building. What changed? The level of awareness that there really is a threat.
Keeping that in mind our greatest struggle in this mitzvah is making ourselves aware of HaShem’s Existence as well as HaShem’s Greatness. The more we can bring ourselves to recognize His Existence and His Greatness the closer we will come to fulfilling this mitzvah in its optimal way.
Let us attempt to make this awareness a reality within ourselves. Before doing that it is important that we understand the difficulty we confront and then perhaps we can dislodge that difficulty thereby opening the way to achieving awareness.
The difficulty we confront in arousing within ourselves an awareness of HaShem’s Greatness is due to the abstract nature of HaShem’s Existence. As we live our life in the physical world we do not touch, see, hear HaShem or any other form of physical perception of Him. Therefore the only form of perception by which to perceive HaShem is intellectual, which is essentially abstract. The difficulty with bringing an intellectual awareness to the level of the emotion is that all our senses are telling us that there is nothing here. While your intellect tells that there must be a G.D that knows all that you do, all that you say and all that you think, your experiential physical perceptions tell you that this is not true. How can there be a being that is so involved in my life and I do not see anybody? There is effectively a conflict between the intellect and the physical. How does one overcome this hurdle?
The first step is to find a parallel in our physical world that reflects the intellectual. Then we need to focus on that parallel and contemplate it well until we are able to take the energy generated from the physical parallel and carry it over to the intellectual.
What is the intellectual awareness that we have of HaShem’s Greatness? We know that HaShem created the universe and all that it contains including the physical forces such as gravity, magnetism and so on. This creation also includes space, time, light and darkness and so on. We also know that creation implies that HaShem used nothing to create this universe. The only source of energy that HaShem used to create everything was Him! (HaShem did not have a pack of energy that He used because there was nothing other than Him, no packs of energy either.) Now, that of course is a bit paradoxical, namely, if there was nothing other than Him how can He create everything from Him. If He is everything than everything already existed before He created it. And if it only came into existence after His existence from what did He create it? The analogy that we can find in our physical world that we experience is that of the dreamer and the dream. Within the dream everything exists just like in real life. However, outside the dream, namely from the dreamers perspective the dream is just a dream it does not exist. (I would refer you to our blog, the post titled Mitzvah 2 where I elaborate on the relationship between Sleepy Joe and his dream characters Mike and Ike.)
If you are still with me at this point let’s attempt to move take it to the next level. Let us now contemplate how I am actually non-existent because I am essentially the dream of HaShem. Although within my world, which is all a dream of HaShem, I exist as does my family and possessions and accomplishments and difficulties and pleasures, nevertheless, in objective reality I do not exist. I am nothing more than the dream. The only thing that truly exists is the dreamer Himself. The more I am able to relate to this notion the closer I come to absolute awe.
We mentioned before that awe is inspired when one recognizes his smallness relative to what is inspiring him. It therefore follows that the closer I get to the recognition that I am naught but a dream and HaShem is the dreamer, the closer I approach absolute awe; I approach the line of recognition of absolute smallness.
This explains the meaning of the Talmud’s statement about Moshe. The Talmud states that although it is difficult for most people to achieve the Awe of HaShem for Moshe is was quite easy. The reason that Moshe awed HaShem with no difficulty was because he talked with HaShem on a daily basis. To Moshe the existence of HaShem and consequently the non-existence of himself was so elementary that he was in a constant state of awe.
And so in summation; the way to achieve the mitzvah of fearing HaShem is first of all focusing on the consequence of disobeying HaShem’s Will and the reward for obeying His Will. That simple fear is already an accomplishment of this mitzvah. In addition to this approach one should certainly contemplate that sheer smallness of Man relative to HaShem and be inspired that in spite of this infinite disparity between Man and his Creator, the Creator maintains an ongoing system of support for Man.
How awesome!
To properly understand the mitzvah it is critical to have a clear definition of tirah. The root of tirah is yirah which carries two connotations. One connotation is fear, and the other is to be awed.
These are two distinct emotions that are inspired from different points. Let us address these two connotations before we delve in the nature of the mitzvah.
Classical fear is the fear that one experiences when encountering a dangerous person, animal or situation. We will call this danger-generated fear. This fear is inspired by the imminent danger or some other negative consequence that we anticipate. Fear is a wonderful gift that HaShem blessed us with. Fear motivates us to make good choices that are for our best welfare. Without fear we would be so much more vulnerable. We protect ourselves from opposing forces because of the fear that we sense.
When we apply this connotation to the fourth mitzvah, the mitzvah takes on the understanding that we should fear G.D because the consequence of confronting G.D can be costly if we are not careful. This fear is referred to as “fear of the punishment”. With such a fear, one adequately fulfills the mitzvah of fearing HaShem.
The second connotation, to be awed, is an awe-generated fear. When one confronts a person, situation or event that is much bigger or greater than him he is overwhelmed with an emotion that we might call fear or perhaps awe. The greater the person, situation or event is the smaller the person will feel and the greater the sense of awe will be. We have all experienced this sense of awe when looking over a mountain range when you can see 40 miles to the left and 40 miles to the right. You are struck with an incredible sense of smallness – you are standing in awe of the greatness that you are beholding. This emotion is experienced when meeting a great person or a great event. Some people are in awe when attending a presidential inauguration for the same reason.
When we apply this connotation to our mitzvah, the mitzvah takes on the understanding that we be in awe of HaShem because of the greatness of HaShem. The awe-generated fear is the optimal way of fulfilling the mitzvah of “Es HaShem Elohecho tirah” because it takes a person to a much higher level of fear/awe.
Now that we have identified the definition of the mitzvah, let us try to get our hands around this mitzvah in terms of practical ways of achieving this mitzvah.
The difficulty in fulfilling this mitzvah is that fear is experienced only when there is an acute awareness of the person or situation that is being feared. For example, before 9/11/2001 America was not afraid of terrorism whatsoever. If there was an alert that people should stay away from lower Manhattan on that morning most people if not every person would have ignored it. It would have been meaningless. Because nobody was aware that terrorism is possible on American soil. Today, however, if the police announce that there is suspected terrorist threat on one building downtown you can be sure that very few people will be near that building. What changed? The level of awareness that there really is a threat.
Keeping that in mind our greatest struggle in this mitzvah is making ourselves aware of HaShem’s Existence as well as HaShem’s Greatness. The more we can bring ourselves to recognize His Existence and His Greatness the closer we will come to fulfilling this mitzvah in its optimal way.
Let us attempt to make this awareness a reality within ourselves. Before doing that it is important that we understand the difficulty we confront and then perhaps we can dislodge that difficulty thereby opening the way to achieving awareness.
The difficulty we confront in arousing within ourselves an awareness of HaShem’s Greatness is due to the abstract nature of HaShem’s Existence. As we live our life in the physical world we do not touch, see, hear HaShem or any other form of physical perception of Him. Therefore the only form of perception by which to perceive HaShem is intellectual, which is essentially abstract. The difficulty with bringing an intellectual awareness to the level of the emotion is that all our senses are telling us that there is nothing here. While your intellect tells that there must be a G.D that knows all that you do, all that you say and all that you think, your experiential physical perceptions tell you that this is not true. How can there be a being that is so involved in my life and I do not see anybody? There is effectively a conflict between the intellect and the physical. How does one overcome this hurdle?
The first step is to find a parallel in our physical world that reflects the intellectual. Then we need to focus on that parallel and contemplate it well until we are able to take the energy generated from the physical parallel and carry it over to the intellectual.
What is the intellectual awareness that we have of HaShem’s Greatness? We know that HaShem created the universe and all that it contains including the physical forces such as gravity, magnetism and so on. This creation also includes space, time, light and darkness and so on. We also know that creation implies that HaShem used nothing to create this universe. The only source of energy that HaShem used to create everything was Him! (HaShem did not have a pack of energy that He used because there was nothing other than Him, no packs of energy either.) Now, that of course is a bit paradoxical, namely, if there was nothing other than Him how can He create everything from Him. If He is everything than everything already existed before He created it. And if it only came into existence after His existence from what did He create it? The analogy that we can find in our physical world that we experience is that of the dreamer and the dream. Within the dream everything exists just like in real life. However, outside the dream, namely from the dreamers perspective the dream is just a dream it does not exist. (I would refer you to our blog, the post titled Mitzvah 2 where I elaborate on the relationship between Sleepy Joe and his dream characters Mike and Ike.)
If you are still with me at this point let’s attempt to move take it to the next level. Let us now contemplate how I am actually non-existent because I am essentially the dream of HaShem. Although within my world, which is all a dream of HaShem, I exist as does my family and possessions and accomplishments and difficulties and pleasures, nevertheless, in objective reality I do not exist. I am nothing more than the dream. The only thing that truly exists is the dreamer Himself. The more I am able to relate to this notion the closer I come to absolute awe.
We mentioned before that awe is inspired when one recognizes his smallness relative to what is inspiring him. It therefore follows that the closer I get to the recognition that I am naught but a dream and HaShem is the dreamer, the closer I approach absolute awe; I approach the line of recognition of absolute smallness.
This explains the meaning of the Talmud’s statement about Moshe. The Talmud states that although it is difficult for most people to achieve the Awe of HaShem for Moshe is was quite easy. The reason that Moshe awed HaShem with no difficulty was because he talked with HaShem on a daily basis. To Moshe the existence of HaShem and consequently the non-existence of himself was so elementary that he was in a constant state of awe.
And so in summation; the way to achieve the mitzvah of fearing HaShem is first of all focusing on the consequence of disobeying HaShem’s Will and the reward for obeying His Will. That simple fear is already an accomplishment of this mitzvah. In addition to this approach one should certainly contemplate that sheer smallness of Man relative to HaShem and be inspired that in spite of this infinite disparity between Man and his Creator, the Creator maintains an ongoing system of support for Man.
How awesome!
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Mitzvah 3; To Love HaShem, an expansion of the mitzvah
The third mitzvah; To Love HaShem II
Although we already touched the surface of this mitzvah it would wrong to move on to the next mitzvah without expanding on this very critical mitzvah first. I must qualify my statement of “this very critical mitzvah”. Every mitzvah is critical, just like every organ of the body is critical. A person cannot live without a pancreas or without a liver and yet we all recognize that the brain and the heart are the more critical organs. The analogy describes well the distinction that this mitzvah carries over the other mitzvos. For this reason I believe we need to expand our appreciation of this mitzvah and to expand our understanding of what this mitzvah includes.
On the surface, this mitzvah is straightforward; love HaShem. The question that we must ask is, how does this mitzvah manifest itself. In other words, is this mitzvah supposed to modify my behavior and outlook in any way, or is it just to be a G.D loving Jew at heart with no real implications?
We will begin our exploration by going to the source of this mitzvah. The source of this mitzvah is found in the Shema Yisroel prayer. The Shema is a passage from the Book of Devarim (Deuteronomy), the fifth Book of the Five Books of Moshe. It reads as follows. “Hear (understand) O Israel, HaShem is our G.D, HaShem is One. And you must love HaShem with all your hearts and with all your soul and with all your might.”
The Torah does not state simply “Love HaShem” but rather love HaShem with all your hearts, etc. The implication is that there is more than just love that is expected. (We must forever be grateful for the Oral Law that instructs us how to read the Torah. For example, what does the Torah mean by using the plural hearts?) The Oral Law teaches us that the meaning of all your soul is that we are obligated to give our life if necessary for the honor of HaShem. The Oral Law expounds on the exact circumstances when one ought to give their life for HaShem. However, when the circumstances arise, our very life must be relinquished for His Honor.
I would like to spend the balance of this piece trying to understand how giving one’s life of HaShem is an expression of the mitzvah of loving HaShem. Why would HaShem want us to give our life for Him anyway? Does G.D not love us; does He not want us to live rather than to die? Furthermore, is it not common knowledge that one may even desecrate the Shabbos to save a life?
If we can resolve these questions or at least some of them, then we might be able to develop a more sophisticated appreciation of love as well as a deeper appreciation of what we need to do to fulfill this great mitzvah.
Let us begin by understanding the nature of love. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, a great leader of the German Jewish community in the mid 1800’s, presents love as follows. Love is when you recognize that all of who you are and all of who you can hope to be is through the other party. When I understand that without the other party I am a nobody, I cannot hope to be anything, my actions are meaningless, then I can say that I love the other party.
The Maharal a great leader of the Jewish people from Prague several hundred years ago articulated this way. Love is the yearning to be connected to the other party. This phenomenon occurs when one party brings about the completeness of the other party. Let us take the classical love of husband and wife. When the husband recognizes that he is incomplete without his wife he yearns to be with her – that is love.
In the previous blog we discussed the question of how does one love HaShem without actually seeing, touching or otherwise perceiving Him. Using the abovementioned definitions of love we can address this question quite comfortably. When I am able to acknowledge that HaShem is the source of all existence and there are no other forms of power outside of Him. And when I am able to acknowledge that everything that happens in the world finds it source in HaShem. And that, following the previous sentence, HaShem is fully aware of everything that occurs to me and He has only my best interest in mind, then I realize in stark contrast how I am absolutely nothing without HaShem. I cannot hope to be anything or have anything without HaShem. My actions and relationships are meaningless, as well as life itself, without HaShem. When I recognize this, I long to be close to HaShem, to connect to Him to gain meaningfulness. When I have accomplished this understanding, this recognition, I can say that I love HaShem.
If you are still with me you must realize that we have arrived at a pivotal point in being able to address the very difficult question we asked earlier. Why does HaShem want us to sacrifice our life for Him, does He not want what is best for us, namely to live, not die? If we have the courage, let us take what we already learnt and go to the next step as follows.
The more I give to my beloved the closer I connect with them. If, out of love, I were to give up my job and place of residence to move to a foreign land to marry my wife there is no question that this great sacrifice would generate a much stronger connection between us than the connection we had before I made the sacrifice. The more you put in the more you get out. The most valuable possession Man has is life. When I give up my life for the one I love I have created the most powerful connection Man can ever hope to accomplish. The problem with this is that after I am dead what good does my connection do for me – I no longer exist? This point is not a concern when we talk about connection to HaShem. For after I die I continue to exist just as I existed before I die, albeit in a different form. And therefore there is nothing more exhilarating, nothing more meaningful, nothing more enriching than sacrificing one’s life out of love.
I know what’s bothering you; “How can you say that death is good, how can you say that there is nothing more meaningful than death? You sound like a fundamentalist!” I will respond to you that we all talk about the great sacrifice this soldier made for freedom’s sake, or for the sake of liberty or for the sake of justice, etc. We all recognize how noble it is to have died in line of battle defending the country. Is it preference to do so? NO! But it is admirable. However, HaShem does not want His people giving up their lives every time a difficult situation arises, He therefore instructs us in the Oral Law that we must transgress the entire Torah with three exceptions to save life. It is for this reason that we drive on Shabbos to save a life. It is only for those three exceptions, because they are so critical to our relationship with HaShem that HaShem expects us to give up our life before transgressing them.
Perhaps we can better understand the context in which the Torah places the mitzvah of Love HaShem.
In the first passage we declare “Hear (understand and recognize) O Israel, HaShem is our G.D (which means that He is the source of everything), HaShem is One (which means that nothing has been delegated by Him, i.e. He is involved in everything that happens to me for the good or otherwise, it is all Him). After acknowledging that, the Torah then instructs us "Love HaShem your G.D with all your hearts and with all your soul and with all your might."
Although we already touched the surface of this mitzvah it would wrong to move on to the next mitzvah without expanding on this very critical mitzvah first. I must qualify my statement of “this very critical mitzvah”. Every mitzvah is critical, just like every organ of the body is critical. A person cannot live without a pancreas or without a liver and yet we all recognize that the brain and the heart are the more critical organs. The analogy describes well the distinction that this mitzvah carries over the other mitzvos. For this reason I believe we need to expand our appreciation of this mitzvah and to expand our understanding of what this mitzvah includes.
On the surface, this mitzvah is straightforward; love HaShem. The question that we must ask is, how does this mitzvah manifest itself. In other words, is this mitzvah supposed to modify my behavior and outlook in any way, or is it just to be a G.D loving Jew at heart with no real implications?
We will begin our exploration by going to the source of this mitzvah. The source of this mitzvah is found in the Shema Yisroel prayer. The Shema is a passage from the Book of Devarim (Deuteronomy), the fifth Book of the Five Books of Moshe. It reads as follows. “Hear (understand) O Israel, HaShem is our G.D, HaShem is One. And you must love HaShem with all your hearts and with all your soul and with all your might.”
The Torah does not state simply “Love HaShem” but rather love HaShem with all your hearts, etc. The implication is that there is more than just love that is expected. (We must forever be grateful for the Oral Law that instructs us how to read the Torah. For example, what does the Torah mean by using the plural hearts?) The Oral Law teaches us that the meaning of all your soul is that we are obligated to give our life if necessary for the honor of HaShem. The Oral Law expounds on the exact circumstances when one ought to give their life for HaShem. However, when the circumstances arise, our very life must be relinquished for His Honor.
I would like to spend the balance of this piece trying to understand how giving one’s life of HaShem is an expression of the mitzvah of loving HaShem. Why would HaShem want us to give our life for Him anyway? Does G.D not love us; does He not want us to live rather than to die? Furthermore, is it not common knowledge that one may even desecrate the Shabbos to save a life?
If we can resolve these questions or at least some of them, then we might be able to develop a more sophisticated appreciation of love as well as a deeper appreciation of what we need to do to fulfill this great mitzvah.
Let us begin by understanding the nature of love. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, a great leader of the German Jewish community in the mid 1800’s, presents love as follows. Love is when you recognize that all of who you are and all of who you can hope to be is through the other party. When I understand that without the other party I am a nobody, I cannot hope to be anything, my actions are meaningless, then I can say that I love the other party.
The Maharal a great leader of the Jewish people from Prague several hundred years ago articulated this way. Love is the yearning to be connected to the other party. This phenomenon occurs when one party brings about the completeness of the other party. Let us take the classical love of husband and wife. When the husband recognizes that he is incomplete without his wife he yearns to be with her – that is love.
In the previous blog we discussed the question of how does one love HaShem without actually seeing, touching or otherwise perceiving Him. Using the abovementioned definitions of love we can address this question quite comfortably. When I am able to acknowledge that HaShem is the source of all existence and there are no other forms of power outside of Him. And when I am able to acknowledge that everything that happens in the world finds it source in HaShem. And that, following the previous sentence, HaShem is fully aware of everything that occurs to me and He has only my best interest in mind, then I realize in stark contrast how I am absolutely nothing without HaShem. I cannot hope to be anything or have anything without HaShem. My actions and relationships are meaningless, as well as life itself, without HaShem. When I recognize this, I long to be close to HaShem, to connect to Him to gain meaningfulness. When I have accomplished this understanding, this recognition, I can say that I love HaShem.
If you are still with me you must realize that we have arrived at a pivotal point in being able to address the very difficult question we asked earlier. Why does HaShem want us to sacrifice our life for Him, does He not want what is best for us, namely to live, not die? If we have the courage, let us take what we already learnt and go to the next step as follows.
The more I give to my beloved the closer I connect with them. If, out of love, I were to give up my job and place of residence to move to a foreign land to marry my wife there is no question that this great sacrifice would generate a much stronger connection between us than the connection we had before I made the sacrifice. The more you put in the more you get out. The most valuable possession Man has is life. When I give up my life for the one I love I have created the most powerful connection Man can ever hope to accomplish. The problem with this is that after I am dead what good does my connection do for me – I no longer exist? This point is not a concern when we talk about connection to HaShem. For after I die I continue to exist just as I existed before I die, albeit in a different form. And therefore there is nothing more exhilarating, nothing more meaningful, nothing more enriching than sacrificing one’s life out of love.
I know what’s bothering you; “How can you say that death is good, how can you say that there is nothing more meaningful than death? You sound like a fundamentalist!” I will respond to you that we all talk about the great sacrifice this soldier made for freedom’s sake, or for the sake of liberty or for the sake of justice, etc. We all recognize how noble it is to have died in line of battle defending the country. Is it preference to do so? NO! But it is admirable. However, HaShem does not want His people giving up their lives every time a difficult situation arises, He therefore instructs us in the Oral Law that we must transgress the entire Torah with three exceptions to save life. It is for this reason that we drive on Shabbos to save a life. It is only for those three exceptions, because they are so critical to our relationship with HaShem that HaShem expects us to give up our life before transgressing them.
Perhaps we can better understand the context in which the Torah places the mitzvah of Love HaShem.
In the first passage we declare “Hear (understand and recognize) O Israel, HaShem is our G.D (which means that He is the source of everything), HaShem is One (which means that nothing has been delegated by Him, i.e. He is involved in everything that happens to me for the good or otherwise, it is all Him). After acknowledging that, the Torah then instructs us "Love HaShem your G.D with all your hearts and with all your soul and with all your might."
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