Bo
Posted on Thursday, January 29th, 2009
As R’ Tzaddok quotes from the Zohar, the 10 plagues correspond to the 10 Divine emanations (sefirot), from last to first. Thus the last 3 plagues, featured in Parshat Bo, correspond to Binah, Chochmah, and Keter, respectively. Whereas the first 7 plagues and the 7 lower emanations concern how self and thought are manifested in the world, the last three plagues, and the three higher sefirot, pertain to what is being manifested. Binah and Chochmah are associated with what and how we think. And they are vessels for the highest emanation of G-d, for even what and how we think comes from a higher source – the level of keter.
As is clear, perception of the world has very much to do with our attitude about the world. In the paraphrased words of Rebbe Nachman, whether we think positively or negatively can be attributed to our yetzer, which is usually defined as inclination – we have both a positive inclination, and a negative inclination. And yetzer shares a root with yotzer, which means ‘to form’. Thus, the way we think, or which yetzer we use to perceive the world, will then form the world. The ‘decision’ as to how we will approach the world has everything to do with our disposition toward the world, which is on the level of Keter. Or, put another way, what and how we think is not the truest indication of who we are – there is a level of self, perhaps best described as an attitude, which will determine what and how we think.
Through the plagues of locusts and darkness, Hashem shows us two different kinds of darkness. With the locusts, it is written “And the locusts covered all vision of the land, and the land was dark (Ex. 10:15).” By the plague of darkness, we find darkness not associated with any covering of the sun, but what seems to be an internal darkness. Thus, some darknesses come because what we need in order to see is blocked, and some darknesses come because we ourselves are not able to see light. These are levels of darkness corresponding to binah and chochmah. The darkness of chochmah might be called chochmot chitzoniot – external wisdoms. These are not truly wisdom, but philosophies that are not correct. They might describe the nature of the world, or the purpose of being, in a way that is not truly aligned with reality. Thus, the source of one’s vision is flawed, and one sees only his or her own misperception of the world – darkness. Or, as is written in Isaiah 5,
(כ) הוי האמרים לרע טוב ולטוב רע שמים חשך לאור ואור לחשך שמים מר למתוק ו
“Whoa to you who call bad good and good bad; who make dark light, and light dark; who make bitter into sweet.”
The darkness of binah does not belie a fault in wisdom, but a fault in application of that wisdom. Whereas wisdom implies mind and binah implies heart, a darkness of binah implies a disconnection between mind and heart. The heart is the point of contact between intelligence and emotion. When binah is in darkness, it reflects incongruity between thought and emotion. Wisdom is useless if it is not applicable to real life. But the darkness is not experienced as internal – it is experienced in every relationship in a distinct way. Thus the plague of locusts reflects this type of darkness, composite of so many individual beings and moments that, as a whole, provide no capacity to see light.
The last plague corresponds to the level of keter. Keter cannot be described. It is the level of being that pervades everything – every aspect of self is affected by a shift in keter. As Egypt is plunged into the pain of losing their first born, Israel is undergoing a radical shift in its relationship to G-d. As it cannot be described in and of itself, the Torah describes many facets of the new reality – many of which are through the medium of mitzvah. The Jews, with the guidance provided by their first mitzvah, take the first step in becoming familiar with the parameters of their new relationship with G-d. It will be a complete re-definition of relationship to the Divine.
The first facet of the new paradigm is the reality of having mitzvah, of being commanded. This implies a sense of mission or purpose. It also implies that there is a course of right action and a course of wrong action. There is a particular directive around which we relate to G-d, either by success through acquiescence, or by failure through denial. Our lives will be cast into the question of whether we comply with G-d’s law – a reiteration of the command not to eat of the fruit of the tree. And with acquiescence comes the possibility of reward. Whereas until now the reason for Israel’s redemption has been based upon G-d’s relationship and subsequent promises to Avraham, Yitzhak, and Ya’akov, the Jews are now invited to play a more active role in that relationship – deserving through adherence to mitzvot.
In mitzvah, a sense of constructive partnership is also implied. Assuming that the mitzvot do not serve merely as tests of obedience but as directives toward actions that are helpful and necessary to the world, we are invited through them to participate as partners in the redemption of the world. This is a far cry from the futility of slavery.
A second facet of relationship that is introduced through the mitzvot of the new moon is introduction to a new concept of time – lunar as opposed to solar time. The lunar cycle is characterized by waxing and waning. There is a consistent inconsistency. Every month features a momentary disappearance and a guaranteed renewal. The lunar cycle, and identification with the moon, carries with it a sense of reflection of light as opposed to production of light. Lunar time is characterized by segments of time that are traceable astronomically. There is a beginning and an end, whereas the sun does not offer such clear parameters.
Those peoples that abide by a lunar calendar face the danger, and the joy, of being ‘out of synch’ with the majority of the world, which abides by the solar calendar. By Israel’s commitment to lunar time combined with its willingness to reconcile with solar time through what are called ‘pregnant months’ and ‘pregnant years’ implies a need to honor the character of their nationhood as unique, while making effort to stay in step with the rest of the world.
The rabbis learn from the verse ‘this month is to you the first of the months’ that the new month is sanctified by human initiative – human witnesses, and a human court that reviews those testimonies and sanctifies the month. This mitzvah is, again, an invitation to participate in the creation of the world we live in. The mitzvah leads to an even more surprising invitation –to manipulate time to serve human purposes. This is discussed at length in Tractate Rosh Hashanah, and was a tool used to elongate certain months to avoid certain undesirable circumstances.
With the concept of mitzvah in the form of the spoken word, we find another facet of the new paradigm – encouragement to interpret. Suddenly, with mitzvah coming from the mouth of the Divine, we find a flourishing of rabbinic commentary. Every word of this commandment is rendered in several different ways – the ‘hammer that sends sparks in all directions.’ Each word is interpreted literally and figuratively. This is exactly the essence of Oral Torah – the empowerment (similar to the empowerment of witnesses and courts to determine the advent of the new moon) of individuals, participating in a collective effort to interpret law. Suddenly the Written Torah is seen as vague and cryptic in contrast to an Oral Torah that is clear and provides practical guidance.
This empowerment helps us to understand that Israel’s gestation in Egypt is not to create a nation of yes-people, but to create, as it were, an ezer k’negdo to Hashem. The Oral Law is born with the Jewish people, and with it comes the possibility of ‘my children have defeated me.’ We are empowered to negate the literal meaning of ‘an eye for an eye’, we can legislate the wayward, rebellious son out of existence, and can render death penalties almost impossible to enforce. We take upon ourselves the responsibility to bridge the Written law with the world we live in.
These are but a few examples of facets of the new paradigm. They collectively imply a new and dynamic relationship to G-d. We gain a sense of Otherness to G-d – G-d has invited us into covenantal partnership. G-d has, so to speak, agreed to allow is to participate in the creation of the world. It is just this point that Rebbe Nachman discusses in his lesson that pertains to this parsha, lesson 64. “You must know that disagreement is an aspect of the creation of the world. For the world is created through the ‘empty space’ [that came to be when G-d constricted G-d’s self to the sides in order to create a place in which to create the world.] For, without this, all would have been subsumed in the Infinite, and there would not have been a place in which to create the world. Therefore, G-d constricted G-d’s light to the sides, and an empty space came to be, in which G-d created all of creation, particularly the days and the measures. G-d did so through speech, as it says, ‘with the word of G-d, the heavens were made.’ And so it is concerning disagreement. For if all scholars were one, there would be no place to create the world. But through their disagreement, and that they are distinguished from one another, and each pulls to one side, through this an empty space comes to be, which implies [G-d’s] light being constricted to the sides. And in that space, the world is created through speech.”
This passage from Rebbe Nachman implies that no one person can create the world alone. The creation of the world occurs in the space between co-creators. Each can only reach so far into the other. No amount of force can allow one person to create the world. Each participant in creation must simultaneously retain his or her character and recognize that the world will not be a complete reflection of that character. We, too, must retain our character, so to speak, in the Face of G-d. We must recognize our position at one pole in that relationship, empowered but receptive and reflective. We are commanded and trusted.
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I have given here a sense of approaching the indescribable relationship to G-d from all sides in order to get a rough sketch of that relationship. In our relationships to one another, and in our understandings of ourselves, the same impossibility of definition exists. There is no single point that can be identified as ‘the person’, for we are rooted in the infinite and made in the image of the Divine . We can, however, piece each other together as we go, gaining an increasingly detailed sense of who we are. But if we are honest in that process, we will probably find that the more details we have about ‘a person’, the less we know about them. For people speak from a multiplicity of centers – from all sorts of needs, desires, hopes, self-image, and the like. We can never hope to
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