Boulder Aish Kodesh

Beshalach by Rabbi Gavriel Goldfeder

mitten — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 02:06:41 +0000

Last Shabbat, American was confronted with a horrible tragedy: Gabrielle Giffords, a U.S. Member of the House of Representatives, was shot along with almost 20 others. Giffords, who happens to be Jewish, is miraculously alive. We anxiously await further news of her healing progress, and we continue to pray for her.

Media coverage has been intense, with particular focus whether our political rhetoric contributes to a violent response to disagreement. It is not entirely clear that the would-be assassin was motivated politically as much as by his own insanity, but, just the same, discussion has focused around the environment being created by speech.

This is a topic worthy of study in itself. The Zohar states explicitly that, just as Hashem creates worlds through speech, we create worlds through speech. It is certainly noticeably in raising children – the way we talk, the way we express our expectations and disappointments, creates the environment in which the child's mind grows. As we get older, we hope to become more immune to negative rhetoric and more proactive in creating positive rhetoric about our lives. Thus the chassidic masters write that we should try to avoid speaking badly when something happens, as the description creates the event. We discussed this two weeks ago when we talked about the plagues as equal revelations to the Jews and the Egyptians. The Egyptians, who had no capacity to hold the revelation, received it is a plague. The Jews, who had capacity, received it as revelation and guidance.

Much of the discussion around rhetoric has, justified or not, revolved around Sarah Palin and the Tea Party. In a speech, Palin expressed her sadness and empathy with the mourners and pointed toward the short-sightedness of attributing an assassins acts to someone else's rhetoric. I will not express my opinion here about whether I agree. But in her address, Palin (and she was not the first) used a phrase that started another, separate media outcry: She referred to the accusations as a “blood libel.” She seems to have been making the connection between Jews being accused of using blood of non-Jewish children in making matzah – being framed and blamed for the spilled blood of others – and Tea Party rhetoricians being accused for spilling Giffords' blood.

Almost immediately, Jewish groups responded with surprise, anger and indignation. In a sense, they were saying, “That's a charged phrase, and it belongs to us.” Palin seems to have been saying, “'Blood libel' is an objective phrase that refers to any situation where a person or community is unjustifiably accused of spilling blood.”

This is an important question: Do Jews own the phrase “blood libel”? How about Holocaust – is that ours, and our alone? Are our stories meant for the world, or just for us? When Martin Luther King stood as Moses, looking toward a promised land he would not enter, was it an appropriation, a misappropriation, or an expression of exactly the point Hashem wanted the Jews, and the world, to learn from that story?

What about splitting the sea? Was that an event that was intended just for us, to show Hashem's love for us? Or was it a message to the world? If it was for us alone, why did Hashem split all the waters in the world, as Rashi tells us?

And how about Amalek, who shows up at the end of the Parsha? Amalek, we are told, hates the Jews. Just because. Are there other conflicts of the world that are borne of pure hatred? Or do they always come from some past event, some historical slight, a struggle for land, or a conflict of beliefs? If someone else appropriates Amalek, is that a diminution of our story?

This issue comes up around the Holocaust. We tend to believe that it was primarily a Nazi-Jewish moment, though millions of others, including homosexuals, prisoners or war, Roma, and handicapped people. How do we navigate the conversation without being defensive, insensitive, and indignant, while also maintaining the right to address the wounds that are uniquely ours?

These are some of the issues that are “up” right now in the news. It behooves us to understand our positions and reactions to them so that we can continue to model integrity on the difficult tension between uniqueness and universality. Good Shabbes.

Bo by Rabbi Gavriel Goldfeder

mitten — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 03:16:16 +0000

As the Egypt saga comes to an end, it is worth reflecting on a particular aspect of the story that has been mentioned since G-d first told Abraham the exile would happen: “when the Jews leave Egypt, they will not leave empty-handed.” As they are preparing to leave, between the 9^th and 10^th plagues, G-d tells Moshe to tell the people to ask their Egyptian neighbors for gold and silver and garments.

The Talmud in Berachot mentions just how irrelevant this would have been to the Jews. It can be compared to a prisoner who has not only been freed, but is also told, “ask for whatever you wish.” the prisoner says, “My freedom is enough! What more do I need?”

And yet, G-d insists that Moshe tell the people to ask for their neighbors' valuables. In explaining it to Moshe, G-d says, “I don't want Avraham complaining that I made good on My promise that the Jews would be slaves, and didn't make good on My promise that they would leave with great wealth.”

Consider, for a moment, the wealth gathered in the land of Egypt. When the famine hit, all the money in the world ended up in Egypt. When money ran out, people sold their livestock and even their very selves to Pharaoh for grain. It is beyond comprehension. And now the Jews are being told to take all that money away with them. The Gemarra writes that they left Egypt like a fishing net with no bait left in it.

The image of a fishing net is interesting: Egypt has all sorts of goodies - “bait” - that are used to draw down the prey. Egypt is the place where the goodies are – Avraham and Sarah (and Lot) left Egypt with great wealth. Now the Jews will leave the same way. Later on, the Jews are told that their king must not return them to Egypt in hopes of attaining more horses. Egypt is the place where the goodies are, but it is a trap. The secret is to be able to access the goodies and not fall for the trap.

Exile is generally seen the same way – there are goodies there, but the trap is dangerous. The goodies of exile are available on many levels. The Talmud, for example, asks, “Why is there exile? To bring back converts!” There is also physical wealth to be had. But perhaps most importantly, exile is essential in our ongoing processes, both personally and nationally, of reaching the ideal of the Jewish mission. So many essential pieces come to fruition specifically in exile: the Torah is given, the Talmud is written. In fact, we are born as a people in Egypt, not Israel.

But of course exile is also a trap. When the Jews left Egypt, only 1 out of 5 people actually left. We lose people in exile – to assimilation, mostly. So how do we gain the goodies and avoid the trap? That is the challenge, isn't it? We all wish we knew the secret. Perhaps the bottom line is to remember the goal, to remember that we are in exile, that there is a purpose here, and that it is also a trap. Just knowing that can be so helpful in our personal and communal attempts to build meaning and direction in a situation where meaning and direction are sometimes absent.

Va’eira by Rabbi Gavriel Goldfeder

mitten — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:35:53 +0000

A story is told about R’ Meshulam Zusia of Anipoli (in the language of Martin Buber): All the pupils of the great Maggid (R’ Dov Baer of Mezrich) transmitted the teachings in his name – all except R’ Zusia. And the reason for this was that R’ Zusia hardly ever heard his teacher’s sermon out to the end. For at the very start, when the Maggid recited the verse from Scriptures which he was going to expound, and began with the words of the Scriptures: ‘And G-d said’ or ‘and G-d spoke,’ R Zusia was overcome with ecstasy, and screamed, and gesticulated so wildly that he disturbed the peace of the round table and had to be taken out.

R’ Zusia was deeply connected to the unknowability of G-d. Perhaps we take for granted that G-d not only spoke and speaks, but also has transmitted G-d’s will in written and accessible form, and has given commandments and stories steeped with invaluable suggestions about relationship with the Divine. No philosophy, even one that arrived at the necessity of there being an Ultimate Power or First Cause, would arrive at the conclusion that the Divine would interact with humans, would speak and hear and act, would take favorites or designate a specific land or people as being catalysts for the transmission of that will into the world. R’ Zusia knew that G-d speaking to humans, in and of itself, is more mind-blowing than what, particularly, was said.

Interaction with the Divine should never be taken for granted. The opportunity to pray – to convey one’s needs, desires, dreams, and worries, to the One who holds all power – the magnitude of this opportunity and its potentials should leave a person stunned and speechless. But there is great danger for one who is encouraged, or commanded, to come before G-d three times a day in formal prayer with a specific script. Such a person might fall into the trap of thinking that he or she and G-d are buddies, and no one can be expected to be completely present all the time in prayer, and to have a really good davennen once a day, or once a week, is enough. Such a person may well lose touch with the immensity of the encounter.

A similar trap is thinking that, since a person has effectively expressed his or her self in prayer, or has been fully present and felt deep connection to the Divine, that that person, therefore, understands. Often such moments are followed by immense disappointment when something that was prayed for did not happen, or the like. We might also come to expect certain things from G-d – G-d doesn’t let bad things happen to good people, for example. But, as G-d says in Isaiah 55:8, “..for my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways, says Hashem.” G-d and G-d’s ways are still ultimately unknowable. We might know that G-d wants to ‘give the ultimate good that G-d’s creatures are able to receive’ (R’ Moshe Chaim Luzzato, Derech Hashem, 1:2), but we have no idea how it will look.

After Moshe’s encounter at the Burning Bush, where he finally agrees to take upon himself the mission to speak to Pharaoh and demand the release of the Jewish people from their bondage there, he goes with Aharon to speak with Pharaoh to that end, but with apparently disastrous results. Pharaoh not only refuses, but he makes the burden upon the Jewish people much heavier. Then he is subject to harsh rebuke from the Jewish people themselves. Understandably, he complains to G-d: “Why have you dealt badly with his people? And why did you send me?” Hashem then tells Moshe, “Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh…”

We are left at the end of Parshat Shemot with G-d’s promise to give Pharaoh his just deserve, but we have a deep lingering question: Given that Hashem is supplying Moshe’s words, and Hashem is controlling Pharaoh’s heart, why did Hashem command Moshe to go to Pharaoh, leading him to experience such sharp disappointment, doubt, and frustration? An explanation comes at the beginning of the next Parsha: “And Elo-kim spoke to Moshe and said, ‘I am Hashem.’” As is oft interpreted from this verse, Elo-kim as opposed to Hashem, and speaking as opposed to saying, implies harshness – but, underneath that harshness, I am Hashem.

Moshe is forced to face two stark realities: one is that, though he may be privy to the highest revelations of encounter with G-d that any human has ever or will ever experience, he simply does not know G-d’s ways. (He will later ask to know G-d’s ways, and be told that no person can behold His ways and survive.) The second reality he must face, and we all must face, is how we act in light of the fact that we do not and cannot know G-d’s ways. The disappointment, doubt, and frustration we experience are emotions one feels when one believes that it is proper or correct to expect. They are feelings that come when one feels one is dealing with an Other who does or should fit into certain predictable behavior patterns, as governed by logic or laws of decency. But they do not apply to One who says “…for my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways, says Hashem.” And the situation is made more confusing when the one who says that His ways are unknowable still guarantees total and absolute benevolence.

When one realizes and accepts that G-d’s ways are unknowable, and, simultaneously, that G-d is absolutely benevolent, then those doubts, disappointments, and frustrations must be seen as a reflection of one’s self, and not as a reflection of G-d. And one must deal with them appropriately. It seems that G-d wanted Moshe to see his own reactions to what he perceived to be failure, so that he could effectively lead a people who would fail repeatedly throughout history. Only if Moshe was fully aware of the traps one falls into through failure, could he be of aid to the Jewish people through their journeys.

So we see that Moshe finds that he does not know G-d. We have also find that Pharoah does not know G-d – as he says, “who is this Hashem that I should listen to His voice, to send forth Israel? I do not know Hashem, and I will not send Israel forth (Ex. 5:2).” Further, we find that the Jewish people do not know G-d, as the angels say to Hashem before the parting of the Sea of Reeds – “Why do you save this people [Israel] and destroy this people [Egypt]? These serve idols, and these serve idols…” Thus, Israel was also in deep need of extricating themselves from the idolatrous theology of Egypt. The process of the plagues is really a process of education as to the extent of G-d’s power.

We find this theme stated explicitly in the text: By the plague of the frogs, we find Moshe telling Pharaoh, “… in order that you should know that there is none like Hashem our G-d (Ex. 8:6).” By the plague of pestilence, we find Hashem telling Moshe to tell Pharaoh, “For this time I will deliver all of my plagues upon your heart, and upon your servants and your nation, in order that you should know that there is none like Me on all the earth (Ex. 9:14).” Similarly, we find before the last plague, “And you shall all know that I have distinguished between the Egyptian nation and the people Israel (Ex. 11:7.”

Seeing as only one fifth of the Jews left Egypt, (Ex. 13:18 Rashi) and it would certainly be pompous to believe that, of course, I would have been among those who left, this Parsha is an important time to look at what we think we know about G-d. A simple reading of the Parsha reveals many facets of G-d’s relationship with the world that we can know.

G-d speaks to people – 6:2.
G-d appears to people in different ways – sometimes as Elo-kim, sometimes, as Hashem, and sometimes as E-l Sha-dai (6:2-3).
G-d establishes covenants with people, binding G-d’s self, so to speak, to give certain rewards or results to humans. Sometimes these come as a result of our actions, sometimes not. (6:4)
G-d has established a covenant specifically with the Jewish people to give them the land of Israel. (6:4)
G-d hears. (6:5)
G-d can give us knowledge of G-d. (6:7)
G-d can control people’s hearts. (7:3)
G-d wants to be known. (7:5)

There are, of course, many more. It is equally important to look at the specific points that G-d wanted Egypt to understand: there is none like G-d, there is none like G-d on all the earth, and G-d has distinguished between the people Israel and the people Egypt. Do we consider G-d to be merely one among many powers, like the weather, the economy, nature, and the like, or do we understand that none of these has power like G-d has power? Do we limit the power of G-d to the realm of what we consider possible? Do we assume that G-d does not have a specific will per se, or does not ‘prefer’ one thing over another? Questions like these must be asked so that we can come to a true understanding of how to relate to G-d. Usually, asking such questions will allow us to open up to a far more dynamic relationship with G-d, full with possibility and not limited by what we think G-d is or should be.

Shemot by Rabbi Gavriel Goldfeder

mitten — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:41:41 +0000

The book of Shemot, which we start reading this week, is really about community-building. The process the Jewish people went through in becoming the Jewish people is paralleled in the development and evolution of the modern community.

In the first five verses, we are told that Ya'akov and his children – 70 of them – came down to Egypt, but they have now all died. There are two important elements here – first is the language used to describe those 70 people: The Hebrew is shivim nafesh – literally, 70 soul. Not 70's soul, and not 70 souls – 70 soul. This is juxtaposed to Eisav, about whom the word nefashot-souls is used. Rashi says on Gen. 46:26 that, because Eisav served many gods, his community was a multiplicity – individual souls toward individual ends. But Ya'akov, whose family was united by their belief in the One G-d, were called “soul” - they were like one soul.

So the community is born of a common belief, but the people who held that common belief are dead. And it is not clear that that belief – the belief in the importance of the community around one purpose, one idea – has been successfully transmitted. So you may find a community that was started by people who believed in a common cause, and those founders may be gone. And what of their cause? Do their children and grandchildren, do subsequent member-generations, care about that cause? And if not, what makes them a community?

Putting these two factors together – and I know this is a metaphysical claim that cannot be substantiated, though I think I have experienced it – Jews have an innate, visceral desire to create community, regardless of whether that original common belief is consciously held. So it kicks around inside of us, pushing us to create (and hopefully recreate) community around some reiteration, recalibration, or recapitulation of that original essential common belief in a new way for a new generation.

Let's take Aish Kodesh as an example. Thank G-d, we have many original members who regularly attend services and classes. Aish was born of their love and their vision. If all the current members of Aish had a bunch of children and then moved to the moon, leaving those children behind, what would happen? We would certainly try to impart the values and vision before we left, but that is of limited impact. It is incumbent upon the next generation to find its soul. Without it, the community is empty of its heart.

The Jews in Egypt lost the generation that knew why they were there. The generation that the book of Shemot opens with doesn't know why they are in Egypt. They didn't choose to come, or know the people who did. They have some prophecies in hand, promises of redemption, but they are just words, too quiet and unbelievable to really inform their decisions and their souls as they toil under hard labor. In those dire circumstances, they will have to find their own soul, their own purpose, and their own hopes.

As Aish Kodesh moves through the years, we are challenged to concretize a vision for now, a story of who we are that is descendant from the original vision and also acknowledges the current membership, leadership, circumstances, needs and opportunities. We – all 66 member units of us – have to find our soul of now. It is not good enough to say that Aish is here because someone else built it. Just as Hashem continually sustains the world through the 10 primordial utterances, we must continue to sustain Aish through a renewed and revitalized vision.

Vayechi by Rabbi Gavriel Goldfeder

mitten — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:44:02 +0000

From the time of Avraham, it was known that a time of exile would come upon his descendents. It was not known when it would begin or when it would end, but it was known that it would be a time of poverty and affliction, as G-d said to Avraham, “You shall surely know [that you will inherit this land], for your progeny will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and they will enslave them, and they will afflict them …. And then they will leave with great wealth” (Gen. 15:13,14). Even at the time of that prophecy, Avraham did not know when it would begin or where it would be, as Rashi points out there. In ensuing generations, the nature of the prophecy’s fulfillment was not known. R’ Tzaddok HaCohen has Yehudah standing in front of Yosef in Parshat Vayigash calculating different permutations of that prophecy – one possibility was that Ya’akov himself had fulfilled it during his time with Lavan. Another was that Yosef had indeed been sold into slavery and had therefore fulfilled the prophecy. Another was that Yehudah would replace Binyamin in prison and fulfill the prophecy himself. From this we see that this gloomy prophecy was hanging over the heads of Avraham and his descendents for four generations now. It was clear from the original prophecy that this period of exile would result in amassment of great wealth as well as in the inheritance of the land of Israel. That time of exile would prove to be essential for the future of Avraham’s nascent tribe. Such a dark cloud standing inevitably in one’s future but whose specifics remain ambiguous would wreak havoc upon one’s sense of standing. It would seem impossible to commit to any particular approach to life, seeing that any face one presents toward the approaching darkness will be uprooted in some way at some time. Such a situation casts one into genuine uncertainty. King Shlomo, in Ecclesiastes, and many later existentialists, struggled with this problem. This is, after all, the situation we find ourselves in, in microcosm. Patterns of summer’s glory passing to autumn and forgotten by winter, of the waxing and waning of the moon, and the ebb and flow of tides, the birth of new life and its inevitable passage into death, patterns such as these are built not only into the world of nature but also into human experience. Great ideas are born and become old, love turns to habit, passion ceases, youth dwindles. But need there be but one cycle in the entirety of a person’s life? Must we see Death as the only death, and Birth as the only birth? Or dare we die a bit more often and be born again every time? This is the challenge facing Avraham’s family: we know Death is looming for us. How shall we live in the face of that? Or, alternatively, how can we harness this awesome cycle that Nature provides? At essence, the point of exile or darkness in every cycle is characterized by lack of clarity. A path that was heretofore clear and exposed has been covered over. The obvious steps in fulfillment of destiny come to a halt – as it did for Yosef,t he master of dreams, as he was tossed into the pit - leaving a gaping open space. When the pain of the fall subsides, someone who can see in the dark will notice that this open space has more dimensions than the path that led to it did – but many of us never let go of that pain and the blame of the fall. That space we experience in exile has a Kabbalistic terminology – malchut. It is the name of the 10th sefirah, which is open and empty. Malchut is often associated with speech, which is a primary form of emergence from the hidden worlds of thought and feeling into the world of inter-action. Speech implies an other, a listener. And an other implies all sorts of complicated thoughts, feelings, projections, fears, and anxieties. It implies one outside of myself that I cannot control. Thus malchut is a scary place to be. It is certainly far easier to live all of one’s life stuck in one’s thoughts or emotions. It might seem to be more pleasant if there was no such thing as space, or exile. But such a life does not know the joy of true relationship. True relationship only occurs in the empty space between two different beings. Each participant leaves the comfort of the known and enters the space of the unknown. There, each participant risks being transformed – there will be no possibility of return to the known, for the known no longer exists. A new world is created, as Rebbe Nachman describes in Likutei Moharan I 64:4. Exile is the place of interaction with the unknown where a new knowledge is born. Ya’akov has spent much of his life walking through this dark, open space. He incepted the evening prayer, which we say as mysterious night approaches. He has tangled with difficult characters and challenging situations from the beginning. He has struggled in that open space, and he has succeeded in emerging full and complete (Gen. 33:18, Rashi). His name, Yisrael, indicates his capacity and willingness to wrestle in relationship. And, yet, Ya’akov has carried with him a sense of his life’s bitterness. As he summed up his own life to Pharaoh, “The days of my wanderings have been 130 years, few and bad (ra’im)…” Certainly one’s struggles with powerful Others in open space can be frustrating. But we find that bitterness is not the lasting taste in his mouth. We find Ya’akov saying, as he blesses Ephraim and Menasheh, “The angel who redeemed me from all harm (rah)…” It is clear that, as the end of his life draws near, Ya’akov does not feel permanently harmed by those events of his life that seemed at the time to be negative. In fact, it seems that his perception of those events has been transformed in light of his reunion with Yosef. Somehow he has managed, after all that, to reach a place in himself called “Life”. Seeing as Ya’akov has lived through a period of intense darkness and has emerged to experience a truly enriched life - in exile, no less - he becomes our guide to that transition. It is clear from Rashi’s comment on the first verse of the Parsha that Ya’akov is the bearer of that guidance: “Why is this parsha ‘closed’ [meaning that the customary space between parshas in the Torah is absent between Parshat Vayigash and Parshat Vayechi]? For, when Ya’akov died, the eyes and hearts of Israel were closed because of the agony of servitude imposed upon them. Another reason is that he sought to reveal to them the end, and it was hidden from him.” (Rashi 47:28) Ya’akov knows that he has experienced the process of moving through darkness to light, and he wants to pass that know-how on to his children. Thus, on the very last day of his life, he calls his to children and tells them, “Gather together, and I will tell you what will happen with you in the end of days…” But immediately, says Resh Lakish in Gemarra Pesachim 56a, the Divine Presence left him (that same lack of clarity he experienced when Yosef was lost to him) and he was unable to tell them what he wanted to tell them. According to R’ Tzaddok HaCohen of Lublin, Ya’akov wished to tell them not only that there is no light but that which comes from darkness, but just how that darkness turns to light. This he was unable to communicate to them, as the Divine Presence left him. But as Ya’akov has now grown accustomed to, and unafraid of, this type of darkness, he changes tactics. He realizes that there is no real way to communicate exactly how that transition happens. But now, at the very moment of teaching-turned-disappointment, he can show them how one deals with darkness. After all, it cannot be told, but must be experienced in order to be grasped. As each encounter with true Other-ness in a truly open space is unique, there can be no magic formula to turn it into light. But this does not mean that a person must enter the Unknown empty-handed. There is a map available that points the way. But the map is inherently personal, for we each encounter Mystery in a unique way. The map does not describe what the darkness is and how it can be transformed. It is more a map of ourselves, and how we can navigate the difficult journey from isolation into relationship – from our thoughts and feelings toward true dialogue, characterized by an open heart and positive disposition. It might outline harmful tendencies that would prevent us from entering that space – like judgment, anger, depression, blame, or over-intellectualization. It might indicate personal strengths that must be recognized and brought to the fore, such as courage, charisma, and humility, that can help us bring forth the bets we have into the relationship. The map will be different for each of us, as each of us departs from a different place to arrive at the center. Thus Ya’akov, on the brink of darkness himself, blesses his children not with what the darkness is, but with who they are. Each receives a sense of their own character – for some, like Reuven, Levi, and Shim’on, it is a warning about a character trait that could prove dangerous. For others, it is a sense of vision as to who they are or could be. It is the very sense of identity that is in peril in Egypt – as individuals and as a nation. As R’ Tzaddok writes, the negative force that is Egypt attacks one’s ability to contemplate with one’s heart and mind – one becomes distracted from self-generated purpose by the burden of involvement with one’s tasks. But by Ya’akov’s blessing, the Jewish people are given the sense that, even if they do not have the luxury of contemplation, they will survive by maintaining integrity of character. Similarly, as a people, the Israelites maintain their national character not by learning, mitzvoth, and praying, but by holding fast to their uniqueness – the Midrash mentions their clothing and their names as a manifestation of this commitment. At the bottom of every exile is the solid ground of true identity. For better or worse, we usually touch that solid ground only at times of distress – when we are forced to do so. But the cycle of Jewish life has a sense of exile built in to the daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly calendars. It is also infused into the natural rhythms of a life truly lived. In the span of the year, there are times of emptying, like the 9th of Av and Rosh Hashanah, A new month calls for a person to look toward the previous month as it passes in search of essential self. The time before the weekly Shabbat, according to the Ari Z”L, should be spent clarifying one’s self in order to enter into Shabbat spiritually clean. Every day is a microcosm of the original creation, and therefore allows us to access the amazing feeling of emptiness before creation at the time of Minchah (see Likutei Halachot of Rebbe Natan Laws of Minchah 7). At all of these times, we are meant to find a sense of self that is unchanged and unchanging, that does not perish under the hardships of exile. This cycle is built in to the cycle of marriage as well. As a woman’s menstrual cycle brings her to bleeding, she and her husband separate from physical relations. This forces them to communicate in other ways – to find in themselves and in each other a love that it not dependent upon any specific expression. The true nature of their bond, or lack thereof, must emerge at that time. The spaces we experience, be they between people, between two cities, or between moments of clarity, are essential moments in the cycle of life. The space is a womb. Ya’akov’s guidance allows his children to move courageously through it, and they emerge infinitely stronger and more capable. As R’ Tzaddok points out, the exile in Egypt allows Israel to experience the highest revelations of G-d at the parting of the sea and the giving of the Torah. If we do not accept this cycle, we will spend our lives at the bottom of a pit or at the back of a cave, basking in the light of a dead star, calling it day.