This is the way of
Torah: Bread with salt you shall eat, water in small measure you shall
drink, and upon the ground you shall sleep; live a life of deprivation and toil
in Torah
- Ethics of the Fathers 6:3
* * *
Contrast this with Rabbi Jonathan's promise in the 9th Mishnah of chapter IV of
the Ethics: "Whoever fulfills the Torah in poverty, will ultimately
fulfill it in wealth."
Is poverty the ideal, the way of life most conducive to the acquisition of
Torah, or is wealth the more desirable state, the reward for observing Torah
despite one's poverty?
The Perfect Food
- The Torah was given only to the eaters of the manna (Midrash)
The generation of Jews who physically stood at Sinai to receive the Torah from
G-d derived their nourishment not from the conventional "bread from the
earth," but from the more refined "bread from heaven" with which
the Almighty sustained them. But the Torah has been given to all generations of
Jews. So how does one, today, become a "manna eater?"
After forty years of eating manna, the people of Israel were encamped on the
eastern bank of the Jordan, poised to enter the Holy Land and assume the natural
labors of plowing, sowing and harvesting for their bread. At this point, Moses
spoke to them of the significance of the heavenly bread that had sustained them
throughout their wanderings in the desert:
“He afflicted you, He made you go hungry, and He fed the manna which neither
you nor your ancestors had ever experienced. This was to teach you that
man does not by bread alone, but by the utterance of G -d's mouth does man
live.”
For 40 years, manna had freed them from all material concerns. It was the
perfect food, providing its consumer with his precise daily nutritional needs -
no more, no less. Nevertheless - indeed, for this very reason - Moses
calls it bread of affliction and poverty. For the generation that lived on
the manna experienced, on a daily basis, man's utter dependence on G-d as the
sustainer of life. The manna taught them that man achieves nothing on his
own: no matter how much a person labored to gather the manna, his efforts never
yielded more than his exact requirements for a single day.
The challenge for us is that we, too, should be "eaters of the manna."
That even as we eat ordinary bread, earned by the sweat of our brow, we
recognize that it is G-d who creates the bread and imbues it with the ability to
sustain life. That we recognize that it is the "utterance of G -d's
mouth" within the bread--that is to say, the divine speech by which G-d
created, and continues to create, all of existence--that nourishes us.
Hence, in the opening section of Grace after Meals, we acknowledge G-d as
"He who in His goodness provides sustenance for the entire world."
In fact, this is the very blessing composed by Moses in gratitude for the
"bread from heaven" that rained down on his generation in the desert!
We thank G-d for our bread, which our cunning and toil have "earned
us," with the same words our ancestors thanked Him for the manna. In other
words, we strive to experience the same degree of dependency on G-d for our
daily sustenance that the manna inspired in Moses' generation, to whom man's
intrinsic "poverty" was so obviously demonstrated.
The Way of Torah
This explains the seemingly contradictory Mishnahs quoted above. Wealth,
in itself, is not a liability to the acquisition of Torah - it can even be an
asset. What is crucial, however, is an attitude and mind-set of poverty -
the poverty of the manna-eater who appreciates that he, on his own, has nothing
save what he is granted from Above. "This - and only this - is the way of
Torah," of gaining insight into the wisdom and will of G-d.
________________________________________________________________________________________
To Be or To Be Not: Gold and Tachash Skins
All that G-d created in His world, He did not create but for His glory.
- Ethics Of The Fathers, 6:11
"I was created to
serve my Creator." With these words, the Talmud sums up the purpose of
life. But there is also another version of this talmudic passage, which reads.
"I was not created, but to serve my Creator." A similar "double
negative" is employed by our mishnah: "All that G-d created in His
world, He did not create but for His glory."
The difference is significant. The statement, "I was created to serve my
Creator," recognizes man as an existence in his own right ("I was
created"), though one whose ultimate raison d'etre is defined by a reality
greater than himself. The second version, however, attributes no legitimacy
whatsoever to man as an entity distinct from his role: "I was not created,
but to serve my Creator"--therein, and only therein, lies the fact of his
being.
One of Torah's basic rule is: "These and these are both the words of the
Living G-d." When the Torah mentions two opinions or interpretations it is
because both are valid and relevant. Differing versions and manners of
articulation of the same statement also complement one another, each providing
another perspective to the concept they express.
The same applies to two descriptions of man's identity and purpose: both are
integral to our lives. There is an aspect to our mission in life that involves
the total abnegation of self. But our service of the Creator also includes an
element that allows for--indeed demands--the retaining of an individual
identity, an "I" which serves as opposed to an egoless service.
Object and Objective
"G-d makes the spiritual physical; the Jew makes the physical
spiritual" -- Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov
The universe originated as a concept in the "mind" of G-d. In the
beginning, there arose within Him a vision of a home in a "foreign"
land. He envisioned a world inhospitable to His presence--a world that conceals
His absolute truth, a world in which chance and caprice obscure the purpose He
invests in its every entity and event. He envisioned a being, man, who would
develop this alien environment to house and serve Him. A being with the capacity
to transcend the concealment--to recognize the Divine essence of every created
thing, to transform the material world into an abode for the manifest presence
of its Creator.
In the words of our sages, "G-d desired a dwelling in the lowly
realms."
The birth of this concept was itself an act of creation: G-d's creation of the
"why" of the universe, of its purpose and utility. It is out of this
"spiritual" reality that G-d proceeded to create the physical
universe--to embody His concept of reality in the myriads of entities and
phenomena that make up our universe.
The task of man, G-d's "partner in creation," is to reverse the
process. Confronted with a concrete and corporeal world, he seeks its soul--its
inner essence. He seeks to uncover its significance, to realize its
quintessential utility. He labors to transform the raw material of physicality
into a home for G-d, to re-create from it the primordial Divine concept of
creation. Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov put it this way: G-d makes what is
spiritual into a physical world, while we transform this physical world into a
spiritual reality.
So the very act of serving G-d is an act of negation. The making of a "home
for G-d" means divesting the world of its physical "somethingness."
It means redefining reality in terms of its Divine essence and function rather
than its physical husk.
The same applies to man himself. Man, too, is part of creation. He is thus both
the developer and the developed object: his mind, his heart, his energies and
talents--of these, too, his goal is to remake substance into spirit, to shift
the focus from object to objective. To make his role as a servant of the
Almighty supplant his physical identity--"I was not created, but to serve
my Creator."
From Concept to Blueprint
How do we develop our self and our environment into a Divine abode?
A person desires a home. Initially, its dimensions and qualities are undefined:
it is its quintessential homeness that he conceives of and desires. Then, the
image of his home begins to form in his mind's eye. Putting pen to paper, he
sketches its floor plan, its furnishings, the landscaping of its grounds; he
notes the type and color of its materials, the architectural details of its
facade, the precise design of its fixtures. But the blueprint contains nothing
"new." Everything in it, down to the squiggle on the base of its door
handles, is an outgrowth of his original concept of "home."
Blueprint in hand, the aspiring homeowner will now procure the necessary
materials. He will entrust the blueprint and materials to a contractor, whose
job is to transform unhomey things such as logs and stones into the inviting
sanctum he has envisioned.
The Torah is G-d's "blueprint" of home, His detailed description
of what He wants His "contractor" (man) to create out of the materials
He provides (the physical creation).
Each of the Divine commandments (mitzvos) of the Torah instructs us to take a
specific object or resource and fashion it into an instrument of the Divine
will: a pair of tefillin, a sukkah, a prayer book, a check made out for charity.
Each time we do a mitzvah, we forge another element of an
"inhospitable" world into something that is receptive to and
expressive of the Divine truth. With each such act, we make the Almighty that
much less "inhibited" by the concealments and distortions of the
physical universe, that much more "at home" in His creation.
Our development of the resources of creation as a Divine "dwelling"
falls under two general categories:
A. Elements that are themselves made into "articles of holiness."
These include the parchment and ink that are formed into a Torah scroll, the
citron and palm branch (etrog and lulov) taken on Sukkot and the annual 26 hours
of time that are sanctified as Yom Kippur. Their very substance has been
sanctified and elevated as objects of G-d's will.
B. Elements that retain their material nature while supporting and enabling our
service of the Almighty. For example: food is consumed and converted into
energy, which, in turn, fuels the mind's toil in study, the heart's fervor in
prayer and the body's efforts on behalf of a fellow in need.
Concerning the "holy" areas of a person's life, it can truly be said
that the recognition that "I was not created, but to serve my Creator"
has been effected. What is a Torah scroll, a pair of tefillin, a lulov and etrog?
The very appearance and design of these objects now attest to their true
function and essence. The fact that they exist solely to serve G-d becomes
readily perceived, completely divesting them of any other function and identity.
The same is true of a person who is engaged in the performance of
a mitzvah. The hand that distributes charity, the mind that studies G-d's Torah,
the heart and lips that pray---these are all actively and demonstratively
realizing their quintessential function: to serve their Creator.
But G-d wanted more. He wanted "a dwelling in the lowly realms."
What is a "dwelling in a lowly realm"? The basic meaning of these
words is that what was previously "lowly" and unconducive to G-dliness
has now been remade as a "dwelling" for the Almighty. But the deeper
significance of our sages' words is that the "lowly realm" of the
material as it is, in all its ordinariness and mundanity, is made to house the
Divine presence.
This is where the second category comes in. Though these elements actively serve
the Divine will, they remain ordinary food and drink, clothes, structures, etc.
The same is true on the individual level. For the person who lives to serve his
Creator, the pursuits of material life--earning a living, eating, sleeping,
recreating--exist only to support this end; nevertheless, they remain
"lowly" and material pursuits. First perceived is our existence and
our needs ("I was Created") and only then their utility ("to
serve my Creator").
But it is in this domain of our lives, where our physical self remains a
"reality" distinct from its exalted purpose, that the ultimate
"dwelling in the lowly" is constructed.
Blueprint To Model
"G-d spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the children of Israel that they
bring Me an offering ... Gold, silver and copper. Blue, purple and scarlet-dyed
wool, fine linen and goat's hair. Ram's skins dyed red, tachash skins and acacia
wood. Oil ... spices ... shoham gems ... gems for setting ... And they shall
make for Me a Sanctuary, and I shall dwell within them." -- Exodus 25:1-8
"The verse does not say, "Make for Me a Sanctuary, and I shall dwell
within it," but "within them"--within each and every one of
them." -- Shaloh
A significant part of the Book of Exodus is devoted to the construction of the
Mishkan, the portable Sanctuary built by the Jewish people in the Sinai desert.
The Mishkan was more than an interim house of worship for a wandering nation; it
was the original model and prototype for our development of the material world
into a "dwelling for G-d."
The division of our lives into two domains parallels a similar distinction
within the components of the Sanctuary. Here, too, are substances that possess
the existent identity of "I was created," as well as an element of the
totally self-negating "I was not ... but."
Our sages stated: "The world was not considered worthy to make use of gold.
So why was it created? For the Mishkan." Gold exists also outside of the
Sanctuary, and Torah sanctions its use to beautify one's personal life; but the
recognition that, its true, ultimate function is to house the Divine presence,
drives home the lesson that also our "personal" gold is enlisted,
directly or indirectly, to serve this end.
But another of the fifteen materials to comprise the Mishkan provides the model
for the even more "selfless" dimension of our lives. The outer
covering of the Sanctuary's roof was made of the hide of a tachash, an animal
that "existed only in the days of Moses ... it was provided to Moses, who
used it for the Mishkan; then it disappeared." Here we have the prototype
for the "I was not created ... but" identity: a being utterly devoid
of a "self" that is distinct of the end it serves.
And so it is in the "dwelling" that is "within each and every
individual." Each and every one of us is empowered to "make spiritual
the physical"--to sanctify certain aspects of life so that they are utterly
and exclusively identified with their Divine purpose and essence.
