A printable PDF version is available here.
Translation (Ein Ayah, Berachot 40a):
Come and see the difference between human reality and Divine reality! In human reality, a full vessel cannot hold more, but in Divine reality the opposite is true. This is the meaning of the verse “If listening, you will listen (lit. אם שמוע תשמעו) to the voice of Hashem, your God…” (Shemot 15:26). [The double expression means] ‘If you have listened at first, you will be able to listen further.’ [1] (Gemara Berachot 40a)
It is an immutable law of physical reality that every development nullifies what comes before it. After all, one cannot shape raw material into a new form without displacing and negating the prior form. Repainting a wall requires that the old color be covered up. An employee who gets promoted has different responsibilities, and no longer occupies the same role at the company. And when the iPhone came out, most of us consigned our flip-phones to the garbage. [2]
But spiritual reality does not have these sorts of limitations. Every illumination in the spiritual realm, no matter how advanced, preserves the integrity of the lower illuminations that preceded it. It even provides the lower illuminations with additional strength and vigor. This concept, discussed at length in kabbalistic literature, [3] may seem overly abstract, but it plays out in our religious experience in a way that we can relate to. Man cannot encounter God as an unprepared and disinterested bystander. Any experience of the Divine must be preceded by human initiative and preparation. Whether we are seeking prophecy, [4] ruach ha’kodesh, [5] a deeper understanding of Torah, or an inspired davening, we cannot succeed unless we first take initiative to refine our character and strive after Divine wisdom. We do as much as we are able, [6] and that creates the foundation for God to complete the rest. [7]
This is the meaning of the above teaching of our Sages. Every physical reality is constrained. Every aspect of worldly existence has a point where its “vessel” cannot hold more without being replaced entirely. But in the spiritual realm, the more we fill our spiritual “vessels” by listening to the Divine voice, the more we prepare ourselves for an experience of the Divine that exceeds our human limitations. “If you have listened at first, you will be able to listen further.”
[1] A literal translation of this phrase (known as an “infinitive absolute” in Hebrew grammar) would be something like “if you will intently listen.”
[2] Rav Kook passed away decades before anyone had even though of a cell phone, let alone smart phones. These are all examples that I picked to illustrate Rav Kook’s point.
[3] Rav Kook references Pardes Rimonim, by R. Moshe Kordovero. I looked up the reference and found that it dealt with intricacies of the sefirot. That indicates that Rav Kook is touching on the relationship between the higher and lower sefirot. More than that I couldn’t figure out, due to my dearth of kabbalisticknowledge.
[4] Rav Kook references Maimonides’ Guide to the Perplexed (II:32) and the Talmud (Shabbat 92a) for the notion that achieving prophecy requires certain prerequisites. Contrast this with the Christian model, wherein even the most ignorant and unrefined personality can receive Divine communication through God’s grace. Both of us are לשיטתו in this regard, but that’s a topic for further discussion.
[5] For Rav Kook, this is not merely an academic illustration of his point. Rav Kook believed that the Jewish people’s return to Israel was part of a spiritual redemption that would ultimately culminate in the revival of prophecy. He even saw himself as part of this process. For more on Rav Kook’s view on prophecy, see here.
[6] The entire book of Shir haShirim deals with this dynamic of pursuit and withdrawal between the maiden (representing Klal Yisrael or the individual soul, depending on which interpretation you adopt) and her beloved (representing God).
[7] As the Sefat Emet and others have noted, the Exodus itself is part of this dynamic. On Pesach, the Jewish people were passive bystanders to God’s redemption and revelation. God manifested Himself in a way that the people had not genuinely earned or worked for. Sefirat haOmer was a period for them to purify themselves and thereby meritDivine revelation, instead of receiving it as a gift. The process culminated in Shavuot and the Divine revelation at Mount Sinai. If you are interested, Rabbi Akiva Tatz’s Living Inspired contains several chapters about how this dynamic manifests itself in our individual lives as well, in every experience of inspiration or Divine clarity.
Commentary
Rav Kook teaches that harmony and integration is the hallmark of a genuine spiritual life. Life is full of greater and lesser “illuminations,” but nothing is ever nullified or displaced. The lesser illuminations are bricks in a larger structure, not scaffolding to be taken down once the structure is complete.
Living an integrated life is a daunting challenge. We are pulled in different directions by competing spheres of responsibility and ambition. How do we balance our responsibilities to our family with our jobs and careers? How does the teenager returning from shanah aleph reconcile his passion and youthful ambition with the responsibilities of middle age, without falling into cynicism or disappointment? What about sorting out conflicts between bein adam l’chaveiro and bein adam l’makom? Between universalism and particularity? Between peace and truth? Life, by its very design, is full of these challenges. Our job is not to triage among competing values and priorities, but to strive to do justice to each, integrating every “illumination” into a coherent whole.
To make this seem less abstract, I’ve selected the following illustrations of personalities who exemplify the integrated spiritual life that Rav Kook talks about, albeit in different ways:
- Once, Rav Yisrael Salanter (1809-1883) did not appear at shul for the Kol Nidrei Everyone was ready to begin, but he was nowhere to be found. The congregants became impatient and sent a messenger to the rabbi’s house to see what was keeping him, but he returned to report that no one was home. Now the congregation became worried and decided to send a search party to look for their rabbi. As one of the searchers passed a house in the poorer section of the city, he saw Rav Salanter through a window, sitting in a darkened room and bent over rocking a cradle. “Sh, Sh, be quiet,” warned the rabbi as the searchers entered. “You will wake the poor child. It took me all this time to put him to sleep.” Later, he explained that on his way to shul, he heard a baby crying. He located the house from which the sobbing came, entered it, and saw that the child had been left alone when all the elders had gone to the shul for the Kol Nidrei service. “What else could I have done?” he demanded. “How could I have started the Kol Nidrei service knowing that a poor Jewish infant was crying?”
- “And the life (lit. שני חיי שרה) of Sarah was one hundred years and twenty years and seven years.” (Bereishit 23:1).שני חיי שרה refers to the lives of Sarah: she was always a one-hundred-year old adult, a twenty year-old woman, and a seven-year old child. In the realm of chemical processes, there is no way to retain biological youth in a middle-aged person, nor can the pattern of the middle-aged be preserved in old age. In the realm of the unfolding of the spirit, however, it is possible to see youth and ripe old age, or even childhood and youth, as simultaneous experiences. The advanced in years quite often display spiritual restlessness and intensity, and the young are sometimes characterized by cautious wisdom and sober judgment. An older person may he wonderfully childlike, with a dreamer’s naiveté and excitement. The idealism of youth quite often shines through the eyes of the graybeard. In fact, great people are sometimes great children. They are rich and multitalented because of their age; they are beautiful because of their honesty and sincerity. Sarah was concurrently seven, twenty, and hundred years old. She was simultaneously very old and very young, representing the aged, the adult, and the child… Sarah at twenty was mature and fully developed both intellectually and emotionally; she was energetic, bold, and daring. Yet the adult in Sarah did not destroy the child. In the deep recesses of her personality – no matter how developed, no matter how capable and brilliant, no matter how attractive and ingenious – always resided an innocent child. The adult might have reached the highest peak of intellectual greatness or growth, yet that did not interfere with the secret presence of a child in Sarah. Notwithstanding the maturation of her natural wisdom, she retained within her the young girl she had been once upon a time. In times of need and crisis, the young, bold, courageous girl came to the fore and took over. (Rav Soloveitchik, Abraham’s Journey, pg. 186-187)
- Rav Yaakov Kaminetsky was once in a doctor’s waiting room, accompanied by a talmid. Also waiting for the doctor was a young Jewish boy from a totally nonobservant home. Rav Yaakov found a ball and began playing with the child. The talmid accompanying Rav Yaakov was astonished and asked his rebbe, “This child will think that a religious rabbi sits and plays ball instead of learning! Why don’t you at least talk to the boy, and convince him to become a ba’al teshuvah?” Rav Yaakov explained, “I saw that with this boy, it is impossible to talk about Yiddishkeit or mitzvot. He comes from a family so far removed from anything Jewish. I just wanted that his picture of a frum Jew should remain one of a pleasant person, so I played ball with him. Who knows, perhaps this impression will one day have an effect on him and he will come closer to Torah and mitzvot.”
Questions for Reflection and Discussion
- Suppose someone’s past is filled with failure, non-observance or transgressions of Jewish law. How do thosebecome part of an integrated spiritual life? Does teshuva play a role in that process? If so, how?
- Suppose you have two people, one who has integrated the different “illuminations” in his life and another who has not. Does the difference between the two manifest in the way they act, or primarily in their mindset and the way they view themselves?
- Orthodox Jews make the news with unfortunate regularity because of financial improprieties. Is this rooted in a failure to integrate scrupulous ritual observance with values of morality and honesty? Or is something else at fault?
- What are the two values or areas of responsibility in your life that you feel the greatest struggle to integrate?
- Who do you know that exemplifies the kind of integrated spiritual personality that Rav Kook sets up as a model?
About this Piece
Ein Ayah is a commentary on the aggadic portions of the Talmud, specifically Berachot, Shabbat and Seder Zeraim. Rav Kook began writing Ein Ayah when he was a young rav in Lithuania, and continued adding material until the end of his life. Ein Ayah seeks to extract profound and fundamental principles of Torah hashkafa from the world of Aggadah. It is an excellent introduction to Rav Kook’s thought, inasmuch as the pieces tend to be shorter, self-contained and less esoteric than many of Rav Kook’s other worlds. While Ein Ayah has never been translated in its entirety into English, selected excerpts have been published by Betzalel Naor in Of Societies Perfect and Imperfect. An online course covering Ein Ayah on Masechet Shabbat is available from WebYeshiva.
