Perfectly Imperfect – Parshat Lech l’Chah

Printable PDF available here. Previous post on Lech l’Chah can be found here and here.

**Rav Kook (Olat Re’iah)**

And Avram was ninety-nine years old, and G-d appeared to Avram and said to him “I am El-Shaddai; walk before Me and be perfect. And I will place My covenant between Me and between you, and I will multiply you very greatly.” (Bereishit 17:1-2)

What is the meaning of this enigmatic name “El Shaddai”? What exactly does it have to with circumcision, and what can it teach us about our spiritual lives? To answer these questions, we need to step back and address a fundamental issue about the nature of G-d and His relationship with the world. G-d is infinite and transcendent. The created world, no matter how grand or splendorous it seems, will never be able to contain the full degree of Divine majesty. Conversely, any perception of G-d that emerges from the created world is fragmentary and incomplete. This clarifies the spiritual purpose of miracles, when the ‘laws’ of nature are temporarily suspended in order to lift our gaze beyond the narrow confines of earthly existence, and thus remind us of the transcendent Divine reality.

The same dynamic is at work in the covenant of circumcision. The removal of the foreskin expresses the idea that man, like the physical reality in which he lives, cannot unreservedly approach G-d ‘as is,’ under a pretense of perfection and completeness. Ironically, by demonstrating our own incompleteness through brit milah, we make ourselves into a vessel for G-d’s transcendent completeness. We educate ourselves – and the world – that to truly know G-d, we must first admit that our knowledge of Him is imperfect.

These profound truths are encapsulated in G-d’s declaration “I am El Shaddai.” Our Sages taught that means “I am the One whose G-dliness cannot be contained by the world and its fulness” (lit. אני הוא שאין העולם ומלואו כדי לאלוקותי).

Rav Kook (Orot Ha’kodesh II, Pg. 531)

We say that absolute perfection is essential to existence, when nothing will remain in potential but everything will be actualized. However, there is a perfection that consists of the process of increasing perfection.

But that cannot possibly apply to Divinity itself, since G-d’s inﬁnite and absolute perfection allows no room for improvement. To this end – that the process of increasing perfection should not be lacking in existence – a universe must come into being that, in accordance with the goal of increasing perfection, begins from the lowest level. That is to say, it begins from a state of absolute deficiency. And it proceeds by constantly ascending to the absolute height.

Food for Thought

Rav Moshe Weinberger (Song of Teshuva Vol. 4): People generally say that G-d’s objective in creating this world was to have everything completely actualized, in a state of absolute perfection. But Rav Kook states that this is wrong. The highest perfection is the desire to perfect oneself. That, not a static perfection, is the purpose of Creation. The process of gaining perfection is in a certain respect higher than absolute perfection. Had Hashem not created the world with the opportunity for growth, that would have constituted an imperfection. It is precisely because G-d is perfect that He created imperfections. Only an imperfect world can perfect itself – in a constant state of growth and movement. Only because of constant feeling that he is lacking something that he must attain does man have the opportunity to work on himself. By analogy, a true teacher gives each student the ability to be creative and grow. The fact that Hashem made an imperfect world, the fact that He created us with problems and deﬁciencies that we have to struggle with throughout our lives, is itself an aspect of His perfection. G-d created an imperfect world that reaches toward perfection. That process is in a way greater than perfection itself. All of life is an ongoing process of reaching for these lights, which are always a step beyond us.

Man longs desperately for the unparalleled pleasure that comes with perfecting himself, with rising from one level to another… And so learning Torah gives us the greatest delight, because just as G-d is without end, so is Torah inﬁnite, and as we learn it, we move from smallness to greatness. The happiest day of the year is Simchas Torah. When we ﬁnish the Torah, we dance. But we are much more excited about starting over again, this time on a higher level.

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, in Likutei Moharan (Vol. I, 64) explains that because we are created in G-d’s image, all of our traits and abilities come from the point of Divinity within us. The fact that G-d created and destroyed worlds makes it possible for us to create, experiment, reconsider, and perfect. “Just as Hashem is compassionate, so should you be compassionate” (Sofrim 3:17). Similarly, just as G-d made things, destroyed them, and started again, so too, do we have the capacity to be creative, reconsider, and start over again. Our Sages tell us that the tzaddikim have no tranquility in this world or the next, for they never stop moving even in the world of souls, but keep rising “from strength to strength.” There is always room to improve. There is always a higher level. There is always something beyond a person’s immediate grasp…

Nothing in the world is supposed to remain the way it is. Even a rock was not created to stay as it was made. From the beginning of time, everything is in a constant state of development and perfection, of opening up and rising, spinning towards the ﬁnal perfection of all worlds, which will be revealed in the future redemption.

Animal Rights Trump Religious Rights (Robert J. Delahunty, 2014): In their contempt for Jewish and Muslim religious practices [of circumcision and ritual slaughter], our contemporary secular liberals are reviving the attitudes of Europe’s pagan, pre-Christian past. The Jews of classical antiquity were chiefly distinguishable, in the eyes of the dominant pagans, by three characteristics: male circumcision; dietary restrictions (especially their refusal to eat pork); and Sabbath observance. Pagan writers ridiculed all three Jewish customs, which of course served to identify the Jews as a people apart. Greeks and Romans regarded circumcision as a physical deformity, and therefore Jews (like those with various other deformities) were banned from the Olympic Games.

Leonard Cohen: Ring the bells (ring the bells) that still can ring/Forget your perfect offering/There is a crack in everything (there is a crack in everything)/ That’s how the light gets in.

The Sacred Rite of Circumcision (Tablet Magazine, 2012): The uproar over circumcision barely conceals a revulsion at the concept of the sacred in all its forms. The German court replaces the Jewish and Christian belief in sanctity of human life and the human body with a perverse concept of rights deriving from bodily proprietorship. In this brave new world, it is legal to bring your grandmother to a Zurich hospital to be euthanized but criminal to bring a newborn boy to be circumcised. It is doubly perverse because the West first learned of human rights, and the rights of newborns in particular, from the Jews. Banish the source of these rights and the notion of rights will eventually turn into a twisted mockery…

But something deeper, and uglier, is at work. The proponents of a ban argue for the right to self-determination—bodily and otherwise. It is perfectly consistent to permit euthanasia, provided that it is voluntary, while banning infant circumcision. The body, in this view, is the property of its owner, who has the right to dispose of it at whim. This argument seems reasonable at first blush, but it crumples with a slight shove… Inalienable rights, as the Declaration of Independence insists, derive from an eternal G-d. The absolute right to live – for the retarded and senile and the newborn as well as the strong and healthy- rests on the mortal human’s share in something eternal. That is the premise of the sacred: The human body whose “physical integrity” so concerns [European courts]… is flawed from the outset, because it will die.

To say that life is sacred means in plain English that our lives belong not to us, but to G-d, so that it is not within our purview to stifle newborns or expose our senile grandmothers. We make something sacred by giving it to G-d and receiving it back from him, as Abraham gave and received his son Isaac. Circumcision of Jewish infants reenacts Abraham’s sacrifice: The infant boy is given to G-d and enters into covenant with G-d, by which we affirm the sanctity of his life. That is the origin of the sanctity of life in human history. The Jewish people have upheld it for nearly 4,000 years…

G-d’s love for Abraham extends to his descendants, and circumcision denotes the transformation of Jewish flesh to a holy vessel for G-d’s presence in the world…. It is sad and empty to think of a human being simply as a lump of flesh seeking pleasure (“sexual self-determination”) and avoiding pain (e.g., through euthanasia) at the behest of its owner. Erase the line between what is sacred and what is merely utilitarian, and there is nothing in principle to prevent us from subjecting “low-value” life to the cost-benefit analysis of the killers [i.e. euthanasia].

Rabbi Jonathan Grossman (Abram to Abraham: A Literary Analysis of the Abraham Narrative): Diverse definitions were offered for the name “El Shaddai.” Most medieval commentators viewed the word Shaddai as an adjective, while most modern biblical scholars see it as a proper noun. The book of Job includes the majority of appearances of the name (31 of 48 in the Bible, not preceded by the name “El”), [and t]he Septuagint translated all [of them] as “the Powerful G-d.”… Alternative name suggestions include deriving Shaddai from שדה (field); linking the term with שדיים (breasts) as a symbol of breastfeeding and abundance; and connecting Shaddai with the Akkadian sadu(mountain)… All appearances of the combination “El Shaddai” in Genesis are linked with the blessing of fertility, supporting the position that connects Shaddai with fertility. Based on this connection an internal link might exist between the revelation of G-d’s new name and the new name given to Avram, which is related to the blessing of fertility bestowed on Abram.

Questions for Discussion

There are two pieces from Rav Kook translated above. Do they give the same explanation for why the created world is necessarily imperfect? If they are different, how so?
What can go wrong when people feel they’re able to approach G-d ‘as is’?
Do you agree with the author of the article in Tablet Magazine that “The [contemporary] uproar over circumcision barely conceals a revulsion at the concept of the sacred in all its forms”? Why or why not?
Where else does the name El Shaddai come up in Bereishit? How are those contexts connected to brit milah?
Rav Moshe Weinberger, commenting on Rav Kook, notes that “Only because of constant feeling that he is lacking something that he must attain does man have the opportunity to work on himself.” How can we cultivate this sense of lacking and avoid becoming complacent in our religious lives?

Refracting the Divine Light – Parshat Noach

Printable PDF available here. Previous pieces on Parshat Noach are available here and here.

**Based on Rav Kook (Olat Re’iah)**

“And G-d said: “This is the sign of the covenant, which I am placing between Me and between you, and between every living soul that is with you, for everlasting generations. My rainbow I have placed in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Myself and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I cause clouds to come upon the earth, that the rainbow will appear in the cloud. And I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and between you and between every living creature among all flesh, and the water will no longer become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will see it, to remember the everlasting covenant between G-d and between every living creature…” (Bereishit 9:12-16)

Generations of commentators have pondered the message of the rainbow in the wake of the Flood. How exactly does the rainbow express G-d’s covenant not to destroy the world? What is the meaning of its symbolism? Many answers have been offered, but the Torah always contains additional layers of meaning for us to uncover. Let us note that the covenant is not described as the mere appearance of a rainbow. G-d declares that the rainbow will appear when He “cause[s] clouds to come upon the earth,” and “in the cloud.” As if this wasn’t enough, the last verse excerpted above mentions clouds a third time, declaring that “the rainbow shall be in the cloud.” Clearly, the clouds are an integral part of the rainbow’s symbolism.

To understand why, some basic science is in order. We perceive sunlight as white, but it really contains many different colors of lights that mix together. When sunlight shines through raindrops at a particular angle, it gets separated into its component colors. Those raindrops come from clouds, and so – generally speaking – rainbows don’t form without clouds.

Put simply, a rainbow is pure light refracted and divided into a multitude of hues and colors. This is a precise expression of the way that humanity’s spiritual task changed in the wake of the Flood. Prior to the Flood, the world was illuminated with a pure, undifferentiated Divine light. Serving G-d did not make specific demands of a person’s inner, emotional world, nor did it provide a framework for ethical conduct and behavior. It wasn’t that G-d considered these to be unimportant. Rather, He expected that man could achieve them on his own and didn’t need Divine guidance. The hope was that proper conduct and a refined inner world would emerge organically, from man’s total intellectual clarity and perception of Divine truth, from the pure Light that permeated every corner of existence.

But it was not to be. “And G-d saw the earth, and behold it had become corrupted, for all flesh had corrupted its way on the earth.” The pure Divine Light was too blinding for humanity to chart its path. The challenges and temptations of earthly reality were too great. Humanity stumbled and demonstrated that it was unable to attain ethical and holy conduct on its own. Pure intellectual awareness of G-d was insufficient. Even though people knew with clarity what G-d wanted of them, they simply could not implement it in practice.

Thus, in the wake of the Flood, G-d shifted to a new model for advancing humanity’s spiritual development. Instead of being pure and undifferentiated, the Divine Light would be refracted into a detailed spectrum of laws and rules. The realm of practical conduct and man’s emotional world be addressed, regulated and formed directly, by a Divine system of tamei and tahor, mutar and assur – a system that we know as Torah. Only through such a framework can humanity achieve the spiritual completeness desired by G-d, and traverse the path upward and onward, thus guaranteeing that G-d never needs to bring another Flood upon the world.

Food for Thought

Rav Joseph Soloveitchik (Abraham’s Journey, pg. 94): How does the rainbow symbolize the covenant between G-d and man that ensures humanity’s survival on earth? The rainbow appears because of the refraction and reflection of the rays of the sun in the droplets of water contained in the clouds. The arc of multicolored light in the midst of a dark cloud symbolizes the luminous endowment of a lowly, obscure, absurd creature like man that reflects the supranatural light emanated by the Creator. G-d stands opposite man, even as the sun is opposite the cloud. He makes man susceptible to the educational gesture and guarantees his eventual rise from a brutish existence to a redeemed life. G-d does not want to exterminate mankind and all the other living creatures, because in spite of his remoteness from G-d, man is capable of redeeming himself through a slow ascent to the Almighty.

Rav Aharon Lichtenstein: With its pervasive psychological realism, Halakhah has recognized that ordinary mortals need to be jogged out of their spiritual lethargy, and that unless they are prodded to speciﬁc action, many will be quite content to neglect the religious life completely. Habitual observance ingrains moral and religious sensibility into the very ﬁber of the personality. It strengthens the inner power of spirit and, at a deeper level, human emotion is profoundly affected by the very process of externalization . . . We should keep in mind, however, what we often tend to forget: the most legalistic ritualism is better than no worship whatever; and the individual who, within Halakhah, lapses into a formalistic rut, would very likely be bereft of religious awareness completely were he without it. At the very least, ritual establishes a ﬂoor for religion; at most, it leads man to the scaling — and holding — of the loftiest spiritual heights.

Eliezer Berkovits (G-d, Man and History): None of the extant theories of ethics are able to show that ethical obligation has its source in the essence of the good itself. Let us assume, for example, that hedonism is a logically valid theory. What law is there in reason to forbid a person to behave unreasonably and to act contrary to the pleasure principle? Reason may, of course, describe the consequences of such “foolish” action—but what if one does not care about the consequences? Or consider utilitarianism. Let it be granted that the greatest happiness of the greatest number is indeed the essence of goodness. How can it be proved that one ought to care about it, and that one should be morally condemned if one does not? It is not different with intuitive ethics either. Man may have some innate concepts of good and evil; he may even be able to entertain an intuitive appreciation that he ought to act in accordance with the standards of such an inborn ethical code. But since he is capable of disobeying his moral “instinct,” what is there in the intellectual grasp of those intuitive ideas that will obligate him to obey?…

We are thus left with the Socratic and Christian answers to the question of how goodness may be acquired by man. Neither of them, however, is supported by experience. Man may have ample knowledge of the good, yet more often than not he will act against his better insight. Moreover, the conduct in history of nations and societies, of classes and castes, provides us with a record of inhumanity that reduces to irrelevance the most sadistic crimes of individuals. In this respect, there seems to be little difference between ages of greater or lesser enlightenment; except that in times of greater intellectual advancement, as knowledge increases man grows in power proportionately and becomes correspondingly more dangerous. The evil done by the power that knowledge provides has always eclipsed the good done by the same power. Notwithstanding enlightenment, man seems to remain an essentially unethical being.

Prof. Jonathan Grossman (Creation: The Story of Beginnings): Among the various suggestions, one likely explanation is that the shape of the rainbow, its curve from the sky to the ground, represents the connection between heaven and earth, but the most widely accepted interpretation is that of Nahmanides… Nahmanides compares the rainbow to a bow and arrow. Not only does its shape recall the archers’ weapon of war… but it echoes the biblical notion that G-d ﬁghts by shooting arrows down from the heavens. Even if this is only true in a ﬁgurative sense, the rainbow can still be characterized as G-d’s weapon – turned backward as a symbol of truce.

Moreover, this sense of reconciliation is reﬂected not only through the bow’s shape, but through its sheath of cloud. The rainbow is never referred to as just a bow; throughout the covenant, it is always associated with clouds: “My bow I have given in the clouds …when I bring clouds over the earth and My bow is seen in the clouds …when the bow is in the clouds” (9:13—16). The cloud is a prevalent biblical symbol of covering and concealment, as in, for example, “The Presence of the Lord dwelled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud hid it for six days” (Ex. 24:16). Compare this to Ezekiel’s prophecy about Pharaoh: “I will cover the sky and darken its stars; I will cover the sun with clouds and the moon shall not give its light” (Ezek. 32:7). The symbol of the covenant is not just an upturned bow; it is a bow covered in cloud, sheathed, concealed, obscured. In the ancient Near East, bows were sometimes broken as rites of peace when forming a treaty, so that the image of a bow sheathed in cloud is an apt symbol of peace and reconciliation.

Questions for Discussion

Do you agree with Rav Kook’s claim that the generations before the Flood had the potential to be on an extremely high spiritual level? Why or why not?
See the quote from Rav Soloveitchik in “Food for Thought” above. How does his analysis fit with Rav Kook’s?
Why do people do things that they know are wrong?
See the quote from Rav Eliezer Berkovits in “Food for Thought” above. What do you think he means by the “Christian answer to the question of how goodness may be acquired by man.”
How do Torah and mitzvot help us develop ethically and create the kind of world that G-d desires?
How can the rainbow symbolize a new Divine covenant if it is a natural phenomenon?

Shining Names, Shining Light – Parshat Bereishit

Printable PDF available here. Previous year’s pieces are available here and here.

Please help us start off our third year strong by sharing with friends and anyone else you know who is interested in Rav Kook.

Background to the Piece From Rav Kook (Ramban’s Introduction to Bereishit)

We have a kabbalistic tradition that the whole Torah consists of Divine Names. The words of the Torah as we have them are only one way to configure where words start and end. When arranged and separated in a different manner, various Divine Names can be formed. By way of example, the beginning of the Torah can be read as בראש יתברא אלוקים.

It is for this reason that a Torah scroll with a single extra or missing letter is disqualified [even though the literal meaning remains unchanged]… Thus, Moshe received the manner of dividing the Divine Names into the Torah as we know it, but also an oral tradition of how the Torah can be rendered and “recombined” as Divine Names.

**Rav Kook (Orot haTorah, 4:2)**

The kabbalistic tradition teaches that the entire Torah is comprised of names of G-d. This teaching may seem impenetrable and esoteric, but it has an important corollary with profound ramifications for how we lead our lives.

Every positive midah, every conduct that furthers derech eretz, every teaching of worldly wisdom – all of these are rooted and contained, on some level, within the Torah. And as we know, that same Torah is comprised of Divine Names. It follows that the light of G-d shines wherever one finds an individual or society – Jewish or not – that expresses any good character trait or point of wisdom.

Granted, this is not apparent to everyone. Even the bearers of these points of light may be unaware of the G-dliness that shines within them. But their lack of awareness does not extinguish that light. What matters is not their own awareness, but the extent to which their will is in harmony with the Divine goodness that permeates all of Creation, and within which G-d’s light can be found. In His wisdom and kindness, G-d founded that light as the foundation of all reality, as the spiritual ideal to which the physical world is striving for and which it will eventually manifest in its perfected totality.

We thus see that this kabbalistic tradition is not meant to be theoretical or esoteric at all. It teaches us to seek out and perceive G-dliness in the world around us, not only amongst Jews and certainly not only in the written parchment of a Torah scroll.

Hebrew Original

כָּל הַתּוֹרָה כֻּלָּהּ הִיא שְׁמוֹתָיו שֶׁל הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא , כָּל מִדָּה טוֹבָה וְדֶרֶךְ אֶרֶץ הֲרֵי הוּא בִּכְלַל הַתּוֹרָה, וְכָל חָכְמָה נְעוּצָה בַּתּוֹרָה, וּבְכָל צַד טוֹב שֶׁיֵּשׁ בָּאָדָם אוֹ בְּקִבּוּץ כֵּן שְׁמוֹ שֶׁל הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא מֵאִיר בּוֹ, אֶלָּא שֶׁיֵּשׁ הֶבְדֵּל בֵּין הַיּוֹדֵעַ שֶׁהַכֹּל הוּא אוֹר מִתְנוֹצֵץ מִשְּׁמוֹ שֶׁל הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא לְמִי שֶׁאֵינוֹ יוֹדֵעַ זֶה. אֲבָל הַהֶבְדֵּל שֶׁל חֶסְרוֹן הַיְדִיעָה אֵינוֹ כִּי אִם הֶבְדֵּל דַּרְגָּאִי, וְעַצְמִיּוּת הַדָּבָר תְּלוּיָה בִּפְנִימִיּוּת הַנְּקֻדָּה שֶׁל הָרָצוֹן עַד כַּמָּה הוּא מְאֻמָּת לַצַּד הַטּוֹב, שֶׁרַק בּוֹ שׁוֹרֶה אוֹר צַדִּיקוֹ שֶׁל עוֹלָם, הַמִּתְלַבֵּשׁ בִּיסוֹד כֹּל, בְּחָכְמָה וּבְחֶסֶד , כְּדֵי לְתַמֵּם אֶת הַחִזָּיוֹן הָרוּחָנִי וְהַחִזָּיוֹן הַחָמְרִי שֶׁל הַהֲוָיָה, כְּלוֹמַר הָאִידֵיאָל שֶׁלָּהּ וּמַמָּשׁוּתָהּ הָרֵיאָלִית, וְהָאַחֲרוֹנָה הִיא הַמַּסְקָנָא שֶׁל הָרִאשׁוֹנָה, וְעוֹלָה עַד רֹאשָׁהּ.

Food for Thought

Rav Shimson Raphael Hirsch (Collected Writings Vol. 6, Pg. 130): The more we understand that Judaism reckons with all of man’s endeavors, and the more its declared mission includes the salvation of all mankind, the less can its views be confined to the four cubits of one room or one dwelling. The more the Jew is a Jew, the more universalist will be his views and aspirations, the less alien will he be to anything that is noble and good, true and upright in the arts and sciences, in civilization and culture. The more the Jew is a Jew, the more joyously will he hail everything that will shape human life so as to promote truth, right, peace and refinement among mankind, the more happily will he himself embrace every opportunity to prove his mission as a Jew on new, still untrodden grounds. The more the Jew is a Jew, the more gladly will he give himself to all that is true progress in civilization and culture—provided that in this new circumstance he will not only maintain his Judaism but will be able to bring it to ever more glorious fulfillment. He will always desire progress, but only allied with religion. He will not want to accomplish anything that he cannot accomplish as a Jew; it is not for him. To him, any step that takes him away from Judaism is not progress. And he will exercise this self-restraint without feeling any pain, for what he wishes to accomplish on earth is not his own will. He is in the service of G-d. He knows that if the Ark of the Covenant of his G-d does not go before him, he will also not be accompanied by the pillar of fire that is His light and by the column of clouds that is His grace.

Questions for Discussion

Is the idea that the words of the Torah can be rearranged disturbing? Antinomian?
Why is it hard to encounter G-dliness in the broader world?
Can you think of time that you encountered a positive midah or teaching of worldly wisdom where you felt you encountered G-d?
What are different ways to encounter G-dliness in the broader world?
Rav Kook claims that “every positive midah, every conduct that furthers derech eretz, every teaching of worldly wisdom” is rooted within the Torah. What do you think this means? Do you agree with it? Why or why not?

Concluding With Life – Parshat V’zot haBeracha

Printable PDF is available here. Last year’s piece on V’Zot haBeracha is available here.

With G-d’s help, I have completed a second cycle of the Torah sharing Rav Kook’s wisdom to illuminate our lives. I look forward to continuing with you again. A Chag Sameach to all.

**Rav Kook (Shemonah Kevatzim, 1:192)**

“And he was King in Jeshurun, whenever the sum total of the people were gathered, and the tribes of Israel were together.” (Devarim 33:4)

According to certain commentaries and midrashim, the subject of this verse is Moshe. Moshe’s status as a king is not incidental, but a profound reflection of his immense spiritual stature.

In general, people excel at either the practical realities of life or the abstract world of the spirit. It is rare to find someone who combines both. The religious sensitivity of worldly, practical people usually lacks the sharpness and clarity of those who deal exclusively with spiritual matters. And similarly, those who inhabit the highest spiritual realms tend to lack a clear perception of the world’s practical realities.

For this reason, G-d ordained that the two institutions of prophecy and kingship operate separately. In Tanach, we do not find a prophet wearing the king’s crown, nor the king donning the mantle of the prophet. Although they worked together, like we see most clearly with King David and Shmuel, they still had separate domains of responsibility

The one exception in Jewish history was Moshe Rabbeinu. Our Sages teach that Moshe’s spiritual level was “through a clear lens” (lit. אספקלריא המאירה”). This supernal level of prophecy enabled him to encompass all levels of reality in a harmonious unity. Moshe spoke directly to G-d – but he also listened to the Jews’ complaints, provided them with food, and led them into battle.

Thus, while we all know that Moshe’s prophecy was sui generis, this verse highlights an additional dimension of his greatness – that he was also a king. His feet were planted firmly on the ground at the same time that his soul soared in the highest realms.

**Rav Kook (Otzrot ha’Reiah, 2:517)**

“And He buried him [Moshe] in the valley, in the land of Moav, opposite Beth Pe’or. And no person knows the place of his burial, unto this day.” (Devarim 34:6)

The concealment of Moshe’s burial place must be understood as an expression of the same Divine ideal behind a number of other Torah laws – namely, the prohibition against Kohanim and Nazirites becoming tamei through contact with death, and the prohibition against bringing any sort of tumah into the Temple. All of these phenomena are intended to teach us that the Torah is a Torah of life (lit. תורת חיים). All of them aim to dispel the misconception that fulfilling the Torah requires us to constrain the full manifestation and unfolding of life. That terrible error can only lead to compartmentalization, to designating a fragmentary portion of human reality as “religious” and abandoning the rest. That is not the Torah way.

Food for Thought

Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch (Commentary to the Torah, Vayikra 21:1): Antique and modem heathenism like so very much to associate religion and religious matters with death and thoughts of death. For them it is where Man ends that the Kingdom of G-d begins. For them death and dying are the real manifestations of their G-dhead, who to them is a G-d of death and not of life. A G-d who kills and does not animate, and sends death and its fore-runners, illness and wretchedness, so that men should fear him, realize his power and their impotence. The places which they dedicate to temples are therefore round about graves, (1) the foremost place of their priest is therefore at the dead and dying. (2) There, where the light is fading from the eye, and hearts are broken, is the most fruitful field for their religious sowing.

Not so is the Jewish priest because not so is the Jewish teaching of G-d, the Jewish religion. The G-d, Whose Name assigns the Jewish priest to his office is a G-d of life. His sublimest manifestation is the elevating power of Life, freeing, animating, raising Man to free will and to eternal life, not the crushing power of death. Not how one is to die, but how one is to live, how, living, one has victoriously to conquer death, death in life, thralldom, enslaved by one’s physical urges, moral weakness, how one has to live every second of a morally free, thinking, desiring, working and accomplishing life, and also enjoying all the pleasures of life as a moment of service to G-d, that is the teaching to which G-d has dedicated His Sanctuary, and for the service of which He has consecrated the Kohanim to care for the “basis of life and direction thereof.”

When Death summons the people to come to busy themselves in acts of love with the empty body of a נפש which G-d has called home, the Kohanim have to remain away, and by standing away to keep aloft the Standard of Life next to the corpse, and by the thoughts of what life really is, prevent the thoughts of death overpowering the truths that the real Man himself is morally free and not subject to forces which kill his power over his own moral free will. Only where the duties of life call on the priest personally to fulfil the last possible acts of love to the empty shell of the נפש of his wife, child, parent, brother or sister, or where the forsaken state of a corpse makes him to a father and brother of the forsaken one, there his calling as a priest has to retire behind the calling of family and humanity, and his activity with the dead is not only permitted but is a duty. Otherwise priests have to keep away from dead bodies.

(1) In Europe, beginning in the Middle Ages, cemeteries were generally constructed around churches.

(2) Rav Hirsch appears to be referring to the Christian practice of a priest administering last rites.

Rav Moshe Weinberger (Song of Teshuva, Vol. 4): [Many] spiritually inclined people… are not comfortable in this world, and… thus do not function well, even in performing mitzvos and good deeds. Although such a person experiences life deeply, he does not succeed in the world of action. He does not know how to apply the poem of his inner reality to the prose of everyday life — how to adjust his feelings and emotions to the outer world…

Because such a person’s practical life is out of sync with his internal life, he experiences a lack of symmetry. His failure to actualize his deep, inner being causes him to experience an unbearable sadness. He feels a gaping wound in his heart, and he does not know what to do about it, because he is not equipped to work things out practically. This person’s soul is naturally inclined towards melancholy. He feels like a stranger in this world, as though he has left his real self behind. He experiences a gap between his spiritual dreams and his present existence.

Such a person usually has the following two characteristics: a strong spiritual inclination, and difficulty in functioning successfully in the practical realities of this world. And his failure to accomplish tasks sharpens his awareness of his inadequacy and thus intensiﬁes his sufferings. Something is missing in his ability to tend enthusiastically and successfully to reality. He does not dress properly and does not take care of his home and possessions. He may have trouble holding onto a job. Although he may have a sense of responsibility for practical life, it is not well-deﬁned. His awareness that he must take care of his family is unclear and does not enter into the necessary details…

Practical people look at him and are shocked. Conversely, when he looks at them he is shocked by what he thinks is their emptiness and thoughtless happiness. But at the same time, when he looks at the contrast between how they are succeeding and he is failing, he falls into despair. His nefesh— the closest part of his spiritual self to his physical being — grows depressed because it sees that he is not coming to terms with his responsibilities. It is bewildered by his failure to dress properly, take care of his family, function at work, and so forth.

A practical person, on the other hand, who is not invested in the depth of his emotions does not suffer from such sadness, because the whole of his life, including Torah and mitzvos, is in greater balance. He does not feel that his inner and outer realities are out of step. Such a person, naturally inclined to practical accomplishment, is successful at work, at managing his home, and so on. He does not feel that he has left his true self behind. He does not feel conﬂicted by some deeper longing. He is at peace with who he is and with what he does. The disadvantage of being such a person, however, is that when his soul cries out, he often does not hear it.

The person who is strongly connected to the practical world is often characterized by spiritual shallowness. If someone talks to him about matters on the level of the soul, he feels uncomfortable, and he dismisses them as fluff. A passage from a text such as Bilvav’i Mishkan Evneh (a contemporary inspirational series) sounds to him as though it were written in Japanese. He interprets closeness to G-d in terms of fulﬁlling his responsibilities to daven Mincha and eat kosher. He only likes music, including Jewish music that arouses his body and nefesh.

Typically, such a person is successful at work, with his family, and in his adherence to the Shulchan Aruch. Because his deﬁciencies exist in the realm of his inner soul and are thus far removed from his immediate reality, he is not aware of them. When he looks at himself, he sees only his strong points, and so he is pleased with himself. As for the other type of person — the individual who has a rich inner spiritual life but is failing in his dealings with the practical world — his deﬁciencies stand directly before his eyes, and as a result he is sad and worried…

Questions for Discussion

Do you agree with Rav Kook that practical and spiritual excellence don’t usually come together in a single person?
In what way did Moshe function as a “king”?
What might be other reasons why G-d concealed Moshe’s burial place?
Where else in Judaism do we see an emphasis on the value of life?