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

Due to time constraints, the “Food for Thought” and “Questions for Further Discussion” had to be omitted.

Rav Kook (Midbar Shur, 16)

 And they embittered their lives with hard labor, with clay and with bricks and with all kinds of labor in the fields, all their work that they worked with them with back breaking labor. (Shemot 1:14)

Careful study is required to discern the purpose of our exile in Egypt and its impure culture. Prior to our descent to Egypt, our monotheistic beliefs and ethical conduct distinguished us from the pagan world around us. Afterwards, our Sages teach that we seemed indistinguishable from our idolatrous Egyptian oppressors, that the ministering angels could not comprehend why G-d chose to redeem us while He drowned our oppressors in the Yam Suf. Clearly, being in exile served some greater purpose, but why did it have to unfold in a way that was so damaging to Israel’s spiritual stature?

Perhaps our national descent to Egypt should be understood in the same light as the soul’s descent into the challenges and travails of this world. In heaven, our souls bask in G-dly light and partake of a clear perception of Divine truth. There are no challenges to overcome. But this static state of being is not the purpose of Creation. G-d sends our souls down into thisworld, where we are tempted by desire, greed, laziness, and numerous other seductions that are absent in the heavenly realms. Life in this world is not about basking in G-dly light, but about confronting and overpowering the unrefined and sinister aspects of our own being, so that our G-dly soul can express its true nature.

In the same way, G-d submerged Israel into the darkness and vile filth of Egyptian paganism precisely so they could struggle to overcome it and rise above it. Only through such inauspicious beginnings could the foundation be laid for a religious framework of struggle, vigorous effort and surmounting challenges to observe the laws of the Torah. Indeed, the prophet Hoshea declares that “When Israel was young, I loved him, and from Egypt I called My child” (Hoshea 11:1). Apparently, G-d regarded our spiritual failures in the Egyptian exile as the growing pains of a child in the early stages of development.

It seems that this interpretation is also prefigured in a puzzling statement of the Zohar. The Zohar analyzes the pasuk we began with about the suffering inflicted on Israel by the Egyptians. It states that hard work, עבודה קשה, refers to קושיא, the Talmudic term for analytical questions; mortar, חומר, refers to קל וחומר, one of the logical structures of Talmudic argumentation; and bricks, לבנים, refers to לבון הלכתא, the process of clarifying halachic matters. This must be more than a cute play on words, but what does it mean? Apparently, the Zohar is teaching us that the Egyptian exile paved the way for a model of Torah Study that requires vigorous effort to reach the truth. And while the Zohar is focused on the mitzvah of Torah study – with its questions, rejoinders, and rigorous analysis that is the hallmark of Talmud study – the same thing is true of all aspects of our avodat Hashem. The dark background of temptation, challenge and failure only creates a canvas upon which our successes can be etched. This is the way that G-d has created us and our world, so that spiritual greatness can be earned and not just dispensed on a silver platter, and so that our reward can thus be that much greater.

Last year’s piece on Parshat Shemot can be found here.

Printable PDF available here.

Rav Kook (Olat Re’iah)

So they appointed over them tax collectors to afflict them with their burdens, and they built storage cities for Pharaoh, Pithom and Ra’amses. But as much as they would afflict them, so did they multiply and so did they gain strength… (Shemot 1:11-12)

There are two different paths for an individual to actualize his latent potential and bring out the full vigor and force of his capabilities. The first path is by granting space and freedom to his talents, allowing them to steadily broaden and magnify their impact in the world of action. We readily understand how this path elevates a person’s practical aptitudes and brings his potential into actuality.

In the second path, one’s talents are restrained and held back against his will, by circumstances beyond his choice or control. Any latent potential is impeded and imprisoned, and blocked from flowing outward and finding expression in the broader world. G-d leads a person on this path so that when the external impediments are removed, his potential will burst outward with greater vigor and nobility – not despite the earlier constriction, but precisely because of it.

The idea of constriction for the sake of future expansion is familiar to us from the natural world. In the cold of winter, plants cease to grow and many animals retreat to hibernation. This appears to be a time of death, when nature’s vigor is extinguished and stamped out. But this is a superficial perspective of winter. In reality, the natural world is simply turning inward to protect itself, and to conserve its strength from being depleted or spread thin. Plants and animals do not die in the winter – rather, they gather additional resources and strength, and burst forth with renewed vigor when spring arrives.[1]

This same dynamic applies to the powers of a person’s nefesh, his ethical and intellectual facilities, and his conduct in the world of action. And it applies not only to an individual, but also to the Jewish people as a collective.[2]We see this clearly at the beginning of Sefer Shemot. Israel went down to Egypt with a repository of kedushah and a spiritual vision for all of humanity, a vision that it had inherited from Avraham, Yitzchak and Ya’akov. This Divine treasure was intrinsic to Israel’s very nature, and could not be extinguished. It was destined to flourish and ascend, to expand and leave its mark on every dimension of Israel’s existence – its conduct, way of thinking, family life, political system, and economy.

However, Divine wisdom decreed that this expansion would not unfold without impediments. In the earlier generations of the Avot, the spiritual development of what would become Israel’s heritage was guided primarily along the first path. G-d protected the Avot from their enemies, helped them thrive and gave them space – physical and spiritual – to bring G-dliness into human life. In contrast, Israel’s time in Egypt would be an experience of constraint and restriction. Egypt, the most powerful empire at the time, was a place of paganism and impurity, the polar opposite of what Israel sought to bring to the world. Israel’s yearning for G-dly freedom, and its values of righteousness, compassion, and holiness – all of these would be crushed under the tremendous and apparently immovable force of Egyptian impurity, ignorance, wickedness, and worship of power. Israel would be spiritually challenged and physically enslaved, without any ability to outwardly express its spiritual vision.

The enslavement was so oppressive that before long, even Israel no longer perceived its uniqueness. But Israel’s G-dly spark could not be extinguished by Pharaoh and the whips of his task-maskers. The people had not been abandoned by G-d. No, G-d designed the Egyptian exile as a time for Israel to turn inward and gather reservoirs of spiritual strength. That strength and drive for expansiveness, that suppressed yearning to imprint G-dliness upon every level of reality in the world of action, would explode outward as soon as G-d broke the might of the Egyptian empire, declared the Jewish people His servants and set them free.

Food for Thought

Ramban al-haTorah (Shemot 33:15): [Based on the census in the book of Shemot, the tribe of Levi was less than half the size of the smallest tribe, and very far from the average of 50,000]. The small number of Levites is surprising: how could the servants and followers of God not be blessed by Him like all the rest of the nation? I believe that this substantiates what Chazal taught, namely, that the tribe of Levi were not enslaved in Egypt. Israel, whose lives were embittered with hard labor with the intention of limiting their number, were increased by God in response to the Egyptian decrees, as we learn “And the more they oppressed them, the more they increased and the more they multiplied…” For the Holy One said of the Egyptians, “Let us see whose word prevails, Mine or theirs.” But [because they were not enslaved] the tribe of Levi increased in a natural way and did not multiply like the other tribes.

Ohr haChaim (Shemot 1:11): The plain meaning of the verse is that for every unjustified act of cruelty by the Egyptians, G-d compensated the Jewish people with a commensurate increase in the number of babies that were born to them. Additional hands enabled the parents to meet the work quota imposed upon them by the Egyptians. The words כן ירבה, “so they would multiply,” would then mean that the additional number of children made up for the reduced performance by their weakened parents in proportion to the emasculating effect of the hard labor. This became a vicious circle as the Egyptians kept increasing the workload.

Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch (Collected Writings, Vol. VII pg. 13): During an age when the rest of mankind filled history’s annals with such a poor reflection of itself in the form of Jewish blood, Jewish tears and Jewish ruins, Israel could hardly he blamed for having little desire or inclination to read the pages of history. And yet the Jewish perspective even then was never so narrow as we tend to believe today. The age of ghettos and burnings at the stake had been preceded by centuries during which Jewish sages, the sages of Jewish scholarship, had been, at the same time, pillars of the general sciences of heaven and earth. Nearly every page of the literature that was treasured in ghetto tenements bore witness to the authors’ deep insights into the nature of things and their relationship to one another, and into the nature of man and his social development. Moreover, there was within the souls of Jewish men and women a horizon far broader than the small strips of sky visible from the alleys in which the Jews were confined. In their hearts there shone a light of truth and clarity, a sun of peace and serenity that not even the oppressive darkness of their dwellings and the even darker realities outside could obscure. And so they did not really miss engaging in science or that culture which they knew to be incapable of rescuing its disciples from the shackles of shameful delusion and deplorable error. It was precisely in this isolated state in which both Jewish scholarship and the Jewish people found themselves that Jewish scholarship gave proof of the Divine strength which is inherent in it, of the light that refreshes the soul, brightens the eyes and gladdens the heart. Even when it was turned inward upon itself and its wellsprings, Jewish scholarship was capable of enlightening, strengthening, ennobling, uplifting, comforting and sustaining an entire nation—as long as that nation dedicated itself to these studies with a loyal, devoted and sincere love.

Questions for Discussion

1. Do you think the Jewish people have been more successful at the first path Rav Kook describes or the second?
2. Midrash and Torah commentaries struggle to explain why the Jews had to be enslaved in Egypt. To grossly oversimplify, (i) some interpret it as a punishment, (ii) others try to understand it kabbalistically, (iii) some explain that the suffering somehow refined us spiritually, and (iv) some interpret that our redemption from slavery was meant to teach critical spiritual and ethical lessons to the world and the Jewish people. Where does Rav Kook fall on this issue?
3. What are other parallels between individual human development and Israel’s national development?
4. The Zohar teaches that that the Jews were on the 49^thlevel of tumah in Egypt, and that had the Exodus been delayed another moment, they would have been spiritually destroyed. But only a short time later, they were singing to G-d at the Yam Suf and hearing G-d speak at Har Sinai! How can Rav Kook’s insights help us make sense of this apparent paradox?
5. What is a time in your life when G-d led you on the first path that Rav Kook describes? On the second path?
6. Based on Rav Kook’s insights, can you give a deeper explanation of why Pesach always falls (and must always full) in the springtime?
7. See the Ohr haChaim in “Food for Thought” above. How is he similar to Rav Kook? How is he different?

[1]Another example of this phenomenon is a spring, where pushing down creates potential energy that is released explosively once the pressure is removed.

[2]Chazal state (based on a pasuk in Yechezkel) about the Jewish people that אתם קרויים אדם. As Rav Kook interprets it, this means that Israel is governed by many of the same rules and patterns that apply to the nature and development of individuals.

Translation (Olat Re’iah, Vol. 1, pg. 288):

And I will come down to save them from Egypt’s hand, and bring them up from there to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey…” (Shemot 3:8).

The Torah repeatedly describes Eretz Yisrael as “flowing with milk and honey”, and even includes that phrase as the capstone of the declaration (recorded in Sefer Devarim) made by someone who brings first fruits (lit. bikkurim) to the Temple. [1] In that context, the Mishnah [2] understands the phrase as not only a description, but also a prayer that God imbue the land’s fruits with flavor. This seems like a non-sequitur. Delicious fruits are nice, but are they really worth focusing on? And isn’t that an anticlimactic way to end the bikkurim declaration after (i) reviewing the entire drama of Jewish history and (ii) beseeching God to bless the land with essentials, like rain? [3]

In truth, God’s gift of a land “flowing with milk and honey” is deliberate and truly of great significance. A lowly nation has neither need nor capacity to appreciate life’s supplemental pleasures. On the contrary, an excess of Divine blessing in worldly matters will be harmful to them, and inevitably lead to laziness and moral or ethical corruption. However, a refined and holy nation is meant to enjoy and appreciate worldly blessings. Only such a nation can partake of worldly pleasures as a Divine gift, and thus avoid becoming debased by them. It can use pleasure to lift its spirits and attain an expanded consciousness [4] (lit. הרחבת הדעת). We speak, of course, of the Jewish nation, established by God to acquire Divine wisdom, to shine understanding and an exceedingly great spiritual light upon all peoples. Such a nation must carry the banner of life in all its splendor, and cannot suffice with a narrow, unadorned and austere physical existence.

Thus, when God promised the Avot a land “flowing with milk and honey,” He was only superficially making a point about the quality of the real estate. God had a deeper message about the spiritual stature of the Avot’s descendants– that the Jewish People would be able to use material blessings as fuel for spiritual development and ascent. [5] Granted, this was not an immutable guarantee, and indeed, later generations failed the challenge and became debased by the bounty of Eretz Yisrael. As the Torah itself predicts, “After eating and becoming fattened to satiation, they will turn to other gods.” [6] However, this is only a temporary sickness, and the innate spiritual potential Jewish People remains intact. The travails and suffering of galut are God’s way of healing us from our sickness and restoring proper calibration between the physical and the spiritual.

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

1. Can you remember a time that you felt a spiritual experience in connection with a worldly pleasure?
2. Material abundance and poverty each present their own spiritual challenges. Taking a panoramic view of Jewish history, which do you think Am Yisrael has done a better job of contending with?
3. Rambam [7] writes that our physical activities should be done with an ultimate orientation towards avodat Hashem– i.e. a person should eat, sleep, etc. because a healthy body is necessary for engaging in spiritual pursuits. Is Rav Kook advocating this same approach to worldly pleasures, or does he have in mind something different than the Rambam?
4. Rav Kook notes that material abundance is not an unqualified blessing, and if misused, it actually distances a person from God. What can we do (individually and as a community) to ensure that we make proper use of the worldly pleasures that Hashem has granted us?
5. Do you think Rav Kook would regard certain types of worldly pleasures are less legitimate than others? Or is he granting legitimacy to all of them (in theory, at least)?
6. Rav Kook writes that on the collective/national level, a narrow, unadorned and austere physical existence is actually a sign of spiritual deficiency. Have you ever been exposed to that idea in the course of your Jewish education or the Torah sources you’ve learned?
7. Rav Kook connects his comments about the legitimacy of worldly pleasures to the verse about Eretz Yisrael“flowing with milk and honey.” Is there a basis to argue that worldly pleasures are less legitimate outside of Eretz Yisrael? I.e. perhaps they blur our sense of exile? Perhaps we can only use them appropriately in our own land, where we are freed of outside influences?

About this Piece

Olat Re’iah is a two-volume commentary on the siddur that Rav Kook began writing while trapped in London during World War I. Only a small portion was compiled by Rav Kook himself; the majority was collected by Rav Kook’s son from a variety of his father’s writings and unpublished manuscripts. The Hebrew in Olat Re’iahis quite challenging, but an English translation was published only a few months ago by Koren. The translation was done by Bezalel Naor, who is one of the world experts on Rav Kook’s thought. Koren’s translation is accessible and infuses prayer with Rav Kook’s unique dimension of freshness and exciting spirituality. It is well worth your time.

Other resources on Olat Re’iah for the English speaking reader are (i) a series of brief shiurim from R. Ally Ehrman, available on YUTorah.org and (ii) Rav Chanan Morrison’s translation of selected excerpts, available here.

Further Reading and Food for Thought

Rav Aharon Lichtenstein’s comments on “kosher hedonism,” printed in By His Light(pg. 16-18), available here.

Not all rabbinic authorities grant legitimacy to worldly pleasures to the same extent as Rav Kook. Consider the following striking example. In 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia, carrying with him the banner of “liberty, equality and fraternity” and promising emancipation to the oppressed peoples of the continent. The rabbinic leadership of European Jewry was divided over whether to support him. R. Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the first Lubavitcher Rebbe, supported the Russian Czar against of Napoleon, despite the Czar’s cruel decrees and policies of oppression against the Jews. He explained as follows – “If Bonaparte will be victorious, Jewish wealth will increase, and the prestige of the Jewish people will be raised; but their hearts will disintegrate and be distanced from their Father in Heaven. But if Alexander will be victorious, although Israel’s poverty will increase and their prestige will be lowered, their hearts will be joined, bound and unified with their Father in Heaven….” [8]

Contemporary articles by R. Gil Studentand Joseph Schickdiscussing whether a Torah life has room for leisure.

The broader culture that we live in takes it for granted that pleasure is a legitimate pursuit. However, it was not always this way. Shmuel Feiner writes as follows in The Origins of Jewish Secularization, a book-length treatment about the slow-motion collapse of Torah observance in Europe in the 1700s:

The tendency to enjoy the pleasures of the body and the soul is built in to human society and culture; but in the premodern age, it was the object of philosophical and… religious criticism and regarded as a human weakness. ‘‘What marks the innovativeness of the eighteenth century,’’wrote Roy Porter, scholar of English Enlightenment and culture, ‘‘is its new accent upon the legitimacy of pleasure, not as occasional release, aristocratic paganism or heavenly bliss, but as the routine entitlement of people at large to seek fulfilment in this world rather than only in heavenly salvation, to achieve the gratification of the senses, not just the purification of the soul.’’[Note – Rav Kook would assert that the Torah regards this as a false dichotomy.]The culture of Enlightenment, which, in contrast to the Christian ethos, turned its face toward man and his world, acknowledged the instinctive drives of human beings… Europeans came to believe that they should enjoy life on earth instead of enduring it in order to win a place in paradise after death.’’

[1] See Devarim26:15.

[2] Ma’aser Sheni, Perek 5.

[3] This is how the same Mishnah in Ma’aser Sheni interprets the preceding prayer that God “bless the Land…”

[4] I have a hunch that Rav Kook is alluding to the following statements in Gemara Berachot 57b – שלשה משיבין דעתו של אדם אלו הן קול ומראה וריח שלשה מרחיבין דעתו של אדם אלו הן דירה נאה ואשה נאה וכלים נאים.

[5] Rav Kook also writes that it’s a point about the quality of the physical blessings, not the physical ones.

[6] Devarim 31:20.

[7] Hilchot De’ot Perek 3.

[8] Igrot Kodesh Admor HaZaken, letter #64.

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