Tue, Jul 23 at 9:09 PM
Dear friends,
One of the strangest things about both today’s fast, and the times we are living in is the fact that the gematria of the world tov (good), is the date of the beginning of everything that most of us think of as bad. Is good bad? Is bad good?
In the Ashkenazi selichot I saw a few lines which were written about the 17th of Tammuz close to 2,000 years ago. It is in the first poem, which begins with the words, “We have come” (in Hebrew “attanu lecha”.)
1 – Light was hidden – the burning of the original torah that was in the ark… Do we have real light today? What percent of our people have any real capacity to feel and experience Torah’s light? Jill in Dallas? Mike in Kovna? The 70% who are assimilating?
2 – The conquerors put an idol in the sanctuary – Over 200 years ago the “Jewish enlightenment” sought to replace the truth of torah with the idol of what they called modern thought and liberalism. We have seen post-modern thought, and also have seen the cruelty and power-hungry nature of liberalism gone bad.
3 – The walls of the city were breached. There were 13 places that were forced open. The number 13 suggests both unity and love (both of which have 13 as their number value); and recall the principles of faith, and the laws of logic that were used to decipher the difficult passages in the oral tradition. Is good bad? Is bad good?
4 – “The destroying oppressor behaved insanely” “5 Babies and sucklings were prepared for slaughter” Was the author in Be’eri on Oct 7?
The earlier oppressors made it impossible to offer sacrifices and thereby made the moments of clarity that told us that the “animal self” can be sanctified. The result is that we were exposed to humans who (to use Rambam’s words) had lost their humanity and reverted to being beasts.
Where is the good? The root of all of this was that Moshe broke the tablets of the law that were given to him by G-d when he saw the Jews carousing around the golden calf. He realized that the serious contrast between what they could/should have been, and what they could/should have wanted was too great to bridge. Hashem saw this with far greater clarity than any human could. He immediately ceased the miracle in which Moshe was able to hold the solid stone luchot (approximately 20x20 inches of solid stone) and they fell from his arms. This was not seen as tragic! Hashem told Moshe “yashar koach” – right on!
Why? The reason is that it is a bad idea to try to force a size seven foot into a size 6 shoe. He gave us opportunities to be our highest selves, but when we refuse to live up to our genuine potentials we have to be given other opportunities for self-discovery.
There are three ways to return:
The first is called, “nature’s tshuvah” – your nature tells you that when you hate the person you see yourself becoming, it’s time to change, to pick yourself up. This takes place for instance when people who are addicted hit bottom and begin to look beyond the next high. This happened on Oct. 7, when suddenly all of the horrific in-fighting and political chaos gave way to a level of caring and unity that we have never seen. If you nurture this level of tshuvah, you can be ready for the next one.
The second is when you experience,” spiritual tshuvah” – when the dreams that the neviim gave us when they shared their prophecies, the ideals you learned about in school or in sem, or the way you felt when you heard the story of a tzadik or met one, become your dreams and your aspirations. For some of us here, this meant doing what we never saw ourselves doing, heavy duty volunteering, late night Tehillim, and for others it was getting a pair of tefilllin (at one point it was almost impossible to buy tefillin in Tel Aviv because they were sold out) for others it was still more.
The third is a sudden flash of feeling that you are living moment by moment for a higher purpose, for dveikus with Hashem no matter where He leads you. I have heard several recordings from soldiers who are suffering from horrific and irreversible injuries seeing their lives as moving on in whatever direction they have to go with no bitterness and no pessimism and (to me most significantly) no escapism.
Bad is good when you let it take you to a higher place. It isn’t good in and of itself. It is good because it can lead to something more. It can lead to such deep repulsion (for instance) for the animalism that no one imagined could be experienced in our century that you decide that you are committed from now on to being genuinely human.
Denying pain is a bad idea. Unless you can say this isn’t what I want, or who I want to be, or who I can be, there is no moving on. Hating darkness is good – it leads to seeking light. Hating ideals gone bad is good, if they open the door to honesty. No more idols in your inner sanctuary, your mind! Close the breaches in the walls around your mind and even more so your heart. When you see atrocities, do what the Klausenberger Rebbe did. He resolved, when he was suffering the worst the holocaust had to offer, he said,
“Whatever they are, I am not”.
He kept that in his heart, founded the Laniado hospital in Netanya, and many many torah institutions... You are living your life, not his, and you will find your place of profound spiritual beauty, beauty that no other person has or will ever have, the one condition is that you try your best (which is a completely unique brand of best), and Hashem will help you make your evolution into your highest self happen.
Love,
Tziporah
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