Rebbetzen Tziporah: Colors of Light

 Dear friends,

WHAT A VACATION

Bein hazmanim (summer break) is adventure time for most of the country. Adventures have many shades.

You may remember from your childhood what having a rainbow pinwheel was like. When it doesn’t move,  you see each color distinctly. As it gains speed the colors flow into each other until it looks like it is only one color.  This year’s bein hazmanim had a color of its own, which I find myself comparing to the color of bein hazmanim three years ago.

MORE ABOUT COLORS, AND BLESSINGS AND CURSES

All colors come from light.

• A red apple absorbs most colors of light but reflects red light to your eyes, so you see it as red.
• A green leaf reflects green light.
• A white shirt reflects almost all the colors, so it looks white.
• A black shirt absorbs almost all the colors, so very little light reaches your eyes.

So the "source" of all the colors you normally see is light, especially sunlight or another light source like a lamp.

The Kabbalists refer to Hashem’s relationship to our reality as “Ohr Ein Sof” – light without end. We see many colors, but their source is always light.

 "See, I place before you today a blessing and a curse” and then later, “life and death." He tells us to choose life. Sometimes our reality sees darkness, curses and death and other times light and blessing. The source is One. Hashem, the source of all light, energy, illumination, power, and love, made a world in which there is both the gift of His light and another gift – the free will and responsibility that let us make choices.

THE HISTORY OF BLESSINGS AND CURSES

When you talk about Hashem’s blessings and curses, the Torah guides you by giving you insight into the very beginning of our history as humans in Parshat Bereishit. The first blessing Adam, our universal ancestor, received was to be fruitful and multiply – to fill the earth and conquer it. The meaning of blessing is very clear: it means maximization. Be you, and more.

Conversely, when you look at the curses given by the same One after Adam and Chava sinned, what you see is a spectrum of difficulty, hard work, and pain. The end result is life as we know it, in which meeting challenges is the way back to maximization.

The colors all come from light.

Three years ago, we spent some time with my grandson Tzvi, who lives not far from Har Gerizim (which is the location of a yishuv called Har Bracha), and its negative parallel, Har Eival. He had a friend who showed us the physical reality that tells you about what blessings and curses mean to us as a people.

The story of Har Gerizim and Har Eival is one of the most dramatic moments in Jewish history. These two mountains, standing opposite each other with the city of Shechem (modern Nablus) between them, represent the words:

"See, I place before you today a blessing and a curse... These shall stand upon Mount Gerizim to bless the people... and these shall stand upon Mount Eival for the curse."

Moshe gave more detailed instructions: The nation was to cross the Jordan. Large stones were to be erected and covered with plaster. The Torah was to be written on them. An altar of unhewn stones was to be built on Har Eival.

One of the many miracles that characterized those times was that Yehoshua was able to accomplish all that was required in a very short time:

• Building the mizbe'ach.
• Offering olot and shelamim.
• Writing the Torah on stones.
• Reading every blessing and every curse.

Our guide took us to the ruins of the ancient mizbe’ach, which actually looks like the pictures of the mizbe’ach that you may find in illustrated Mishnayot. We walked on it and touched it. We were back there as much as you can ever be back there.

We were with the people who offered korbanot and who affirmed by their commitment. The commitment that required a mass circumcision for the men who had not been circumcised in the desert – and by what the Torah calls circumcision of the heart: getting beyond the emotions that lead you away from spiritual maximization and toward the never-never land of "I want" and "Make me feel important," which blocks the pure emotions of "I want to give" and "I want to live a life that is important."

The mountains of blessing and curse are not far apart. They look physically different –one is green and the other is rocky and barren. It’s easy to picture where the blessings and curses were given and to envision the Leviim in the middle.

WHERE WAS THE REST OF THE WORLD?

The simple answer is: "Elsewhere."

Try Zanzibar, Vietnam, or even exotic LA.

The light of the blessings and curses was only given to us. The Torah was written by Moshe at the end of his life under Hashem’s direction. According to Chazal, the Torah was written on the stones in seventy languages. The nations know of the Torah (when they choose to), but they have shades and colors that are filtered by their essence and defined through their cultures.

We are different. "You are children of Hashem your God." The original image of Hashem remains with us, in the merit of the Avot, unchanged and unfiltered.

HOW DO YOU ACCESS THE BLESSINGS AND CURSES?

The Torah tells you to remember who you are. You can self-actualize and discover the light that is there inside you and outside you.

Your soul is holy, and so is your body, its loyal servant (at least ideally – we have to at least try not to have them reverse their roles). You aren’t allowed to defile it – no tattoos, no mutilations.

There will be times when the light is very evident, and times when you have to struggle, but they are all means of access to the Light itself.

The summer of the trip to the mizbe’ach was pure light. It was joyous and full of the "something more" that we all love to experience.

This bein hazmanim was something else.

My husband had an infection of still unknown origin, which led to serious, life-threatening moments when his bloodstream was affected by acidosis that initially was undiscovered. A trip to the emergency medical center did not reveal the condition and we were told that it was a bad flu.

A friend suggested that we have a doctor – a marvelous Bostoner chossid who was head of emergency medicine in a major American hospital before his retirement – look over the test results from the emergency center. He discovered that a major test had been omitted.

This led to a trip to Hadassah and to the happy ending that is still only in process. B”n, I will let you know when it is time for him to “bench gomel” the blessing said in shul after a life-threatening situation. 

This is the kind of situation that is still light, but it was hidden by struggle and pain. It forced me to recognize that my focus on the medical side of things (which, of course, is the responsible way to go) does not have to cut out the light. They are made to coexist.

Hashem was there every step of the challenges He set before us.

Light has many "colors," and as children of Hashem we can find them when we look for our Father’s presence.

What a bein hazmanim!

Love,

Tziporah