By Yochanan Gordon
The Baal Shem Tov famously taught that everything a person hears or encounters during the course of a day is meant as a personal lesson in the service of G-d. As I was thinking about what to write about this week a number of items began vying for attention to be addressed. It then occurred to me that upon further thought there was an undercurrent that connected all of the issues, based on an idea that I had been developing of late, in line with this teaching of the Besht.
This past week was the yahrzeit of my great grandfather and namesake, Reb Yochanan Gordon, who was a shochet from the town of Dokshitz who made his way, together with his family to the U.S. where he established a life for himself and made his mark as a gabbai in 770 Eastern Parkway during the tenure of the Friediker Lubavitcher Rebbe and the Rebbe until his own passing on erev Rosh Chodesh Elul in the year 1969.
This past week was particularly challenging upon learning on motzaei Shabbos of the brutal murder of six hostages including the dual citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin despite the heroic and tireless efforts of his parents Jon and Rachel to secure his freedom. Lastly, as I type these words the month of Elul is upon us, which is the month known for spiritual stocktaking ahead of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur just one month away.
One of the important aspects of observing a yahrzeit is for the purposes of those who remain here, in this world, to internalize the life legacy of the departed and to rededicate ourselves in life towards fulfilling the purpose with which we were put here in this world. We learn this from a verse in Ecclesiastes which says, “V’hachai yitein el libo,” which means the living should take to heart. This is especially poignant to me, bearing the name of my great grandfather whose memory I invoke as a means of meriting a measure of Divine beneficence in being able to emulate his pious ways, which are well beyond my natural capabilities of embodying.
The tragedy that we just had to cope with in the loss of these six hostages often causes a crisis of faith in the lives of those who are directly grieving the loss of a loved one and many of us who find it hard to grapple with the magnitude of pain and suffering that we as a nation have had to contend with of late. Not a crisis which G-d forbid leads to a lack of faith, rather one that requires us to unearth a newfound faith that we never before realized that we had.
I was particularly moved by the remarks of Rachel Goldberg-Polin, Hersh’s mother, who in her parting words to her dear son remarked, “I will love you and miss you every single day for the rest of my life. But you are right here, I know you are right here I just have to teach myself to feel you in a different way.” While it speaks volumes of her love for her child and her unwillingness to allow his departure to impact her relationship to him as his parent it says the same regarding her faith in G-d and the realization that she will have to pivot and dig deeper in embracing a new level of faith after her old conventions have been challenged.
Lately I have been analyzing the recurrence of faith in the context of unquantifiable discovery rather than something we can achieve based on measurable output.
Matzah, in the Zohar, is called the food of faith. I was struck by the similarity between the word matzah the food and the word matzah that in Hebrew means to find. The difference is the aleph in the Hebrew word for find, which stands for emunah.
The Gemara teaches that there are three things that come through the absence of awareness: a) the discovery of a lost object, b) Moshiach, and c) scorpion. Faith begins where the intellect ends. Therefore, when Chazal say that three things arrive due to the absence of awareness that is a euphemism for something that is dependent upon faith rather than quantifiable measures, one of those things being the discovery of a lost object, which seemingly requires faith.
Furthermore, the Mishnah in Avos famously teaches that a person is believed when he says I toiled and I found (yagati umatzasi ta’amin), which seemingly also draws a correlation between finding and faith. The Gemara in Bava Metzia in Perek Shnayim Ochzin B’tallis posits that we might think that seeing an object first is enough to acquire it, which leads the Gemara to conclude that one needs to possess the object in order to be seen as its rightful owner. It would seem in light of this that faith is associated with the hands rather than the eyes. In fact, in the war against Amalek, the Torah describes the hands of Moshe as: “And his hands were faithful until the sun set. Rashi comments that as long as Moshe’s hands were raised the Yidden were victorious over their enemy. In fact, we learned that Aharon and Chur held Moshe’s hands in the air in order to avoid him having to put them down due to exhaustion. There is something about Aharon and Chur holding Moshe’s hands up that screams emunah regarding the hands, which themselves were described as faithful. You see Moshe’s dependence upon Aharon and Chur to keep his hands up means that he needed to come onto an outside force and that he was unable through his own, quantifiable power to keep his hands raised.
Elul is famously the roshei teivos Ani Ledodi V’dodi Li. I am to my beloved and my beloved is to me. These are two movements which describe the months of Elul and Tishrei as the Alter Rebbe writes in his maamar titled “Ani Ledodi.” Tishrei culminates with Sukkos, which uniquely has two mitzvos that of the four species and taking residence in a sukkah for seven days. The ideal fulfillment of the mitzvah of the four species is in the sukkah. The four species represent the permeative light of Divinity known also as the Ohr hamemalei kol olmin and the sukkah the enveloping light of G-d known as the Ohr hasovev kol olmin. These two categories of Divine light, memaalei and sovev, represent the Divine light that is contracted to fit within the dimensions of this world while the light of sovev, when it is unleashed, overwhelms creation as it originates in a much more sublime space. In the context of faith, the light of memalei would correspond to the quantifiable faith that we can trace back to something we have learned. However, sovev kol olmin represents the faith that is completely beyond the grasp of man to embody on his or her own. Taking the four species in the sukkah symbolizes the internalization of sovev kol olmin within the realm of memalei kol olmin. However, with every drawing down of enveloping light a new, higher level of enveloping light resurfaces upon us.
When we talk about a metzia, finding a lost object, we can certainly look for it but our ability to find it is ultimately in the hands of G-d. Practically, when a person loses an item there is even a customary prayer that we recite, which says we are blind until G-d opens our eyes.
The verse in Proverbs states: “He who finds [matzah] a woman has found goodness…” The Gemara in Kiddushin writes that the word kicha, taking, which the Gemara uses to derive the marriage acquisition is a path rather than an object. Rashi in that Gemara comments, “It is the way of a man to look for his lost object. The lost object here is a reference to the rib, which G-d removed from Adam to create Chava.
The mazal of the month of Elul is a besulah with our relationship with G-d being described as “Ani Ledodi v’Dodi Li” as that of two lovers coming together, which is described in the verse in Song of Songs states: “Matzasi eis she’ahava nafshi,” I have found that which my soul loves, I will grab a hold of Him and not let go.”
One of the most definitional virtues in all of Chassidus but particularly in Chabad Chassidus is bittul, which is defined as self-effacement. The term bittul is better known halachically, for instance in a situation where a small amount of milk falls into a large pot of chicken soup that is sixty times more than the amount of milk that fell into it. In such a scenario the milk becomes part of the chicken soup and it is permitted to consume. Similarly, the Chassidic virtue of bittul is when our sense of self becomes subsumed within the Divine reality. There is somewhat of a counter-intuitivity in trying to achieve something through suspension of self. However, what happens when we suspend our sense of self is we become permeated with the divine reality whose capabilities are limitless. It is that level of faith that cannot be sought after but can only be discovered through Divine intervention.
Having initiated this idea with matzah, the food of faith, the holiday of Passover is immediately preceded by the search for chometz. We don’t search for matzah, faith, because that is not quantifiable. However, we search for chometz, ridding ourselves of the things that may obstruct our path towards discovering faith.
Aharon and Chur held up Moshe’s hands when they got heavy. The hands are a symbol of faith. There are times like the ones we are living through now which can be taxing on our faith. Hashem had Aharon and Chur hold up Moshe’s hands. The words Aharon and Chur are a conjunction of Achor, which means the hind. What this says is that although it seems to us that a crisis of faith is the beginning in the breakdown of one’s faith, in reality it is the threshold between letting go of one’s quantifiable faith and entering the realm of Divine faith, which were embodied in the courageous words spoken by Rachel Goldberg-Polin in her eulogy of her son Hersh.
It is customary to start wishing a kesivah vachasimah tovah from the 15th of Av and onward. Now, that we are in the month of Elul it is certainly high time to wish one and all a kesivah vachasimah tovah and that this year we should merit to discover the Divine reservoir of faith buried at the bedrock of our existence with the coming of Moshiach speedily in our days.
Yochanan Gordon can be reached at ygordon5t@gmail.com. Read more of Yochanan’s articles at 5TJT.com.
