Imagine the holy son of a saintly Rebbe marrying the daughter of a
renowned atheist, straight off a socialist commune. Pretty far-fetched, ya think?
This week's Torah portion talks of a very similar shidduch. Yitzckok and
Rivka come from such opposing backgrounds, that I can´t begin to understand how
that marriage can work. Why did Eliezer facilitate such a strange shidduch?
Over a week has passed since Sandy had arrogantly crashed through our
peaceful shores. Anyone of reasonable age, who was conscious on Tuesday,
October 30, 2012, has heard about the devastating Superstorm that ripped across
the East coast, destroying millions of people´s lives, both physically and
emotionally. Such vast lost is impossible to describe, because it is beyond
human comprehension.
Though I haven´t experienced the devastation myself, I have family and
friends, and friends of friends, who have experienced irreplaceable loss and unrepairable
damage from the storm. The extent of these losses are unfathomable.
The morning after the hurricane, I sat comfortably at my computer,
looking at pictures of homes, once elegant and cozy, that are now hollow and
skeletal, resembling survivors of a war. I saw businesses that have been
flooded out or collapsed to the ground, leaving thousands of families not
knowing how they will regain all their losses, or how they will put bread on
the table tomorrow. Oh, wait. What table? That one? The one in the middle of
the flooded street, broken in half, with a staircase on top of it?
How can years and years of hard work and dedication, a lifetime of
memories, and every personal belonging down to a toothbrush, be washed away
like that, gone forever, in just a few hours?
Every radio station and TV channel reported excessively about this
hurricane, warning the targeted locations for days before it actually hit.
Yet
even with all the capabilities, capacities, and competency of living in the new
millenium, and even though the United States of America is arguably the most powerful
and efficient country in the world, and we live in a generation of technology
and science so advanced, that we can barely keep up with the developments, and
despite all of the geniuses and endless talent we have in our midst, there has
not been even one individual who was able to prevent this disaster. It was so
clearly being controlled by a force way beyond even the most powerful of
humans, in the most powerful country.
To be honest, rather than reflecting on it, it would be a whole lot
easier to close my eyes, thank God that I wasn’t affected, and run on out to get
ice cream.
But I realize that each situation I encounter in life, whether
physically experiencing it, or just as a casual onlooker, has been put in my
path for a reason. To not be affected by it means to live a life of denial and
stagnation. Is that even living?
Watching the force of the rain, the powerful surges of water, and
listening to the speed and strength of the wind has instinctively put a prayer
on my lips:
Mashiv haruach, Umorid hageshem
He (God)blows the wind and causes the rain to fall
Okay, seems quite obvious. But during this storm, there was a complete
distortion of this! The water wasn´t blowing down, it was blowing upward! And
as it ascended, it destroyed everything it came into contact with! Instead of
the wind blowing high and the rain falling down, the water washed up, with the
wind blowing down!
So I think the meaning of these words are deeper than just the obvious.
The root of the word ruach, wind, is
the same as the word ruchniut,
spirituality. And the root of the word geshem,
rain, is the same as the word gashmiut,
materialism. The personal message I received from this historic disaster,
was Mashiv
haruach, Umorid hageshem! Blow the spirituality upward, and lower the
materialism!
When there´s a distortion between the physical and spiritual, we can
destroy everything we come in contact with.
Mesilas Yesharim teaches that certain activities belong to realm of
materialism/ yetzer hara, but when we do them with pure intentions, to serve
Hashem, we remove them from the realm of yetzer hara and into the territory of
the yetzer hatov. So instead of those actions making us more materialistic,
they turn around and make us more spiritual. The opposite is true, as well. If one
does a mitzvah, but fulfills it with the wrong intentions, he removes it from
the territory of the yetzer hatov, and it now belongs to the other side,
causing it to lose its status as ´holy´.
Mesilas Yesharim continues in Shaar
Hanekius and and explains that even while you keep the mitzvos you can still
remain completely gashmiusdik, completely involved and enveloped by materialism.
I consider myself a Torah observant Jewess, and I try to keep the
mitzvos and adhere to halacha, but yet, without doing anything actually assur,
I am at times allowing my lower self to take over, causing my gashmius to be on
top of my ruchnius.
What is it that drives me in life? What excites me? What do I live for? What
do I look forward to? Is it all materialistic? Is it clothing? Money? Nice
vacations? Fancy cars? Most delectable restaurants?
None of this is wrong. But when that becomes the center of my life, it
means I´m a materialistic person, and at the end of the day, the ultimate
purpose of Torah was not fulfilled by me. The purpose of Torah is to transform
man from a semi animal to a semi God. It means to take my very strong sense of
physicality and develop it into a strong sense of spirituality. To mold myself
into someone dominated by my animal drive, like all my fellow physical beings,
into someone dominated by my spiritual drive. To become someone capable of
putting my neshama before my guf.
Many of the mitzvos we were given
are meant to break the hold that gashmius has on us, like tzedaka, kosher, Shabbos,
maaser…they put limits on our desires.
Back to the parsha, the marriage of Yitzchok and Rivka is a metaphor for
our mission in life. We are all Eliezers. And our mission is to affect a
shidduch even stranger than the one which Eliezer facilitated.
We are sent to this world to bring together in holy matrimony the
eminent groom, God Almighty, and the
reluctant bride, this mundane world. Seemingly, no two greater opposites exist: God radiates selflessness and spirituality, while the world exudes egotism
and the primacy of materialism. Yet, we are expected to unite the two in
perfect harmony by living spiritual Godly lives in this hostile
environment, thus revealing within the world its truest, but deeply buried,
nature -- its Godly essence. We can
infuse our every act, even the most mundane ones, with spirituality and
meaning; we can bring together Mars and Venus.
Finding perfection in life means emulating God. In this matrimony with
Him called life, spirituality leads and materialism follows. As long as the ruach is above, the geshem
will be below. And then we will be building worlds instead of destroying
them.
The marriage of Yitzchok and Rivka didn´t just work; it created the
entire Jewish nation.
Have a beautiful shabbos!
