Blog - Torah Insights - Chabad Lubavitch of Greenwich

Present Within Nature - שלח

Friday, June 28, 2024 - 12:37 PM

Present Within Nature

The episode of the biblical spies is a dramatic and tragic story. The spies dispatched to scout the land of Israel returned to the Jewish people in the desert and convinced them that they would be unable to conquer the land. The subsequent complaints led to G-d’s decree that the entire generation would perish in the desert and only their children would merit to enter the promised land.

We cannot read the story without addressing the obvious question: how is it possible that the very people who experienced the miracles of the exodus from Egypt, the splitting of the sea, and the journey through the desert, would deny G-d’s ability to conquer the land?

The Torah describes their claim:

But the men who went up with him said, "We are unable to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we. (Numbers 13:31)

Rashi explained that the word translates as “(stronger) than we”, in fact, means “(stronger) than He”, stronger than G-d himself:

for they are stronger than we: Hebrew מִמֶּנּוּ, [which may also be interpreted as, they are stronger than he.] They said this in reference to the most High , as it were, [as if to say that the people are stronger than He.

It seems impossible that the spies and their audience would claim that the inhabitants of Canaan were more powerful than G-d!

The Talmud (Sotah 35a) explains their claim. They said: ”Even the Homeowner, , is unable to remove His vessels from there, as it were.” They acknowledged that G-d is the “homeowner”, G-d is the creator and he can shatter the laws of nature, probabilities and statistics. Yet, they argued, the conquest of the land, which they were expected to achieve through a natural battle using military might and tactics, is different. Nature, they argued, is “His vessels”. While G-d can suspend the laws of nature when he chooses to, He values the laws of nature and allows them to play out in a natural way. The miracles of the exodus, therefore, are necessary for the chances of their success in a natural war.

When Moses prays for forgiveness for the sin of the spies, he evokes not the name Hashem, which describes G-d’s compassion, revelation, expression, but rather, surprisingly, the name A-do-nai which is the name describing G-d’s disciple and power of concealment. Moses says: “Now, please, let the strength of the A-do-nai be increased.” Moses understood that the mistake of the spies was that they misunderstood the quality of G-d expressed by the name A-do-nai. They understood that G-d can express his infinite might by performing miracles, but they did not understand that G-d is present within the limited, finite, laws of nature which He created. Moses pleads that the name A-do-nai be strengthened. That the Jewish people recognize and perceive that presence and salvation of G-d present not only in the open revealed miracles but also in the daily natural events in our lives.

Adapted from the teachings of the Rebbe, Likkutei Sichos 18 Shelach 4

Until The Flame Will Rise By Itself - בהעלותך

Friday, June 21, 2024 - 3:30 PM

Until The Flame Will Rise By Itself

"When you raise". What a beautiful name for a Parsha. Reading the opening verses of the Parsha, however, it is hard to see what exactly is being raised. The Torah states:

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron and say to him: "When you raise the lamps, the seven lamps shall cast their light toward the face of the menorah." (Numbers 8:2)

The opening commandment is to light the candles of the Menorah; why, then, does the Torah employ the verb "when you raise", instead of the straightforward "when you ignite"? Rashi explains that "when you raise", refers to the flame which rises upward, and the verse indicates that the priest who lights the candles must ensure that the wick takes hold of the flame to the extent that "the flame rises by itself":

When you light: Hebrew בְּהַעֲלֹתְךָ, lit., when you cause to ascend. Since the flame rises, Scripture describes kindling in terms of ascending. He is required to kindle the lamp until the flame rises by itself.

In his last talk on this Parsha, the Rebbe focused on the spiritual message of three of the words in Rashi's commentary: "the flame", "rises", "by itself".

The flame: A person, like a candle, possesses the ingredients for light: a vessel, a wick, and oil. G-d provides us with the personality, skill and talent we need to bring light to our surroundings. But we alone can ignite the flame. We alone can create the warmth and the passion that will illuminate our own life and the lives of those around us.

Rises: The command "raise the lamps" is a continuous calling. We must continuously strive to grow and ascend. We must not be satisfied with the light we have already generated. "Raise the lamps" is the Torah's calling to continuously seek to intensify our commitment and to raise ourselves to ever greater heights, thereby increasing the potency and the extent of the light we produce.

By itself: we must provide encouragement, inspiration, and light to the people around us until they internalize the inspiration and they too begin to shine on their own. This represents Judaism's insistence on a positive and optimistic view of reality. The insistence that ultimately, the Divine light will become internalized within ourselves, within the people in our circle of influence, and within the reality of the entire world. Ultimately, the world itself will "raise a flame by itself". The struggle to bring light to the world will ultimately transform the nature of the world itself, and the physical reality will itself be infused with holiness and light.

Adapted from the teachings of the Rebbe, Behhaloscha 5751 (1991)

Count or Raise? - במדבר

Thursday, June 6, 2024 - 4:46 PM

Count or Raise?

Translation is a tricky business. Very often, when a word is translated to another language, some of its cultural, philosophical, and spiritual connotations can be lost.

One example would be the first commandment of the Book of Numbers, when G-d commands Moses and Aaron to count the Jewish people. The verse states:

Take the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, by families following their fathers' houses; a head count of every male according to the number of their names. (Numbers 1:2)

The literal translation of the Hebrew word for "take the sum" {"Seu Et Rosh"}, is "lift up the head". Biblical Hebrew has multiple words for counting, such as "Lispor" or "Lifkod", so why does the Torah use the unusual term "lift up the head" instead of a more direct word for counting?

The great 17th-century sage and Kabbalist known as the Holy Shalah explains that the purpose of the census was to "raise the head", to raise and elevate the importance of each individual. The sages explain that this census was associated with the temple's construction in the desert, "when He came to cause His Divine Presence to rest among them, He counted them". The Torah's message to each and every individual is that bringing G-dliness into this world, transforming the world into a home for the Divine presence, is dependent on every individual. Every individual must "raise up his head" and realize that the purpose of creation is in his or her own hands.

As the Talmud teaches and codified by Maimonides:

A person should always look at himself as equally balanced between merit and sin and the world as equally balanced between merit and sin… if he performs one mitzvah, he tips his balance and that of the entire world to the side of merit and brings deliverance and salvation to himself and others.