The Broken Vessels In describing the early stages of creation, we read what is perhaps one of the most cryptic verses in all of the Torah: Now the earth was astonishingly empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the water. (Genesis 2:2) The first half of the verse describes a scene of emptiness and chaos (The Hebrew word “Tohu”, means both emptiness and chaos ), while the second half of the verse describes a scene of tranquility and serenity. The Midrash explains that “the spirit of G-d hovering over the face of the water“ refers to the spirit of the Missianic era, a time when peace and serenity will reign throughout the world. The verse, then, is confusing. What was the state of creation in its earliest stages, was it darkness and chaos or peace and holiness? The Kabbalists explain that this verse alludes to the Kabbalsitic doctrine of the “breaking of the vessels”, which lies at the heart of the story of creation and its purpose. When we read a book or look at a completed puzzle we are looking at a “vessel”, a container, a physical phenomenon which contains a spiritual idea or concept. All of creation is a vessel, a tool which expresses the awesome power and unfathomable wisdom of its creator. Yet, in order for the purpose of creation to play out, the presence of G-d must be hidden. The vessels must break, the puzzle broken up into pieces, the words of the book rearranged and scrambled. Once the vessels are shattered, the content and ideas of the book are gone, what is left is chaos and confusion. Not only do the letters cease to tell the story, they actually contribute to the confusion. The physical world could have been a vessel revealing its inner content, the Divine creative energy. But the vessels were shattered. It is a physical world that no longer directs our attention to its maker and its purpose. Instead the myriad creations and experiences leave us in a perpetual state of confusion and aimlessness. The breaking of the vessels is alluded to in the first half of the verse. The earth is now filled with darkness and chaos. The second half of the verse, however, clarifies the purpose of creation. True, the scrambled letters and the pieces of the puzzle, no longer reveal their inner content, however, the meaning, the purpose, the story, hovers above, waiting for us to unscramble the letters and piece together the puzzle. The universe is waiting for us to discover that the “spirit of G-d”, the serenity and holiness, was hidden within creation all along. The same is true in the microcosm, within every man and woman. Our life seems to be a collection of unrelated, or worse, conflicting, forces, urges, experiences, emotions and drives. We often don't see the purpose and meaning of it all. We experience the tension between the physical and the spiritual, between the destructive and constructive parts of our personality. We are experiencing the shattered vessels, “chaos upon the face of the darkness”. However, the story of our life, like the story of creation, is inherently optimistic. It is our task to fix the shattered vessels. To rearrange the letters of our life. To understand which letter goes first and which follows second. We must rearrange our priorities, understanding that the physical aspects of life are here to serve the spiritual dimension of life. Like every story, our story too has a protagonist and a villain, experiences which must be cultivated and others which must be rejected. Life is the process of organizing all its various aspects into an organic whole. From a collection of random moments to a meaningful story. The purpose of life is to move from chaos and darkness to the serenity of the spirit of G-d upon the waters. (Adapted from Totah Or Parshas Vayeshev and Parshas Bireyshis 5712)
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