While I wish to have been born a Sabra, I acknowledge that I
brought with me to Israel many important virtues from the land of my birth.
Although Avraham was told to leave his country, birthplace, and father’s house
behind, I believe he was to extract the good points he had received from there
and bring them to the Land of Israel. Apparently, filtering is a great part of
my life’s mission. That is to take what you have learned from the general world
and sift it through a Torah sifter. For example, cleanliness is a value I take
with me from the country of my birth and my parents’ home. Cleanliness is one
of the ten virtues mentioned in the Talmud (Avodah Zarah 20b) quoted in
the Path of the Upright by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto. It is a mitzvah
to clean our home in honor of Shabbat, and when we live in an organized and
clean environment, we can work more efficiently in serving Hashem. Where I grew
up the Privet hedge was always trimmed to the T, the garbage was never overflowing,
and you wouldn’t find even one cigarette stub on the ground. The grass seemed
perpetually green and freshly mowed, the flowerbeds were weeded, and the
fringes of the carpets were combed. Perhaps you can imagine the rest. The great
mindfulness of the details of taking care of things, cleaning up as we go, and
keeping our home and environment together is a birthright that I bring with me from
Europe to the Middle Eastern melting pot of muddled cultures. However, when orderliness
and cleanliness (or anything else) become a value for its own sake, it misses
the mark. If a mother is so obsessed with tidying the mess that she will yell mercilessly
at her kids; and is too preoccupied with spotlessness to spend quality time
with them, then cleanliness becomes a detriment to the Torah way of life. Therefore,
I have filtered the aspiration to maintain the kind of impeccable home I grew
up in. I have perhaps preserved about 70-80% to allow other more internal
values to override the endeavor for cleanliness when needed. Based on my
experience and the Torah I have learned, the main reasons why the Jewish people
had to be scattered in exile throughout the four corners of the earth is to redeem
the good sparks of truth from all these places and return them to the Holy
Land. We are now at the culmination point of this long-winded process. The more
sparks of exile we receive, the sooner complete redemption will occur.
How do We Redeem the Sparks Entrapped Within All Reality?
There are seventy aspects (literally faces) of the Torah (Midrash
Bamidbar Rabbah 13:15), each correspond to the good points of one of the
seventy nations. When it states that “The people of Israel were exiled amongst
the nations only so that converts might be added to them” (Babylonian
Talmud, Pesachim 87b), it refers to more than actual converts. On the
simple level, this dictum does refer to the many non-Jews – who, through coming
in contact with the Jewish people dispersed in various exiles – have been
inspired to convert to Judaism. However, according to the inner dimensions of
the Torah, the Talmud also refers to the sparks of holiness contained within
the physical creation. They too can be considered different types of soul-sparks
that are transformed and elevated through our exiles: As the Arizal teaches, every
object, force, and phenomenon in existence has a spark of Divine holiness
within it that constitutes its spiritual essence and soul (See for example Sefer Etz Chayim 26, Chapter 1 42, Sefer Halikutim Chapter 36). Just as we can only stay alive
as long as our soul is infused within our body, without
the Divine spark keeping anything in the physical world alive nothing would be
able to exist. Yet not everything in existence is in line with the Torah or
beneficial to the world. This is because the Divine spark is encased in a
coarse husk concealing its light. To reveal the light, we must extract the
sparks from their captivity. So how do you redeem the sparks entrapped within
all reality? When we employ an item or even a certain mode of operation in the
service of Hashem, we crack open its material shell, revealing and actualizing
its Divine essence. Hashem dispersed us across the face of earth, so that we
may come in contact with the sparks of holiness that await redemption. We all
have our personal scattered sparks that are slivers of our greater selves. Only
when we have redeemed all the sparks specifically related to our souls can we
reach our completion. This explains why
people may be guided to move from place to place, job to job, coming across various
people and possessions. While it may seem random, it is by Divine Supervision
to allow us to light upon things intimately connected with our soul mission (Based
on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Meaningfullife.com). Now in the new
month of Shevat, we are especially called upon to elevate the sparks in food by
infusing our before and after-bracha with mindful intention.
What Does Elevating Sparks Have to Do with Parashat Bo?
ספר שמות פרק
יא פסוק א וַיֹּאמֶר הַשֵׁם
אֶל משֶׁה עוֹד נֶגַע אֶחָד אָבִיא עַל פַּרְעֹה וְעַל מִצְרַיִם אַחֲרֵי כֵן
יְשַׁלַּח אֶתְכֶם מִזֶּה כְּשַׁלְּחוֹ כָּלָה גָּרֵשׁ יְגָרֵשׁ אֶתְכֶם מִזֶּה: (ב) דַּבֶּר נָא
בְּאָזְנֵי הָעָם וְיִשְׁאֲלוּ אִישׁ מֵאֵת רֵעֵהוּ וְאִשָּׁה מֵאֵת רְעוּתָהּ
כְּלֵי כֶסֶף וּכְלֵי זָהָב:
“Then G-d said to Moshe, One more plague
shall I bring upon Pharaoh and Egypt - thereafter he shall banish you from
here; when he lets you go he will banish you completely from here. Speak then,
please, in the ears of the people, and let each person ask of his neighbor, and
each woman of her neighbor, vessels of silver and vessels of gold” (Shemot 11:1-2)
Rashi explains that the word נָא/na – ‘please’ always implies a
request. G-d requests “Please give them this message, so that the righteous
Avraham will not have grounds to claim that I did not keep My promise of “thereafter
they will leave with great possessions.’” Yet, for the Israelites leaving Egypt
was a great traumatic struggle both physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Amassing
gold and silver would deter and delay the Exodus and even endanger them to fall
into the fiftieth gate of impurity from which there is no escape. Wouldn’t
Avraham Avinu prefer that his descendants escape the iron furnace of Egypt in
the quickest, safest way rather than having to be deterred by gathering gold
and silver? The Talmud gives us a clue about
the importance of the Children of Israel leaving Egypt with valuables. Rabbi
Yossi ben Hanina said, “Why is it written: ‘I will remove his blood from his
mouth, and his detestable things from between his teeth. This, too, shall
remain to our G-d…’ (Zechariah 9:7). ‘And I shall remove his blood from
his mouth’ - this refers to their house of worship of Karia (an Edomite idol); ‘and
his abominations from between his teeth’ - this refers to their house of
worship of Bamia (another Edomite idol). ‘This too shall remain to our G-d’ -
these are the synagogues and study halls of Edom, in which the princes of
Yehuda are destined to study Torah publicly” (Babylonian Talmud, Megillah
6a). The understanding of the Talmud is that not only are the princess of
Yehuda to study Torah in what used to be temples for idol-worship, but they are
also destined to extract the holy sparks even from the idol-worshipping
gentiles which “shall remain to G-d.” In
the same vein, Moshe tells Pharaoh “You too shall give sacrifices and burnt
offerings into our hands, and we will make them for Hashem our G-d” (Shemot
10:25). We shall take the Pesach sacrifice from that which is good in Egypt (Arizal, Etz Hada’at Tov, Parashat Bo);
(Based on Removing the Sparks from Egypt,
Harav Yehuda Amital zt"l, Summarized by Rav Yosef Zvi Rimon).
To Take or Not to Take the Gold of the
Nations?
ספר שמות פרק
יב פסוק לה וּבְנֵי
יִשְׂרָאֵל עָשׂוּ כִּדְבַר משֶׁה וַיִּשְׁאֲלוּ מִמִּצְרַיִם כְּלֵי כֶסֶף
וּכְלֵי זָהָב וּשְׂמָלֹת:
“The children of Israel did
according to Moshes’ order, and they borrowed from the Egyptians silver
objects, golden objects, and garments” (Shemot 12:35).
In the above verse, the children of Israel carried out the word of
Moshe (Shemot 11:2), by requesting silver, gold, and garments from the
Egyptians. The transfer of a significant portion of Egypt’s wealth to Israel
had both material and spiritual importance. Besides being material payment for
centuries of slave labor, Israel also had to extract the spiritual sparks of
Egyptian culture and civilization. These sparks would be needed later for the
Jewish establishment in the Land of Israel. Some of the gold Israel took from
Egypt would later be used to construct the Mishkan while some of it would be
used for the Golden Calf. It is not simple to sift through outside cultures or
values in a way that we only pick the fruit while discarding the peel, which
isn’t beneficial for us. The existential question of what gold from exile we
bring with us and incorporate into the Land of Israel and what gold we discard
remains for each of us to contemplate and determine. We must make deep Emunah
the measuring stock of this filtration process for Israel’s national mission
(Based on Rav Yehuda Hakohen, The Jewish Press, Bo: Israel’s Internal
Transformation). Today, too, especially those of us deriving from the Western
culture, some take everything – the good along with the bad – while others
carefully refrain from taking anything. The correct balance is to select
carefully and take only the good. If we take too much there is the danger of
succumbing and becoming absorbed into the non-Jewish culture. Yet if we recoil
into utter isolation within ourselves, we lose the Divine opportunity to redeem
the sparks and return them to their Divine source in the Land of Israel and
thereby bring about the final Geulah (redemption).
From Leon Sutton: Rebbetzin, I love your weekly dvar Torahs. I would so much appreciate if you could change to 6-point font, instead of 4 -point!
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