Chasidut su Genesi 4:30

"These are the records of the Tabernacle, the Tabernacle of the Pact, etc." For it is known that Torah is the names of the Holy Blessed One. The Name of the The Blessed One is, "Was, Is, and Will Be - Eternal, Alive, Everlasting for Eternity." And Torah is also this. So what does it mean that this was the time that the Tabernacle was made and what does it teach us about the path today? The Torah should be read in order to teach us to way we should go. Surely at every time and season the Torah is clothed for the needs of that particular time and season. There are those who say: God created the world for the sake of the Torah which is called (Proverbs 8:22) “The beginning (ראשית) of His (God’s) way”, and for the sake of Israel who are called (Jeremiah 2:3) “The beginning (ראשית) of His (God’s) increase’." This is explained by way of a parable: A King who has wise children, capable of running the kingdom bring the King more satisfaction and joy than if he were to run the kingdom himself. We are the children of the Ever-Present, and this explains the phrase "No good comes to the world except through Israel." (Israel) makes a path to bring down the abundant flow to the lower realms. This is "Ascribe might to God, whose majesty is over Israel" (Psalm 68:35) Israel adds strength to the Entourage of Above, and the Angels do not sing praises above until Israel is singing them below. "When the morning stars sang together and all the divine beings shouted for joy" (Job 38:7). Israel is likened to the stars, and thus aroused all of the Heavenly beings there. This is the intention of the Creator that created all that is found because of Torah and because of Israel. The content of this intention of the Holy Blessed One was that each person of Israel would be a "Tabernacle" of the Holy Blessed One. As it is written (Exodus 25:8) "Make for me a Sanctuary and I will dwell within them. Within "it" is not written, rather, I will dwell within the children of Israel. "The Temple of the Lord, the temple of Lord are these. (Jeremiah 7:4). But isn't it impossible for a person to be a Tabernacle of Hashem while the Evil Inclination is within a person? "The couch is too short for stretching out" (Isaiah 28:20). )(Rabbi Yonatan) said: This bed is too short for two counterparts. (Yoma 9b) Thus it is said "Turn from evil" (Psalm 34:15) That a person should burn the evil from within him and thus it could be that Hashem Baruch Hu who is called, "The Lord is good to all" (Psalm 145:9) will reside inside of the person. This happens after a person fulfills "Turn from evil" and thus makes the repair that the "Good of the Lord" will be within you. “All the end-times have passed, and the matter [now] depends only on teshuvah” (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 97b). And what is teshuvah? For when a person was in his mother’s belly, God’s “candle burned over his head, and he saw from one end of the world to the other… and they taught him the entire Torah” (Niddah 30b); for he was a dwelling-place [mishkan] for Blessed God, and this is [the meaning of] the candle that was over his head. But after he came out of his mother’s belly sin crouches at the door (Gen. 4:7), and an angel comes and slaps him on the mouth and makes him forget so that he will have free will, so he will have reward and punishment. And a person must do teshuvah to bring God back to him as at the beginning. And this is [the meaning of] Then the LORD your God will turn back to your captives (Deut. 30:3) – it does not say “return,” but rather “turn back to,” meaning that after the teshuvah Blessed God will return to dwell [lishkone] within the person. Now, the essence of teshuvah is abandoning sin with a full heart and regret. For what is written in the Books, that fasts correct sin, is because it is impossible for him truly to abandon the sin and truly regret until after he has afflicted himself; and then his uncircumcised heart will surrender and he will be able to regret and abandon the sin truly. And the root of the matter lies in the human’s being created by God’s Word. And he is called “engraving” on account of his being surely hewn in supernal holiness. Now, when a person sins he is made into a corpse; for on account of the sin, Blessed God’s life-force left him. But after verbal confession, along the lines of (incomplete)*

Seeing that all the other prophets received their ‎prophetic insights through an intermediary, i.e. Moses, ‎it could not be as powerful as that of Moses who had ‎received it directly from G’d, [but it had not ‎been detached from its source, G’d, but was dependent ‎on Moses’ continued close attachment to its source. ‎Ed.] Prior to Moses no one had as close a ‎relationship, described also as G’d speaking to Moses ‎‎“mouth to mouth,” i.e. directly, not by means of ‎‎“visions,” i.e. images seen or nocturnally or at best ‎when the recipient was awake. There had remained a ‎gap between how Avraham had related to G’d and how ‎Moses had related to Him, a gap which G’d here ‎describes as a lower level of communication from Him.‎

Still another angle from which to approach the opening line ‎in our Parshah would concentrate on the word ‎הוליד‎, begot, ‎instead of ‎ילד‎ “gave birth,” in the sense of doing more than ‎merely contribute semen. [Compare Genesis 4,18; (three times) ‎‎10,23; 10,24. et al.). Ed.] According to this the Torah used the ‎expression ‎אברהם הוליד‎ to indicate that Avraham’s influence to ‎Yitzchok’s being born extended to the next generation, i.e. he ‎had a share in Yitzchok’s ability to sire children, also. Moreover, ‎Yaakov, as we have stated elsewhere, served G’d under the ‎heading of the emanation ‎תפארת‎, “harmony,” a combination of ‎the two attributes of ‎חסד‎ and ‎גבורה\יראה‎. Our verse, by ‎commencing with the connective letter ‎ו‎, “and,” suggests that ‎due to Yaakov having been begotten by both Avraham and ‎Yitzchok, he was able to unify the two major characteristics of his ‎father and grandfather within his personality so that he could ‎serve his Creator by using both these attributes to the best ‎advantage, i.e. blending them into ‎תפארת‎, harmony. This ‎influence that Avraham was able to exert on the development of ‎his grandson Yaakov, is described by the Torah’s use of the ‎causative mode of the hiphil, by writing ‎הוליד‎ instead of ‎ילד‎.‎

Such is the avodah of thought. There is a similar focus in the avodah of the heart, of generating feelings of love and reverence and self-nullification, of arousing the soul of holiness in general to serve God with a burning spirit and to cleave to Him. In the hasidic path, the manner of awakening is through thought and contemplation, for: a) the avodah of thought and knowledge, of delving into God, is very great, and through it one effects connection and cleaving to God. For knowledge (daat) connotes connection, as in “and Adam knew his wife…” ³⁸¹Genesis 4:1. This is the ‘Eden’ of knowing and understanding and grasping with one’s intellect and understanding that which one can of the light of Ein Sof, through the Hokhmah and Binah of God which illuminate creation (ibid. 39, 42). Further, b) since the mind is the source and site of the soul of holiness, drawn from there to the heart, one’s soul is aroused through the mind’s thought. Each person’s [measure of] love and reverence correlate with one’s knowledge of God (ibid. Chapter 44). Furthermore, even if one’s heart is not aroused into a revealed, visceral love and reverence of God, if one’s decides nonetheless to fulfill the Torah by mentally understanding that he needs to love and revere Him, these mental understandings will be rendered as revealed, visceral love and reverence, and his soul considered as one which thirsts for God because of the burning coals of love in his heart (ibid. Chapter 16). [In short, t]he foundation of all divine service is in the mind, even the avodah of ‘turning from evil,’ since the soul is aroused and the evil inclination distanced through the mind, and a little light pushes aside much darkness. For it is man’s nature for his mind to rule over his heart (ibid chapter 12).

‎[Before continuing, it is important for the ‎reader to remember that of all the sensory perceptions ‎at our disposal, the eyes, i.e. “seeing,” are considered ‎by the Torah as the most reliable, and therefore ‎testimony given at court must always be based on what ‎has been witnessed by one’s eyes. Ed.]‎
We need to appreciate also that there are two ways ‎of examining what one has seen, i.e. ‎ראיה‎. One is ‎merely a category of visually perceiving the outline and ‎colour of the object “seen,” whereas the other includes ‎the person seeing being able to understand the deeper ‎meaning of what his eyes have “seen.,” examining its ‎essence, something known as ‎ידיעה‎, “knowing”, ‎understanding. This latter category of visual ‎perception is known as ‎בחינת אותיות‎, examining the ‎‎“letters,” i.e. the structure of what the image consists ‎of. When Adam had marital relations with his wife ‎Chavah for the first time, (Genesis 4,25), the Torah ‎describes the experience with the words: ‎וידע אדם את ‏אשתו‎, “Adam gained intimate knowledge of the essence ‎of his wife.” Whereas “seeing” implies that one ‎perceives from the “outside,” ‎ידיעה‎, understanding the ‎essence of something, implies a much more intimate ‎connection to the matter which is the subject of one’s ‎knowledge. This kind of intimate knowledge is possible ‎only in domains that are completely spiritual, ‎disembodied, i.e. beyond the world of the ‎אותיות‎, ‎‎“letters.” True “knowledge” (in the sense of identifying ‎with the essence of the subject or object), presupposes ‎negating any personal, ego-oriented relation to it. This ‎also accounts for prophets appearing to act as if they ‎had taken leave of their senses while they were ‎receiving messages from the transcendental domains. ‎As a result of these transcendental messages these ‎prophets could feel greatly distressed when receiving ‎messages concerning the gentile nations, as these ‎messages originated in a domain that knows only ‎‎“goodness,” (as we explained) so that the prophet ‎would assume that what would be “good” for the ‎gentiles in the long run would also be good for them in ‎the immediate future, and therefore harmful for the ‎people of Israel. This is one of the limitations every ‎prophet labours under, as G’d explained to Moses in ‎Exodus 33,20, ‎כי לא יראני האדם וחי‎, i.e. that as long as the ‎prophet’s soul is still within his mortal body, he cannot ‎‎“see” i.e. completely understand what G’d is doing.‎
The difference between these two levels of “seeing,” ‎is also the difference between ‎כלל ופרט‎, “a general ‎principle and its application to a specific situation.” ‎‎[The 13 methods of exegesis of the Torah ‎composed by Rabbi Yishmael, by means of which texts ‎in the written Torah can be understood as ‎‎halachically accepted. Ed.]
Our ‎author explains this as the difference between ‎‎“category 10 and not 11,” (Mishnah 4) a term ‎used in the Sefer Yetzirah, the oldest ‎kabbalistic text. ‎

Exodus 2,4. “his sister positioned herself at a distance, ‎in order to find out what would be done with him.” This ‎verse helps us understand Jeremiah 31,2 “the Lord appeared to ‎me from a distance, etc.;”‎
There is a general rule that when the people in the physical ‎universe are fully preoccupied with their secular concerns, they ‎will not be able to elevate themselves to true service of the Lord. ‎This idea is hinted at when the Bible uses the term ‎מרחוק‎. ‎‎[The term does not describe distance in terms of ‎kilometers. Ed.] Rapprochement to the Creator ‎progresses at the same speed as distancing oneself from purely ‎secular concerns. The Torah chose to describe Miriam as ‎אחתו‎, ‎‎“his sister,” as it wished to allude to the word ‎מאחה‎, meaning ‎‎“attached,” i.e. ‎מדובק‎. Miriam was anxious to see if the attribute ‎of ‎אין‎, the eternal element of G’d, would continue to influence the ‎baby’s fate. On some occasions this attribute ‎אין‎ is also known as ‎מה‎, the word used in our verse.‎

The element of wind causes verbosity, and it is contingent whether it is for words of Torah or words of naught, etc... As to how they both can utilize the same capacities, this one for the good and this one for the evil, it is cited in Etz Hayyim 7:2 that the good inclination filters the purity of the blood, drawing the soul close, and the evil inclination the dregs. Now, ever since Adam’s sin, the evil inclination has mixed and become more deeply enmeshed within a person, and it even precedes the good inclination, for the evil inclination is present from birth, ‘sin couches by the door’⁵⁵⁶Genesis 4:7. and conquered the body and elements of a person. Therefore they are used to feeling physicality and desire. If a person would merely struggle with his desires and subdue his evil inclination so that it not seduce him, then the feeling and awakening of desires in his body, powers, and elements will continue to be seized by it. The evil inclination will have already conquered them and make use of them, to the extent that we could say that it is not the evil inclination alone which seduces him to evil but rather the person himself, in his foundations, is aroused towards evil, from the foundation of fire etc, as aforementioned.

Another way of understanding the verse of ‎וירא אלוקים את בני ‏ישראל וידע אלוקים‎, helps us explain a verse in Chabakuk 3,2 ‎ה' פעלך ‏קרב שנים חייהו בקרב שנם תודיע ברוגז רחם תזכור‎, “Oh Lord I have ‎learned of Your renown; I am awed O Lord by Your deeds. Renew ‎them in these years. O make them known in these years! Though ‎angry, may You remember compassion.” The verse may be best ‎understood by means of a parable. A poor man requests that a ‎wealthy man grant his request as he knows that it is within the ‎rich man’s power to grant same, and that once the rich man ‎seriously considers the sorry state the poor man is in he will not ‎be able to deny his cry for assistance. The Jewish people when in ‎pain and in need, turn to G’d, as they are well aware that He has ‎the power to help them. Because they are aware of this, it is their ‎duty to keep this factor in mind and to turn to G’d in prayer. ‎Moreover, the very word ‎תפלה‎, “usually translated as “prayer,” is ‎a word which expresses ‎התחברות‎, a close association, joining ‎together. We know this from Genesis 3,8 when Rachel called her ‎second son by proxy (Bilhah) ‎נפתלי‎, indicating that she felt that ‎G’d had come closer to her, and that she was comparable to her ‎sister now. Following the Jewish people’s first recorded prayer to ‎G’d during over 80 years of enslavement, G’d immediately ‎responded by coming closer to His chosen people and going about ‎appointing their redeemer, Moses. The word ‎וידע אלוקים‎ was ‎chosen therefore to remind us of this term used by the Torah ‎when Adam for the first time had marital relations with Chavah, ‎or as the Torah says elsewhere, “man and wife are to become one ‎flesh.” (Genesis 3,24) [The author quotes Genesis 4,25, but ‎my quote, I think is even more appropriate. Ed.] The ‎words ‎בקרב שנים‎ in the verse from Chabakuk above, mean that ‎‎“pain” is something that exists only in our world, a world that is ‎limited in space and time. In regions that are not influenced by ‎time, i.e. celestial regions, there is no such thing as pain, ‎suffering, etc.; G’d now being in a relationship of ‎וידע‎, i.e. ‎establishing close contact with His people, their pain and ‎suffering will come to an end as a result of their coming closer to ‎these regions of the universe.‎

The author of Or Hachayim questions a ‎‎Midrash according to which the sea at first ‎refused to wash up these bodies on the shores of the ‎sea, until being given a hint by the Creator Himself to ‎accept these bodies.
I believe that with G’d’s help I ‎have been enabled to understand the reason for the ‎sea’s initial reluctance to “vomit” these bodies on the ‎shore. Death itself was introduced to earth only ‎through Adam having eaten from the tree of ‎knowledge in defiance of G’d’s warning not to do so on ‎pain of his becoming mortal. Seeing that the oceans ‎had no part in that sin, they naturally resented being ‎associated with death, as dead bodies reflect negatively ‎on the one assisting in their concealment, as we know ‎from the earth being cursed for having hidden Hevel’s ‎body. (Genesis 4,11)‎
The ocean not having been part of Adam’s sin at all, ‎resulted in it experiencing a sense of revulsion at the ‎sight of dead bodies. The definition of ‎דבר מת‎, is: ‎‎“something that had been alive but has ceased to be ‎so.” The wicked do not feel revulsion when coming into ‎contact with dead bodies, as they themselves are ‎considered as “dead” even while walking around on ‎earth. (Compare B’rachot 18) The visible ‎unnatural and painful death of the wicked affords their ‎souls a certain spiritual elevation, as the manner in ‎which their bodies had died confirmed the surviving ‎G’d fearing people in their belief that G’d is alive and ‎reigns in this universe.

And the reason why he must fall from his level is this: because there are fallen souls; those that fell during the six days of Creation and those that fell in each and every generation. And they are reincarnated, and they are fugitive and wanderer (Gen. 4:12) and can not come to Blessed God because they have nothing through which to come; for in their life of life-force they engaged in this world’s vanities and achieved nothing. But when the tzaddik falls from his level and afterward rises as in the verse, seven times the tzaddik falls and stands (Proverbs 24:16), when he stands and rises up to Blessed God he lifts with him those souls we have mentioned. Now, he can only lift those souls who are from his root; and therefore every person must fall from his level in order to lift up the souls that are from his root, and understand this.

Da’as implies connection and separation. Da’as implies connection, as the attachment between husband and wife is called in the Torah a da’as relationship.³⁶⁵The initial intimate closeness between Adam and Eve is called a connection of da’as: Va-yeda adam es chavah ishto, “And Adam knew Eve his wife” (Gen. 4:25). It also connotes a separation as evidenced in the statement of the Jerusalem Talmud, “Without da’as how could distinction be drawn?”³⁶⁶Da’as Tefillah pg. 401. Da’as means focusing upon and blending together the ideas from intuition (chochmah) and understanding (binah). To focus on a thought, I must separate my mind from other concepts and attach it exclusively to a single topic.³⁶⁷See further Da’as Tefillah pg. 402, who applies this focus to internalization of a sense of holiness and quotes the following source: “The concept of holiness requires two stages. Initially, it is a struggle and its end is a gift. Initially, man sanctifies himself, and at the end, God dedicates man.”
The effort entailed in man’s sanctification is that he detach himself entirely from materialism, and he must attach himself fully, at every moment, to His God. This level caused the prophets to be called angels, as was written in regards to Aaron, “For the lips of the priest preserve da’as, and Torah will be sought from his mouth, for he is an angel of the Lord of Hosts” (Mal. 2:7). Even at moments when he is involved in material acts that are needed for his body, he feels a sense of attachment with the Divine.
“It is impossible for man to reach this level on his own. Man is a material being composed of flesh and blood, which is why I said that the end is a gift. Man can attempt to pursue da’as of truth and constant appreciation of the saintliness of deeds. However, successful attainment of these levels comes from God who will lead man down the path he has chosen and He will place upon man His holiness and He will sanctify man” (excerpted from Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, Path of the Upright, Chapter 26). Feeling fully connected to the ideas that are father and mother (wisdom and understanding) causes them to fully enter one’s personality and to create emotions.

Regardless, of where that Rashi may be, both in our ‎chapter as well as in Exodus 6,8 G’d speaks about the gift of the ‎land of Canaan becoming an inheritance. If Terach had been ‎involved in the matter, why would G’d have to “give” the land to ‎Avram first? In his commentary on Choshen Mishpat, on the ‎section dealing with the laws of inheritance, the author of ‎‎Meirat Eynayim states that the expression ‎ירושה‎, ‎inheritance, in legal parlance, applies only to property inherited ‎from one’s biological father. From the wording in Exodus 6,8 as ‎well as from the wording in Genesis 15,18 it is clear that G’d ‎considers Himself as Avram’s “father” in the matter of bestowing ‎on him the “gift” of the land. His offspring, or the part of his ‎offspring to whom he deeds it, will henceforth “inherit.” It. When ‎Avram heard this, he was unclear if he had understood correctly, ‎as he had never heard of an inheritance originating as a gift. ‎Hence he asked ‎במה אדע כי אירשנה‎, by what legal process can I be ‎sure that it will be mine as something to bequeath?” In other ‎words, “who is my father from whom I can inherit this land?” ‎Avram’s question reflects his awareness that “his father” in this ‎instance could not possibly be Terach. In response to Avram’s ‎concerns, G’d answered him: “You shall be aware that your ‎descendants in their formative stages will experience both being ‎strangers and even slaves until at the end of the 400 years, I will ‎judge the people who have subjugated them and treated them ‎cruelly, so that they will leave that land with vast possessions.” ‎G’d’s message to Avram is that the Exodus of this people from the ‎land of their oppression will be due to their being his direct ‎descendants. His very birth paved the way for the Jewish people ‎to come into existence and to in due course accept the very ‎Torah that Avram had already been observing without having ‎been commanded to do so.
In light of this, your very birth ‎through Divine input of some holy spirit, seeing that I am your ‎‎“father,” enables Me to speak to you of “inheriting” the land that ‎I am promising to your descendants.” G’d implied that Avram had ‎been quite correct in surmising that Terach had nothing to do ‎with the events occurring in Avram’s future.‎ The author refers to his exegesis of a statement in Baba ‎Batra 117 where the Talmud states that the so-called ‎‎“inheritance” of the Israelites being given the land of Canaan, is ‎quite different from ordinary inheritances. Normally, the living ‎inherit the dead. In the case of the Israelites receiving ancestral ‎land in the Land of Canaan, the dead inherited the living. The ‎‎“normal” process of inheritance is based on the son being a ‎branch of the father, [the father being the trunk. Ed.] The trunk ‎‎(father) provides the elements that enable the branch to achieve ‎its perfection (producing fruit). This parable does not fit the ‎Jewish people and its development. In the history of the Jewish ‎people, the “dead” are the generation of the Israelites that ‎experienced the Exodus as adults, who although not physically ‎living to experience the conquest of the land, “inherited” it, ‎since, but for their existence the next generation could not have ‎taken possession of this land.

(218) "And how are the cities, are they open or fortified" (Number 17:19) - A complete person needs to test oneself regarding their nature, if they cling to God always, whether at home or outside, and if they are not hurt by their relationship with others, then they do not need solitude, they can just go about mixed with other human beings, maybe one will see something that needs a fixing, and one can also bring close others to the service of Hashem just as Avraham did. This is what I wrote regarding the verse "if in Sodom, among the city, are found fifty righteous" (Genesis 18:26), see there. And if one sees oneself that as soon as one leaves the door of the house of study, immediately "at the door sin crouches" (Genesis 4:7) then one should choose solitude. And this is "encampments", and the explanation of Rashi: "[Moses] gave over a sign to [the spies]: if they dwell scattered, they are strong since they rely on their strength. etc." Meaning, if one knows that one still clings [to Hashem] while scattered [among people], there is no need for solitude, one "lives in encampments". And if not, "in fortified cities" meaning, one should choose solitude.