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For
the Birthday of Avraham David ben Naftali
v’Rivka
A
Teaching by Sarah Yehudit Schneider
on
What Would Have Been His 19th
Birthday
We
have just stepped into the month of Cheshvan, the
month that is the birthday of Avraham David ben Naftali
v’ Rivka, one of the eight boys murdered in their
innocence while studying Torah at the Mercaz HaRav
Yeshiva in 2008. Avraham David would have been 19 years
old today. Our Torah study on this night should bring an
aliyat haneshama for his pure and holy soul.
I’m
going to speak about the month of Cheshvan, and
in particular the timely fact (in terms of
parshiot) that it was in Cheshvan that the
מבול, the famous flood,
began. R. Tsadok HaKohen has some inspiring
teachings on this subject.
He
explains that HaShem was hoping to bring down the Torah
in Noach’s generation. All the pieces were there,
including the soul of Moshe Rabbenu, which the Talmud
(Chulin 139b) proves from a verse in Bereshit, 6:3,
which contains the word בשגם
(b’shagam) a word
whose primary distinction is that it shares the same
gematria as משה, both equal
345. The verse describes HaShem’s, quote
(unquote), disappointment with the fallen state of
humanity and introduces a discussion (a soliloquy,
really) that ends with His decision to blot out creation
through flood.
And
HaShem said, My spirit shall not abide in man forever,
for that he is also flesh; therefore his days
shall be a hundred and twenty years.
וַיֹּאמֶר
יְהֹוָה לֹא יָדוֹן רוּחִי בָאָדָם לְעֹלָם
בְּשַׁגַּם הוּא בָשָׂר וְהָיוּ יָמָיו מֵאָה
וְעֶשְׂרִים שָׁנָה:
The
pshat of the verse isn’t so relevant to the
Talmud, more its context and the appearance of a word
with the same gematria as Moshe. And so,
teaches R. Tsadok, HaShem wanted to bring the Torah down
then, as soon as possible after Adam, and if that
generation had been worthy, so it would have been.
The Talmud (San. 108b) teaches that HaShem tried several
strategies to bring the generation around. First
He bribed them with a taste of עה"ב, hoping they would taste the bait and
see that it was certainly worth their while to rise to
the occasion. When that failed he started the rains
gently, showing that the threat of flood was real, but
giving them a week’s reprieve and one last opportunity
for teshuva.
If
only they had seized the moment, turned over a new leaf,
and dedicated their lives to truth and good…they would
have received the most precious gift in the universe,
the holy Torah…which, as we know, is always compared to
water. Instead, in stubborn arrogance, they turned
their backs on this golden opportunity, persisting in
their wayward path. Those same awesome Torah
lights now crashed down, no longer expressing themselves
as sweet, life-nourishing wisdoms…rather, instead, as
מים זדונים, destructive,
hurtful flood waters. From the negative we learn the
positive. As great as the flood’s power of
devastation, so is the Torah’s power of
tikun. (עץ חיים היא
למחזיקים בה...).
Noach’s
generation was offered the highest honor possible in the
universe, the opportunity to receive the Torah.
They blew it, and those very same lights that contained
the sweetest teachings ever, now manifested as raging
waters of death and destruction. All this occurred in
the month of cheshvan.
R.
Tsadok uses this to support an amazing and relevant
teaching. He derives a spiritual law from Noach’s
story. R. Taodok says that it is always true, that
whenever we stumble in our lives, (be it our family
lives, spiritual lives, emotional lives, career lives,
whatever) there was some blessing that was trying to
come through in that moment, and for whatever reason we
didn’t rise to the occasion — perhaps we didn’t get the
message at all, we didn’t even know that there was an
opportunity at hand; perhaps we under-estimated the
value of what was being offered so it didn’t seem worth
its price tag; perhaps we really did try to seize the
moment but couldn’t manage to change a bad habit that
was blocking the way—whatever the reason, we blew
it. HaShem offered us a gift and it slipped
through our hands and the worst part is that it feels
like there’s no second chance. The moment is gone
it won’t come again.
R.
Tsadok says no, in fact the opposite is true. That
blessing that was slated to come into our lives is
permanently attached to our soul. And even more.
It’s not just attached to our soul, it is an actual
piece of our soul, a spark of ourselves that got lost
out there and needs to be brought back
in.
In
the shevirat hakelim (the breaking of the
vessels), not only did the universe shatter, but every
piece within it, including each of our own souls.
Consequently when a soul comes into incarnation, only
part of it actually dwells inside its body. The
rest of it, the shattered pieces of itself, are strewn
throughout the universe. So, HaShem guides us step by
step, moment by moment, from coordinate A to coordinate
B, because in each moment there is a spark, a lost
splinter of ourselves, that needs to be rescued and
brought back in. Slowly, day by day, as we move
through life, we become more whole, for we are
constantly absorbing new lights that were really just
estranged pieces of ourselves all along. The
recovery of a piece of our soul is always (eventually)
experienced as a blessing.
Based
on this model, according to R. Tsadok, there is always a
second chance, and a third, etc…however many chances we
need to get it right and earn the blessing…for the spark
inside that blessing has nowhere else to go. Its home is
our soul, and eventually every scattered spark
must find its way home.
So
how is this true for the דור המבול
(the
flood generation). How do we see them recovering
their lost blessing of the Torah. Amazingly, the
Ari teaches that the דור המבול
will reconvene as the souls that comprise the
generation that greets Mashiach. According to the Ari,
the אנשי סדום (the generation of
Sodom) came back as the generation of יציאת מצרים (who exited Egypt); the דור הפלגה (Tower of Babel generation) came back as
the עולה גולה (the returnees from
Bavel in Ezra’s time), and the דור
המבול (the flood generation) will return as the
דור המשיח
(the generation that greets
Mashiach).
And
one thing we know about the messianic time is that all
the Torah’s hidden teachings will be revealed. The
midrash says that the Torah of Mashiach will be so
radiant that all the Torah we’ve learned thus far, all
the sweet and holy teachings that fill our libraries;
that have rejoiced the hearts and brightened the eyes of
generations, are dull husks before the lights that will
shine as Torah of mashiach. The דור המבול (flood generation) will get all that they
lost, and more.
And
the culmination of this process will happen in
Cheshvan, for according to Bnei Yisachar, the
Third Temple will be built by Mashiach in the month of
Cheshvan. In Cheshvan the stumbling
occurred, the holy gift of Torah was spurned, so in
Cheshvan the tikun will occur.
Now
I want to explore another very relevant implication of
this teaching. Many of us walk around terrorized
by the thought that at some point, HaShem offered us a
blessing at a crossroads, and for whatever reason, we
chose the wrong path, passed it by, and it seems all too
clear that the opportunity will not come again.
The terror comes from the sense that we missed the
opportunity to accomplish something essential to the
purpose of our lives…that we failed on a cosmic scale,
that our life mission can no longer happen properly, and
that the loss is irreparable.
R.
Tsadok says that that is impossible. And he says
an even more amazing thing. He says that the whole
thing is a setup. He says that the blessing, when
it first came down as a missed opportunity, was in a
form that we were incapable of absorbing. He says
that the blessing itself is what knocked us over…the
blessing itself caused the stumbling that resulted in
its opportunity being lost.
Why?
Why would HaShem set up the world like this? Why
would he purposely cause us to
fail?
The
answer is that our yearning to recover what we’ve tasted
and lost is the most powerful driving force in the
universe. And, in the course of our efforts to
find that elusive promise of pleasure, we transform,
sometimes consciously, sometimes by the by, But in the
end, when we recapture that lost blessing, which we
surely will, we are now a different person. Our
experiences along the way have changed us in ways that
make us now perfectly configured to receive the blessing
that we missed before. And, דווקא, because of these changes, we enjoy the
blessing on a higher, fuller level than would have been
possible the first time around.
This
model applies at all times but it comes up especially,
each year, in the month of Cheshvan. Both
because of the flood but for other reasons as well. We
generated a lot of merit in Tishrey through our many
prayers, new-years resolutions and mountains of
mitzvot. We are surrounded by a cloud of
holy lights that are the sparks we stirred up through
our Tishrey avodah. Just as physical clouds
hold the blessing of rain, so do these spiritual clouds
hold the blessings that will pour down into our lives
this coming year.
And
just as for physical rains we need cisterns to hold them
and absorb them. And if our cisterns are too small, the
rains then turn into floods that destroy instead of
nurture.
The
midrash says that until King Solomon built the first
Temple, (which he completed on the first of
Cheshvan) there was always a fear of flood every
Cheshvan, when the rains began to fall.
People were afraid that the rains might just keep
pouring, overwhelming their cisterns, and turning into a
flood.
Why
did this change just because the Beit HaMikdash
was built? Because the Beit Hamikdash,
the Temple is a structure that is perfectly designed to
absorb and transform light into blessing. It is a
spiritual cistern of infinite capacity. Its
physical structure combined with the avoda
happening within, operated similar to an electric
power plant that generates huge amounts of electricity
but only sends the right amount through the wires to
each one of our homes. Similarly the Beit
HaMikdash performed a parallel function on the
spiritual plane. Consequently, once it was built
there was no longer a fear of being drowned by our
blessings.
Now
thus far, I have focused on Rav Tsadok’s teachings as
they pertain to our individual lives. But his
model applies equally to our collective journey. The
tragedies that befall our people can also be attributed
to this flood of holy lights trying to come in (destined
to come in), and yet, if our collective vessel is not
yet equipped to hold them, they will overwhelm us and
(at least, temporarily) wreak havoc . And some of us are
chosen—and and burdened—with bearing a disproportionate
share of that load for the rest of us.
That’s
one understanding of Mashiach ben Yosef (depicted both
as the warrior Mashiach and the suffering servant of
Isaiah 53), who is sometimes portrayed as the composite
of those individuals who have born the brunt (the lion’s
share) of our collective hardships—the transpersonal
ones—that apply more to the Jewish people as an entity
than to the individuals who are bearing them. They are
the mysterious price tag connected to our national (and
cosmic) mission of shining the Torah’s ethical
monotheism out to every corner of our global village
until “knowledge of G-d finally fills the world like the
waters cover the seas.”
And
yet, the second part of R. Tsadok’s teaching also
applies, meaning that it is also true that the terrible
losses that we endure (as final and as poignant as they
appear) will also experience their reversal…whether in
this world or the next, we will reunite with all
the sparks connected to our soul…all the ones that we
have lost and mourned along the way—be they lost
objects, lost opportunities, or lost beloveds—because
that is the promise and the law, that we can never
permanently lose anything that is connected to our
soul.
So
I want to bless us on this 6th of
Cheshvan, the 19th birthday of Avraham
David ben Naftali v’Rivka, that HaShem should help us to
make the right decisions in our lives (both individually
and collectively) enabling us to integrate all of our
blessings to the fullest extent possible without having
to stumble…or, if stumbling must occur, to learn
to stumble in the most spiritually productive way
possible. This should be the year that the promise
be fulfilled, that we build the third Temple with
mashiach at our helm in the month of Cheshvan as
our tradition foretells. And we should speak the
words that David HaMelekh wrote when he envisioned the
Temple, built and glowing, in his mind’s
eye
הָפַכְתָּ מִסְפְּדִי לְמָחוֹל לִי
פִּתַּחְתָּ שַֹקִּי וַתְּאַזְּרֵנִי
שִֹמְחָה:
Psalms
30:12. You have turned my mourning into dancing; you
have loosed my sackcloth, and girded me with
joy.
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