Facing the waves, going into the sea of infinity means standing before the waves of reality, the waves of this world, the waves of din. We have to accustom ourselves to having them wash over us. accustom ourselves to the pain till we can focus on the joy. As we do this we find we have moved into the infinite. But as long as we try to hold the world at a distance we keep ourselves frozen within ourselves. Look for ways to begin to move out into the sea. Look for enjoyable things about the world. Look for people who make it easier to stand in the waves and begin to move out into the sea.
The rabbis say that for every creature that exists on the land there is something parallel that lives in the sea. The difference between the land and the sea is that the creatures of the land are visible. And even more than this, plants sprout and raise themselves up out of the ground; animals move about and appear to have their own existence. In contrast to this, creatures in the sea are contained within their watery environment and are covered from our sight. Their life and existence is wholly within the sea - it's impossible for them to live outside. The land is the aspect of the revealed world, the world of physicality, while the sea represents the hidden, spiritual world. The hidden world is the level of Moshe Rabbeinu, who was "drawn from water." He brings together the two realms through the Torah. As the blessing says, "Blessed is Hashem from world to world (min haolam v'ahd haolam)," the drawing down of spiritual reality into the revelation of the Torah so that we are miraculously able to glimpse the spiritual in this world and live according to its reality (from the Baal HaTanya on the parashah, see Torah Ohr).
BeShalach
Reb Shlomo Minyan HarNof
(R. Raphael, email: [email protected])
Paths To A Greater Knowing
"You saved my life when I was about to go down to the pit. Your wrath only lasts a moment, Your will is to grant life. The night is filled with weeping but in the morning there is joy. I said in my prosperity, 'I will never falter.' Lrd, it is only because of Your will that have I reached the peaks of strength" (Tehillim 30:4-8)
"Turn back and camp before the Opening to Freedom between Tower and the sea facing Lord of the North. Paroh will then say that Yisrael is lost in the area and trapped in the desert" (Sh. 14:2-4).
When the Jews left Mitzrayim they came to a place known as Peh Cheirut, the Opening to Freedom. It is no coincidence that after leaving the slavery of Mitzrayim they arrived there. Yisrael was finally free of their burdens. There was great elation. The irony is that this celebration of "freedom" was a trap - but not the trap that the Egyptians imagined. They thought the Jews would use their newfound freedom for the infatuations of bodily pleasure. This is how Mitzrayim saw the seduction of the Opening to Freedom - the freedom to become addicted as one chooses. This is not the Jewish way of sinking into the trap - for the Jews, the snare of freedom was more spiritual: not the freedom to become addicted to particular physical pleasures, but the addictive pleasure of freedom itself.
If we were the only people to ever escape from the base physicality of Mitzrayim, it was because we had the ability to attach ourselves to a more rarified level that relied on our mind. And mind freed of the burdens of labor has a universe of choices opened to it. This is what seduced the Jews: playing with an illusory infinity of choices as if freedom were an absolute good. On the other hand, to imagine that one has absolute freedom is illusory. Life without boundaries slips out of control so we tell ourselves we are free while we take refuge in the necessities of our physical needs. We imagine that we are masters of our own fate while in fact we are only playing with infinity. Only the fear of falling back into Mitzrayim, the slavery of gross physicality, gave us the impetus to push forward. Otherwise lifetimes could have been wasted experimenting with "freedom" (Based on the Mei Shiloach from the parashah.)
Snug Within The Infinite
When the Jews entered the Reed Sea, which is called in Hebrew Suf (the same letters of "sof," terminus), they were seeing the end of their old life and entering a new reality. Even though, as the midrash says, they would come out on the same side of the sea from which they entered, another reality had forever been imprinted on them - a reality that they would continue to live even upon their "return." The Yam Suf represents the Sea of Chochmah, the infinite spiritual world that sustains our lives even while it is beyond our mind's grasp. The Egyptians could not handle the reality of the Yam of Chochmah. It blew their world view to pieces. They could not get a grasp on Jewish reality. They sank there. They could not get traction and so they were engulfed. Indeed it was a reality they never would have dreamed of entering had it not been for their insane drive to master the Jews.
When the Jewish people entered the Yam they were overwhelmed at first. In some sense it was not their place. So long as they related to the spiritual in terms of the physical they were in danger of drowning. Their only saving grace was their faith, enabling them to make the transition from one realm to the other. When Nachshon ben Aminadav and the others with him began walking into the waves, they were crossing over the meeting point of man with the infinite. While the waters threatened to engulf them, their perseverance in faith merited that the sea split and the infinite waters receded. When they did so the Jews did not gaze upon a wasteland. Instead, before them lay twelve paths. Not simply walkways, but gloriously beautiful tunnels through the sea. The water was clear. The realm of the infinite was "sculpted and shaped" (see note, "*," at the end of this section) into intelligible forms so that beautiful objects could be seen and every type of wondrous nourishment was provided. (Midrash Rabbah)
Yisrael at Suf encountered the infinite; they temporarily left this world and entered another reality. Miraculously, the millions of people inside these paths were not claustrophobic, even while they were "buried" beneath tons of water. Nor did they become insane from suddenly finding themselves in the realm of the infinite. They were taken care of so that they didn't see themselves as infinitesimally small beings engulfed and overwhelmed. They were snug within the infinite.
The Egyptians were not fitting for this experience. Their small minds were flooded; they had no categories for what they saw and they sank in confusion. But the Jews were led each on the path that was appropriate for him. The infinite divided up to accommodate us each according to what was needed. (See Lekutei Torah of the Baal HaTanya on Yam HaChochmah, Yam Suf)
* The Ramchal says in Daat Tevunot (40) "The Holy One Blessed Be He could have created the world with all of His infinite ability in such a way that we would not be able to understand anything of what He did, neither what is to come nor what came before, neither cause nor effect. If He would have done this we would not even have an opening to begin to comprehend anything of how He created because it would be impossible for us to understand anything. But in His highest will He desired that man be able to understand a bit of His ways and His actions. He actually desired that we strive to penetrate His mysteries and therefore He chose to work in a way that man could comprehend."
A Balanced Diet - The Mahn
What is the real mahn? Mahn is the very subtle spiritual sustenance that is fed to us while we go about our business of making a living from the world. The mahn is there in everything we do, everything we consume. It is there when we hungrily eat our food and let's face it - if not for our hunger, eating would be all it's cranked up to be. But the real hunger is not for bread. The real hunger is to find spiritual vitality. That is the real sustenance.
When we wrestle to make a living we have to make opportunities to nourish our souls - to look behind the hunger at what is being sought and to sense where the satisfying of those needs is coming from. We need to feel the texture of our lives that we are expressing and experiencing day to day. The truth is that we are receiving from the highest spiritual worlds even in the littlest aspect of our lives. Were we to receive this spirituality in an undiluted way, it would obliterate us. But there is a heavenly process of grinding and refining so that we receive spiritual nourishment in a form that we can digest. That is why one name for the Heavens is Shechakim, which is also the word for milling stones. We receive just what we need in this way. But it is necessary to look for it and anticipate it if we are to see how we are being provided for.
Rebbe Nachman gives us a way to begin to sense the sustenance that is coming down to us - to enable us to go out and gather the mahn. He says that we have two distinct styles. One is the ability to form big opinions and conceptions about life. The other is the feeling that we are nothing and that we know absolutely nothing. Each of these has its good points and its bad points. If we become infatuated with our conceptual ability it can become just more self, a screen between us and the world rather than bringing us closer to Hashem. If we accentuate our smallness we come to forget that we are living in Hashem's world. It can all feel pretty meaningless.
On the positive side, if we are small before Hashem, like Moshe Rabbeinu who asked, "What are we?" we can come to feel a great closeness to Hashem, Who is the source of every aspect of our being. And if we use our abilities to perceive we can see that "Hashem fills the whole world with His glory." Only Moshe combined these aspects of the humble son (everything I am is from my Father in Heaven) and the faithful disciple (Hashem fills the world with His glory) perfectly, and this is why his prophesy was of such clarity.
If we are to find the mahn in our life experiences we must learn to sense its presence and nourish ourselves with it. This can only be done by girding ourselves, becoming warriors of self-control. This is necessary because our reality is filtered through the aspect of Malchut, kingship. In Daniel, the dream of King Nebuchadnezzer is written, "I saw a great tree in the midst of the earth�and its top reached to the sky and it was visible to the end of the earth�and on it was food for all�(and Daniel said) You are the King." Hashem relates to us as a King and we must relate to this aspect of kingship by exercising control over ourselves. In order to receive the spiritual nourishment that is ground and sifted by the Heavens we need to be able to see with subtlety, looking carefully at the hints in our experience. We must enable ourselves to eat with the satisfaction of gratifying ourselves without losing the ability to sift though these experiences to see what is being given and how we are receiving. Then we can learn from the hints that are there.
These teaching about the mahn are based on Rebbe Nachman, Lekutei Maharan, Teninah, lesson 7. In addition to the above, he says there that the teacher of great wisdom has the quality mentioned in Pirkei Avot, "He is balanced in judging." Rebbe Nachman interprets this as having the wisdom to balance the other's perspective. If a person is low down to the point that he "dwells in the dust," he must be raised up with the teaching of "The glory of Hashem fills the world," i.e., even in that low place Hashem is present. In contrast to this, the person who thinks he knows a lot about Hashem needs to be tempered through the teaching of humility: "What vision do I really have?" This is in accordance with the teaching of the mishnah in Pirkei Avot, "Raise up many students," because the judgment of one who has wisdom is precious to everyone.
Gaining Perspective
"I will sing to Hashem because He is gloriously sublime, the horse with its rider He lifts high to cast into the sea." Whereas a king of flesh and blood has pride when he deposes another king, Hashem's glory is expressed even while the kingdoms are still extolling their power. Even as they strut, Hashem uses their elevation to bring them to where He wishes. This is what it means, "the horse and rider He hurls into the sea" (that is, even when they are "riding high," this is because Hashem has "lifted" them for His own cause). Thus Hashem's glory is doubly praised. Not just in the defeat of His enemies can we see His greatness, but also in the way their exercise of power really is serving Him (Sefat Emet 68).
Our fathers in Mitzrayim didn't understand Your wonders, Your acts of lovingkindness, and they rebelled even at the Sea of Reeds (Tehillim 106:7). Even while they were experiencing the act of passing through the Sea, they still doubted the saving power of Gd's guidance simply because they saw the Egyptians pursuing them. The great events which Yisrael had witnessed in Egypt had not yet had the desired effect upon the spirit and attitudes of our fathers by the time they reached the Sea. They still lacked confidence in Gd's guidance. Many times during their wanderings through the wilderness they showed this lack of awareness, but it is clear that this did not represent a worsening in Yisrael's attitude from when they were captive in Mitzrayim. In fact, the Exodus from Egypt was brought about with the assumption that the nation thus liberated was still in need of training in order that it might acquire the correct understanding of Gd so that it would eventually come to trust in Him as it should (R. Shimshon Raphael Hirsch on Tehillim 106:7).
At A Glance