Simchas Torah 5770

Rabbi YY Jacobson

• October 7, 2009
• |
• 19 Tishrei 5770
• |
• 4 views

• Print

  "Elisha Ben Avuyah" in 770

  The Secret of Simchas Torah

  Rabbi YY Jacobson

  • October 7, 2009

  Shorter version:

  There is a smorgasbord of ideas here. You can delete chapters 1, 5, 8, 11, 13, 14.

  1. The Bakery

  A Jew walks into the bakery and orders a bagel.

  The man behind the counter says: "A bagel? That’s 20 dollars."

  "20 dollars?! Are you mad!?"

  “Well, its 1 dollar for the bagel, and 19 dollars for Israel.”

  “Fine. Money for Israel? How can I say no?”

  The next day the same guy comes in to the bakery, and orders a challah.

  The man behind the counter says: "Challah? That’s 40 dollars."

  "Are you insane?!"

  “Sir, its 5 dollars for the challah and 35 dollars for Israel.”

  The man shrugs his shoulders but he pays the money.

  The third day, he comes in and orders a cheesecake.

  "Cheesecake? 70 dollars."

  "What?! This is absolutely crazy."

  “Sir, 10 dollars for the cheesecake, and 60 dollars for Israel.”

  At this point he had had enough. “You are completely mad! This is absolutely absurd and unethical.”

  “Sorry sir, I am just following the rules.”

  “I demand to speak to the owner of the store!”

  So the clerk goes to the door and calls out: “Hey Israel! Someone wants to talk to you!”

  Today, I want to talk about different types of “Israels.”

  2. The Crowns

  The Talmud relates the following fascinating episode (1):

  אמר רב יהודה אמר רב, בשעה שעלה משה למרום מצאו להקב"ה שיושב וקושר כתרים לאותיות, אמר לפניו רבש"ע מי מעכב על ידך, אמר לו אדם אחד יש שעתיד להיות בסוף כמה דורות ועקיבא בן יוסף שמו שעתיד לדרוש על כל קוץ וקוץ תילין תילין של הלכות. אמר לפניו רבש"ע הראהו לי, אמר לו חזור לאחורך. הלך וישב בסוף שמונה שורות ולא היה יודע מה הן אומרים. תשש כחו. כיון שהגיע לדבר אחד, אמרו לו תלמידיו רבי מנין לך, אמר להן הלכה למשה מסיני. נתיישבה דעתו.

  When Moses ascended to heaven during his stay on Mt. Sinai he found the Holy One, blessed be He, affixing crowns, thin lines, to the letters [of the Torah].

  You see, there are seven letters in the Torah that have what looks like 3 thin lines, on the top of them. Like this: (Hold up to show crowd. You can print it on a separate paper.)

  

  

  These are decorative crown-like flourishes added by a scribe on the upper left-hand corner of certain letters in Torah scrolls. It is generally composed of three flourishes or strokes, each of which resembles a small "zayin" -- thick on top with a thin line extending downward to the letter.

  Moses asked G-d, ‘Lord of the Universe, what is lacking in the words themselves that You must add crowns as well?’ What’s the point of all these mysterious lines? Who needs them? What purpose do they serve?

  G-d answered, ‘There will arise a man, after many generations, Akiva son of Joseph is his name, who will expound upon each of these lines – upon each of these crowns -- heaps upon heaps of laws.’

  So Moses asks G-d, the Talmud continues to relate, to show him Rabbi Akiva. G-d conceded. He forwards the “tape recorder” of history and places Moses in the lecture hall of Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Akiva is presenting a Torah lecture but Moses could not understand his words.

  3. Why did Moses Not Understand?

  What is the meaning behind this strange story? How is it that Moses did not understand the meaning of the lines on the Torah letters, while Rabbi Akiva did?

  And how could Moses not comprehend the lecture of Rabbi Akiva? Moses studied on Mt. Sinai for forty days at the “feet” of the best teacher of all-time, G-d Himself. He then personally taught the nation the entire Torah. Everything that they knew, they received from him. Moses was the greatest mind and greatest leader of all time. How is it possible that the students of Rabbi Akiva grasped the lecture, while Moses did not?

  4. Your Note

  The great mystics taught a fascinating concept: the Torah is not just a book of laws or history or even deep wisdom, but it is the personal novel of every Jew. You and I, and every single Jew, can discover his or her individual and collective life story in the Torah (2). Specifically, every Jew has a letter in the scroll of Torah. His letter is his irreplaceable part in the Divine script, his part in Divine play, his solo in the Divine musical. And just as without one letter (or even with a broken letter) the entire Torah is invalid and must be fixed, without you pronouncing your letter, you playing your part, you singing your solo, the entire Divine plan for His Universe is flawed, deficient, imperfect.

  There are 600,000 letters in the Torah, corresponding to the 600,000 souls that stood at Sinai and the 600,000 generic souls of the Jewish people. All Jews today stem from one of those 600,000 original souls. Our very name Yisrael, Israel, is an acronym for Yesh Shishim Riboi Osiyos Latorah (3), meaning, “There are 600,000 letters in the Torah,” displaying the profound connection between the Jewish people and the very letters of the Torah.

  5. Kissing Fruits

  A Joke:

  A fruit seller in Lower East Side of New York complained to a friend that he wasn't doing very much business. The friend said, "Well, look, you know, you're living in a very Jewish area. Do something to bring in the Jewish customers. Put up a sign in the shop 'Fresh fruit from Israel'" -- which he did and he got a lot of customers.

  After a week he decided to go one better. 'Fresh fruit from Jerusalem.' Even more people came in. The next week he decided to go one better still and he put on the shop 'Fresh fruit from the Kotel'.

  After a week his friend came in and said, "How did it work?" And he said: "Terrible! They all came in, kissed the fruit and left."

  6. Letter Jews vs. Crown Jews

  Every Jew can discover himself or herself in the Torah, but there are two types of Jews: there are “letter-like" Jews, whose souls originate in the actual letters of the Torah, and there are the Jews who are compared to – and are rooted in – the mysterious lines above the letters, the ‘crowns’ which G-d was drawing and which perplexed Moses.

  You see, there are those Jews who fully embrace their place in the Torah. Like the letters themselves, they are clear, proud and un-ambivalent Jews.  When you look at these Jews, you can see how they mirror and reflect their letter in the Torah. They love and embrace the Torah and its calling with passion and gusto every day of their lives.

  But there are also Jews whose connection to Judaism is less pronounced. They are conflicted about their Jewish identity and are confused what it means to be a Jew. They may often feel disconnected from Torah or completely uninterested in it. “I am just not into it, it is not for me.”

  Of course, both of these types of Jews may exist in the same heart: At times we are passionate about our Judaism and at other times we are conflicted by it.

  Comes Rabbi Akiva and says, do not think that these second type of Jews – the ones who struggle with G-d and with His Torah -- are not organically connected to Torah. They too are deeply rooted and entrenched in the Torah. You may not see them in the letters of the Torah, and you may not see the letters on them, but you can find them in the mysterious threads above the letters. For deep in their soul they too profess threads and chords of love which connects them to the letters of Torah just as those lines above the letters are connected to the letters. Their connection may seem frail, even hair-thin, like the lines above the letters, but a connection it is. They may proclaim themselves as Jews who are often alien from Torah and Mitzvos, yet a fire still burns in them somewhere, and the moment will come when it is certain to emerge (4).

  7. Between Moses and Rabbi Akiva

  Moses on his own could not understand these types of Jews. Moses was born to a family of leaders, priests, and teachers. He was born perfect -- even circumcised — a holy child from his first breath (5). His relationship with G-d, too, was constant and conclusive. (Not to say that he never challenged G-d, but that he never doubted G-d.) Moses is the perfect Tzadik, the greatest prophet of history.

  Rabbi Akiva’s life could not have been more different. Not only did he not stem from Jewish nobility, he actually was a descendent of Sisra, one of the worst enemies of the Jewish people and his parents converted to Judaism. Until the age of forty, he was completely illiterate. As a young man, he was so spiteful of Torah scholars, that he once said, “Give me a Torah Scholar and I will bite him as a donkey bites (6).”

  Yet, at the age of forty, Akiva discovered Torah. Overcoming all odds, he went to Yeshiva, studying for 24 years, until he became the greatest figure and leader of his generation. The entire chain of the Oral tradition traces through Rabbi Akiva, who living in the generation following the destruction of the Second Temple rebuilt Judaism.

  Rabbi Akiva was the quintessential Baal Teshuva, the quintessential re-created Jew, who may have seem lost and alienated from his heritage but whose inner chords never allowed him to become completely severed.

  Moses on his own understood the letters of the Torah, not the lines on top of the letters. When Moses stood at Sinai, he could appreciate primarily Jews who embrace every letter of the Torah and live fully according to the Torah, Jews who mirror the letters of the Torah and who are mirrored in those letters.

  But Rabbi Akiva was able to appreciate a much more subtle type of Jewish identity. He was able to see how even those who seem a lot more distant are yet still connected and embedded in the consciousness of Torah. He was able to create ‘mounds and mounds of halachos’ from those fragile and delicate crowns, connected to the Torah by merely a hairsbreadth. He himself was once just like them, and he intimately knew their frustrations and inner conflicts and yet how deeply connected they really still are.

  8. Two Holidays

  If Moses represents the Holiday of Shavous, when the Torah was given at Sinai, Rabbi Akiva embodies the High-Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, when even Jews who don’t show up all year come to a house of G-d to demonstrate their connection and to make a statement that despite everything they do belong. Shavuos is the holiday of the “letters,” while Yom Kippur is the holiday of the “crowns.”

  [One of the most famous statements of Rabbi Akiva is in the Mishnah dealing with Yom Kippur (7): “Rabbi Akiva said, Happy are you, Israel! Before whom is it that you are purified and who purifies you? Your Father in heaven … Just as a fountain purifies the impure, so does the Holy One, blessed be He, purify Israel.” This Mishna captures the essence of Rabbi Akiva’s message and life story.]

  Rabbi Akiva was ultimately executed by the Romans in 136 CE (six decades after the destruction of the Temple). When? On the eve of Yom Kippur! This is not a coincidence. The day a person dies captures the theme of his entire life. Rabbi Akiva embodied the essence of Yom Kippur – the power of Teshuvah, of return, of never giving up on your soul, of remembering that every soul is embedded in Torah, if not in the letters, certainly in the “crowns” yet above the letters (8).

  It goes a step deeper: The lines on top of the letters in a Torah Scroll are three lines written on seven letters of the Hebrew Alphabet. Whenever any of these seven letters are written in the Torah – shin, ayin, tes, nun, zayin, gimmel, tzaddik -- the scribe draws three thin lines on top of them, as you can see in this image [show the audience.]

  

  3 times 7 = 21. These lines, symbolizing the connection of souls who seem alienated and lost but are truly still connected, are represented by the 21 days from Rosh Hashanah till Hoshanah Rabah, the days of Teshuvah, of return to G-d, of rediscovering a relationship which may have been dormant but never dead.

  9. Complete Apathy

  But there is a third category of Jews.

  You see, even Rabbi Akiva’s Jews are not at all apathetic about their Jewishness. Ambivalent yes, but completely alienated and careless, no. Conflicted, yes, but unfeeling, no. They will show up at least on Yom Kippur, and they wish their children will do the same.

  But there are those Jews who are completely alienated to the point where it seems that they are lost to our people and our tradition. They do not link their story to the story of Torah any longer; they will never associate their life-story with the story of the Jewish people. Jewish history, culture, tradition, faith – has absolutely no resonance for them. It means nothing.

  They are not resentful and not bitter. They are not conflicted or ambivalent. They are simply apathetic. As the Lubavitcher Rebbe once said, “There are no longer only the four sons of the Passover Seder. There is a fifth who doesn’t show up at all.”

  A teacher once asked, “What is the difference between ignorance and apathy?” A student responded: “I don’t know, and I don’t care!”

  And again, this third category may exist within the heart of the same Jew who is in the other two categories. Sometimes we really feel nothing. Nothing matters. And we are not even bothered by our sense of complete alienation. It seems as though all chords have indeed been severed.

  The philosophy I call “Jewish Darwinism” believes only in the “survival of the fittest Jews,” and hence gives up on these lost souls. These Jews, it believes, are not encoded into the DNA of the Torah. They have lost their part in the script. They have forfeited their letter in the Torah. There is no letter for them, nor is there even a “crown” above the letter for them. Not Moses or Rabbi Akiva can identity their Jewish connection. Shavuos does not capture their imagination, and even Yom Kippur says nothing to them.

  Many Jews of our generation have been placed into this category.

  10. The Parchment

  Yet here is yet a deeper secret. And this is the secret of Simchas Torah.

  You see, there is a third, equally intrinsic part of the Torah scroll in addition to the letters and the lines above the letters. It is the parchment itself (the “gvil”). According to Jewish law, each letter has to be surrounded by clear parchment (mukaf gvil), and if two letters connect and touch, without clear parchment surrounding each letter, the Torah is invalid.

  There are Jews whose souls are rooted in the letters of the Torah, there are Jews embedded in the lines above – but connected to -- the letters, and there are Jews entrenched in the clear parchment surrounding the letters of the Torah.

  Their connection to Judaism is not clearly articulated, unlike those whose lives mirror the letters of Torah. Their connection is not even intimated in the threads and lines above the letters of the Torah as the lives of Jews who struggle with their Judaism. Their connection to Torah seems to be empty and blank.

  It is these Jews who are organically ingrained in the white and black parchment of the Holy Torah.

  11. Ink in the Quill

  Our Sages tell us (9) a deeply intriguing idea:

  When G-d wrote the original Torah, there was ink left over in His quill. This seems almost blasphemous: did G-d overestimate the amount of ink necessary; did He get stuck with leftovers?

  Of course, the answer is no. By withholding the last drop of ink,  G-d ‘authored’ the gvil, the white parchment surrounding each letter. The white parchment expresses yet a deeper truth not articulated in the ink of the letters or the ink of the lines above the letters.

  This withheld ink, too profound to be expressed on paper, represents the core of our consciousness, the quintessence of our identity, too deep to be manifested in words and even in hints (letters and crowns.) It is the part of you which may unknown even to yourself.

  You look at a Jew, he doesn’t feel, he doesn’t show up, he doesn’t care. You think he is lost? No! Take a look at the white parchment and you will discover him there. In the subconscious of his heart of hearts – in the unarticulated “white parchment” of his soul -- he is still connected. He too is rooted in the Jewish history and Jewish consciousness, in the Jewish faith and in the Torah. His psyche originates in the ink left behind in the “Divine quill,” “expressed” in the expression-less white parchment of the Torah. It may be too deep to be visible but it is real.

  12. On the Essence of Hakafos

  It is this connection we celebrate on Simchas Torah when we dance with the Torah Scroll itself. We don’t study the letters and words of Torah; we don’t gaze at the lines above the letters. We take the entire scroll – the letters, the crowns and the parchment -- and we dance. And therefore we dance with every single Jew in the world. We realize the essential connection between every single Jew and G-d, even if the connection lay dormant in the sub-cellars of his or her consciousness. As we make “hakafos,” going around and around the bimah, we celebrate the parchment surrounding the letters. We go round and round as the parchment goes around and around each letter, representing that dimension of self which cannot be articulated in words or assimilated within our consciousness, rather it surrounds us and envelopes us, like the parchment surrounding the letters (or makif, expressed in hakafos, and in the mukaf gvil.)

  And that is why Simchas Torah always had the power to touch even the most alienated Jew.

  How do we express this on Simchas Torah? By dancing. Because this bond cannot be articulated philosophically and rationally with words – like the letters of the Torah. It cannot be drawn and painted – like the lines above the letters. But it can be danced!

  13. The Source of Hakafos

  This explains another enigmatic concept.

  The holidays of Shavuos and Yom Kippur are both articulated and discussed clearly in the Torah. How about the custom of dancing hakafos? Where did the dancing on Simchas Torah originate? It is not a biblical commandment; it is not even a rabbinic injunction intimated and hinted (10) in Torah (like the lines above the letters). Rather it is a Jewish custom, a minhag, stemming from the “white blank parchment” of Torah. Hence it is not stated clearly in the sources, not expressed in letters, words or lines. It is from the “ink withheld in the quill,” originating in the deepest part of the Jewish souls, in its “white parchment,” capturing the essential relationship between the Jew and G-d.

  14. Daniel Pearl

  We all remember the tragic story when in February 2002, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl had been kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan. His kidnappers accused him of being a spy -- an accusation strongly denied by the CIA and his newspaper -- and vowed to kill him if their demands were not met. Indeed the terrorists barbarically killed Daniel Pearl and he was confirmed dead on February 21.

  The fact that Daniel Pearl happened to be Jewish was, at first, not believed to be a factor. Of course it wasn't going to help him, either, but it wasn't initially the "reason" given for his capture. His French non-Jewish wife, while hoping for his return, kept impressing upon the media what a universalist Pearl was, what a man of the world he was, he was married to a non-Jewish woman, as if his being Jewish was only a blip in the story, not even worth mentioning. However, upon release of the horrible videotape of his incarceration, we learned that he made a statement—or was forced to make a statement—of his Jewish identity. Until then, Daniel Pearl had never been identified as a "Jewish" reporter, though he never hid his identity and knew it might get him into danger in the parts of the word he frequented. He had not covered the "Middle East" beat, nor had he ever analyzed so-called "Jewish" events. He wasn't a presence at Jewish organizations and, though a proud "ethnic" or secular Jew, had never publicly identified with any "Jewish causes."

  But something happened at the last moments. Right before he died Daniel made this statement: "My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish." Then he told his captors — and the world — that his great-grandfather Chayim Pearl had a street named after him in the city of Bnei Brak in Israel...

  Samuel Freedman, a writer for the New York Times and USA Today, wrote, "When Daniel Pearl hovered in limbo, missing but presumably alive, his wife and colleagues and friends emphasized what a universalist he was, as if that might spare him death. In death, however, the meaning of Daniel Pearl changed, or, I might say, it grew complete. He lived as a universalist, but he died as a Jew, inescapably Jewish. While some of what Pearl said was probably coerced...it is impossible to avoid in his words the sense of some agency, some autonomy, some principled self-determination."

  What happened to Daniel Pearl during those moments?

  I will tell you, my dear friends. Daniel Pearl was born on Simchas Torah…

  What is Simchas Torah? A Jew who considers himself to be the ultimate universalist, the person who apparently has no special link to Jewish identity, who does not see his story as a link in the chain of the Jewish story – yet on Simchas Torah, the core essence of this Jew, organically engraved in the very white parchment of the Torah scroll, in the “ink remaining in the quill,” emerges in its full splendor and holiness.

  The “Simchas Torah” component of Daniel came out during those final tragic moments of his life.

  Dr. Judea Pearl, father of Daniel Pearl, has approached Chabad  with a unique request. Daniel's birthday is on Simchas Torah and he is asking that we dedicate one Hakafah to his sacred memory.

  14. The Rebbe

  If Moses articulated our connection to the letters of the Torah, Rabbi Akiva exposed our connection to the lines on top of the letters, there was a third leader who always remained focused on our organic and intimate relationship with the parchment of the Torah.

  Let me share with you a story (11).

  Chaim Cohen (1911-2002), was a very prominent Israeli Judge. He served as the Minister of Justice, the Attorney General and was a member of the Israeli Supreme Court. He also defined himself as a bona fide heretic, an ‘apikoress.’

  Chaim was born in Germany to a religious orthodox family, and both of his grandfathers were Rabbis. As a young man, he moved to Israel where he studied for years in the best Yeshivos in Israel, under the famous Chief Rabbi Avraham Yitzchok Kook. However he then abandoned the Yeshiva, became a lawyer and proclaimed himself a proud atheist.

  He once said that the greatest compliment he ever got was from Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook who called him the “Elisha ben Avuyah of our generation”! Elisha ben Avuyah was the great Talmudic sage who became a heretic (12).

  As a very influential member of the Israeli Judicial system, Chaim Cohen devoted most of his career to fighting anything that smelled even remotely of Torah and of Halacha (Jewish law) which he felt were repressive and inhumane.

  [He was one of the leading advocates for expanding the “Law of Return,” also known as “Who is a Jew,” a law which classified even complete non-Jews as Jews, granting them automatic entry into Israel.

  The greatest uproar and sensation he caused, though, was when, during his term on the Supreme Court, he left the country in order to circumvent the marital legal system in Israel. Being a Kohen he could not marry a divorcee, so the Rabbinate had refused to officiate the marriage. He traveled to the US to marry this woman. This caused international headlines and forced Cohen to resign from his seat on the Court.]

  But then, on Simchas Torah 1975, he arrived at 770 Eastern Parkway to the hakafos of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Chaim Cohen, the man who had devoted his life to fight Torah-Judaism, decided to join.

  I will be honest. Chabad is famous for its all-inclusive and unconditional acceptance of any Jew. But there were those in the Synagogue that night who felt that Chaim Cohen was perhaps the only exception alive to even Chabad-style love. They felt indignant that he had the chutzpah to even show up, as if to mock once again all that they held sacred.

  [There were few issues which grieved the Lubavitcher Rebbe as painfully as the issue of “Who is a Jew.” The Rebbe felt that to break down the Halachik definition of a Jew threatened our very existence as a people. Chaim Cohen fought the Rebbe on this issue head on.]

  Someone asked the Rebbe whether they are permitted to give Chaim Cohen the Torah to dance with?

  The Rebbe said: “A Jew wants to accept upon himself the yoke of Torah and you want to stop him!?”

  The Rebbe honored him. First, the Rebbe gave him to read aloud one of the verses we recite prior to Hakafos. Then, the Rebbe asked him to hold a Sefer Torah for a Hakafa, the greatest privilege of the night. One of the attendants gave him a heavy Torah Scroll. Now he was not a young man at the time—he was 65 years old. Someone said, “It’s too heavy for him!” (Siz tzu shver far em!); let’s give him a lighter one.

  And the Rebbe replied: “For a Jew, the Torah is never too heavy.” (Far a yid iz di Torah nisht tzu shver.)

  And then the impossible happened: Justice Chaim Cohen, the self-proclaimed heretic, held on to that Torah for the entire hakafa, never relinquishing it, never tiring, never stopping his dancing. The average hakafa in 770 lasted fifteen minutes; this one went on for not ten, not twenty, not thirty, but for forty-five full minutes.

  [And what is more, they sang ‘vechol karnei reshoim agadea.’ There was exceptionally tremendous emphasis on the ‘oy oy oy oyvav albish boshes…’ (you can sing this out loud)]

  And Chaim Cohen danced, and danced, and danced. And the Rebbe stood there, waving his hands, and encouraging him on and on and on.

  The night was over. Chaim Cohen went back to Manhattan to the home of his friend where he was staying. No, he never openly changed his ways. He did not become an observant Jew. But something even deeper happened.

  After returning from 770 on Simchas Torah, Chaim Cohen told his close friend, his host, “I am too old to change my ways, but please make sure that after I die, I am buried according to Jewish Law, according to Torah.”

  When he died in 2002, the Israeli newspapers wondered why would Cohen ask to be buried in a religious manner when his entire life was devoted to fight religion?

  Very few people knew that it was because of that Simchas Torah experience with the Rebbe in 770.

  The Rebbe looked at Chaim Cohen and saw a soul rooted and entrenched in the “white parchment” of the Torah.

  Moses gave us Shvaous; Rabbi Akiva reveled to us what Yom Kippur is and the Rebbe allowed us to experience Simchas Torah (13.)

  My thanks to Avi Shlomo for his help in preparing this essay.

  Footnotes:

  1) Menachos 29b.

  2) Imagine we are in a vast library. In every direction we look there are book cases. Each has shelves stretching from the floor to the ceiling, and every shelf if full of books. We are surrounded by the recorded thoughts of many people, some great, some less so. We can reach out and take any book we wish, all we have to do is choose. We begin to read and for a while we are immersed in the world of the writer, be it real or imaginary. It may intrigue us enough to continue reading the book till we finish it, and to read other books by the same writer or on the same subject. Or, if we choose, we can break it off and try a different subject, a different approach, a different author. There is no limit. Once the book no longer interests us we can put it back on the shelf, where it will wait for the next reader to pick it up. It makes no claim on us. It is just a book.

  That, in our contemporary culture, is what identity is like. We are browsers in a great library. There are many different philosophies, perspectives, ways of living, and none exercise any particular claim on us. None of them, more than any other, define who we are. We can try any, for as long as we like. The life styles are like books we read; we can be into one book for a year and then move on. We are always free put the book back on the shelf and find a better one, one that suits us today. Books are what we read, not what we are.

   But now imagine that while browsing in the library, you come across one book, unlike the rest, which catches your eye because on its spine is written the name of your family. You open it and you see many pages, written by different hands, in many languages. You start reading it and you slowly begin to understand… It is the story each generation of YOUR ancestors has told for the sake of the next, so that everyone born into the family can learn where they came from, what happened to them, what they lived for and why. As you turn the pages of this books which spans hundreds of generations and thousands of years, you reach the last page, which carries no entry but a headline.

  It bears your name…

  You may say, “Nothing in the past binds me in the present; this does not change a thing. I am my own man.” But I know that if I were to hold such a book in my hand, my life would already have been changed. Seeing my name and the story of my forbearers, I can’t just read it as another objective story. Reading it would be a form of self discovery. I can’t just put the book back on the shelf, forget it and move on to another book. Because I know that I am part of a long line of people who traveled toward a certain destination and whose journey remains unfinished, depending on me to take it further.

  Other books may be very interesting, inspiring and stimulating. But this one is different. It is MY book. Will I write my own chapter? Will I be a continuation of the story of those who came before? Will I, in the right time, hand the book to my children with THEIR NAMES on top of the empty pages?

  This, my friends, is not a metaphor. There IS such a book. And to be a Jew is to be a living chapter in it. This book – we call the Torah -- contains the knowledge of where I come from and who I am. Each human being alive DESERVES to know something about his or her personal history; who gave birth to them, where they came from, and what they are part of. One of the most painful experiences of adopted children, or even worse abandoned children, is their lack of knowledge where they came from, what is the origin of their story.

  When I am holding such a book in my hands, I can choose not to continue reading it, but I can’t deny its significance to my identity, to my inner composition, to my very existence.

  3) Megalah Amukos. See Tanya ch. 37 about the number of souls.

  4) You can choose to add the following story:

  Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, the famed Talmudist and philosopher, taught a Talmud class for professors at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. One particular professor, for years, refused to come. One day the rabbi met the professor and asked, “Why don’t you join the class? Your colleagues come; it’s in your building right down the hall?” The professor responds, “Oh no, I don’t belong in the class. We have nothing in common.” “What do you mean we have nothing in common?” “You don’t understand”, said the professor, “I eat pork on Shabbat.” “Only on Shabbat, not during the weekday?” The professor said, “Specifically, spitefully on Shabbat!”

  “Ah, in that case” said Rabbi Steinzaltz, “You should come to the class. We do have something in common. We both celebrate Shabbat. I do it in a traditional way. Your way is not so traditional.”

  After the conversation the Professor began attending the Talmud class. He had re-discovered something about his Jewish identity.

  This professor had survived the Holocaust as a young boy and saw Jewish life in Europe destroyed. When he arrived in Israel, he threw his Judaism away. He was angry with G-d and wanted to get back at Him. So he ate pork on Shabbat. Why specifically on Shabbat? He wanted to punish G-d in the most hurtful way. He figured that eating pork on Tuesday is one thing, but doing it on Shabbat was really bad -- because Shabbat is a holy day.

  The professor realized that his rebellious act showed that he too believed in Torah and Judaism, and that Shabbat was still a holy day for him. That is why he ate pork on Shabbat. Not because Shabbat is an ordinary day but because it’s the holy day.

  5) As the Talmud in Soteh, quoted by Rashi, tells us that with his birth, his home filled with light.

  6) Pesachim 49b.

  7) End of Yuma.

  8) Through Teshuva they indeed reach beyond the “letter”-like souls (Berachos 34.)

  9) Midrash Rabah Ki Sisa.

  10) See Taanis 9a: Leka Midi Delo Remizi Beoraysa.

  11) I heard the story from Rabbi Shmuel Butman and Rabbi Shlomo Zarchi. Rabbi Yoel Kahn shared the following detail: When Cohen’s friend was once invited for hakafos in 770 he refused to come. Why? “I saw what happened to Chaim Cohen after he came. He changed his mind on lots of things. And I don’t want that to happen to me,” he said.

  12) Chagigah 13a.

  13) This essay is based on many Chassidic sources.

  ~~~~~~

  Additional Sermon

  G-d Loves Your Shoes

  The first timethe great spiritual master Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov (1) spoke to his disciples about the festival of Simchas Torah he related to them an episode that occurred on the morning of that holiday in the place we call heaven (2).
  
  Everybody knows, said the Baal Shem Tov, that on the holiday of Simchas Torah, Jews sleep in a little because of the tremendous dancing and extraordinary festivities of the previous evening, known as the "Hakafos." The heavenly angels, however, don't drink vodka nor do they dance all night, so on Simchas Torah morning the angels awake at the usual time, all ready to sing their morning prayers.
  
  Yet on this day the angels found themselves with nothing to do. The Talmud states (3) that "the angels cannot sing G-d's praises in the heavens, until Israel sings G-d's praises on earth." Since the Jewish people were still asleep, the angels could not yet begin their daily service.
  
  What do angels do when they're bored? The same thing humans do when they're bored: They clean up. So the angels proceeded to do some cleaning up in heaven's paradise known as the Garden of Eden.
  
  When they entered the Garden of Eden, they found it littered with strange objects: torn shoes and broken heels.
  
  Now, in paradise, angels are accustomed to finding holy objects, like prayer books, prayer shawls, tzitzis (fringes), tefillin (phylacteries), Torah scrolls and similar sacred items. Never in their "career" had they come across Mephisto, Ecco, Kenneth Cole or Bally shoes. "What are these bizarre objects doing here in paradise?" the angels wondered.
  
  They decided to ask their senior colleague, the angel Michoel, described as the supernal advocate of the Jewish people. Perhaps he would have some information on this abnormal phenomenon of a myriad of shoes stored in paradise.
  
  "Yes," Michoel admitted, "this is, in fact, my merchandise. These are the remains of last night's Hakafos celebrations, during which Jews danced for hours and hours with their Torah scrolls."
  
  The angel Michoel proceeded to count and pile the tattered shoes according to the communities from which he acquired them. There were this many torn shoes from the city of Kaminkeh, this many shoes from the city of Mezeritch and so on.
  
  "The angel 'Matat,'" boasted Michoel, referring to the most prestigious angel in the heavenly court, "ties crowns for G-d out of Israel's prayers. Today, I shall fashion an even more glorious crown for the Almighty out of these torn shoes from the late-night Simchas Torah dancing."
  
  This is the episode the Baal Shem Tov shared with his students, conveying of course – in a rather moving and original way -- the power of dancing, the majesty of simple people dancing for hours with G-d and His Torah. Each show has a place in heaven, and from the torn shoes and broken heels the most beautiful crown for G-d is crafted.

  What's the Big Deal?

  But there are two questions to ask.

  1. Why was the angel Michoel obsessed only with the worn out shoes of the dancing Jews? What about the drenched shirts, the sweat-soaked undershirts or the perspiration-stained coats of the people dancing and jumping for hours long on the night of Simchas Torah? Why did these garments, too, not join the shoes and make their way to paradise?

  2. How can there be shows in heaven? The Garden of Eden (paradise) is a spiritual oasis, a metaphysical world, not defined by physical properties and not populated by material objects.

  3. We may simple answer that when the Baal Shem Tov speaks of "shoes" discovered by the angels in paradise, he is referring to a particular “energy” – a spiritual reality -- generated by Jews exuberantly dancing on the night of Simchas Torah, one of the most joyous moments in the Jewish calendar.
  
  Yet if there were no actual shows in heaven only their spiritual energy, why were the angels so astonished by the discovery? It is an ancient Jewish idea that every good deed, each mitzvah that a human being performs here on earth, generates an energy in the higher realms above. (This idea is, in fact, basic to the entire Kabbalistic tradition of Judaism and has its roots in the Talmud itself (4)). Dancing on Simchas Torah ought not to be excluded from the deal. So why were the angels so overwhelmed by the sight of a special energy that arose from the torn dancing shoes from Simchas Torah (5)?
   

  Shoes and the Messiah

  In his utopian prophecies about the future messianic era, the prophet Isaiah, too, discusses shoes.
   

  "G-d will dry up the gulf of the Sea of Egypt and He will waive His hand over the Euphrates River with the power of His breath; He will break it [the river] into seven streams and lead [the people] across in shoes (6)."

  Was it really so important for the prophet to mention that we would be led across the Euphrates River in our shoes? Would anybody care to be led through the river in crocks, or sacks or even barefoot (7)?
  
  The Conflicted Life

  What is the function of shoes? Since man's movement leads him not only across marble, cork and wall-to-wall carpets, but also on hard surfaces – on sidewalks, stones, snow and mud, he must wear shoes to protect his feet from pain and dirt.
  
  On a spiritual level, "shoes" represent the measures that we must take in order to protect our lives from various polluted and destructive elements that can debase and hurt us.
  
  At any given moment we can fall prey to ugly immoral cravings. We can succumb to dishonest behavior or to addiction. We can be overtaken by fear, insecurity, laziness, selfishness or depression. As deeply vulnerable human beings, we must always wear "shoes," protecting ourselves and our loved ones from the filth in our own psyches and in the environment around us.
  
  "Remove your shoes from your feet," G-d says to Moses (8), "for the place upon which you stand is holy ground." Few are the souls who, similar to Moses standing at the burning bush, are always treading sacred soil and can therefore walk through life without shoes. These are the unique souls who are so deeply connected with their inner spirituality and G-dliness, that they are not affected by the immoral and unhealthy pleasures abundant in our world.
  
  For most of us, however, life consists of a perpetual battle between our beastly tendencies and our transcendental yearnings, between our pompous egos and our higher spiritual identities. Thus, if we wish to live a life of integrity and depth, we can't afford even for a moment to remove our shoes, to eliminate our protective measures against the muck in our heart and our environment. The moment we remove our shoes, we may end up in the abyss (9).

  Shoes in Paradise?

  Now, the big question is, is there a place for our "shoes" in paradise?
  
  Paradise is a space pervaded completely by the higher light of G-d, designated for souls melting away in divine ecstasy (10). Paradise is the one location reflecting the harmony, the beauty, the perfection and the splendor of its creator; a place in heaven devoid of politics, deceit, immorality and un-holiness.
  
  The fact that our soaked shirts, jackets or hats involved in a mitzvah -- including dancing on Simchas Torah -- generate a powerful energy on high came as no surprise to the celestial angels, because it is a reality as ancient as life itself.
  
  What threw the holy angels off guard was the sight of "torn shoes" in paradise. What place, the angels wondered, does the human struggle against filthy urges, ugly dispositions and perverse drives have in the holy of holies of the Garden of Eden?
  
  It was the great heavenly advocate of humanity, the angel Michoel, who provided the answer to this tremendous question that had stumped these holy creatures. He communicated to them the revolutionary idea that every single "torn shoe," every single human struggle against his or her inner darkness, though the shoe may be torn and the battle incomplete, constitutes the most precious "stock" in the entire paradise (11)!
  
  Some angels may tie crowns for G-d out of Israel's prayers, Michoel explained to them, but the most glorious crowns for the Almighty are fashioned out of the "torn shoes" from the late night Simchas Torah dancing (12). These are the crowns crafted from the celebration of ordinary human beings connecting to G-d amidst abundant darkness. It is this dance, the dance of a “small candle of truth in a universe of lies” – to paraphrase the words of the Lubavitcher Rebbe to Benjamin Netanyahu on Simchas torah 1984 -- that is cherished most in the Garden of Eden (13).

  Who Will Greet Moshiach?

  The era of Moshiach is paradise on earth, the era in history when heaven and earth will become integrated and the entire human race will behave consistently with the Divine image that constitutes the core of its being. The prophet describes it as a time when G-d "will remove the spirit of defilement from the earth (14)."
  
  Yet despite the tremendous spiritual high of the Messianic era, which will transform our struggles of today into meaningless and obsolete experiences, Isaiah tells us that it will all begin with shoes on! "G-d will waive His hand over the Euphrates River with the power of His breath; He will break it [the river] into seven streams and lead [the people] across in shoes."
   

  For it is precisely the tiresome battle of humanity to introduce the light of G-d into our mundane and lowly lives that creates the world of Moshiach, when our physical world will finally make peace with G-d. Each and every time that you say "no" to an immoral urge, and each and every time you battle your external nature and say "yes" to a mitzvah, you are paving the road for the world of Moshiach.
  
  It is with our shoes — your shoes and my shoes — that we will dance to welcome Moshiach.

  ~~~~~~~

  Footnotes:
  1) 1698-1760. He was the founder of the Chassidic movement.
  2) This story was told by Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi (1745-1812), a disciple of Rabbi Dov Ber of Mezerich, who was a disciple of the Besht. The story was repeated by the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneurson, in Sefer Hasichos 5701 pp. 31-32; Sefer Hamaamarim 5710 pp. 85-86.
  3) Chulin 91b. The Talmud derived this from the verse (Job 38:7), "When the morning stars sing together, the supernal ones call out."
  4) See, for example, Soteh 3b (cf. Maharsah ibid.); Ethics of Our Fathers 4:11 (cf. Tiferes Yisroel ibid.)
  5) Needles to say, the Baal Shem Tov's words, stories and teachings ought to be studied in great depth. The Baal Shem Tov was one of the most profound and revolutionary thinkers in the history of Judaism, a man who transformed the landscape of Jewish thought forever. This is also evident by the fact that over the last 300 years, some of the most towering intellectual figures in Jewish life (I.e. Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, author of the Schulchan Aruch HaRav and the Tanya, and countless more sages) have regarded each word and nuance emitted from the mouth of the Besht with the greatest reverence. See, for example, Tanya Igeres Hakodesh section 25.
  6) Isaiah 11:15.
  7) On a literal level, Isaiah was simply out to demonstrate the extent of the river's dryness that people would be able to pass through the river wearing their shoes, just as they would on dry land (See commentators to Isaiah ibid.). Yet if this was the prophet's only intent, he could have stated so explicitly, not in a roundabout way.
  8) Exodus 3:5.
  9) These two types of souls are described beautifully in Tanya chapters 10, 12, 13.
  10) See Berachos 17a. Rambam Hilchos Teshuvah chapters 7-9.
  11)  See Tanya chapter 27.
  12) This theme is deeply connected with the essence of Simchas Torah, celebrating not the giving of the first Tablets on Shevous, but rather the giving of the Second set of Tablets on Yom Kippur (Mishnah Taanis 26b), following the sin of the Golden Calf and the destruction of the first Tablets. On Shevous we celebrate our innocent and pure relationship with G-d; on Simchas Torah we celebrate the ability for renewal and rehabilitation, following a breakdown in the relationship (See at length Sefer Hammamarim Melukat vol. 1 pp. 363-374 and references noted there.)
  In other words, Shevous is a celebration without shoes; Simchas Torah is the celebration of souls wearing shoes.
  13) This is also the deeper meaning behind the story of Rabbi Schneur Zalman's of Liadi escape from Napoleon, leaving nothing behind, besides one pair of slippers, which was burnt before Napoleon could come and fetch it (see at length talk referenced in footnote 15.)
  14) Zecharyah 13:2.
  15) This essay is based on a talk delivered by the Lubavitcher Rebbe on Acharon Shel Pesach 5733 (April 1973), published in Sichos Kodesh 5733.
  My thanks to Shmuel Levin, a writer and editor in Pittsburgh, for his editorial assistance.

  ~~~~~~~~
• Comment