Table of Contents

Appreciate Yourself 1

Why People Denigrate People. 3

The Ineffable Name. 8

Hitting the Rock for Water 10

The Spurned Light becomes Evil 13

Adam and Eve in the Garden. 21

Jacob, Leah and Rachel 25

Adam, Eve and Lilith. 32

The Secret of the Scales. 37

 

           

Appreciate Yourself

 

            A rabbi once said, "There are two types of people. Some say, 'I am great and you are greater.' Others say, 'I am nothing and you are worse.'" If so, we can only appreciate others if we appreciate ourselves. If we don't appreciate ourselves, we cannot appreciate others. Can we appreciate ourselves? This is such a challenge; whether we succeed spiritually depends on it. There are so many obstacles. If our parents did not appreciate us, we grow up without self-esteem. If our teachers did not appreciate us, how can we overcome our feelings of inferiority? If we failed in business or marriage, or in important areas of life, how can we feel good? What person merits parental support, the blessings of our teachers, success in life, and a sunny disposition? The rest of us have to start while we are running backwards.

            The Creation Story is to teach us our significance. The Talmud teaches: "Why did G-d create the entire universe and then make one man? So that each person should say, 'For my sake the world was created.'" Can we accept that G-d created the entire universe just for one of us? What is there about one person that is so important? Only G-d knows. The only way we know is because we see ourselves as the purpose of creation. Our importance is thus ensured, but it remains a mystery, hidden in the Will of G-d.

On the other hand, if we are not worthy individually, did G-d create the world for humans collectively? If a person is unworthy, can ten or a thousand people be worthy? Can a million or billion nothings be something? Ultimately, we are either important because a human being is important, or the human race is unimportant. Our task is to accept the mind-boggling idea that we are not only important, but the purpose of Creation, and then to begin to know why. Our entire life, and even our After-life, will be about this question. It has no final and finite answer, which is hidden in the recesses of heaven.

 The first person was ADAM, a term that includes male and female, although it can also mean only the first man, whose name was Adam. ADAM in Hebrew is related to the word "dirt," because G-d fashioned Adam out of clay or dirt, and breathed into the clay form an infinite soul. A person is thus a clay shell holding an infinite soul. Why is he called ADAM for dirt instead of "breath" for the soul? The creation was a move from the infinite supernal realms to the finite earth. For some reason, G-d wanted to create a dimension bereft of His Presence, and allow people to inhabit it. He wanted people to live in "dirt" and darkness, and reveal an infinite light struggling against it. People would thus do G-d's work, revealing Light, and G-d would reward people in heaven, in the infinite dimension, for eternity. Since people cannot enjoy unearned gifts, the only way we can appreciate our infinite reward is by earning it. This world has such misery that a person struggles here and merits the glory of Paradise without feeling shame or embarrassment. The Talmud says that the truly pious come to heaven after they die and feel so proud of their achievements and struggles that they demand reward. This is "strength," the ability to sit in G-d's Presence and nonetheless not be negated, but self-actualized. Such an enviable situation comes only from our "dirt" essence, the darkness and struggle. Therefore, people are ADAM, or dirt, rather than "breath," and divine light. By great effort, people transform the clay dirt into divine lights, and themselves from lowly people to souls sitting in the inner sanctums of heaven next to G-d.

This idea allows us to be "dirt" and live in darkness, and yet be very important. The darkness and "dirt" is only there to allow us entrée to the inner sanctums of G-d. Indeed, the name ADAM has another connotation; it is related to the word DOMEH, or "similar." We are "similar" to G-d, by His Will, in that we "create" worlds and lights just as He does. In our dimension and world, G-d does not interfere. The collective deeds of people construe, for better or worse, the fate of the world. Therefore, we, not G-d, as if it could be, are in control of the world. The Cabalists tell us that each thought, word and deed that we perform in this world triggers great events in the infinite heavenly world. We create worlds with our mortal deeds, dimensions and heavens. We can also do sins and they are awful indeed, extending to the higher worlds and destroying.

ADAM is also related to the word DOME, or "silence." Although we live in a finite dimension, and the spoken word reveals limited facts, the basic human is mystery, rooted in a spiritual supernal source beyond words, the dimension of "silence." "Silence" is not negative, it implies more than the lack of sound. Silence is the song of mystery, the soul seeing and knowing the infinite, hidden from our eyes, but everywhere.

These subtle ideas build the edifice of human pride and appreciation of self. They prepare us to love and honor ourselves, and ultimately, to respect others. Society and marriage ultimately thrive or collapse from the acceptance or rejection of these ideas.

 

Why People Denigrate People

 

            The world does not appreciate people in the sense we have described. Even those who accept the Torah concepts from Sinai find these ideas a challenge. Why? There are two basic reasons. One, people sin and feel guilty and unworthy. Two, people are imperfect and weak in many ways, and do not feel that they are so important. How do we deal with these issues?

            Simply put, we deal with these two issues by denying them. We refuse to accept that sin can abrogate G-d's love for us, as the prophet taught, "I am G-d who dwells among you in your impurity." The bible is filled with exhortations for sinners to return to G-d and His favor. "In the place of the penitent even the perfectly righteous cannot stand," the Talmud teaches.

            Regarding the second problem, that people seem to imperfect and weak, this is only from a materialistic and physical standpoint. When we realize that people have divine and infinite souls, we respect them. When we view the clay shell of people as a challenge, not as the ultimate definition of man, we respect the human being for struggling in the clay shell and attaching himself to true infinite spirituality. A human being is a clay shell, but when a clay shell is filled with infinity, when it radiates hidden lights, it is no longer a clay shell.

            It is not enough, however, to just state these ideas. We must live them so that we really do appreciate others and even ourselves. It takes many years of effort, and every tiny step is a struggle. Indeed, as of today, the vast majority of people in the world deny the Jewish elevation of the human being. Religions preach the opposite. Secularists, especially the reductionists, feel that human spirituality is a denial of scientific reality. Major philosophies and religions denigrated not only people, but nature and life as well. We will study this in more detail, but for now, we will say that Judaism taught by G-d to Israel at Sinai elevates the human being. Other religions and philosophies denigrate the human being. Judaism elevated the female, as we will study, and other religions and philosophies denigrate the female. The world likes powerful men, and lionizes those who conquer and destroy others. Judaism prizes Moses because he was the most modest of men. In no other culture would Moses have had a chance. Judaism, prizing not physical force but spirituality, accepts the spiritual superiority of women over men, as they are the repositories of the angelic level of Schechinah, as we will study. Judaism considers marriage the highest holiness, as "a man and a woman together, the Schechinah is with them." Other religions consider women so unclean that priests are forbidden to marry. Christianity, in Mathew, teaches that the spiritual person does not marry, and that such is only for the lower people lacking in true spirituality. A major early church figure castrated himself to prevent this slide into evil. The churches of the Renaissance had choirs containing castrati, boy castrated so their voices would retain a high pitch. Such a hideous thing would be an abomination in the Jewish world.

"The Way of Life precedes the Torah." This is the first teaching of the Yeshiva of Elijah the Prophet. Torah, says Rabbi Isaac Luria, is only achieved by a "person," and a person is one who has the good qualities of Derech Erets, the Way of Life. Derech Erets, the Way of Life, includes marriage and social relationships. We find G-d through humanity, not by asceticism, which is the opposite of spirituality. Of course, in the process of purifying our base instincts, we may have to do some fasting or training in self-control, but the wholesome person indulges in life with its varying glories without guilt. This, too, is a subject that must be further developed, later.

Let us return to the beginning of the world, in the biblical story of Creation and the first generations. Adam and Eve sinned and were expelled from the Garden of Eden. Their son Cain murdered Abel. The third generation, that of Enosh, began paganism. Surely, this is an inauspicious beginning. Can we really blame people for not thinking too highly of humans? Perhaps we cannot blame them, but Judaism maintains that we must struggle past these questions to appreciate people. It is a hard task, but we were created for it. Within the mystery of people is the mystery of heaven, so we must take heart and not give up.

            After Cain killed Abel, Adam and Eve realized that the world needed someone else to carry on the human tradition. Abel was dead and Cain was a murderer. (Genesis 4,25) "And Adam knew his wife again and she gave birth to a son. And she called his name Seth because, 'G-d gave me another seed instead of Abel because Cain murdered him.' And to Seth, also him, was born a son and he called his name Enosh. Then HUCHAL [we won't translate it now] to call in the Name of G-d."

            We will translate HUCHAL soon. Now let us return to the first passage, "And Adam knew his wife again." The word again means that this was "again," not a new experience. Here begins the denigration of humans. Indeed, the rabbis place great importance upon the attitude of the parents during their relations and how it influences their children. The story we are studying, about how people began paganism in the time of Enosh, begins with the intimacy of the grandparents; Adam and Eve copulated "again," rather than feeling a fresh and exciting spirit about having children. In truth, we can't blame them; they failed, their sons failed, and now they had to try again, albeit without the best enthusiasm.

            Eve named the boy: "Because G-d gave me another seed instead of Abel because Cain murdered him." Again, we find disparagement. The child is "another seed instead of Abel." He is not worthy on his own; he is a replacement. His name means, "giving" because, "G-d gave me another seed in place of Abel." What is the significance of "giving"?

            Eve named Cain that because "I have obtained a son from G-d." The emphasis is on her obtaining, gaining, owning. All of these are positive terms, declaring the work of the woman in achieving a son. All of this turned to ashes when Cain became a murderer, and now Eve, in a mood of failure, merely says, "G-d gave me another seed." Now G-d gave a child, not that Eve obtained it. She omits mention of herself, as she no longer feels worthy to be a partner of G-d in creation. Seth, the son born in place of Cain, thus is the connotation of human failure, of disfavor, and his birth is attributed to G-d's "giving" without people obtaining this by their merits.

            "And to Seth, also he, was born a son." Here we have the sadness flowing freely. "Also he," not "he." He was "also," rather than the builder of a new world after the failings of his forefathers. To Seth "was born a son," a passive phrase, omitting a direct reference to human actions. It does not say Seth had a boy, or Seth's wife had a boy, it says only that the boy "was born." This passive phrase further denigrates Seth and adds to the mood of gloom. Seth named the boy Enosh, a word related to NOASH, or "despair."

            "And he called his name ENOSH. Then HUCHAL to call in the name of G-d." What does HUCHAL mean? It is a very difficult word to translate, not because the word is strange, it is a common word, but because of its tense. The official Talmud translation of the passage is, "In his days people ceased to pray in the Name of G-d." The word CHULIN or CHOLOL means a ceasing of something, holiness or life. Thus, HUCHAL, related to these words, means a cessation, a negation. People stopped praying in the Name of G-d. This cessation is HUCHAL. The problem is that HUCHAL is passive, and the translation makes it active. (The translator could respond that a cessation is always passive. Thus, HUCHAL means they were in a state of ceasing, or "they ceased" to pray.)

            Another problem is that the translator says, "People ceased to pray." If so, the word HUCHAL should be in the plural; it is singular. We have a situation here when the official translation gives a gist of the passage, but the hints and tools for the scholar remain. What do we see beyond "the working translation"?

            Why did people stop praying in the Name of G-d? We mentioned that they despaired of finding favor with G-d. The despondent people feared to deal directly with G-d and sought out intermediaries. Lower and lower they sank, until they worshipped idols, snakes and other mortals. It all began with despair, indicated by the name of ENOSH, which means, "despair."

            "Then HUCHAL to call in the Name of G-d." What was the process of paganism? People once related directly to G-d, and felt worthy to do so. They felt sanctity, the spirituality of the divine soul, and with it spoke to G-d, prayed to Him, and sought His favor when they sinned. Now this ceased. HUCHAL means, passive and singular, the cessation of the "calling in the Name of G-d." Here, G-d is the Ineffable Name, meaning utter transcendence. Can utter transcendence have a Name? Yes, it does, because when Jews pray they read the Ineffable Name, even if they do not pronounce it. In thought, if not pronounced, the Ineffable Name unites the Jew with G-d directly and elevates the Jew to a heavenly sanctity. In the time of Enosh, this ceased, because people no longer prayed in the Name of G-d, using the Ineffable Name. They used other names, such as the holy name ELOKIM, which means G-d as a revealed power. What they could see of G-d's handiwork they appreciated and accepted as a level worthy for them. What they could not see, the transcendence of the Ineffable Name, they refused to use for prayer.

            This despair of direct dealing with G-d led to paganism, because people who were bereft of a proximity to G-d sought out intermediaries. Paganism came in many states, as Maimonides says. What were the many stages? First, they refused to use the Ineffable Name in prayer, and used only ELOKIM, the revealed finite works relating to the human environment. They gradually declined until all dealing with G-d directly ceased, and they prayed to angels, then to stars, then to strong people, and finally to images.

            To repeat, "Then HUCHAL to call in the Name of G-d." Then, passive and singular, there descended upon people a HUCHAL, a cessation, due to despair. Gone was the life force of pride in their infinite soul and its closeness to G-d. With this HUCHAL, the spent force of self-esteem, came a crash in prayer, and people could not relate to the Ineffable "Name of G-d." The important thing is not the active, plural cessation of prayer with the Ineffable Name. That was only an offshoot of the greater problem, the despondency that choked off the joy and pride in being human (HUCHAL singular and passive). Once the human joy and pride ceased, it automatically followed that people could not pray with the Ineffable Name. The Torah goes to the source of the problem, not its manifestation. The problem was not what people did, but why they did it. The decline is noted not as the cessation of praying, but as the cessation in the pride in praying.

            The great Cabalist from Komarno said, "Being happy is not one of the commands of the Torah, and being sad is not one of the sins mentioned in the Torah. But happiness can bring a person to a spiritual level that no command can, and sadness can bring a person lower than any sin." We thus understand why the Torah describes the decline of people not in terms of their sins, but in terms of their sadness.

            The bible then continues, in a new chapter, (5,1): "This is the book of the Generations of Adam. On the day G-d created Adam, G-d made him in the form of ELOKIM (G-d)." This refutes the despair of Enosh and his generation and their paganism. Adam was created in the form of ELOKIM, G-d, meaning that there were similar traits in G-d and people. This does not mean that people are divine; it means that they are not remote from G-d; indeed, they have similarities, and these similarities classify people as worthy of a direct relationship with G-d. We study the Torah that G-d studies. We pray to G-d and He listens. We perform kindness as G-d does. All of this encourages us to feel elevated and not to despair of G-d or ourselves.

           

The Ineffable Name

 

            Can you remember the last time you saw someone acting foolishly or cruelly? What did you think? Did you consider that person "in the image of G-d"? How can this be, that people who are so often foolish, wicked, and cruel, can be in the image of G-d? We cannot achieve our goal of loving others and ourselves if we do not overcome our revulsion at the deeds of mortals, and their obvious shortcomings. How can we do this?

            We mentioned the Talmudic phrase, "In the place where the penitent stands, the perfectly righteous cannot stand." In other words, people achieve a higher level after they fail than if they were perfect all along. "The righteous falls seven times and rises." He rises to a level that reveals the purpose of his falling. Falling and failing no way conflict with man "in the image of G-d." The Talmud says that the generation of Sinai and King David were pious and should not have worshipped the Golden Calf and taken another man's wife and murder him. G-d forced the power of sin upon these people to elevate the power of penitence. In our falling and failing, our exile from truth and goodness, we find a darkness that conceals the highest light. This encourages us when we fall; also, when we see others make mistakes, we still appreciate them.

            Only in travail are the lights of the Ineffable Name released. Therefore, the Cabalists says, "Exile comes from the word 'revelation." (In Hebrew, exile is GALUT, and revelation is GAL.) What is revealed in exile? The word exile is GALUT, which in Hebrew spells "reveal TOFF." TOFF is the final letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It represents the lowest level of light, close to evil and the finite dimension of this world. Exile reveals the great lights revealed in TOFF, in travail and evil. Esau came to attack Jacob with "four hundred men." The Hebrew letter TOFF has a numerical value of 400. In this confrontation, similar to the exile, Jacob struggled with the Angel of Esau. The angel first crippled Jacob, but finally blessed him. The angel named Jacob "Israel," which means, "an upright officer of G-d." This was from the lights of "four hundred," the letter TOFF of exile. The evil force of "four hundred men" assailed and hurt Jacob, but in the end, it turned to blessing.

            Esau was the brother of Jacob. Often, the worst exile is in our own families. No quarrel is as terrible as with loved ones. The challenge to appreciate another is nowhere greater. The suffering if we do not is nowhere worse. We must keep in mind that all darkness is designed by G-d to reveal supernal lights. The greatest darkness is that fierce anger that consumes a marriage, the love of one's youth, and the family. Within such darkness is the greatest light, and perhaps, if we really try, we will find it and be guided out of the morass.

            The bible, in the first chapter and three passages of the second chapter, begins with the Creation story. It recites the Creation narrative from day one to the Sabbath, the Seventh Day.  Then the narrative repeats: "These are the generations of the heaven and the earth, when they were created, on the day that the L-d G-d made the earth and the heaven." Until this passage, the Ineffable Name is not mentioned in the bible, only the name ELOKIM, Powerful One, which represents a finite revelation of G-d, G-d revealed by His Powers and Deeds. The Ineffable Name represents a transcendent G-d, infinite and beyond mortal comprehension, not revealed in the mortal mind, only in the soul. The Ineffable Name begins the Creation narrative about Adam and Eve and their sin. For the first time in the bible, the Ineffable Name is used. It is revealed only in human endeavors, the darkness of exile, and the challenges of life.

            We find a similar theme in Exodus 6,3: G-d rebuked Moses for not appreciating the Jews in Egypt. True they were sinners. They worshipped idols and did not keep the Torah. On the other hand, suffering itself, the exile, created a light, a Torah of its own. Moses did not see this. G-d told Moses, "And I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, in the Name Almighty G-d, but I was not known by the Ineffable Name." Only the exile revealed the Ineffable Name. The Jews in Egypt, despite their lack of piety, revealed "light in the darkness" and the Ineffable Name. Human struggle even as failure is a mighty force.

            To the human eye, the spectacle of people falling and failing denigrates them. Everybody likes a winner. History is the story of those who destroyed others. The victims are the pitied refuse of human affairs. The Jewish way is to regard a person struggling as a repository of holy light. A rabbi in the Talmud died and his soul went to heaven. He was revived and his soul returned. (This may be the phenomenon much studied in modern times called "near death experience.") He told what he saw: "Those low in this world are high there, and those high here are low there." Struggle and falling has its own currency, only revealed in the infinite eternal dimension. We must appreciate ourselves when we fall and we must appreciate others who fail. To be human is high and holy. To be human is to fall and fail, as long as we do not use such as an excuse. On the other hand, this is easier said than done. Even Moses failed in this regard, as we will study here further.

           

Hitting the Rock for Water

 

            In Egypt, G-d told Moses to tell the Jews of their impending redemption. Moses replied, "They will not believe me." G-d rebuked Moses, and said, "They will believe, but you, in the end, will not believe." Moses "did not believe" when he hit the rock in the desert to produce water instead of merely speaking to it. G-d told Moses, "Take your staff and speak to the rock" to bring forth its waters for the Jewish people in the desert. Moses thus was told to take his staff. Why then was Moses punished for using it? If Moses was supposed to speak to the rock and not hit it, why did G-d tell him to bring his staff?

            The answer is that G-d told Moses that there are two possibilities. If the Jews are worthy, speaking to the rock is enough. If the Jews are not worthy, it will be necessary to hit the stone. (Bamidbar 20,7) "And G-d spoke to Moses saying: 'Take the staff and gather the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and speak to the rock in their sight and it will give forth its waters. And you will bring forth for them water from the rock and water the congregation and their cattle.' And Moses took the staff from before G-d as He commanded him. And Moses and Aaron assembled the assemblage to the face of the rock, and he said to them, 'Hear now O rebels. Can we take forth for you water from this rock?' And Moses raised his hand and he hit the rock with his staff twice. And much water went forth and the congregation drank with their animals. And G-d said to Moses and to Aaron: 'Because you did not believe in Me to sanctify Me in the eyes of the Israelites, therefore you will not bring this assemblage to the land that I gave them.'"

            A worthy people merits big miracles, and an unworthy people merits smaller miracles. Were the Jews worthy or not? This would depend on their level at the time of the approach to the rock. Moses had to be prepared for either eventuality. Perhaps the Jews would merit water by his speaking to the rock; perhaps the Jews would be on a lower level, and Moses would have to hit the rock.

            G-d told Moses that the key was "assemble the community, you and Aaron your brother, and speak to the rock." The key is the phrase "Aaron your brother." Aaron was the brother of Moses, of course, so why did G-d mention it? The hint was that Moses and Aaron were brothers, and Aaron was the symbol of peace and love, of appreciating others. Moses would succeed only by uniting the Jews in communal love and by loving them as well. Even if the Jews were not on a high level, the sight of Moses and Aaron as brothers and their love for Israel should raise the Jews to the level that they would merit water from speaking without hitting the rock. However, Moses berated the Jews and called them rebels. He decided that they were not worthy, and indeed, because he did not really feel in his heart the love for them and the appreciation for them that was necessary to raise them to a high level, he had to hit the rock, because the Jews were not raised by his love for them. They remained on the level of "hitting the rock," and Moses was faulted for this.

            Note that Moses and Aaron were both supposed to speak to the rock, but in the end, only Moses spoke. The fact that Aaron was missing indicated that the capacity of love and peace, the forte of Aaron, was missing. The level of love was missing, and this was disastrous.  "Moses and Aaron gathered the assemblage to the face of the rock." There is a difference between the "rock" and the "face of the rock." The rock is the inner rock; the face of the rock is its external façade. Only by speaking to the entire rock could the level of "speaking" and producing water be maintained. By speaking only to its "face," the rock did not give forth its waters, until Moses had to hit it with his staff.

            When we speak to a person, we can do one of two things, either engage the real person, or speak to his "face," or external façade. If we want to speak to someone and raise them with our love and appreciation, we must reach their inner essence, the "rock," otherwise, we merely reach their "face," and not their heart. Moses did not achieve the level of love of the Jews necessary to reach into their hearts, and as a result, he failed in his approach to the rock. If we loved others, the "rocks" would flow with sweet water, and we would not need to hit anything.

            G-d told Moses, "gather the AIDO." That is, the community is called sometimes KEHILA, or gathering, and sometimes the higher term, AIDO, which is related to the word ADE, or testimony. When the Jewish people are on a very high level, they are suffused with the Shechina or Divine Presence, and offer testimony to G-d's Presence. They are thus AIDO, or testimony. Otherwise, they are simply an assembly of people, or KEHILA.

            In G-d's instructions to Moses, He only used the term AIDO to refer to the Israelites. However, when Moses approached the Jews, it does not mention the term AIDO, instead, it mentions the term KEHILA. After the water gushed forth, when Moses hit the rock, the Torah says that the AIDO was watered. Thus, G-d and the Torah consistently referred to the Jews as AIDO, the high level, but Moses and Aaron did not see their high level, only that they were a KEHILA or assembly. This was the sin. Because of it, Moses and Aaron could not enter Canaan.

            Israel is like every other country with its physical features of land, hills, desert, rivers, valleys, and beaches. Not everyone sees in Israel the lofty holiness and special attributes that G-d knows exist there. Only one who can look deep into the "rock" and learn to love and appreciate it can lead the Jews to Israel.

            When the first Jews began arriving from Russia and Eastern Europe in Israel a few hundred years ago, they were greeted with terrible experiences, hunger, hate from the inhabitants of the land, a government that tormented them, earthquakes, disease, etc. Rabbi Mendel of Vitebst wrote from Israel that the land hides her face and only reveals it to the worthy.

            In those days, a rabbi left Israel to raise money. He came to a prominent Jewish community in the Diaspora, and told the local rabbi about the glories of the Holy Land. So impressed and inspired was the rabbi that he resigned his position and went to Israel. Alas, he did not see the "treasures" he heard about, and saw only problems and challenges. He complained to the rabbi who told him of the wonders of Israel. "Where are they?" he asked. Eventually, the rabbi from the Diaspora went to the Israeli rabbi and said, "At last, I do see the treasures."

            Another story from those times is about a disciple of Rabbi Shneur Zalman who traveled from Russia to Israel, and returned to ask his rebbe, "I don't understand. Where are the high souls in Israel you told us about? The people seemed quite ordinary to me."

            The rebbe said nothing, but merely asked, "Let us see your gems." (The Chosid was a merchant of jewelry.) Proudly, the Chosid displayed his wares.

            "I don't see anything special about these stones," said the rebbe.

            Indignantly, the Chosid replied, "Rebbe, you have to be an expert to know stones."

            "One must be an expert to know people," said the rebbe.

 

The Spurned Light becomes Evil

 

            Often we convince ourselves that people are bad because they do bad things. People have energies and forces that can become very good or very bad. Rabbi Yosher Ber, the progenitor of the famous Soloveitchik family, said that the Jews are compared to the stars and to the dust. A very high force can be very high, or it can collapse, and become the opposite. It doesn't always trickle down in the middle. Nuclear energy can be channeled properly, and if it is not, who knows what can happen, heaven forfend? Therefore, pure evil can be just a twist away from pure goodness. Once a person leaves the boundaries of goodness, he takes the enormous spiritual powers in the wrong direction, and they can flip quickly into mischief of the worst kind.

            In short, the greatest evil is often the greatest good that is lost.

            Such a person was Leibel, the Yeshiva student in Russia whose heart was aflame with idealism. He saw the oppressed poor in Russia and moaned, even while his brilliant mind delved deep into the page of Talmud in front of him. Leibel was a natural leader, and the head of the Yeshiva saw with consternation that Leibel was influencing others to drink from wells not filled with kosher water. Those were the pre-revolutionary days in Russia, and Czar Nickolai sat upon a shaky throne, while the very ground trembled with agitation and even open battles. The head of the Yeshiva finally expelled Leibel, who became Leon Trotsky, whose evil cunning turned Russia into a Communist state, and enslaved the majority, destroying Yeshivas and religious life. Ultimately, Stalin murdered Trostsky, and plotted to slaughter the Jews, a project interrupted only by his death.

            The Chofetz Chaim, the senior saint of the generation, refused to speak to the head of the Yeshiva who expelled Trotsky. Interestingly enough, there was another student, just like Leibel, very brilliant, powerful, personable, and he, too, wondered about Communism and socialism. All night the Chofetz Chaim spoke to him, and in the morning, the student resolved to remain in the Yeshiva, and become a rabbi. He became one of the greatest, and his good deeds are the opposite of those of his fellow students who slipped into the maelstrom in those agitated times.

            The highest spirituality, according to the Cabalists, is in the female. Thus, the greatest evil came from spurned women, Lilith and Timna, the mother of Amalek. Let us study them a bit. We will begin with Timna, because her story is easy to understand, if not tragic. Lilith is Cabalistic, and requires a special approach.

            Timna (see Medrash Rabo Braishis 82) was the sister of a powerful ruler, Loton. She was consumed with the desire to marry into the spiritual family of Abraham, but alas, nobody wanted her. Finally, she settled upon becoming a concubine to Abraham's great-grandson, Elifaz. Elifaz was the son of Esau. Who was Elifaz? Of all of the seed of Esau, Elifaz was the most spiritual, and indeed, "grew up in the lap of Jacob," the brother of Esau. Esau told Elifaz to murder Jacob. Elifaz came to Jacob and told him his predicament. Jacob suggested, "Take my belongings, and the poor is considered as one dead." At any rate, Elifaz was the best of the seed of Esau, and Timna surely one of the most spiritual of her time, or any time. From them came Amalek, the mortal enemy of Israel, whose progeny think only of destroying the Jews. Why and how did this happen? The rabbis explained that the Jews rejected Timna; this caused the good in her and Elifaz to emerge into utter evil and hate, Amalek.

            When the Jews left Egypt in triumph, and miracles saved them from all evil, the nations trembled, except Amalek. Amalek fearlessly sallied forth to make war on the Jews, even as they sat comfortably and securely in the bosom of the Schechinah and the Holy Cloud in the desert. Joshua left the camp to battle Amalek, and killed many of them, but the Amalek hate made a point. Now people did not fear so much. It became easier to oppose both Jewry and its G-d.

            G-d then declared, "My Name and Throne will not be complete until Amalek is destroyed." Such an evil, a spurned holy fire, can shake the Throne of G-d and damage, as if it could be, His Holy Name." Those who deal with divorces understand this.

            Why did the family of Abraham reject Timna? Was she not utterly sincere and spiritual? There is, however, an ugly side to Timna, albeit not of her doing. The Medrash Tanchuma (Vayashev 1) tells that Elifaz, once the disciple of Jacob, became evil when he grew older, and slept with the wife of Sayir, the former king of the land where Esau lived. From this illicit union came a daughter to Elifaz, a bastard, Timna. He sinned again by marrying his bastard daughter, and from them came Amalek. Thus, although Timna was very righteous, desired greatly to marry into the seed of Abraham, and admired their holiness and spirituality, her parentage left much to be desired, and the House of Abraham, rooted in family decency and sanctity, refused to accept her. They knew too well the great potential for evil from bastards, and indeed, the Torah frowns on marriage with those born of incest and adultery.

            The Yalkut Shimoni (Genesis 30,129) says that Timna was from a noble family and could have married very high. She begged to marry Jacob, but he refused her. She offered to be his concubine, but he refused. She then said, "I will marry Elifaz, the reject of the holy family of Abraham, and not become a princess and queen in the royal families of others." For rejecting her, the Jews were punished, and Amalek emerged from her union with Elifaz. Yes, the Jews had an excuse, she was a bastard who married her father, but now she stood to repent, a spiritual supplicant, and such must not be denied.

            Not all was lost from the issue of Timna. "From (Amalek) Haman issued a person who taught Torah to children in Bnei Braq." From the greatest light came the greatest darkness, but the time will come when that darkness will reveal the greatest light. The new light, shining from Amalek returned to goodness, will blaze in G-d's Name and Throne, which is "not complete" until this happens. Timna's anguished and searching sparks of holiness give no rest to the Divine Name or Throne, and somehow, her tears must turn to joy.

In Hebrew, letters are numbers, and the word TIMNA and AMALEK have a numerical value of 800. The key to life is for the "mouth" to reveal mystery; then the hidden becomes known, and the infinite comes into finite vessels. The letter PEH means, "mouth." The idea is for "mouth," the finite revelation, the cognitive, to reveal the YUD, the letter of higher and hidden holiness. Thus, when we multiply 80 or "mouth" times 10 or YUD, we find the solution. This is 800, the value for TIMNA and AMALEK. Solving their searching is Redemption. How do we bring this about? We must be completely honest and good people, and bring the gentiles to respect the Torah, and accept their interest in spirituality. This will ease the pain of the sparks of Timna and bring the Redemption.

Whereas the main intercourse between Jew and gentile is in business, the important thing, the rabbis tell us, is to impress the gentiles with Jewish honesty, and from this they will respect the Torah. If Jews are dishonest, they bring the gentiles to hate the Torah. Therefore, the Torah in Deuteronomy teaches about honest weights and measures, and follows this with the story of Amalek, to teach us, that Amalek, the hate of Israel, is aroused when Jews cheat gentiles. On the other hand, the way to cure Israel of the curse of Amalek is for them to be completely honest, even more than legally necessary, in their business dealings with gentiles.

The Medieval period in Germany, France and Europe was a time for Crusades, when the zealot soldiers slaughtered and burned Jews. Rabbi Moshe of Cousy, one of the greatest scholars of that time, traveled around to the bereaved communities of Jews, and urged them to put their hopes in the Messiah. He cannot come, said the rabbi, until the gentiles accept that Israel is honest and worthy of redemption. Therefore, he commanded, Jews must deal with gentile money even more stringently than the Torah requires, not taking their lost objects, but returning them, and making sure that the nations respect Israel and will praise them as worthy of Redemption. Thus is the curse of Amalek cleansed.

We now turn to Lilith. As we mentioned, she is Cabalistic. Consequently, when we discuss her, we are limited in our understanding. Even in Cabalistic terms, Lilith is subtle. Even if we cannot understand completely, Lilith remains the force of the highest holiness transformed to great evil because of being rejected and spurned. This is not the hard part. The hard part is to figure out just what spurned her. I don't know, but suspect that it is a combination of human error and divine intent, or human error deliberately provoked by G-d, for His purposes. He wanted this pure evil to be in the world, because it hid the highest truths and holiness, and would one day reveal them. We are waiting. What a glorious day that will be!

            Some know of Lilith as the first wife of Adam, but the Zohar tells us that Lilith figured in the earlier days of Creation, long before people arrived. The earliest biblical discussion of male and female I have found began on the fourth day, with the male sun and the female moon. (We have much to discuss about that, but patience, patience.) Guess who else was there? Of course, Lilith. Thus, we have a male and two females. One female is the moon, the main player in the Medrash, as we will discuss, and then, silently, sits Lilith, and we have no idea what she is doing there.

            As if being a silent player is not bad enough, Lilith began, in those far-flung supernal days, as evil! This is days before Adam and Eve sinned by eating from the forbidden fruit. So the mention of evil is amazing. The passage begins, (Genesis 1,14) "And G-d said, 'Let there be luminaries in the firmament of the heaven." The word luminaries is usually spelled with a VOV, but here the VOV is missing; thus, instead of "luminaries," we have "curses." This, says the Zohar (I,33:) indicates the creation of Lilith. Together with the sun and the moon G-d created "curse" or "death" as Lilith. What does this mean?

            This was the fourth day of Creation. On the fifth day, G-d created fish monsters. The Zohar says (I,34:), "These monsters were Leviathan and his mate, and Lilith." Why were there, again, a male and two females, one good, and one bad?

            On the sixth day, says the Zohar, G-d created Adam and Eve. Adam slept first with Lilith, but she was not a helper to Adam, and he could not live with her, so G-d gave Adam another wife, Eve. What happened to Lilith? It wasn't very pleasant. She was spurned, and although she was a very high energy, it now became evil. Lilith was created to marry, but because Adam rejected her, or because he could not tolerate her, she became the mother of demons (Zohar II,267).  Instead of taking the lights of men in marriage, she took them with evil. Sexuality, the highest holiness, thus becomes something illicit, and is the source of great evil. This, however, is only the shell of the story. We are not finished with Lilith and the demons.

            The Zohar says that Adam was formed of dirt or clay, and then received the breath of life. Then he rose and went about. Eve was attached to his side. A soul flitted between Adam and Eve, attached in the same body. G-d made Adam sleep and took Eve away from him, formed her into a woman, and Adam awoke and married her. When Lilith saw Adam and Eve united before G-d in the marriage ceremony, she fled. Before then, however, she had slept with Adam. It is very interesting that Lilith was the first wife of Adam. This indicates that she was somehow the ideal, and that Eve was only secondary. If so, how did Lilith become evil?

            Even more interesting is the creation of the demons just before the Sabbath. G-d did not have time, as if it could be, to provide the demons with bodies, only souls, and then the Sabbath came, and no more creation could be done. The demons thus remained without bodies. Note this: A demon is one without a body, but has a soul. Can such a being be inferior to people, who have a body? A body drags the soul down; without a body, the soul is unhindered. If so, the demons should be higher than people.

            To keep it as simple as possible, evil is actually a good and holy force that could not find a finite receptacle. What we see as evil is a divine energy that is so infinite that the finite perceives it as evil. In the exile, in falling and failing, people at last come to grips with these forces, and they turn into good. Within these evil forces are the greatest lights.

            The world was designed for light and darkness. During the "light" phase man deals with his wife "Eve," that is, people have finite experiences. During the "night" phase, people deal with the higher lights concealed in darkness and even evil, and these surrender their sparks and are transformed into goodness. The process of the world is to ultimately transform all evil to good, to rescue all of the lost sparks, and to redeem the world from all evil and suffering. Thus, Lilith and Samoel, the two major forces of evil, have a numerical value of TORAH, because Torah is revealed in its true lights only with the hidden sparks trapped in darkness.

            The demons created just before the Sabbath had no physical form; they were infinite beings. Because they had no finite forms, they became evil, relative to us, although the Zohar says that just as there are good and bad people, there are good and bad demons. Their evil was an energy concealing the highest light, one appropriate for the end of creation, just before the Sabbath. Recall, that the Creation went from lower to higher things: first inanimate objects, then trees, then fish, then animals, then people. With people, Adam came first and then Eve. She was thus higher than Adam. After them came the demons, who were even higher. Obviously, the final creation of demons had to contain a very high energy. It is revealed in exile, falling and failing, to tell us that life is about struggle, and within struggle are the secrets of the supernal sefiroth, or divine dimensions.

            Lilith, as the first wife of Adam, was central to creation. Her lights are perhaps the highest ones, and she is probably higher than Eve. As we go through life, the challenge of evil raises us to the level where we find those lights seen as evil but containing the highest goodness.

            The Zohar explains that Lilith did not provide help to Adam, and it didn't work out. A wife must be a helpmate, as the bible says, "It is not good for a man to be alone, I will make a helpmate opposite him." What does this mean?

            A person comes into the world to accept challenge, and to change darkness to light. It is like baseball. The pitcher throws the ball, and you swing the bat. If you do it right, the ball is hit, and if you hit it wrong, you are out. Of course, if you or I would go out and deal with ninety-mile-an-hour pitches, especially those with the dips and the curves, we would strike out. G-d must match the pitch to the batter. However, within each person, there are levels of challenge, higher and lower.

            The harder the challenge, the greater the effort and pain required to persevere. This is the allegory of man and two wives. Man comes into the world, a world of struggle, and he, being an ADAM, which means "dirt," must fight his way through. He can't really be expected to persevere, however, unless he receives an angelic and spiritual force to aid him; it appears in the person of his wife. The female Eve is "life," as "she was the mother of all life." This life is not just biological life, but spiritual life. Here we meet a serious problem, one that revolves upon the purpose of creation.

            A person came into the world to earn by struggle. "According to the pain is the reward." If so, why help him? The more he does things on his own, the more reward he receives. If his wife helps him, he has smaller reward. The wife is thus a contradiction to the very purpose of creation. Enter Lilith. Here you have it all. Adam has a wife, and she is hard as nails. She doesn't help a bit. Who knows, she may help him by adding challenge to challenge. If so, he will have even more reward. Isn't this the way things should be? G-d therefore created Adam and gave him Lilith. Adam couldn't take it. Why not? We will come to that, but for our purposes now, he couldn't take it, and G-d gave him Eve. Eve was kinder, and Adam accepted her. Was this not a level B marriage? Yes, but it is better than no marriage. It is not better than a working marriage with Lilith. Lilith, thus spurned, flees and becomes evil. When Adam and Eve broke up, for 130 years, Lilith would visit Adam and take his lights. She would have preferred to have them the proper way. There is a lesson in this. Adam was created with Lilith, not Eve, and somehow, he must fulfill his function ideally, with Lilith. This happens in the exile, in falling and failing, when people live a life of such terrible challenge that they are considered on the level of Adam and Lilith, rather than the lower challenge of Adam and Eve. It is confusing, and I don't claim to understand it that well, but the 130 years of Adam apart from Eve and Lilith taking his lights at night while he slept are didactic and prophetic events. This is exactly what happens in the exile, when people are cut away from light, and live alone in darkness and failure. In a way, they give their seed to create demons, and they do. People in exile often do bad things, such as the Jews who embraced Communism and tortured religious people. Somehow, in a way known only to G-d, the demonic period has a purpose, has a path, and it leads to something better. In the Future World, and only then, we will understand.

            LILITH in Hebrew means, "me, me." Ideally, a wife is "me, you," but Lilith was not kind. Kindness contradicts struggle, the purpose of the world. Lilith demanded perfection, which is too bad for the husband. What should Adam have done? To understand, we must repair to the text of the Creation story.

 

Adam and Eve in the Garden

 

            (Genesis 2,25): "And the two were naked, Adam and his wife, and they were not ashamed." "And the two" is redundant. Why does it not just say, "And Adam and his wife were naked and not ashamed"? However, nakedness is a shame for anyone. We must be dressed. This is "and the two were naked." "Adam and his wife" indicate marital relationships. They were completely uninhibited. The bible tells us two things, that Adam and Eve were naked and not ashamed, and that furthermore, even their marital relations were done publicly, and they were not ashamed.

Rashi tells us that the snake came to seduce Eve after he saw Adam and Eve cohabitating publicly. Rashi says that the snake saw this and "desired them." However, it seems that he desired Eve, not Adam, and spoke to her and eventually slept with her, not Adam. Why does it say, "and he desired them"? The idea of a snake, which is obviously a heavenly agent of testing, lusting for Eve, is very strange. What does it mean?

Most difficult to understand is what Adam and Eve were doing in the Garden. They had achieved the epitome of human achievement, reaching the Garden of Eden. The holiness blazed from every nook and cranny. Why were they not praying, studying the secrets of the Torah, or doing something spiritual? Why were they sleeping together?

Although in other religions sex is a lowly thing, and priests are forbidden to marry, in Judaism the High Priest cannot function unless he has a wife. In the Talmud, a young genius was brought to a senior rabbi. The senior rabbi refused to look at the face of the young genius, because he did not wear the garb of a married man. All of the Torah in the world cannot create the holiness of a woman. Sexuality is the highest holiness, because "there are three in the bed, the father, the mother and G-d." Of course, if sex is secularized, and turned into the sad thing it is in the media and general culture, and a woman becomes, not a repository of the highest spirituality, but a geometric pleasure machine, sex is sick and not spiritual. In the Garden of Eden, rather than pray and study, Adam and Eve invoked sex to achieve union with holiness. Within the union, vulnerability and assertiveness of their marriage, they achieved the power of creating a human soul, and pulling its energies from the highest supernal spheres. The Satan saw this, and acted. Why? The rule is, that whenever people attempt to achieve spiritual things, the snake, or Evil Inclination tests them. It is that simple. The snake "desired them," that is, the snake, or Evil Inclination, is created to desire all holy sparks and forces, and to try to consume them, and wax strong by so doing. The snake saw these mighty forces released by marriage, and decided that they would do him just fine. He desired them, the pair's unity during marital process, and sought to test them and take the holy lights away for his own purposes. This is what the Satan does, at least until he will retire the letter MEM of Samuel, and become the holy angel without that letter. He is a faithful fellow, the Satan, and just does what he is supposed to do. Unfortunately, not all creatures are so loyal, and obedient.

However, we are sad that G-d created such a situation where the snake could do his thing. What could poor Eve really do, or what could Adam have done, to prevent the sin of eating of the Tree of Knowledge?

They key, as Rashi tells us, is the cohabitating in public. Had they done this privately, it seems the snake would have left them alone. He was aroused by their public display. What does this mean?

Let us return now to Lilith. The Zohar says she came to Adam, they had relations, and Adam tried to make a go of the marriage, but she did not "help" him. She was "the harsh level of hard justice" and Adam could not take it. So, Lilith fled when an easier, more helpful soul came upon the scene, Eve.

Let us go back to the first marriage, that of Adam and Lilith. Adam and Lilith have marital problems. What should Adam do? He can't live with her. She is just too harsh and hard. She is "me, me" as her name LILITH indicates. Who can take it?

One moment. Who made Lilith? Who gave her to Adam? Was it not G-d? Did He, heaven forfend, make a mistake? Did G-d not know that Lilith was harsh and hard?

Remember what we said previously, that man was created to struggle, and that the more help he gets, the less reward he receives in heaven. "According to the pain is the reward." If so, Lilith was the ideal wife. She was a perfect woman, the purest spirituality, the Life essence, and she was the perfect challenge, offering no help, only challenge. This is exactly what G-d wanted for Adam. Living with her, Adam would have to struggle to reach—perfection. Adam said, "I can't take it."

Adam made a mistake by not accepting the Will of G-d. Obviously, G-d knew exactly what He was doing. If He gave Adam Lilith, then Lilith is the right wife. Whether she helps or not is irrelevant. G-d made her, and that is that.

Sometimes we understand the way of G-d, and sometimes we do not. When we do not see, we take it on faith. G-d has credit. We will eventually understand. Adam refused faith. He wanted to see with eyes, and know with his mind. He would not take a woman without seeing that he could make a go of the marriage. He refused to enter the dimension of hard and harsh challenge, because he did not know how he could survive it. He should have had faith. If Adam had accepted Lilith on faith, his "eye" would not have been involved in his marriage. Only dark faith would be involved. On the other hand, the "eye" of the Satan would not operate, either. Once Adam decided to marry with his "eye," and not faith, he opened his marriage to the "eye" of the snake. Only faith could have protected Adam and Eve as they cohabitated in the Garden publicly. Only Adam and Lilith could have done such a thing, and not arouse the Satan.

The problem, however, was deeper. The entire process of Adam rejecting faith and seeking to "see" and know with his mind, denying G-d, created a momentum for destruction. The Satan came to Eve and suggested that she do what Adam did, reject faith and "see" with her "eye," and eat from the Tree of Knowledge. (Genesis 3,5) "[the snake speaks to Eve] 'Because G-d knows that on the day you eat from it [the Tree of Knowledge] and your eyes will be opened and you will be like G-d to know good and evil.' And the woman saw that the tree was good to eat and that it was a lust for the eyes, and that it was desirous to understand, and she took from its fruit and she ate, and she gave also to her husband with her and he ate." We have italicized the phrases that indicate our point. The sin of the Garden of Eden, of eating from the Tree of Knowledge, was Adam and Eve's plunging from faith to knowledge. This was rooted in Adam's rejection of Lilith, who could only be married to Adam with blind faith. The "eye" and the need to "know" could not produce a marriage with Lilith. Adam rejected Lilith, and thus forfeited the protection she would have given him in a marriage of blind faith. Lilith would have shielded their marriage and public intimacy from the Satan, who would have been unable to see them in an evil way, because they had "no eyes" and so the Satan would also not have power of "eyes." Instead, Adam chose Eve, "eyes"  and "knowledge" over blind faith, and the Satan was empowered over any public display of marriage. Marriage of "eye" and "knowledge" is the dimension of the Satan.

Trapped by his own error, Adam acquiesced to the desire of Eve, goaded by the snake, to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, and have a life of seeing with the eye, rather than entering the higher dimensions of faith. Had they opted for faith, the Satan would not see what they were doing, and they would be completely safe from all evil influences.

What does this mean to us?

When we marry, we are given mates by G-d. We are also given family, communities and societies. Often, our "eyes" do not see what is so good about our spouses, family and associates. People are not perfect. We are attempted to break off our relationships. We cannot take it any more; it is too harsh, too hard. Wait. G-d gave you this spouse, this family, this associate, etc. Shut your eyes and pull some faith into your heart. When you do, look with a higher view at others, until you find good there. Keep trying, and you will find it.

Samson told his parents, "This woman is good in my eyes." For this, his eyes were gouged out, says the Talmud. A woman is not good "in my eyes," although, of course, in the practical world we have to begin that way. We must know that a mate is from G-d; marriage is a divine intervention. We do not marry because we "see" with our "eyes" alone, but only after accepting that G-d created the marriage. Yes, G-d can create a Lilith for Adam, and He can create challenges for men and women of a similar or worse nature, heaven forfend. We try, when possible, to apply faith, and to find goodness in a person who seems bereft of it. Of course, if we try, go to counseling, and get rabbinical advice, but we can't make it work, there is always the option of divorce. If there are children, that may or may not be an option, depending on how bad things are. The point here is that there is something higher than the "eye," and it is the rational knowledge that the system of marvels of the Creation, DNA, the solar system, physics and biology, do not end at the marriage ceremony. They only begin there.

Just as holy rabbis confessed that they could not see the goodness and beauty of the land of Israel for a long time of testing, so many of us cannot find the goodness and beauty of our spouses and family for years. There are married people who struggle for years to find each other. Others give up. If Moses was faulted for not seeing the goodness of the Israelites of his time, it is only human for us to be blind to the goodness of our sometimes angry, querulous and arguing spouses. However, let us try, and perhaps, we will enter the Promised Land.

 

Jacob, Leah and Rachel

 

            As we note the failure of Adam and Eve eating from the Tree of Knowledge, we are sad. When we read about the sin of the generation of Noah and the Flood, we are disappointed. We come to the story of the Tower of Babel, and shake our heads. Then we come to the Jewish Patriarchs and Matriarchs, and we start feeling good about the human race. Now, here is progress, until we get to the story of Joseph and his brothers. Now we are just too stunned to be sad, disappointed or to shake our head. But understand we must.

Can we imagine it? Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, Rachel and Leah, the most outstanding family that ever existed, produced a generation whereby the majority sold a brother! Indeed, the generation that sold Joseph was "the Twelve Tribes of Israel," the founders of the Jewish people! How did this come to be? More important, what can we learn to do to avoid such things?

Rabbi Yisroel Salanter once explained how a prominent rabbinical family produced an armed robber. "The grandfather," he explained, "was wont to 'borrow' interpretations said by other rabbis in his lectures. The father learned to 'borrow' the money of others through fraud in business, and the grandson learned to 'borrow' with a gun."

A child is extraordinarily sensitive, and picks up things that we think are concealed. The child then "builds" upon small failings to make them worse. As time goes on, the fruit falls far from the tree.

Abraham quarreled with Sarah about Hager's son, Ishmael. It was completely correct and G-d adjudicated their dispute. Such arguments happen in every family, although perhaps not with the intensity of a wife angry with another woman and her son.  The issues were completely resolved. However, the argument had made its mark, as all arguments must.

The next generation saw a difference of opinion between Isaac and Rebecca over Esau, the first-born son. Isaac was partial to Esau and Rebecca was partial to Jacob. This was not based upon a judgment that one son or the other was better or worse. It was, says the Zohar, a personality issue. People have different temperaments. Isaac shared a temperament with Esau, and Rebecca was like Jacob. This is very common and completely innocent. In the end, Isaac and Rebecca both accepted that Jacob would lead the Jewish people and not Esau. However, the argument and the splitting of the family into Esau and Jacob made its mark. It had to, especially now that a pattern had been established of two sons splitting, one leaving the fold, and the other inheriting the Jewish mantel. What would happen next?

Jacob married two sisters, Leah and Rachel. This was permitted before the giving of the Torah. Each sister had children. This would have made a problem of its own. But there was a bigger problem. Jacob loved Rachel and not Leah. Indeed, he was bitter at Leah who tricked Jacob into marrying her. Jacob, a man of truth, could not tolerate such a thing. Leah, however, was right in wanting to be a mother to the Jewish people, and she was a prophetess who had the majority of the sons of the Tribes of Israel, including the Levites and the Royal Tribe. Even Rachel helped Leah trick Jacob. Now the problem began to build. Leah's children felt that their mother was not loved. This was a ticking bomb in the Jewish home. Eventually, the children of Leah sold Joseph, the son of Rachel, into slavery.

What went wrong? We have traced the selling of Joseph back to the milder family problems in the Jewish family. On the other hand, we still don't understand. We may never. What can we learn from this mystery?

First of all, we learn that very spiritual people can fall apart in family matters. The same person who can give away his last penny to a poor person cannot take the pain from his spouse without reacting ferociously. The hardest challenge is family. Even the greatest of the great have family problems. Even the wisest of the wise cannot see the good in another person. This is one perspective that we gain from the biblical story of Joseph and his brothers. The Torah did not write the terrible narrative of Joseph's suffering because it was insensitive to the greatness of the founding generation of Israel. It warned us: we are never free of envy. We are never safe from family feuds. Nobody is safe.

Another lesson is that in a family everyone must feel happy with their lot. Any competition for favor is deleterious. Parents have their inclinations, like it or not. Not all children are equal in the heart of a parent. This is clear from the Torah. Isaac liked Esau and Rebecca liked Jacob. Sometimes, we are so obvious with our unbalanced affections that we cause great damage. The child we embrace becomes hated, a barb for the envy of the siblings. We can destroy a child's happiness by embracing him. Sometimes, we must curb our emotions, and present a balanced smile.

Part of this lesson is the unintended impact of a parent on a child or even a spouse. Let us take Jack. He is full of cheer. He has dozens of friends. He comes into the house and smiles here and there, cracking jokes, turning everyone on. Jack is destroying his son Harry. Harry has no role except to listen to Jack's performing. When a parent is around children, the slightest look or lack of notice can make or break someone. The simplest word can do damage or develop confidence. A parent should exercise the same caution around children that he would walking in a jungle filled with poisonous snakes. One false step…

Someone asked Rabbi Yisroel Mayer Kagan, the saint of the generation, how to succeed in the rabbinate. He relied, "You have to work very hard." A parent must "work very hard." A spouse must "work very hard." There are always pressures bubbling up here and there. There are no solutions, just struggles.

Let us return to the House of Israel and its family problems. The most obvious one is that the first-born children were always failures. Abraham's first born was Ishmael, who turned into a wild man. "His hand will be against everyone, and the hand of everyone will be against him." Ishmael repented before he died, and did many good things, but his wildness and warring destroyed the world. The first born of the next generation, Isaac and Rebecca, was Esau. Esau, too, was "a man of the field." His style was that of the sword and blood shedding. Esau, too, as Rome, founded Western civilization. The problems for the Jews, however, from Rome, are known.

The younger sons of these two generations, Isaac and Jacob, emerged as spiritual giants. The first born of the third generation was Reuben, and he, too, failed, and lost his primogeniture. Although Reuben remained in the Jewish fold, his behavior relegated him so that he had no rank or importance.

This is the curse of the ideal. Just as the first women created by G-d, who was surely perfect in every way, became Lilith, so did the first born of the Jewish people become "wild men." There is a lesson here. The ideal cannot easily survive in real life. The Cabalists say that Esau had a soul a thousand times higher than that of Jacob, but such a lofty soul could not survive, and he became terribly evil. This is a new way of looking at evil. We noticed it with Lilith.

What this means in practical family terms is that gifted children need special care and concern. There are children who have "a thousand times" more potential than others, and they are busy with drugs. It is not easy to be "a thousand times" better than others intellectually or any other way. The sensitive, thinking children are in danger. How tragic it is that precisely the quiet, shy and sensitive child becomes the butt of jokes and derision. The pain builds until we have what we have—a high percentage of lost children. It doesn't matter if the parents are good people. It doesn't matter if they are successful. A therapist told me that he makes a living from successful families. Life is upside down. A great gift is sometimes a curse. A successful parent can destroy a child. The ideal is not. This is the fearsome forum of humanity. We must tremble. "Happy is he who lives with fear, and he who hardens his heart will fall in evil." Destruction awaits the arrogant, the fearless, and pride.

In the secular and materialistic fifties, when I ventured among people while I was wearing a yarmulka head-covering, it was a scandal. I remember the reactions of two adults. One assailed me furiously, barely able to contain his fury at the ways of a boy. Another person smiled and was polite, which in those days was an act of kindness. The first person came from a strong Jewish background, and when he saw a yarmulka, it drove him berserk. He felt guilty. He was angry at himself, and took it out on me. The second person was utterly disinterested in anything but making money and materialism. He had no problem with a religious boy. If I wanted to be a nut, so be it. Here we see that the act of evil is often rooted in good, and the good act is often rooted in something that is not good. Life is tricky. We must respect it, and then, we may succeed. We cannot understand people unless we understand this.

A spouse who is furious at us for something is not evil. The anger is rooted in goodness, in concern. On the other hand, such idealism can be very destructive. The greatest destruction and evil comes from goodness. A rabbi once heard of an unheard-of evil deed, and said, "Undoubtedly, the person did this for idealistic purposes." There are barriers to evil that can only be penetrated with purpose.

There are parents who have plans for their children. They want their child to succeed. These are sometimes the best parents, and sometimes the worse. There are children nurtured and encouraged who made it, and there are parents who pushed a child too far until… A teacher told me, "I have a parent who has nothing to do with his child, fortunately." It is often better to just do nothing than to do something.

Having said these things, we must now bite the bullet, and find out exactly what caused the selling of Joseph. There is of course the idealism of Joseph. He accused his brothers before their father Jacob and claimed that they were wicked. This was the first barrage in the war that led to Joseph becoming an Egyptian slave. But it was not the beginning. Children often continue what their parents started. In the House of Jacob, the problem began with the marriage. Jacob loved Rachel and Leah was "disliked." This, more than anything else, was the key. To be fair to Jacob, we must explain the whole picture. Jacob and Leah was a replay of the tragedy of Adam and Lilith, only this time, the marriage managed to survive. When it came to the children, however, the problems surfaced and "what happened, happened." Note that there is a pattern, going back to the first emergence of allegorical gender roles with the sun and the moon, of an additional, unattached female, known as Lilith, but ultimately, Leah. From Leah came the great tribes and personalities of the Jewish people: Levi, the progenitor of Moses, Aaron and the Levites, the priestly tribe, Yehuda, the royal tribe, the progenitor of King David and the Messianic Seed, and Issacher, the scholar tribe, the leaders of the Sanhedrin rabbinical assembly. Leah achieved this greatness because she was the fruition of the failures of Lilith. Even while Jacob fought his tendencies against Leah, he was putting a knife into the heart of the Jewish people. Fortunately, for Jacob, he stayed with Leah, and Israel achieved what it did.

Here is the fast pitch, frightening in its intensity, which presents us with our life, and the life of our children. Will we fail? Will we accept another person, a spouse, a family member, or reject him/her and our life, too? Will we summon our stubbornness and hang on, and swing for the bleachers? Patience and purity of intention can save us from our simple inclinations. When Jacob held on, he created the Jewish people, but because his attitude was not perfect, Joseph became a slave, and the fractured Jewish people never really recovered. Indeed, the Second Temple was destroyed because even though people were pious and studied Torah, they did not respect each other. Things haven't changed very much since then. The sin of Adam, of Jacob, is the sin of our times, the eternal stain on the Creation, "vain hate," or SINATH CHINOM. Why is it "vain"? Because the person we reject could give us what we want. If only we were stubborn, we would find the light in the darkness. We hate someone else "for nothing." Our complaints are false, based on lack of understanding. Joseph misjudged his brothers and considered them wicked, and they adjudicated him to be a wicked and dangerous person, deserving to be sold, although none of this was true. The tragedy is that the person we reject holds the key to our success, and after we have plunged the shaft deep into the heart of our relationship, we will wander into a long exile looking for the lights that we extinguished. Of course, sometimes we must divorce, and sometimes we must cut, but we fight the good fight, and don't mortgage our hopes to our egos, even the bruised kind.

It all began with Lilith, the "odd mate" of the sun, the male Leviathan, and Adam. She represents the treasure we despise. In all of our relationships, there is something that we don't like, but if we persevere, we will find what we want. Life, however, is not a one-day affair, and the life of the human race saw Lilith go from level to level, culminating in Leah, and success. Moses and David are the blazing lights that Jacob almost discarded, but did not.

The numerical value of LEAH/LILITH is 516 (In Hebrew, letters are numbers). SONG in Hebrew is numerically 515. The number 1 is ALEPH, the first letter of the Jewish alphabet. ALEPH is a silent letter. ALEPH represents transcendence. Silence is the opposite of song. However, if we add 1 to 515, if we add "silence" or "transcendence" to "song," we get 516, the same as LEAH/LILITH. How can we add silence to song? When the song sings of transcendence, that is LEAH/LILITH.

The revelation of Lilith by Leah is the song of secrets, the Song of Songs. "I am black, but I am beautiful. Do not look at me blackened, for the sun has darkened me." The fire of the sun turns white, the level of kindness and male, into justice, ferocity and the female force. This frightens people. Lilith repelled Adam and Leah, Jacob. The "black" darkness, however, contains the greatest lights, and one who perseveres, merits them. As the human race continues, little by little, the glory of Lilith settled down into a finite form, and was seen in the whiteness of kindness, amid the storm of ferocious strength.

G-d created the demons just before the Sabbath, and they had no bodies. They are lights so high that there is not for them a finite vessel. The Sabbath will reveal them, and so will the struggle in the dark, with faith and stubbornness.

Lilith was not the only super woman whose lights made people tremble and flee. There were actually four super women, and all of them ended up rejected, or rather, devoid of human relationships because they were too high and terrible for people. Within nature is much beauty and sweetness, and much pain and terror. The chirping of the bird is nice, but the hyena baby eating its sibling is not. Nature reveals G-d, and it hides Him. In those areas of "demons," exists a darkness that conceals transcendence. We can see it and deny G-d, as many do, or we can insist on hanging on, until Lilith becomes Leah, and we understand what we cannot.

Naama was one of these women. Her names means "pleasant beauty." Some angels sinned with her. Now, angels do not run after people who work in restaurants. Naama and Lilith were "darkness" that people could not tolerate, but the angels felt right at home. Sometimes, we must become angels to deal with others, but what is wrong with that? There are people who began their marriages without peace, and persevered, to reap great pleasure from their relationships as well as a successful progeny. If we would see Naama we might not think she was lovely, we might not notice her "pleasant beauty." Perhaps she would appear to be hideous. G-d did not create hideous things, but He created us to think that some people are hideous, until we are somehow able to turn our perceptions and relationships into "pleasant beauty."

People relate to others with cognitive intellectual insights. We look "with our eyes," and form opinions. Messiah will see by "scent," a prophetic intuition better than eyes and ears. YAACOV/LEAH (Jacob/Leah) has a numerical value of "scent," the power of knowing beyond the intellectual range. Jacob and Leah cannot survive with the intellectual level alone; all Jacob sees is darkness. "The eyes of Leah were dim." This means that the level of the eye, the intellectual level, placed Leah as a nothing. Jacob had to rise to the semi-Messianic Level of "scent" to merit a good marriage with Leah. From their union came King David and the Messianic Level.

King David sang to G-d, "All breath will praise you." This is the level of "breath," of the intuitive powers of the soul to know transcendence, and to sing the song of mystery, the Song of Songs, as we described before. The acronym of "All breath will praise you" has a numerical value of "Messiah the son of David" plus 11. Eleven is the force of evil and darkness. In it, in challenges that we don't understand, are the great Messianic lights. Even without Messianic lights, all of us find deep things in our challenges, especially when dealing with marriage and people.

Because the greatest lights are found in the challenges of marriage and society, the Satan fights tooth and nail to make us dislike others, proffering idealism, usually. There is the husband who says, "I won't have a wife who is different than my mother, this is not how I was raised," and the wife sings out, "My children won't see a father who is lenient about such and such." Without idealistic excuses, how could people destroy their lives and children?

There is much to say about Leah and Rachel, the two wives of Jacob. They are the mainstays of the Cabala. For now, however, we want to return to Adam, Eve and Lilith.

 

 

Adam, Eve and Lilith

 

Most interesting is the process of Adam and Eve. First Eve was attached to Adam, then he slept, and G-d cut Eve away and made her into a lovely bride. They were married, and Lilith, who was the first wife of Adam, fled. What does this mean?

The Cabalists tell us that there were two major stages of creation, before the "breaking" and afterwards. In other words, G-d fashioned a world, and its imperfection was that there was no "breaking." Then, came "breaking," and a new world, one that we understand, came into being. Who needs "breaking"?

Esoterically, we understand "breaking" as the negation of the "whole." The "whole" of reality overwhelms us. We must see a piece at a time. Thus, before the "breaking" there was infinity, "everything," and the "breaking" produced "pieces," or the finite. Once the "whole" was broken, people could see and know it. Therefore, "breaking" produced "knowledge," because without "breaking" there could not be knowledge, only mystery and transcendence.

Adam and Lilith married without "breaking," and not only did the marriage not work out, but Lilith became enmeshed in evil. She hung around until she saw Eve in her radiant beauty at the Garden of Eden wedding ceremony, and fled. What made her run away? What could she possibly gain from that? Obviously, the power of Eve frightened Lilith. What power did Eve have that frightened Lilith?

G-d created the world so that people would have reward by withstanding challenges. "According to the pain is the reward." Originally, there was no "breaking," and no vulnerability. Each essence in the universe was suffused with the "strength" of its own presence, and struggled against all else. This led to "breaking." When the world "broke," the pieces were suffused with vulnerability. Lacking completeness, as each was only a part of the whole, they sought out completion by joining others, or "marriage."

Adam related to Lilith before his "breaking" or "surgery." Only after Adam slept and G-d removed Eve surgically did Adam marry Eve. Adam and Eve were the product of "breaking." Their marriage was a solution to "breaking." When they married, they achieved a higher level than the pre-"breaking" world. When Lilith saw it, she fled. Lilith was from the pre-broken world, and could not compete with the marriage of "pieces."

The great difference between the world of wholeness and the world of breaking was vulnerability. Before breaking, each particle fought for its essence, and rejected others. After breaking, each particle sought union, and was revealed by negating itself. That is, each particle realized that it must have a mate, and when joined, achieved a new level, higher than the wholeness of the pre-breaking era.

The universe is a process of broken pieces mating. There are positive charges seeking negative ones, there are men seeking women. Just as the positive and negative electric charges cannot exist at all alone, so people cannot exist alone. Of course, someone in jail is alive, but is not experiencing true humanity. Humanity, life and self-actualization comes only from mating. When two opposites mate, they become "whole," and although they are now "whole," similar to the first era of the world, their wholeness does not preclude others. They have solved the problem of being whole and being an individual.

In the pre-breaking "whole" world, particles pulled away from harmony. This led to "breaking," as everything pulled the whole apart, going in different directions. In the "broken" world, the pieces felt vulnerability, and sought to join other particles. These particles in turn sought other unions, until the universe was a symphony of joining and mating.

Ideally, a person joins with others, one's family, marriage, community and society. We are always seeking to find ourselves by knowing others. The more we join with others, the more we are aware of them, the higher we become. The more we turn inward, the less we regard others, the smaller we are.

Adam was created with Eve on his side. He could not marry her. Their soul went back and forth between them, in the seminal act of marriage, but their bodies were locked where they could not truly integrate. At this stage, Adam slept with Lilith, because she was from the unbroken world. However, that dimension is only about pulling for yourself. So, LILITH means "me, me." Such could not be a marriage, and when Lilith pulled, she destroyed the marriage. And yet, she did not leave until she saw Eve, after G-d made Adam sleep and removed Eve, making her into a beautiful bride. The sight of Eve made Lilith flee. Eve was "a helpmate opposite" Adam. She helped, and yet opposed. Vulnerability and assertiveness is a cycle that powers marriage and all human interaction. Lilith, accustomed only to take, fled from the perfection of "a helpmate opposite."

Therefore, the Creation story is one whereby people were lost as long as they were locked in one body together, but aroused to high levels after G-d made Adam sleep and cut Eve from his side. This is the story of suffering and its impact. A world of darkness, pain and struggle produces a process of mating.  "Sleep" and "cutting," freed Adam and Eve to find their true potential.

We thus see that there were two marital levels: Adam-Lilith failed, and Adam-Eve succeeded. Before we marry, we must "sleep" and fall from our ego-control. Within our personal exiles and wanderings, we become eligible for marriage. As long as people have not "slept", they are usually unprepared. The exile is "sleep," and so is the uncertainty and fears of the pre-marital years. We are molded by them, and hopefully, prepared by them for life.

            Somebody once said that the process of dating is very difficult. Our hearts are pulled here and there, and we are frustrated when we repeatedly cannot get what we want. Once we do marry, we realize how precious it is, and we remember our previous travail and stay together. There is, however, another side to this. The Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hassidic Jewry, said that people are like an acorn. Only when the shell cracks does a mighty tree emerge. The difficulties in pre-marital dating, the long dry spells, the rejections, all break our "shells," and when we are good and broken, we begin to see goodness in what we once rejected.

            A Hassidic rabbi who introduced dozens of couples successfully, once said that everyone can get married except the "kleiber," the picky person, who is filled with demands. The plain, ordinary people can find quicker than the people with everything. The people with everything, everywhere, are waiting while the rest of the pack is busy with children.

            We will return to this important topic, but for now, we want to return to the idea of Adam and Eve, unable to marry until Adam "sleeps" and has "surgery." We said that the Jewish people in exile go through a similar experience; also, that all people find things through suffering that they would not have understood and appreciated otherwise.

            Let us turn now to the story of Purim. Around 2,500 years ago, the Jewish people were exiled in Persia, and a wicked Prime Minister, Haman, tried to destroy the Jews. The Queen was a kidnapped Jewish woman, Esther, and she convinced the king, Achashverush, who did not love Jews, to counter the decree. Haman was hung and the Jews saved. We celebrate Purim each year, and read the Book of Esther.

            The Book of Esther says that Mordechai, the uncle of Esther, sent her to King Achashverush to plead for the Jews. There is a question if Esther was married to Mordechai or merely his niece. If she was indeed married to Mordechai, says Ibn Ezra, and the king married her, could Mordechai continue dealing with Esther? The king would surely kill him. On the other hand, there is an opinion that they were married. Some hold that even while she was married to Achashverush, she remained married, secretly, to Mordechai.

            Ibn Ezra tells us something that seems a compromise. The Book of Esther writes that Mordechai "took" Esther, which seems to say, as a wife. However, it says, he "took her as a daughter," and not as a wife. Ibn Ezra explains that because she was so beautiful, he wanted to marry her. Therefore, it hints in one way that they were married, although they were not, because of Mordechai's desire for her. This is incredible. Esther was a niece of Mordechai, and she lived in his house for many years, even decades. He wanted to marry her, according to Ibn Ezra, and she was a great beauty. Yet he did not! Why not? If Mordechai and Esther lived in the same house for decades, and both of them wanted to marry each other, and yet, they did not, this is sinful. Only after Acheshverush took Esther do we find that Mordechai and Esther actually married. This makes no sense.

            However, in keeping with our chapter, it makes plenty of sense. Mordechai and Esther were a replay of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were attached, and could not marry, until Adam "slept" and had Eve "cut" from him. Until Achashverush took Esther into exile, Mordechai could not marry her. In the exile, in the "sleeping" and suffering of losing Esther, the two could marry. Indeed, the rabbis tell us that the Book of Esther contains many very deep thoughts. Purim is a day of "until we don't know" or transcendence. The story of Purim, of Mordechai and Esther, is very important and contains many great secrets and hints about the deepest things. The marriage of Mordechai and Esther teaches us, among other things, the idea that we cannot marry our "basherteh," or the one chosen for us by heaven, until we "sleep," and enter exile.

            Of course, people don't have to be kidnapped in order to marry. Esther and Mordechai represented a very lofty union of mighty souls, and needed such suffering to consummate their relationship. Other people don't need such dramatic "sleep" and "breaking," but everyone goes through something. We must know that just as there is a period for the coming of the Messiah of turmoil and fear, so there is a period before marrying of difficulty. This is "light from darkness," greater than "light from light." Marriage is so great that it requires some darkness. Indeed, the rabbis taught, "There is no writing of the Kesubo (marriage ceremony) without a quarrel. This quarreling, between two families joining in marriage, is part of the "sleep" and "breaking" that is necessary before we are married.

 

The Secret of the Scales

 

The Cabalists discuss the "Secret of the Scales," a process that saved the early universe from destruction. The Secret of the Scales is the process of making a viable Creation after the "breaking" of the early "whole" dimension. What is the Secret of the Scales, and how did it save the collapsing and breaking universe? The ancient scale has two plates held by strings attached to a stick above. If both plates are filled, the heavier one drops, and the lighter one rises. Both plates cannot drop, only one. As one goes lower, the other rises, and vice versa. Why does this process provide the solution to the existence of the universe?

As one plate is filled and descends, the other plate rises. The rising and falling of the two scales are inversely related: when one goes up, the other must go down. All movement therefore forces the other scale in the opposite direction. This dance of opposites is the story of the entire universe, from sub-atomic particles to male and female. It seems sad, but it is the glory of the particle to be so united with the other, so married to it, that when it sinks and falls, it rejoices vicariously in the rising of the other. When plate A sinks, it rejoices because even though it suffers, plate B will rise. And plate B rises, happy that it is secure and prospering, yet united with the fallen plate, as they are one. Their unity makes all falling an act of joy, because it causes the other to rise, and both rejoice in the rising.

The Secret of the Scales is only possible when we are truly one with the other plate. If we pull away from the other plate, we set up a competition, so that our falling angers us, and causes strife. This breaks the world. The only solution is for us to love our fellow as ourselves. When we unite, when the two plates are one, each plate rises and falls. We set up a process of asserting and vulnerability, the two forces of marriage, and each person prospers. If two married people, or two people in any relationship, assert and do not accept, if they regard a push by the other as a threat, they cannot have a relationship. Only when a rhythm is established whereby each takes a turn giving or taking can there be a marriage. The scale, ideally, goes up and down, as one goes down to raise the other, and vice versa.

There is, however, a deeper idea. As we enter the plate of the Scale of Life, we weigh something. We are, and as we are actualized and feel pride in ourselves, we begin to descend. As we decline, and fall, we experience vulnerability, and lose our ego. We learn to need the other person, now in the plate riding high up on the scale while we are down. As we drop our ego and our "weight," we begin to rise. The other person, on the other hand, is high up, and while there, begins to load up on self-actualization and pride. The weight kicks in, and the person begins to descend. Thus, human relationships are processes of feeling the force of self, glorying in it, and then sinking to self-abnegation. When we do that, we begin to rise, until we once again achieve self-actualization. When we achieve self-actualization, we are "heavy" and begin to sink. Thus, the process goes on and on. When we have a partner, when we relate to others, we give and take, actualize and self-abnegate. The process is the asserting and vulnerability of marriage and human relationships. When we feel "one" with the other, we share vicariously their "rising" and they share vicariously our "falling." We are one.