Category Archives: Chidushei HaRim

5782, Chidushei HaRim, Genesis, Parsha, Vayera

Naturally Beyond Nature (Vayera)

Leave a comment

Naturally Beyond Nature (Vayera)

 The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding. -Francis Bacon

When Abraham reached the age of 99, God commands him to circumcise himself. Abraham obeys God’s will. According to the Midrash, before the actual circumcision, he consults with his friends, Aner, Eshkol, and Mamre. Mamre is the only one who enthusiastically advises Abraham that he should, of course, follow God’s instructions.

According to the Chidushei HaRim on Genesis 18:1, Abraham faced a dilemma regarding the circumcision. He was concerned that by circumcising himself he would be separating himself from the rest of mankind, which might make it harder for him to connect with other people, for other people to connect with him and for him to be effective in his life’s work of bringing people to greater kindness, awareness and greater proximity to God. It was already a tremendous effort for Abraham to descend from his exalted spiritual level to connect with the idolaters of his day. But at least they were on the same physical plane. If he would be circumcised, he would no longer be of the same nature as the rest of men, in a sense, he would be beyond nature.

Part of Abraham’s motivation in asking his friends for their opinion is that by involving them in his decision, they would remain attached to him, even after his circumcision.

The Chidushei HaRim expands on Mamre’s recommendation to circumcise. Mamre tells Abraham that it is man’s obligation to attempt (where appropriate) to perform feats that are beyond nature. Because God bends the rules of nature when dealing with Abraham, it is Abraham’s duty to reciprocate and reach beyond nature in serving God.

Furthermore, reaching beyond nature draws life and sanctity directly from God and spreads it to all of nature and the entire world. Going beyond nature is the catalyst for the operation of nature. It is the hidden engine of the natural order.

Because of Mamre’s insight, support and enthusiasm, he merited that the events of Abraham’s circumcision should occur and be attributed to his location, “Elonei Mamre,” and be perpetually remembered. He also drew from the sanctity of the event and was blessed. He was one of the first beneficiaries of God’s promise to Abraham that “those who bless you shall be blessed.”

May we see and reach beyond nature and always be a catalyst of blessings.

Shabbat Shalom,

Ben-Tzion

Dedication

To the incalculable hospitality of the Vider family.

5782, Abraham, Chidushei HaRim, Genesis, Lech Lecha, Parsha

Blinded by Reality (Lech Lecha)

Leave a comment

Blinded by Reality (Lech Lecha)

You too must not count too much on your reality as you feel it today, since like yesterday, it may prove an illusion for you tomorrow. -Luigi Pirandello

Abraham’s first documented encounter with God is when God addresses him and commands him to leave his land (literally, “go for you from your land”), his birthplace and his father’s home to the ambiguous “land which I will show you.”  Abraham, full of faith, obediently complies, and does leave his life in the advanced and cosmopolitan Mesopotamian Empire. He leaves his homeland, leaves his father and treks to the relative wilderness of the land of Canaan; the rural, rough and uncultivated land bridge that connected the two ancient major political, economic and cultural powers of the Ancient Near East – the Mesopotamian and the Egyptian Empires.

That command starts Abraham’s journey. We see the development of his relationship with God. We see Abraham’s kindness and generosity. We see his bravery and faith. We see his devotion and sacrifice. It all started with Abraham leaving his land.

The Chidushei HaRim on Genesis 12:1 reads more deeply into the command of “go for you from your land.” The word “from your land,” in Hebrew, “Me’artzechah,” can also be read as from your landedness, from your materiality, from your obsession with the material world and material things.

The Chidushei HaRim explains that in order to serve God, the first step is to leave the trappings of the physical world which blind us to the evil, to the materiality that we’re submerged in. We have to leave that mindset of preoccupation exclusively with the corporeal, even if we don’t know where we’re going.

Once we’ve become free of our fixation on material things and approach God without pretense and in truthfulness, then God will lead us to “the land which I will show you,” – to a more elevated existence, to a deeper relationship with God and the truth of our existence, to the development of our soul and our own personal, divine missions on Earth.

May we loosen our shackles from the “realities” that both bind us and blind us, and may we follow in the footsteps of our patriarch, Abraham.

Shabbat Shalom,

Ben-Tzion

Dedication

To William Shatner’s real star trek!

5782, Chidushei HaRim, Genesis, Noach, Parsha

Letters of Protection (Noach)

Leave a comment

Letters of Protection (Noach)

Action, looks, words, steps, form the alphabet by which you may spell character. -Johann Kaspar Lavater

God is enraged with humanity. They prove to not only be corrupt but they also corrupt their environment. Their evil and vileness scream to the heavens and God answers with a deluge to wipe out all of humanity, with the aim to start anew with Noah and his family.

God instructs Noah to build an ark, where his family and representatives from the animal kingdom will be spared to repopulate Earth. Noah dutifully builds the Ark. The animals arrive two-by-two, leaving a planet about to be destroyed, to then sail upon its destruction, and almost a year later land on a world wiped clean of any other living beings.

The Ark was their transport and protection for the duration of the Flood. The word “Ark” in Hebrew is “Tevah” which is also the same word in Hebrew for “letter”. The Chidushei HaRim explains that these homonyms, these words with the same spelling and the same pronunciation, but different meanings, are not coincidental.

There is a deep, divine and powerful attribute to each of the Hebrew letters, specifically the Hebrew letters of the Torah and of prayer. Just as Noah’s Ark can be a vessel of protection, somehow, each of us can escape a deluge of troubles by seeking refuge within the Hebrew “Tevah”, the Hebrew letters that we learn and recite. Each letter of the Hebrew alphabet in some mystical way, and most powerfully, the letters of the Torah and of prayer, can provide a certain measure of protection from the elements of the world that seek to drown us.

When trouble comes our way, as it inevitably does, we don’t need to spend years building an ark, we don’t need to gather supplies to survive Armageddon, we can open the Torah, open a Siddur (the Prayer book) and read.

May we find shelter and sanctuary in something as simple as holy letters and words.

Shabbat Shalom,

Ben-Tzion

Dedication

To the post-holiday season.

5782, Bereshit, Chidushei HaRim, Genesis, Parsha

Mortally Mocked (Bereshit)

Leave a comment

Mortally Mocked (Bereshit)

Ridicule often checks what is absurd, and fully as often smothers that which is noble. -Sir Walter Scott

God created the Garden of Eden, a divinely organized habitat where Man wanted for nothing. Adam and Eve enjoyed a blissful existence. There was only one law to maintain their pristine lives: don’t eat from the forbidden fruit. Simple. Straightforward. The punishment was also fairly easy to understand: death. Any sane, rational being would do everything in their power to stay far away from the forbidden fruit. Yet the serpent managed to convince Eve to partake of the fruit. He convinced Eve to doom herself, her husband, and all of future humanity for that matter, to millennia of pain, hardship, suffering, and mortality itself.

How did the serpent manage to overcome the natural sense and self-preservation of a human being? The Chidushei HaRim on Genesis 3:1 explains the serpent’s methodology. The serpent mocked. It is as simple and as powerful as that. He merely mocked God. By talking about God in a mocking tone, in a mocking language, he succeeded in completely disarming Eve of any defenses and inhibitions that would have kicked in for her self-preservation.

The power of mockery and ridicule is such that it can cause a person to completely ignore logic, good sense and even suppress their own survival instinct. The Chidushei HaRim highlights that mocking easily turns someone from serving God, from pursuing what is right and what is noble, and instead turns one away from God, towards what is wrong and ignoble.

Joking has its place, but when it mocks what is good, what is healthy, what is noble, and what is sacred, the ridicule can easily destroy those precious commodities and supplant them with the exact opposite.

May we guardedly reserve the dangerous weapons of mockery and ridicule for those few things that truly deserve it. One banishment from the Garden of Eden was enough.

Shabbat Shalom,

Ben-Tzion

Dedication

To the memory of Rabbi Dr. Moshe Tendler z”l.