I was speaking last night with Yonatan Neril, a student at the yeshiva with a keen interest in exploring the nexus between Torah and environmental consciousness. We were discussing a seminar he will be giving, G-d willing, in the Bat Area in the next few months. He wanted to present Ya'akov Avinu as a model of environmental consciousness, focusing on two episodes of his life as depicted by the Midrash.
The first is the famous image of Ya'acov at the Yabok, preparing for the encounter with Esav and, having crossed his family safely over the river, goes back for pachim ketanim, little flasks, seeming worthless given the danger hovering over Ya'acov, yet, as we are told, the righteous prize their few possessions, since they attest to the fact that they have studiously avoided theft. Variants of that Midrash tell us that the contents of those small vials was olive oil from the branch presented by the dove to Noach and preserved during all the intervening generations.
The other midrash is apropos of our parashah. Ya'acov foresaw through prophecy that his descendants would be commanded to build the Mishkan, and they would need for those purposed beams of strong, beautiful wood. So, he brought seeds or saplings of acacia wood with him when he came down with his family to Egypt and planted them there. When his descendants, now numbering hundreds of thousands, left Egypt, they cut the wood needed for the Mishkan from those groves of carefully tended, now-mature trees.
In thinking about these two Midrashim, I shared with Yonatan the following thoughts: Going back for the small vials inadvertently left behind was an act of tikkun, of repairing a misstep, and thus, of atonement. The precious, ancient oil should have been one of Ya'acov's prize possessions, and yet they were almost discarded.. Small vials are nothing to busy oneself with when matters of life and death are at stake, and yet the integrative individual - the Tzaddik - understands that the spark of potential contained in even the smallest of missed opportunity might be the key to redemption.
Ya'akov other act was anticipatory. He had a vision of a dwelling place for G-d in the midst of his offspring, made of atzei shittim omdim, of upright acacia beams, and saw his sons, shoulder to shoulder, as constituting that unified dwelling ("Your sons are like olive saplings, around your table" - Tehillim 128) made in part by a craftsman named My Father Is Tent son of My Brother Is Support-Beam (Oholiav ben Ahisamach), and understood he needed to act NOW, planting the potential to enable its future actualization.
This self understanding - of one who repairs the past and prepares for the future, is the understanding within Breslov Chassidut of nature of a true Tzaddik - thus we learned from a shiur by Rav Erez Gazit this past week.
And yet - Ki adam ein tzaddik ba'aretz asher ya'aseh tov v'lo yecheta' (Kohelet 7:20) - For there is no man on earth who will do good without sin. There is NO ONE who doesn't mess up, spiritual pollution is as inevitable as material pollution, for life consumes and expels waste! So if no one is perfect, then, isn't it true, to truncate the verse above, "Ki adam ein tzaddik ba'aretz" - there is no righteous man on earth!!
No. We approach the image of the divine to the extent we integrate our reparative and anticipatory functions into an organic expression of a joy of being extending beyond our need to be perfect in order to justify our being. But the tzaddik goes one step further - he understands that even as he is anticipating future developments and acting to avoid problems and prepare for good, he is also sowing the seeds of future transgression!! Visions of future idylls are beautiful, but actions taken in the here and now to prepare for their advent will inevitably be laced with the same shortcomings we see all to clearly in our everyday actions. It's the tzaddik who sees that he will fall short and nevertheless not desist from acting on behalf of the future, knowing that he is thereby secreting the small precious vials of holy oil, laden with illuminative power, which he or those who stand in his stead will remember to fetch when the time comes.
The Mishkan is precisely that mechanism, making for atonement and restoration while channeling the divine revelation that powers our steps into a future of Oneness. It is inaugurated by that oil fresh from the flasks of Noach, it is the place where taking and giving come together to merge in Being, it is the place where Hashem dwells amongst us because we dwell in Hashem. It is the ultimate recycling device, the factory of life, the wellspring of being.
Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh - May I build a Mishkan in my heart, and in the hearts of our people, humanity, the cosmos, to reveal the One Who is all Heart.
The first is the famous image of Ya'acov at the Yabok, preparing for the encounter with Esav and, having crossed his family safely over the river, goes back for pachim ketanim, little flasks, seeming worthless given the danger hovering over Ya'acov, yet, as we are told, the righteous prize their few possessions, since they attest to the fact that they have studiously avoided theft. Variants of that Midrash tell us that the contents of those small vials was olive oil from the branch presented by the dove to Noach and preserved during all the intervening generations.
The other midrash is apropos of our parashah. Ya'acov foresaw through prophecy that his descendants would be commanded to build the Mishkan, and they would need for those purposed beams of strong, beautiful wood. So, he brought seeds or saplings of acacia wood with him when he came down with his family to Egypt and planted them there. When his descendants, now numbering hundreds of thousands, left Egypt, they cut the wood needed for the Mishkan from those groves of carefully tended, now-mature trees.
In thinking about these two Midrashim, I shared with Yonatan the following thoughts: Going back for the small vials inadvertently left behind was an act of tikkun, of repairing a misstep, and thus, of atonement. The precious, ancient oil should have been one of Ya'acov's prize possessions, and yet they were almost discarded.. Small vials are nothing to busy oneself with when matters of life and death are at stake, and yet the integrative individual - the Tzaddik - understands that the spark of potential contained in even the smallest of missed opportunity might be the key to redemption.
Ya'akov other act was anticipatory. He had a vision of a dwelling place for G-d in the midst of his offspring, made of atzei shittim omdim, of upright acacia beams, and saw his sons, shoulder to shoulder, as constituting that unified dwelling ("Your sons are like olive saplings, around your table" - Tehillim 128) made in part by a craftsman named My Father Is Tent son of My Brother Is Support-Beam (Oholiav ben Ahisamach), and understood he needed to act NOW, planting the potential to enable its future actualization.
This self understanding - of one who repairs the past and prepares for the future, is the understanding within Breslov Chassidut of nature of a true Tzaddik - thus we learned from a shiur by Rav Erez Gazit this past week.
And yet - Ki adam ein tzaddik ba'aretz asher ya'aseh tov v'lo yecheta' (Kohelet 7:20) - For there is no man on earth who will do good without sin. There is NO ONE who doesn't mess up, spiritual pollution is as inevitable as material pollution, for life consumes and expels waste! So if no one is perfect, then, isn't it true, to truncate the verse above, "Ki adam ein tzaddik ba'aretz" - there is no righteous man on earth!!
No. We approach the image of the divine to the extent we integrate our reparative and anticipatory functions into an organic expression of a joy of being extending beyond our need to be perfect in order to justify our being. But the tzaddik goes one step further - he understands that even as he is anticipating future developments and acting to avoid problems and prepare for good, he is also sowing the seeds of future transgression!! Visions of future idylls are beautiful, but actions taken in the here and now to prepare for their advent will inevitably be laced with the same shortcomings we see all to clearly in our everyday actions. It's the tzaddik who sees that he will fall short and nevertheless not desist from acting on behalf of the future, knowing that he is thereby secreting the small precious vials of holy oil, laden with illuminative power, which he or those who stand in his stead will remember to fetch when the time comes.
The Mishkan is precisely that mechanism, making for atonement and restoration while channeling the divine revelation that powers our steps into a future of Oneness. It is inaugurated by that oil fresh from the flasks of Noach, it is the place where taking and giving come together to merge in Being, it is the place where Hashem dwells amongst us because we dwell in Hashem. It is the ultimate recycling device, the factory of life, the wellspring of being.
Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh - May I build a Mishkan in my heart, and in the hearts of our people, humanity, the cosmos, to reveal the One Who is all Heart.
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