Nefesh HaChayim 1:8 - Home

Nefesh HaChayim 1:8 - Home

(c) Rabbi Menachem Creditor

http://rcnefeshhachayim.blogspot.com/

Nefesh HaChayim (1:8): The sages asked, "How were the cherubs above the Ark of the Covenant situated?"1 Rabbi Yochanan and Rabbi Elazar disagreed. One said that the cherubs faced each other and one said they faced outward. One cherub represented the Holy Blessed One and the second cherub represented Israel, God's beloved. How intimate Israel was with the Holy Blessed One was miraculously revealed in the cherubs' postures. When the people of Israel rebelled against the will of God, the cherubs would turn away from each other; when Israel was faithful to God, they would face each other."

Our sages of blessed memory said2 that "they would pull aside the curtain that divided off the Holy of Holies for those who made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the three holidays, and showed them the cherubs who were intertwined one with the other, and said to them, 'observe the affection that God has for you!'"

Comment: While there are those today who can only see the the Jerusalem Temple through the prism of geopolitics, this text invites the reader back to a time when intimacy with the Divine was believed to be discernible in a particular place, at a particular time, through particular rituals. Pause for a moment, orget all you know and believe, and envision that human intimacy with God can be manifest in the erotic coupling of angels. Furthermore, Cherubs are not the "dimpled darlings of Renaissance painting"3 - they are fierce divine creatures. Our relationship with the Divine is portrayed as a fierce, sensual union in these texts. 

Whereas, as Avivah Zornberg teaches, Jewish journeys contain a Divine imperative that "articulates and emphasizes displacement as its crucial experience,"4 they also portray God, even closer than our shadows, as an intimate partner. Perhaps we must first lose our ways in order to truly find our sacred homes.

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Notes: 

1) Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra 99a

2) Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 54a

3) Robert Alter, "The Book of Psalms", p. 54, n.11

4) Avivah Zornberg, "Genesis: The Beginnings of Desire", p.74

Nefesh HaChayim 1:7 - Me and My Shadow

Nefesh HaChayim 1:7 - Me and My Shadow

(c) Rabbi Menachem Creditor

Nefesh HaChayim (1:7): King David's words "God is your shadow on your right side (Psalm 121)," add a dimension to our understanding of humanity's role as the animating soul of the universe. This verse suggests that, just as an object's shadow moves according to the movements of its object, so too (it is as if) the Holy Blessed One moves within the world based on the movements and intentions of a humanity's actions below.

It is similarly explained in the following Midrash: "The Holy Blessed One said to Moses: 'go and say to them, to Israel, that my Name is 'Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh/I will be as I will be' (Ex. 3:12)".  What does 'I will be as I will be' mean? Through this Divine self-naming, God is saying 'Just as you are with Me, in that same way I am with you.'  Similarly, when David said 'God is your shadow on your right side,' what does 'God is your shadow' mean?  Just like your shadow, when you play with it, it plays with you, and if you cry, it cries with you you, and if you show it an angry or a peaceful expression, it does the same to you, so too does the Holy Blessed One. 'God is your shadow' means that just as you are with God, God is with you."

Comment: It is one thing to venture into Rabbi Chayim's mystical frame, where every human thought, word, and deed carries enormous implications, but another thing entirely to see God so directly influenced by human action. The phrase "it is as if (kivyachol)" appears frequently in the Hebrew, testimony to the daring theological speculation being played with in these teachings.  Rabbi Arthur Green translates "kivyachol" as "Oh! Did I just say that?!" Statements about God are inherently imaginative, and yet they are so urgent and foundational. Perhaps, despite the wide varieties of theologies held by Rabbi Chayim's readers, "kivyachol" is a humanizing invitation to seek meaning, knowing that the Ultimate Answers aren't possible nor a Truth-claim being made even by Rabbi Chayim himself!

This midrash is just so stunning. You are not alone. God is as close as our shadows, experiencing life with each of us. We are not alone, and we are known and loved by a quiet, empathetic Sacred Partner.

Nefesh HaChayim 1:6a - Needs and Flow

Nefesh HaChayim 1:6a - Needs and Flow

(c) Rabbi Menachem Creditor

Nefesh HaChayim (1:6): The impact of a human being upon the cosmos is not immediate and measurable in the way a soul's direction of its body is instantaneous and observable. It is essential to realize that the human being was created only after the universe. Only then was humanity infused with the glistening light of universe, thereby containing fragments of every facet of existence that preceded humanity's creation. So too is each miztvah (commandment) intrinsically connected to a heavenly root and comprised of many facets of the universe, collectively resembling God's Unity.

Comment: It might not be clear, at first, why the timing of humanity's appearance relative to the rest of creation matters. There are varying traditions from within Jewish tradition as to the order of Creation, and each has its own implication. For instance, if the Torah predated Creation (as Rabbi Chayim believed) then the written words of Torah are "merely" this-worldly refractions of a Cosmic Torah, as humans are this-worldly refractions of the Divine Image, which has no perfect representation on Earth. This, ironically, also exalts that which is created later. Whereas humanity might have "only" followed the creation of everything else, humans alone comprise essences of everything. That which comprises a microcosm of the universe is uniquely situated to understand its reality. 

Said simply: Humanity was created to embody the universe's collective needs and flows. But the rest of the world came first, and we are called to continue tending to its needs with all that we are.

It's helpful, as Rabbi Chayim's thoughts become more esoteric, to remember his initial teaching, that words inherently fail to convey the true meaning intended by an author. As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel z"l taught: "We think in words, but to employ words is not the same as to understand what they mean. Moreover, the relation between words and their meanings is elastic. Words remain, while meanings are subject to change. ...Original teachings of religion are not given in rational, dogmatic terms, but in indicative expressions."1

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Notes:

1) Heschel, God in Search of Man, p. 9

Nefesh HaChayim 1:5 - Soul

Nefesh HaChayim 1:5 - Soul

(c) Rabbi Menachem Creditor

Nefesh HaChayim (1:5): What could God have been thinking to have placed the lowly person in such an influential cosmic role? The Zohar and other mystical writings describe the interconnectedness of the world, each inner dimension guiding each outer dimension as a soul guides a body, a pattern repeating many times ending with God, the Universal Soul.  Each dimension is clothed by the next outer dimension. 

The Living Soul which rests on the Throne of Divine Glory is the collective Soul of Israel. All the worlds are guided by a person's actions, because they, according to their motions, awaken the root of their corresponding heavenly souls: when the person moves they move, and when it stands still, they stop. When the most high Soul of Life was blown into the very first human's nostrils, then "the human became a Living Soul" to the worlds.  Rabbi Chayyim Vittal wrote the same thing: a person's soul is the innermost thing of all.

Comment: Just as your soul animates your body, so too does your whole being (body + soul) animate the world layer by layer, touching every facet of reality, including God.  The Jewish mystical notion of ascending dimensions, or "worlds," is a powerful way of envisioning and experiencing the world.1  Knowing that you are an integral part of the cosmos, that the decisions you make and the actions you take can even reach God is a blessing. You are never alone, and God feels your presence.

The notion of the "collective Soul of Israel" is a Jewish call for communal organizing. If every person carries within them a microcosm of the universe, imagine the potential a group of people contain to change the world!

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Notes:

1) The four major dimensions/worlds, in ascending/deepening order, are Asiyah ("the world of Action"), Yetzirah ("the world of Formation"), Beriah ("the world of Creation"), and Atzilut ("the world of Emanation").

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Rabbi Menachem Creditor
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Nefesh HaChayim 1:4c - Breath

Nefesh HaChayim 1:4c - Breath
(c) Rabbi Menachem Creditor

Nefesh HaChayim (1:4): "And God Elohim formed the human from dust… and breathed in its nose the soul of life, and the human became a living soul. (Gen. 2:7)" The simplest way of understanding the verse is according to its Aramaic translation – "and the human became a living spirit," which is to say that when the human was only a body, it was actually dust, with no life nor motion. But when the Soul of Life was breathed into the human, it became a living being, moving and speaking.1

For indeed, the verse does not say "and the living soul was in the human," but rather "and the human became a living soul", which teaches that every person is a living soul in countless ways.  Just as every behavior and motion of a body is due to the power of the soul within a person, so too is every person the Living Soul of countless facets of existence, all led by human hands.

Comment: For Rabbi Chayim, humanity is the central animating force of the universe.  This anthropocentric approach to existence reflects one of the messages within the Genesis stories of the creation of human beings.2 A human being, according to these teachings, is the very respiration of life itself, inevitably influencing every surrounding thing.

Consider, though, your body. Rabbi Chayim reminds us that your body is only dust, that the power to move, to impact the world, is the Divine within you. We became, through the gift of God's breath within us, something more than our bodies. We have become living spirits, the pulsing hearts of the universe, with the ability to heal or destroy everything around us. May we remember to be mindful and to use this precious gift well in relationship with the world.

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Notes:

1) See Nachmonides' commentary on Gen. 2:7.

2) The other, more biocentric approach, is also manifest in the Genesis stories. See Dan Fink, "Between Dust and Divinity: Maimonides and Jewish Environmental Ethics", in Ecology and the Jewish Spirit, ed. by Ellen Bernstein, pp. 230-239.

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Rabbi Menachem Creditor
Congregation Netivot Shalom  || Bay Area Masorti ||  ShefaNetwork 

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Nefesh HaChayim 1:4b - Heart

Nefesh HaChayim 1:4b - Heart
(c) Rabbi Menachem Creditor

Nefesh HaChayim (1:4): The heart of an attuned person should tremble, for every person contains of the totality of the universe. People themselves are that which is holy, the most sublime Sanctuary! And the human heart, the core of the body, corresponds to the Holy of Holies, the matrix of the universe, the Foundation Stone, containing within it the essence of holiness, to which our sages of blessed memory hinted in the Mishnah regarding the morning prayer, "One should focus one's heart connecting to the Holy of Holies. (TB Ber. 20a)"

And so every sin that enters a person's heart, God forbid, is a strange fire, forged from anger or other evil desires. This is what was written, "The house of our holiness and glory that … has become consumed with a burning fire (Is. 64:10)."

Comment: The potential for good within you is matched by the possibility of corruption. Once you sense your heart's ability to pulse with the universe, it is easy to become unaware of the burning, seductive aspect of this power. This is a hard, important lesson to learn. 

Every human heart is naturally connected to the Holy of Holies, the place from which God's Voice emanated between the two golden Cherubs above the ark of the covenant.1 God resonates within you, as God does within every person. Remember that the normal inclination to enjoy your power must be tempered by the realization that everything you contain is meant to be harnessed for the common good, not for self-satisfaction.

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Notes:

1) See Exodus 25:22 and Numbers 7:89.

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Rabbi Menachem Creditor
Congregation Netivot Shalom  || Bay Area Masorti ||  ShefaNetwork 

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Nefesh HaChayim 1:4 - Hope

Nefesh HaChayim 1:4 - Hope
(c) Rabbi Menachem Creditor

Nefesh HaChayim (1:4): This is the lesson to be learned: No person should ever think, "What am I? And what strength do I have through my worthless deeds to influence anything?"

You must understand, know, and fix in your soul that no element of a human being's deeds, speech and thoughts can be lost. How great is human action! Every one of them is important and has an impact! Every action ascends according to its nature, impacting even the highest heights, in the hidden and revealed ways.

In truth, one who deeply understands this teaching, will feel their heart tremble with great shaking, as they also accept the destructive impact even light sins can have.

Comment: When you realize your divine power, as Rabbi Chayim has taught in these first four teachings, it can become harder to make any decision at all. If everything you do resonates in the universe, then every decision you make requires serious reflection. But this also presents a universal human affirmation, one woefully out-of-reach for many, many people.

It is normal to wonder about your potency, the meaning of your life, your place in the world. But it is self-denying to ignore your own inherent power. Every person, by virtue of the fact that they are breathing, contains a stirring of the Divine. The air you breathe is the very thing with which God animated the very first person. So breathe in! And breathe out! And know that you can change the world - that is the power with which you were created.

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Rabbi Menachem CreditorCongregation Netivot Shalom  || Bay Area Masorti ||  ShefaNetwork 

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