Many years past while residing in the land of Israel this bachur attended a Shabbos at a settlement in the Negev. The host was a dorm neighbor and he mentioned we would be taking a walk after the night seudah. A special atmosphere permeated the conjoined trailers which were his home and after the singing and bentsching we commenced on a stroll around the perimeter. Cool, crisp air marked the habitat as desert and breathability was remarkably easy. At just a few moments before midnight he motioned that we should rest in this area and he lay down on the rocky soil, placing his hands behind his head and closing his eyes. Before settling he motioned to follow his lead and I did.
After a couple of moments spent wondering curiously, a metallic clanking sound traveled across the plain we habited and my eyes opened to ascertain the cause. the generator had shut and the lights had ceased so nothing entered the pupils and he told me the lights had gone off. Shortly our sight adjusted and no mention of why we were here was necessary.
Before me lay an expanse of sky unfettered by the pressing walls of man-made light and the crown of the universe, like a kiddush cup with wine raised above its rim, shone in creamy pale brushstrokes, frothy with innumerable stars and galaxies. The crisp articulation, despite the interminable minions of light, caused a shortness of breath and a racing heart. This was something more than a country night for not one portion of the space lacked a projection and hues which abounded included pinks, blues, oranges, and the white light of gravitational fire. the ribbon of a milky way arm was more like a signature than an implication with rivers of light coursing through it’s length. Seas and bays formed between the space and glimmer and the sky resembled more the interior of the brain than a vast space of dark and lit matter.
When Edmund hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached everest’s peak on May 29th 1953 who, but they, could imagine the expanse of cold dry sky and snow laden land that met their eyes? Coupled with the arduous and dangerous nature of the journey just completed for the first time even among the remains of those who previously failed (It was the custom until recently to leave the dead where they lay on the trail, frozen for the ages.) they would not be accused of exaggerating if they described this sight as awesome.
Our recent century also revealed the view of our planet’s curve from space seen for the first time by traveler’s outside the earth’s atmosphere setting a new standard for awe inspiring visages. In truth many sights afford even the slightly adventurous an opportunity to glimpse into the magnificence of the Abishter’s handiwork. The grand canyon, coral reefs, many places and may different observers may claim any number of destinations.
But for the astute even these seem hyperbole and a person could feel driven towards teshuva for thinking in a fleeting moment of sensorial pleasure the rush of waters from Niagara achieved the status of awesome. A maaseh is told regarding R. Ch. P. Scheinberg shlit’a of Yerushalayim, the holy city. That a talmid once entreated him, while visiting the United States to make a trip and see the Niagara Falls. One time he consented and upon arriving he rolled down his window and saw what the student desired he see. He was mildly impressed. When telling this story a Shabbos guest ventures to state an insensitivity to nature’s wonders could dull the heart to Hashem’s capacities. Of course this is correct but as with all dynamics a sublime, comprehensive dynamic exists where in the object is measured against its source. In the Halacha we see that a child may only contradict the parent in matters where the parent is against Halacha for they, the parents, are the child’s material source, and the debt is almost unlimited. So too with the awesomeness of our world, they only tell of the Abishter’s awesomeness, they only relate to us a clue of Hashem’s sovereignty. However as we relate in the psukei d zimre, ‘in our lowliness remember us’ it is necessary for most among us to see and discern the wonders of His works which are readily available to us so announcing a breathtaking view as awesome may be appropriate. But that is not really what has happened.
Instead, and maybe you’ve experienced this, everyday items are described as awesome.
You did well on your homework, ‘awesome.’
Your neighbors sports car is, ‘awesome.’
This dinner was ‘awesome.’
Awesome, which does not denote good or bad, but awe inducing capacity, a mixture of fear, respect, etc. has been made common place in our language. Argue against this and your limiting the speaker’s self expression. But a word such as awesome, once it is contained in a smaller vessel, how may it break out again? As with the Adam after eating the fruit, how were they to go back to the garden now that it had been limited by an opinion?
Our Ch’Z’L’ teach us that even the expanse of the known universe is to HaShem no more than the gnat in effort needed to form. Because of this understanding we may sink into the word translated as awesome a powerful message. The Abishter is declared in our prayers as having the attribute of AWESOMEness. We understand from Ch’Z’L’ that din, really comes from the self, midda k’neged midda, when matched against the Emes of HaShem. Our personal definitions of the world Hashem gives us shine out onto the reality of His will and the gap between a person’s humility, i.e., in recognizing Hashem as being AWESOME and the smallishness of his opinion is suddenly open to him and when managed properly, the holy Yid may be m’ chadesh Torah from his own qabbala. When we, G-d forbid, limit our sensitivity with opinions and see ‘awesomeness’ as less than what it is the human awakens to the dark limitations of a natural human scope and invites the failures littering history on the back of good ideas. This distinction reveals itself sublimely but most acutely with Shabbos kodesh.
While the Torah teaches us Hashem completed the creation and was m’kadesh Shabbos kodesh, nowhere does the text say Adam entered that great Shabbos. Shabbos is the first of thought the last in action. Its quality of kolleles assures that Her ways are forever secret, available only to humble servants (B’nay Yisroel). It is the echo in our world of Olam haBa, the arrival of eternity. Yet often we hear a person ask or, we ask ourselves, ‘when is Shabbos over?’ Shabbos ends? Lord have mercy.
The loshon used for the departure of the Shabbos from our realm is ‘Motzi Shabbos,’ Shabbos exits. This is not a semantical distinction. All the words of Ch’Z’L’ may be read infinitely deep when understood accurately. They were not writers choosing words for an emotional effect or as scientists setting opinions down and seeking proofs. Each of their novel expressions, though unique to the individual, link to a point of light derived from the well of Torah and establishes an eternal effect on our reality as it states, ‘lo b’Shamayim Hee.’ A dynamic which insists, contrary to reactionary thinking, that beis Hillel and beis Shammai never really disagreed. Often this relationship is used as an example of how contrarian thinkers could still get along. But this is not accurate. An argument which is for the sake of Heaven is not two people agreeing to disagree but an affectation of humility where the burden is on each party to resolve the other’s contradiction with his own thinking lest, by ‘disagreeing’ he limit the Torah whose borders may not be fathomed except as halacha lamaaseh, within which there is no end to the Light which shines forth – a raw paradox itself demanding humility.
The Torah exists without limit within normative Halacha. Opinion’s limit this expansiveness with the failure to observe that what is beyond the Horizon may not be enumerated. What differed between Hillel and Shammai was their expression of the one Torah. The Abishter gives to each person a unique gift of singularity. His freedom is not curtailed in anyway, despite obvious limitations. As described by R. Benyamin Heuben HaCohen shlit’a, the human exists as a liminality, an infinity within a finite body. So the view of Hillel is considered best for us practically, but the view of Shammai is not contrarian, except as practical Halacha.
In our world of opinions this is not the case. It is common to see the sefer Torah carried around the congregation, baruch Hashem after all these millennia we Yidden love the Torah. Yet perhaps it is little known that the Halacha forbids a person from lowering the Torah to be kissed by a child, that we do not lower the Torah to the child, we elevate the child to Torah. Suddenly a rush of opinions, ‘but today is different’ or ‘but if we don’t do it this way the child will not learn.’ Etc. as though emotions are new and Ch’Z’L’ did not understand what they intended. Like it was just their opinion……
The Ch’Z’L’’s words were linked to the eternal meaning of the Torah, which means they are relevant forever. This is the difficulty of accepting that the words of Ch’Z’L’ have a quality of infallibility for many contemporary minds, even observant minds. Yet it is true. What is not understood, what is missed is the Ch’Z’L’, concern themselves with the interior reality of meaning which has no limitation, rather than a definitive infallibility which limits progress, and in focusing as such they acquire the fluidity of light which fills a space and defines the world it illuminates. It is incumbent on us to match, as fluidly as possible, their humility in order to grasp what they are actually saying.
All the world is only an exhalation of dust and spirit for the holy Yid to shape and form according to a merger of G-d’s will and humanity’s unique dynamic. As with the Heaven and Earth, or the Menorah’s hanacha and Light, one element is always changing, the other is eternally constant. The realm of human opinion involves confirming constant status on a transient reality. Ch’Z’L’ is never expressing opinions but revealing deeper and further illumination in the dark world by holding themselves and us today up to the Light of the ages. Each sage, a vessel crafted and fulfilled in His image and likeness also expresses, utilizing the accompanying free will, unique insights into the Abishter’s Torah and to this we must submit to be ‘m’chadash’ what was meant by limited statements as the Malbim, z’t’k’l’ states regarding the opening phrases of Mishlei.
But so many insist you cannot limit expression due to changes in civilization and human experience, nebach, this is the opposite of wisdom. Kohelles reminds us, all that we consider as new, has existed before. The styles of today are, all of them, recycled. The nature of wisdom is to recognize the kolleles, the unity of G-d’s creation, to accept via humility the contradictory nature of knowing everything and nothing simultaneously. This Totality may be never be known except through humility derived from the sheer incomprehensibility of HaShem and His Torah and may never be completed so the seeker is both forever desiring and always satisfied! Generation after generation we are able to add to the understanding and revelation of the helig Moshele’s light for where ever we step, the border, horizon like, recedes.
All diversity, known and yet known, exists as an echo of HaShem’s singularly unique and total presence. This knowing resides on the peeling away of our own limitations as the the Navi states: ‘The heels of humility is the fear of HaShem,’ and as we recite every morning, ‘the fountainhead of wisdom is the fear of HaShem’ where in we know the Abishter’s AWESOMENESS! May our hearts be warmed through Torah u’Tefilla to a lasting knowing.
Der vasser tregger 