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Life is a Masquerade
 Photo:
Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz. Photo credit: Erik Tischler.
The holiday of Purim is unusual in many
ways, even strange.
It is the only time of the year when we
are not only allowed, but expected, to get drunk. We look at
the Megillah and see people doing things that don’t make sense for
them, as if they were drunk or, perhaps, insane: Vashti refuses to
appear at the King’s party, and is killed for it. The two guards
conspiring to kill the King allow their plans to become known, and
are executed. Haman’s grandiose plans for being honored are turned
around, as he is forced to honor Mordechai, and then the gallows he
built for Mordechai are used, instead, for him.
 It is also the only holiday when we have
the custom to masquerade – men dressing as women, women dressing as
men – which, at any other time, would not even be permitted. Again,
this seems to come straight from the Megillah, where so many people
are acting and, in some way, wearing a mask: Achashverosh is the
King, but he doesn’t act like a king; every time he has to make a
decision, he has to ask others to help him. The guards are supposed
to be protecting Achashverosh, but they are actually plotting to
kill him. Haman is promoted to a position of power, but he is still
just a poor little anti-Semitic wretch. And Esther hides her Jewish
identity for four years. Even God seems to be wearing a mask,
hiding His face, so to speak and allowing the Jews to believe that
He is so angry at us that He will allow us to be destroyed. In
fact, He is so hidden that He is not mentioned in the Megillah at
all. The Talmud (Chullin 139b) even identifies the source for
Esther as the verse “V’anochi haster astir panai (Deuteronomy
31:18) – I will hide My face. God’s Name is absent in the Megillah
that records the story of Purim and God’s power seems to be absent,
too. We refer to Purim as miraculous, but where are the miracles?
On the surface, everything seems to makes sense, everything seems to
be explained. The fact that we seem to understand
everything doesn’t mean that it is less of a miracle. In the miracles of the first period of
Jewish history, the ones that we celebrate as our major holidays –
Pesach, Shavuot, Succot – Divine providence was obvious. When the
Red Sea was divided, the face of God was apparent. In the events on
Mount Sinai, the face of God was apparent. These and other
supernatural miracles – miracles of the first order – are clear,
sane, and intentional. But in the post-Biblical world, clarity
and direction are often lost. Purim happens during this very
different time in our history. When we say that God is “hiding His
face” in the Purim story, it is not just a play on words; it is a
basic notion. Part of the miracle of Purim is that everyone is
masquerading, acting drunk, and thinking that they are doing
things for their own benefit, but it is because God is acting “off
stage” that it comes together for a good ending. This may be why the Jerusalem Talmud
says that the other holidays – the Biblical ones marked by obvious
miracles – will eventually be forgotten, but Chanukah and Purim will
continue forever. The miracles of Chanukah and Purim are part of
the second phase of our life as a people. Almost by definition,
they must be obscure, hidden, disguised.
When we celebrate Purim, we are
celebrating a time in which nothing is revealed. Some is masked,
and some is crazy. God is speaking to us in a different language,
and the only way of understanding this language is by letting go of
ourselves and the conceit that we control our lives through
rational, well-thought-out plans. He is telling us that there are
things that we will never understand, certainly not when we are
completely sane and coherent. There are things that we may begin to
understand only when we lose our self-consciousness. Purim is the miraculous story that takes
place in the apparent absence of God or miracles. Purim is the
holiday that we celebrate by behaving as though we don’t know what
we are doing and aren’t even sure about who we are. On Purim we
abandon the illusion that we control, or even understand, our
world. We don’t know quite where we are going or where it will end. Perhaps, we will only understand this
Megillah – or the “megillah” of our own lives – after it is
written. For now, we continue to live in a time when our very
existence is threatened, and when miracles masquerade as everyday
occurrences. Because we are sober, sane, and rational, we think the
events that we witness are the result of human endeavor. If we are
to see and appreciate God’s role, we may have to let go a little as
we celebrate the miracle of Purim.
Teshuvah: Making Yesterday's Heaven Today's Earth
 
How can we know, when we stand before God time after time to do teshuvah,
whether we are truly "returning" to God, or if we are merely deluding
ourselves? Teshuvah is how the soul, our spiritual aspect that remains cloaked
in our earthly bodies, can repair or deepen its connection to its Source,
which is God.
Being
a sinner is tantamount to being cut off from God. Of course nothing, physical
or spiritual, can be a barrier before the Almighty. "Do I not fill heaven and
earth!" (Jeremiah 23:24). There is no free space into which something else
could interpose. God is not stopped by any kind of a barrier. Barrier suggests
an entity that is "other" - and what could be other than God? Whatever exists
comes from Him, is filled with Him. Yet as the prophet says: "Your iniquities
interpose between you and God." (Isaiah 59:2). A single exception is capable
of separating God and man: transgressing the will of God. Every transgression
is in a sense suicidal, severing the life flow between the soul and its
Source.
There are innumerable accounts of individuals who throughout their lives were
utterly apathetic, regarding Torah and commandments as irrelevant; but when
the moment of truth arrived, they sacrificed their lives to sanctify God's
Name. Every Jew, even the simplest and most oblivious to the love and awe of
God, is still a "lover of Your Name." True, his love of God is concealed,
invisible during his lifetime. But when the ultimate test presents itself, he
will forfeit his earthly existence rather than be separated from his Source.
This leads to the question: Why, then - if
every Jew, even the most unworthy, is prepared to sacrifice his life rather
than go against His will and be separated from God - with all this, why does
an individual transgress? The Talmud explains (Sotah 3a): "A man does not sin
unless a spirit of folly enters into him." This is not the foolishness
relating to any particular transgression that results in embarrassment and
astonishment at oneself: How could I ever do such a thing? Rather, it is that
touch of madness, the lunacy of self-deception on which people build their
lives. One goes about his life doing whatever his heart desires while assuming
with complete confidence that he is still a good Jew. The starting point of a
transgression is never an unspoken wish to discard everything and abandon
Judaism, to sever oneself from God. The starting point is always the foolish
notion that one can transgress, and still remain a good Jew. Or as one often
hears: "In my heart, I'm a good Jew."
 Photo:
Rabbi Steinsaltz responding to questions from ATID Fellows and Faculty at a
dinner reception before his presentation.
Because every Jew has the innate ability and
desire to attach himself to God, he possesses the strength, as well, not to
transgress, not to cut himself off from God - with the exception of one
foolish enough to think that, despite his actions, he is still connected to
God. The foolish person imagines that there is a distinction between a major
transgression and a minor one. But every transgression is a separation; there
is no small separation or large separation - there is only separation.
Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi's purpose in writing the Tanya was, to a large
extent, to assist us in taking an accurate measure of where we stand; not to
imagine that we have reached some lofty height or that our connection to God
is strong and sound when it is not. This awareness enables us to instruct
our souls - and ultimately to repair our very beings.
The Tanya relates how Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev was unable to lead
the prayer service one Yom Kippur. His Hasidim pleaded with him but to no
avail. "Last year," he told them, "I promised God I would do complete
teshuvah. And look, the year passed by and I still haven't repented. How
can I possibly lead the prayers again?" Finally his son said to him,
"Father, last year it wasn't true, but this time it will be!" Upon hearing
those words, the Rabbi took heart and began the prayers. Cultivating the
self-awareness necessary for teshuvah is an incremental process. Part of
this process is acknowledging that we may not have lived up to our goals or
promises from last year - or if we have indeed made progress, that last
year's teshuvah does not suffice from our new vantage point. Who we are now
is different from who we were when we repented last year. If I did not
fulfill last year's promise, that does not contradict my ability now to
promise sincerely. What is important is not what has happened - or did not
happen - in the past, but whether or not a person is prepared to accept it,
learn from it, and to go forward. If we are not prepared to accept our
past, including our sins and our suffering, it will come back repeatedly.
The Baal Shem Tov said that the penitent has the possibility of repentance
when he is on a higher level of consciousness than he was at the time of the
sin. The sign of real development, then, is that one's previous level no
longer holds true for him. When one genuinely grows, his personal truth now
must surpass all his previous truths so that, by comparison, they are not
true at all. Teshuvah demands that one pursue his individual truth at all
times. Yesterday's
heavens should be today's earth, and we must know: there is a Truth still
higher than this. Our goal is to always aim for greater heights, to be
constantly struggling and striving to do better and to be closer to God. It
is not enough to just be.
Publisher's Note: Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz is a prolific author, scholar, and
social critic best known for his monumental translation and commentary on
the Talmud. He is also the founder of a worldwide network of Jewish
educational institutions that are supported by the Aleph Society. This
essay is based on concepts found in his most recent book, Learning From the
Tanya: Volume Two in the Definitive Commentary on the Moral and Mystical
Teachings of a Classic Work of Kabbalah (Jossey-Bass, 2005). To learn more
about the work of Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, visit
www.steinsaltz.org.
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Curious Jews
For
most people, the act of studying stops abruptly at the end of formal
schooling, whether after elementary school, high school, or college.
It isn’t that they don’t learn anymore once their schooling is
over. They have lots of experiences, and hopefully they learn
something from them. If they live in a good-sized city, they may
have all kinds of lectures to choose from, and perhaps they go and
listen, and even go again, if the subject interests them. But few
adults sit down and study in a continuous, disciplined way. They
find no compelling need or motivation. Curiosity is a characteristic
of youth. Other primates abandon curiosity relatively early in
order to deal with the problems of daily living – finding food,
rearing offspring – but the prolonged childhood of humans gives them
the opportunity to spend more time ultivating their curiosity. Many
educational systems don’t understand this. They try to make every
subject of study “relevant,” and that is a big mistake. Teachers,
and sometimes parents, think that this enhances the desire and the
inclination to learn, but they are actually destroying curiosity,
which is what is most important. The idea of being interested in
irrelevant things – in things that have no immediate, and maybe even
no remote, relevance to our existence – is part of our uniqueness as
humans. In the preface to his book on popular physics, Leopold
Infeld describes the earliest experiments with electricity. You can
do them yourself. You take a piece of glass and rub it with silk,
and you get electricity. Or, you take a piece of amber and rub it
with flannel. You get electricity, this way, too, but it is a
different kind: One is positive, and one is negative. Now, what
would most people do if they had those things? They would take the
piece of glass and use it as a paperweight. They would take the
amber and set it on a shelf as an ornament. They would use the
flannel to clean their shoes. And they would use the silk to wipe
their nose. So how did we go from static electricity to computers –
from the Greek philosopher Thales (the first to describe creating
static electricity by rubbing glass with silk 2500 years ago) to
Steve Jobs tinkering in his parents’ garage? These are people who
were curious. They had a little time on their hands and they had
some stuff to play with. They played in order to satisfy their
curiosity. They tried this and that, and then they saw something
interesting. When a school tries to make everything relevant and
utilitarian, it is helpful in one way, but it kills the basic notion
of curiosity. In some realms of knowledge, it is fine to ask
what the good of something is, to see if it gives a practical
answer to a practical problem. But sometimes, I want to find out
about what it is.
One might even say that it is the lack of continuous curiosity that
slows human advancement. Observant Jews are obligated to be
involved in studying Torah simply to study Torah. As a religious
activity, this is unusual. Most religions have expectations about
belief and about doing the right things, but they don’t obligate you
to study. Jews, however, study Torah as an independent activity
that is not directly
connected with belief or action. In fact, the most studied books in
Jewish life, like the Talmud, are books that have very little
practical use. So why are
people studying the laws of things that happened in remote times –
and were rare even then – or things that the Talmud says never
happened and never will happen? We devote time to it because what
we are doing is going after knowledge for itself, not as something
that is to be used. Not everyone has the same level of active
curiosity, but study is encouraged and done as an obligation. The
number of classes and lectures available in an observant Jewish
community cannot be compared to anything that happens in any other
place. Why does God want us to study? Theologically, it is a way
to commune with Him. The ability to study for the sake of study is
what I call one of the very true human traits in which we are, in a
certain way, higher than angels. The angels don’t seem to have any
curiosity; they know everything. And animals learn only what they
need to live. So the only beings who are curious about anything are
people. This notion has always been powerful within Jewish life, and
it has pushed some people to very high intellectual levels. When
Isidor Rabi – who won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1944 – was
asked to what he attributed his prize and his great achievements, he
said, to his parents. When he came home from school, they never
asked him what he learned. Rather, they wanted to know, “Did you
ask a good question today?” The Jewish approach to learning seems to
have been ingrained very early and very deeply. Hectaeus, a Greek
geographer active during the reign of Alexander the Great, wrote
about remote countries that were beginning to be known at the time.
He remarked that he had heard of an interesting people who lived to
the south of Syria: All of them were philosophers, that is, people
who ask idle questions and are interested in wisdom for wisdom’s
sake. That is a very nice statement about our people. On the
upcoming holiday of Shavuot, we celebrate receiving the Torah. We
do not dance and sing with it, as we do on Simchat Torah. Rather,
alone or together, we sit and we learn – whatever text or topic we
choose – just to learn and to connect with God.
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