Nachal novea; makor chochma -
A flowing river; the source of wisdom (Mish. 18:4)
Deep down, every person desires to lead a spiritually fulfilling life. Spiritual pursuits connect one's soul to its roots, Hashem (G-d), bringing inner happiness and contentment. Despite the desire to lead a spiritual life, people often find themselves frustrated by the fact that even those who are the most spiritually oriented, striving very hard to serve Hashem, must devote many hours of their precious time to mundane activities such as maintenance of their bodies, environment, families, communities etc. Some feel that this drags them away from Hashem, reducing and inhibiting their potential for finding and connecting to Him. They realize that the true value in and purpose of physical existence comes through spiritual pursuits, which infuse life with meaning and fulfillment, but that there never seems to be enough quality-time for these things. Why should a spiritually oriented person have to waste so much precious time on physicality, i.e. eating, drinking, working, sleeping, relaxing, shopping, bathing, cleaning, raising children, household chores, waiting on line and in traffic etc?
The Talmud illustrates the great amount of time devoted to these
mundane, but necessary matters, "Rav Shmuel bar Nachmani said in Rebbe
Yochanan's name, 'In the future Hashem will say to ... Yitzchak
(Isaac), Your children have sinned against Me. He (Yitzchak) shall
answer Him ... How much have they sinned? How long is the average
man's life-span? Seventy [years]. Subtract twenty, for until this
age, You don't punish [Hashem is very lenient with the young, due to
their immaturity], thus remain fifty [years of liability]. Subtract
twenty-five which comprise the nights [when one sleeps and does not
sin], thus remain twenty- five. Subtract twelve and a half [years]
for prayer, eating, and nature's calls, and there remain twelve and a
half [years of liability]...'" (Talmud: Shabbos 89b) If so much time
is spent on such trivial activities, how can there ever be time for
spirituality? Spiritually oriented people are acutely aware of the
following teaching, "Rebbe Tarfon says, The day [or life] is short,
the task [which is to serve and discover Hashem] is abundant, the
laborers are lazy [they don't fulfill their potential], the wage great
[the reward in the hereafter], and the Master of the house [Hashem] is
insistent (He demands that we fulfill our tasks and will not accept
any lame excuses]." (Talmud: Avoth 2:21) Because this world is so
complex and confusing, it is very difficult to find Hashem, Who
"hides" in the natural world. It takes a tremendous amount of time
spent focusing and refining one's spiritual sensitivities to find Him.
If Hashem really wants so dearly for us to discover Him hiding in this
world, why did He make the world in such a way that we have to occupy
ourselves with so much triviality? The famous Goan of Vilna once
determined that he had wasted two minutes of his precious time during
the course of the year, time which could have been used in serving
Hashem. He cried bitter tears over this and devised a plan to avoid
wasting even a second. Similarly, the spiritual giant, King David
could not tolerate any distance between Hashem and himself, that when,
due to circumstances beyond his control, he was forced far from
spiritual endeavors, he said, "A psalm of David, when he was in the
wilderness of Judah. Hashem ... my soul thirsts for You, my flesh
longs for You in a dry land [devoid of spirituality], and it [my soul]
is faint without water [allegory for Torah or spirituality]" (Psalms
63:1, 2)
Not only do external distractions take us away from our spiritual
focus, but Rabbi Nachman taught, "it is impossible for a human being
to be constantly merged with or nullified to Hashem. In so doing, he
would lose his humanness and cease to function in this world.
Connecting to Hashem while avoiding damage to oneself requires that
one must nullify himself to Hashem for brief intervals and then
disengage or step back from Hashem [this rule even applies to the
greatest Tzaddikim (saints)]." (I Lekutai MoHaran 65:4)
Many of the holiest people who ever lived, seem to have wasted many
years of their lives, being involved in activities that usurped much
of their valuable time, and still they attained spiritual greatness.
The three holy Patriarchs spent so much time in tending to their
flocks and dealing with all sorts of ungodly people. Yosef (Joseph),
the great Tzaddik, lost so much valuable time, tending his fathers
flocks in his youth, later serving as a slave, being imprisoned, and
eventually becoming the ruler of the most important country of its
age, Egypt. How did Yosef and so many other holy people ever find the
time to climb the spiritual ladder and reach such awesome spiritual
levels? Why were they successful, while so many of us seem to have
failed so miserably? In the following paragraphs we will explore some
of the aspects of this vital topic based on the teachings of Rabbi
Nachman and his disciple Rav Noson.
Before Adam's sin, the physical world was in a state of near
perfection. This means that all of the material things that man
needed to sustain his physical existence was ready- made and easily
accessible. There was no need to grow, harvest, prepare, and cook
one's food, to make or buy clothes, to obtain a dwelling - everything
was taken care of. This allowed man the maximum opportunity to focus
on his spiritual advancement. Adam's sin damaged the entire spiritual
universe, which manifested itself as imperfection in every physical
item, for the physical mirrors the spiritual. Thus, there is not one
item found in this world which does not have a negative aspect to it.
After Adam's sin, it became necessary for man to toil very hard to
repair the damage done to the spiritual as well as the physical world.
We are able to access and manipulate the spiritual realms through our
physical activities, and therefore, when we move, exchange, or enhance
a physical item, we not only improve it physically, we rectify it
spiritually as well. So hard work brings healing and perfects the
body as well as the soul.
Rav Noson teaches that, due to Adam's sin, the forces of evil attached
themselves to every physical item in creation, particularly to the
process of making bread. For bread - and grain products in general -
is man's main food staple, nourishing not only the body, but also the
intellect more than any other food. Since the intellect is man's only
defense against sin and can potentially lead him closer to Hashem,
evil forces strongly attach themselves to bread, which can bring man's
intellect into confusion, sin, and destruction. There are ten
commandments associated with the process of making bread, e.g. not
planting mixed seeds together, not having two different kinds of
animals attached to the same plow, cutting the loaf on side that is
most well baked, making a blessing on the bread with the proper
concentration and respect, eating in a mannerly fashion. When a Jew
adheres to these ten commandments, he sanctifies the bread at each
stage of its production, driving away the forces of evil and
activating the holy sparks above, adhering to Torah law through every
phase of processing food purifies it from the forces of evil,
preventing the food from spiritually damaging one's mental, spiritual,
and physical health. So Yosefs fulfillment of the Torah, sifting the
good, holy sparks from the bad forces of evil, while under the most
difficult of circumstances merited that his tribe was given a fertile
territory to facilitate the elimination of the forces of evil from the
food they produced. Their land produced the highest quality food,
indicating that the forces of evil had less of a hold on the produce,
making it easier to purify.
Ya'akov (Jacob) gave Yosef a coat of many colors. Since physicality
is a reflection of spirituality, the gift of the coat indicates that
Ya'akov acknowledged Yosef's superior spiritual status, and recognized
that the spiritual clothing of his soul was clean and superior to that
of his other brothers. In addition, it was an indication that Ya'akov
had given over to Yosef all the secrets of the Torah and the universe,
giving Yosef access to the light of Hashem which contains many
different colors. Yosef's potential was greater than his brothers',
however at first it was untapped. Therefore, it was premature of
Ya'akov to give Yosef the coat until he had proven himself, in
particular by withstanding temptation. Yosef's brothers, through
Divine Inspiration, were able to see into Yosefs soul and knew that
Yosef had not reached spiritual maturity for he was yet untested and
had not fully neutralized the evil within himself. When the brothers
tried to cover up their deed of selling Yosef into slavery, they
dipped his colored coat in goat's blood. This act symbolized their
feeling that Yosefs spiritual clothing was actually filthy, that he
had not cleansed himself of spiritual pollution. The color red
represents harshness (din) which is connected to and synonymous with
the forces of evil, resulting from sin, as the verse says "Though your
sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red
like crimson, they shall be as white as wool." (Isaiah 1:18)
Ya'akov's reaction upon seeing Yosef's bloodied coat was, "an evil
beast has devoured him." (Genesis 37:33) The sages say that "evil
beast" refers to Potifars wife who tried to seduce Yosef. In other
words, Ya'akov's reaction to the bloodied coat indicates that Ya'akov
knew Yosef was confronted with sexual temptation. Rav Noson asks,
"What prompted the sages to connect Yosefs bloodied coat to sexual
temptation?" and answers, as we mentioned above, that the spiritual is
a reflection of the material. The bloodied coat indicated to Ya'akov
that not only was Yosefs physical clothing filthy, but that Yosefs
spiritual clothing had become sullied. That Yosef's coat, which
represents the light of Hashem, was so thoroughly and severely soiled
told Ya'akov that Yosef must have been confronted with the most severe
form of spiritual pollution of all, immorality. Ya'akov was horrified
at the thought that his holy and precious son Yosef had been punished
with this horrible death due to sexual impurity. When Potifar's wife
attempted to seduce Yosef, the verse says, "And she grabbed him
[Yosef] by his garment." (Genesis 39: 12) meaning that she wanted to
to dirty his spiritual garments in order to weaken his resolve so that
he would be available to please her at all times. Yosef, however,
resisted the temptation and ran away. The verse says, "He left his
garment in her hand, and fled, and went outside," which refers to the
fact that Yosef did not want to dirty his spiritual clothing through
immorality; that he left his garment in her hand means that Yosef
stripped himself of all kinds of impurity, thus purifying himself.
From this incident we can learn that no matter how great the Tzaddik,
as long as he has not been tested by withstanding temptation, his
spiritual garments remain somewhat connected to evil. By standing
firm in the face of temptation, Yosef totally cleansed all his
spiritual garments and thus eradicated any desire to sin from then on.
Reflecting his new, perfected status, Yosef was appointed to be
Viceroy to the King and given fine garments, as the verse says, "And
he [Pharaoh] clothed him [Yosef] with garments of fine linen, and put
a gold chain around his neck." (Gen.41:42) The Zohar says that because
Yosef withstood temptation which purified his spiritual clothing, he
was able to impart this purity to the rest of his brothers, based on
the verse ... To all of them [his brothers] he [Yosef] gave each man
changes of clothing; but to Benyamin he gave 300 pieces of silver and
five changes of clothing." (Gen.25:22) Yosefs brothers were able to
attach themselves to him and draw from his spiritual light, enabling
them to attain a similar degree of spiritual purity. Similarly, the
followers of all Tzaddikim are able to draw the Tzaddik's holiness and
purity to themselves. Yosef gave his youngest brother, Benyamin five
changes of clothing. This indicates that the site of the future
Temple would be in Benyamin's territory, where on Yom Kippur (the Day
of Atonement) the cohen gadol (high priest) would change his garments
five times during the course of his service indicating that the
befouled spiritual clothing of all of Israel would be cleansed through
the high priest's service.
Yosef did not condemn his brothers for selling him as a slave to
Egypt, for he realized that all occurrences, whether good or bad are a
direct result of Hashem's decree, as the verse says, "And Hashem sent
me [Yosef] before you [the brothers] to preserve for you a remnant in
the earth, and to save your lives by great deliverance ... It was not
you that sent me here, but Hashem." (Gen. 44:7,B) The Midrash
explains that this verse refers to the fact that in all the exiles and
troubles that the Jews experience, Hashem always sends a righteous man
to save them before the trouble occurs, just as He sent Yosef to Egypt
before the famine.
The story of Yosef is always read during the holiday of Chanukah to
teach us that we must purify our spiritual clothing through the
spiritual energies derived from the light of the Chanukah candles as
the verse says, "Let your garments be always white; and let your head
lack no oil." (Eccl. 9.8) Oil symbolizes Torah study. When one
occupies his mind with Torah study, allowing the light of Torah to
enter, ("let your head lack no oil.") one can come to have clean and
white garments. Tzaddikim like Yosef, guide us on how to apply the
knowledge of the Torah in a practical way. (Lekutai Halachoth: Orach
Chaim: Hilchoth BeTzi'as Ha'Pas 5:37-41)
The story of Yosef teaches us that it is not sufficient to isolate
oneself in order to pursue the spiritual. One must prove to himself
and to Hashem that he truly believes in what he has studied by
remaining loyal to Hashem amidst the trials and tribulations of daily
life. Study of Torah greatly purifies one's soul, but cannot totally
do the job unless one withstands the tests of temptation. As we
mentioned above, remaining steadfast in the face of temptation
thoroughly cleanses the soul of any residue of spiritual filth.
Therefore, Hashem forces all of us to deal with the mundane so that we
will use the material in His service, resulting in the elimination of
evil associated with our environment and to test our adherence to His
laws which eliminates the evil that is attached to our souls.
Therefore, no one should ever become discouraged, feeling he has
abandoned the path of Hashem when he is forced to deal with the
mundane material world, as long as his heart and mind are still
connected to Hashem and that he studies, prays, and performs good
deeds when time allows.32)