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Noah, Original Sin, and Facing New Challenges

By Rabbi Daniel Korobkin After the great Flood, Noach planted a vineyard (9:20). The very next verse tells us that he drank from the wine of the vineyard and got very drunk. This led to a shameful exposure of Noach to his sons, and the unfortunate aftermath. I’ve always read this passage as an expression of nihilism by a man who barely saved his world, but at the same time lost everything of his previous life and existence, and lost all sense of future purpose. After the initial euphoria of leaving the Ark and surviving the Flood, imagine the vast emptiness and void that confronted Noach. Here was a man whose best years were behind him, and who saw nothing ahead for his future. Could we really blame him for his Ecclesiastical attitude that “everything is vanity”? This reading of Noach’s actions in the verses is influenced by Rashi and the Sages, who tell us that when the Torah states (9:20): “וַיָּחֶל נֹחַ אִישׁ הָאֲדָמָה וַיִּטַּע כָּרֶם”, the word “וַיָּחֶל” means that Noach profaned. They read the verse as Noach, the nihilist, being a man who profaned himself by planting a vineyard before other, more useful crops, so that he could indulge in the gratuitous pleasures of the earth (he was an “אִישׁ הָאֲדָמָה” – a man of this earth). He essentially gave up on any higher purpose. As Nietzsche famously said, “If you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” So many people who feel “stuck” in life and who can’t find a purpose will often use drugs and alcohol to drown out the pain of a life left unfulfilled. Perhaps Noach intoxicated himself for this reason. (This is often the political argument against creating too much of a welfare state for the lower class, in that those on the dole will often give up on themselves. We often do more harm by patronizing those who could and should help themselves instead.)

Noach the innovator

But there’s another tradition about this story, one that portrays Noach in a more positive, even noble, light. According to Radak and others, “וַיָּחֶל” does NOT mean that he profaned himself, but rather that he began something new that had not been attempted before. Up until this act of planting, people didn’t plant actual vineyards; they rather planted individual vines in the hope of harvesting some table grapes for their community. Noach innovated the use of grapes for wine, which necessitated the creation of large vineyards, far larger than the individual vines that were planted for fruit consumption alone. Noach is called the “אִישׁ הָאֲדָמָה” because he was truly a master of agriculture. This narrative continues a rabbinic tradition from the end of Parshat Bereishit, which tells us that Noach received his name, which literally means “making easier,” because he innovated plowing with animals to ease the difficulty and travail involved in cultivating the soil. According to this interpretation, instead of us confronting the nihilistic Noach after the Flood, we are confronting the Noach who wishes to rebuild and recreate a whole new world with even more amenities than before. But if so, then why did this story have such a tragic ending? Why did Noach’s newfound approach to manufacturing wine, a beverage staple for most of human history, end up with his degradation and his cursing his son and grandson? Radak answers simply that this story is a cautionary tale about the dangers of wine, and of overindulging in intoxicating spirits. But to get to a deeper meaning, we’ll need to reference the Jewish mystical tradition.

Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge

The Zohar (Noach 73a) states that the vine that Noach planted was quite extraordinary. Of the various opinions of what type of tree the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was, one opinion is that it was a vine. Noach somehow obtained a shoot from this vine from the Garden of Eden, and planted it anew. In the language of the Zohar: “Noach sought to replicate the original act of eating from the Tree. But his objective was NOT to replicate Adam’s sin, but rather to understand it and to rectify the world thereby. He failed, however. When he squeezed the grapes to make wine, he became intoxicated and he wallowed in his tent, because he could not withstand the great temptation of the Tree.” In the eyes of the Zohar, Noach viewed himself as a “fixer,” a rectifier, of all that was bad and flawed in the world. He was able to rectify the products of Original Sin to some degree, by making the life of man easier, alleviating some degree of the farmer’s “sweat of his brow” (3:19), and mitigating the curse that was placed on the soil when Adam ate from the Tree. What was Noach seeking to rectify by replanting the Tree of Knowledge and trying to eat of it again? We are treading on very deep and esoteric territory, but allow me just a surface view of something that is actually much deeper.

Noach and Nadav and Avihu

The same passage of Zohar which notes that Noach failed, also observes that he was not the only person who tried to rectify Adam’s sin and failed. Aaron’s two sons, Nadav and Avihu, also tried to use wine as a means of approaching God and rectifying Adam’s sin. According to Rabbinic tradition, they drank wine before entering into the Holy of Holies. But sadly, they, too, failed and that is why they perished, as recorded in Parshat Shemini (Lev. 10:1-2). Adam’s fall was based on the Tree being this very powerful opportunity for reaching some level of spiritual greatness, but also containing some great inherent danger if not used properly. Wine represents this double-edged sword of utilizing a mind-altering drug to expand consciousness. The only problem with this kind of mind-altering drug is that if not used properly, it will have a negative effect. Alcohol has a dual effect, of both acting as a depressant and as a stimulant. It provides a euphoric feeling through releasing dopamine, while at the same time depressing one’s physical senses and creating a feeling of “dissociation.” What Adam was trying to accomplish by eating of the Tree was to somehow “dissociate” himself from his physical confinements in the hope of conjoining with Hashem. He failed because he could not control the by-product of that effort, which is to get trapped in the self-indulgent euphoria of the moment. Both Noach and Aaron’s sons hoped that they could separate the good from the bad. They all tragically failed in this effort.

Attempts at rectifying Original Sin

It is not impossible to rectify Original Sin. But certain things can only be accomplished at the right time and by the right person. The higher the stakes, the more dangerous the effort. As the late comic, Norm MacDonald, described about the sport of cliff-diving, where a diver jumps off a cliff and either parachutes or parasails downward, “There's only two classifications in cliff-diving. There's ‘Grand Champion’ and then, ‘Stuff On a Rock.’” Or, we can refer back to the first part of the quote we started with from Friedrich Nietzsche: “He who fights with monsters must take care lest he thereby become a monster.” But was Noach wrong for his attempt? It’s very hard to condemn him for trying to make things better, especially at this particular juncture after the Flood. Perhaps he thought that this was his role. Mankind is being rebuilt, and now that the restart button has been pushed, let’s go back to the original beginning in the Garden. But there’s something more. I’m reminded of a statement made by Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi in the Kuzari (5:22), when he was challenged about his plans to make Aliyah with the argument that it was too dangerous. He responded: “If a person has made a reckoning in his soul, is thankful… and satisfied with having lived what he has already lived, and dedicates the rest of his life to the fulfillment of God’s will, then such a person may place himself in danger.” Noach, too, was at a point in his life when he felt that he had already reached the highest plateau possible, and that the only thing left for him was to rectify Original Sin.

Learning from Noach

We should be both cautioned and inspired by Noach’s efforts, even though they ended in failure. We should be cautioned to never fly too close to the flame of life, lest we get burned. But we should also realize that life is all about constant advancement and improvement. You are never too old for a new endeavor. What’s on your bucket list? Start a new chapter in your life and conquer those things you had always hoped to do but then life got in the way. May we all succeed and continuously advance until we reach the final apex of our individual and societal humanity. May we realize this, bb”a.

Learning to Take Responsibility

By Rabbi Daniel Korobkin Our holy works discuss a duality of perception: God perceives reality as it truly is, while man perceives a veiled reality, in the way God wishes for him to perceive it. As one gets closer to Divine perception, man’s free will begins to evaporate. According to Rav Yaakov Lainer of Ishbitz, this is the common theme throughout the opening stories of Genesis about people who denied culpability for their crimes. When Hashem accused Adam and Eve of committing a sin, each one denied that they were to blame; Adam said it wasn’t his fault, since the woman that God had provided for him had fed him the fruit. Eve said it wasn’t her fault, since the serpent had convinced her to do it. Early man, this brand new creation, perceived himself as a direct product of Hashem, and had a much closer view of reality as it appears to God, that man has no real autonomy. This is why Adam and Eve denied responsibility, because they didn’t yet perceive themselves as beings of free will, but rather as passive participants, puppets on a string, under God’s orchestration.

Denying responsibility from the start

There appears to be a progression in the stories of early man denying blame. We see three separate episodes of where man is accused of committing cardinal sins and denying responsibility. (1) The first is the sin in the Garden, (2) the second is Cain’s murder of Abel, and (3) the third is about a minor biblical figure, Lemekh, who also committed a form of homicide, as we’ll explain. I believe that these three stories provide us with a map of how man slowly learned to take responsibility for his actions and evolved to see himself as a free-willed being. In the first story, Adam couldn’t fathom how he was to blame, if the very being that Hashem had provided for him was goading him to eat from the fruit. Hashem’s lesson to Adam was something that every child knows to be true: “If your wife told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?” Lesson #1 for early man is that no one in your life other than yourself can compel you to do something that you know to be wrong. In the second story, Cain claimed to be blameless because he committed an act of passion. When he said (4:9), “לֹ֣א יָדַ֔עְתִּי הֲשֹׁמֵ֥ר אָחִ֖י אָנֹֽכִי:” – “I did not know that I was my brother’s keeper,” he did so sincerely. How can I be held responsible for my feelings of anger and jealously? You, God, created me with these emotions that impelled me to kill my brother; why should I be to blame? Lesson #2 for early man is that no matter how impassioned you feel by your emotions, no matter how tumultuous your state of mind, you may not impinge on someone else’s wellbeing. You are ultimately in control, no matter how upset you become. The third story is much more subtle. Firstly, the Torah never indicates what Lemekh’s crime was. All we know from the text is that his two wives, Adah and Tzilah, were not happy with him, and that he had to argue in his own defense that he wasn’t to blame for having killed a person (4:19-24). Secondly, we never find, as we do with Adam and Cain, that God reproached him for his behavior.

Lemech different perspective

I’m fascinated by the approach of the Ramban, who maintains that Lemekh killed no one. Rather, Lemekh was a very wise and inventive person, and, as the text explains, he taught each of his three sons a different skill. He taught his first son, Yaval, the skill of migrant grazing of livestock. He taught his second son, Yuval, the art of music. He taught his third son, Tuval-Cain, the science of metallurgy, which included not only the manufacture of useful farming tools, but also the manufacture of weapons. Lemekh’s wives were upset with him because through his introduction of weapon-making, he was bringing great death and destruction to the world through warfare that would inevitably ensue. Lemekh responded to his wives that he was not to blame for any bloodshed that would be caused by his weapons. He had killed no one, but was only providing tools of violence to others. He reasoned: Look at Cain, who was able to kill his brother without weapons. Surely Cain was guilty, but how could teaching one’s son how to manufacture weapons be compared to Cain’s act of murder? The truth is, Lemekh’s argument continues to be debated in modern society. As the saying goes among gun enthusiasts, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” When used responsibly, guns can even deter violence. Perhaps this is the very reason why the Torah leaves this story open-ended and unresolved. God doesn’t take an open position in the debate between Lemekh and his wives, nor do we note that Lemekh suffered any consequences for his actions.

Weapons and liability

But one thing is clear: the great violence that began to brew within early human society, as recorded at the end of our parsha and the beginning of Parshas Noach, could not have reached such a crescendo without the introduction of weapons that allowed people to kill each other with much greater efficiency. The fact that the Torah records the story indicates that there is some level of liability placed on the weapons maker or dealer. Granted, the gun-maker didn’t pull the trigger, but when society as a whole proliferates weapons widely and idealizes their use, mankind is doomed to go through iterations of violence. The individual should learn from this story that one would be much better off becoming a shepherd or musician than an arms manufacturer. This story is part of the progression in human beings learning to take responsibility for their behavior: First (Adam), man learns that he has autonomy and that no other being can compel someone to do something wrong. Second (Cain), man learns that he must control his impulses and cannot excuse his bad behavior because of his passions. Finally (Lemekh), man learns that although he may not bear personal responsibility for introducing harmful substances to his fellow man, there is some level of communal duty to try and foster a culture of peace and wellbeing for society.

Identify evil, choose good

If it took time for early man to learn how to take responsibility for his behavior, it would appear that today, mankind is regressing, not because we are so close to Hashem’s reality, but rather because we have grown even more distant from the great moral lessons of the Torah. Today, we blame poor choices on sundry inborn and environmental factors; we are told that we cannot pass judgment on anyone. The 20th century was the bloodiest century in human history. Bloodshed and violence continue around the world even in our advanced 21st century. Society is not yet ready to completely eliminate the tools of warfare from our midst, nor is it prepared to pass judgment on the violent perpetrators. And now, we are at war, the bloodiest war that Israel has faced in decades. We are already seeing the malevolent voices condemning Israel and blaming the victims. “We can’t blame Hamas, they’re desperate and we have to allow each culture to express its frustration in the only way it knows how, even if it involves savagely victimizing innocent men, women and children.” “We can’t blame Iran; they only provided the means for Hamas to perpetrate its terror. Like Lemech, they did not pull the trigger.” The small steps begin with each and every one of us. Each of us has a voice with which to protest a social order that offers cover to terrorists. While free will may be an illusion from God’s standpoint, it is quite real in this artificial construct we call life, and it is the cornerstone of every precept that was given to us by God in the Torah. It is why the Torah teaches us about free will so early on in the Torah. Hashem wants us to live within this construct of free will and exercise control over our lives, our emotions, and the actions we perform. He wants us to identify good and evil and choose the good and reject and eliminate the evil. May we choose wisely so that this is the year when war finally comes to an end and we usher in the Redemption, bb”a.

We are So Close

By Rabbi Daniel Korobkin We are so close. The Torah assures us that teshuvah and closeness to Hashem is extremely accessible and is something that is completely within our grasp (Deut. 30:11-14). “It’s not in heaven… and it’s not on the other side of the sea… For it is very close to you (“כִּי־קָרוֹב אֵלֶיךָ הַדָּבָר מְאֹד”), both in your mouth and in your heart to accomplish.” There is another place where the Torah says that something is “כִּי־קָרוֹב”, close to us. In Parshat Beshalach, in describing the route the Jews took to leave Egypt, the Torah states that God did not allow them to pass through the Philistine territory, “כִּי קָרוֹב הוּא” – “because it was close” to the Egyptian border (Ex. 13:17-18). Hashem was concerned lest the Jews become frightened by the Philistines and turn back to Egypt. Rabbi Yitzchak Yungerleib was a Hassidic Rebbe in the town of Radvil in western Ukraine in the early 19th century. He noted this connection and suggested that a Jew should keep both verses in his heart. On the one hand, spiritual closeness is very much within everyone’s grasp. The Torah is free to all to study and to draw inspiration. At the same time, there are many pitfalls in this life, and it is very easy to get distracted and waylaid by the vicissitudes and allures of the physical world. God Himself is rooting for us, always hoping that we’ll make the right decisions, and not fall into the hands of the “Philistines.” This is why the Torah states, “וְלֹא־נָחָם אֱלֹהִים דֶּרֶךְ אֶרֶץ פְּלִשְׁתִּים”, which can also be translated as “God is inconsolable (לֹא־נָחָם) when His children go down the Philistine path.” How does Hashem try to divert us from the Philistine path? The next verse in Parshat Beshalach states: “Hashem instead turned the nation toward the desert.” When one feels that sense of humility and loneliness, devoid of ego and arrogance, but rather barren and desolate like a desert, this is a sign that that one is on the right path.

Making ourselves vulnerable

We are approaching these Days of Awe. In order for them to have meaning for us, we ought to make ourselves somewhat vulnerable. We should acknowledge our shortcomings and the fact that we don’t have answers to everything, nor do we completely have our lives together. We should also acknowledge that while teshuvah is very accessible, we often neglect that access, and much to Hashem’s chagrin, choose the Philistine path, which sometimes seems like the more convenient path. I would add that there is something unique about the “כי קרוב” in our text. It doesn’t just say here that our access to Hashem is close; it says “כִּי־קָרוֹב אֵלֶיךָ הַדָּבָר מְאֹד” – it is VERY close. While it’s true that we are also at risk of succumbing to the allures of this Philistine world, the Torah testifies that we are even closer and have more access to the truths of the Torah and to the teshuvah process, since they are already “בְּפִיךָ וּבִלְבָבְךָ” – in our mouths and hearts. Rabbi Moshe David Valli, a student of the Ramchal, noted that there are many things that are “close.” You can have a neighbor who lives right next door. Our family members are even closer to us than our neighbors. We are even closer to our spouses than other family members. But the closest sense of kinship that we have is with the Divine Presence that is so close, that it rests in our mouths and hearts. There is a constant gnawing within us to seek out the truth and to see past the veneer of this world. The Torah acknowledges that we were all created with that inherent hunger to seek out a close relationship with Hashem.

Small adjustments, minor corrections

Because of its closeness, the teshuvah process is a very small step and we don’t have to travel far outside of our comfort zones. The story is told of Rabbi Yerachmiel of P’shischa (d. 1836), who was once sitting with his students. He related to them that he owned a watch that had stopped working, and none of the watchmakers could figure out what was wrong. He decided to take it apart himself. He removed all the gears, wheels, and switches, and they all seemed perfectly in order. He finally discovered that the tiniest spring in the watch was slightly bent. All that had to be done was to bend it back into position, and all the gears started to move once again. The students understood that their rebbe was alluding to them that sometimes, our internal springs are bent out of shape. Instead of having to replace all the parts, it’s sometimes the tiniest little adjustment that must be made in our lives to fix everything else that isn’t working. Because the solution is so close, all it sometimes takes is a small correction to our hearts to bring us back into alignment with our Yiddishkeit, our fellow man, and our God.

The call of the shofar

There is something else that is described as “כִּי קָרוֹב” in the books of the Prophets. In the book of Yoel (2:1), the prophet proclaims: תִּקְעוּ שׁוֹפָר בְּצִיּוֹן וְהָרִיעוּ בְּהַר קָדְשִׁי יִרְגְּזוּ כֹּל יֹשְׁבֵי הָאָרֶץ כִּי־בָא יוֹם־יְקֹוָק כִּי קָרוֹב Blow the Shofar in Zion, blast the noise in My holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the Land be frightened, for the day of Hashem is coming near (“כִּי קָרוֹב”). This is echoed in other verses, such as an Obadiah 1:15, that the day of Hashem is near, when Hashem will take His revenge on our oppressors and bring the Redemption. As we prepare for the Shofar blasts of Rosh Hashanah, let’s recall that the “Day of the Lord” is coming, and what a great and awesome day it shall be. May our Shofar blasts this year bring us to the ultimate “Day of the Lord” at the time of our Redemption, bb”a. Wishing you all a ketivah v’chatimah tovah, a joyous and blessed new year.

The Truth is Out There

By Rabbi Daniel Korobkin The Torah commands that upon entry into Eretz Israel, the Jews were to take large stones and erect them on the eastern border. They were to inscribe the entire Torah on these stones, and according to the Mishnah (Sotah 7:5), it was translated into 70 different languages in order for the other nations approaching the borders of Israel to understand the text. Ostensibly, this was to post the “rules” for visitors entering the Land, so that any foreigner would know what was expected of them when visiting the Jewish homeland. The Torah states that in addition to writing the Torah text on the stones, the stones needed to be coated with some kind of plaster or mortar, called “סיד” (or “שיד”) in Hebrew. There’s a debate in the Talmud (TB Sotah 35b) as to the relation between the writing and the plaster. Rabbi Yehuda says that the scribes chiseled the Hebrew text onto the bare stones and then plastered over the surface. Rabbi Shimon says that first the plaster was applied, and the scribes used a stylus to inscribe the text onto the soft plaster.

A message to the nations

At face value, Rabbi Shimon’s opinion makes eminently more sense. What would be the point of inscribing words onto stones that would then be covered by plaster? How would visitors to Eretz Israel gain access to the now hidden text?! Rabbi Yehuda responds to this challenge: “HKB”H endowed the other nations with additional wisdom (Heb.: “בינה יתירה”) to know exactly what to do. When their scribes came to the border, they peeled off the plaster, transcribed the text underneath, and brought the text back to their respective countries.” We are still left scratching our heads at Rabbi Yehuda’s Chelm-like depiction. Why conceal the Torah text, only to provide the visiting nations some miraculous knowledge to peel off the plaster? Why not display the Torah’s text out in the open? We might offer quite simply that R. Yehuda was concerned about the honor of the text, and did not feel that it would be appropriate for such holy scripture to be “out in the open,” subject to erosion and abuse. But I believe that there’s a deeper explanation, in that this whole exercise was a learnable metaphor for the other nations of the world. To explain, let’s look at another passage of Talmud, the only other place in the Talmud (both Bavli and Yerushalmi) where someone is depicted as being endowed with this “בינה יתירה”, additional wisdom.

Women were created with "binah"

The Mishnah (Niddah 5:6) discusses the age at which a child has the status of an adult for particular laws. It states the well-known principle that a girl becomes “of age,” or Bat Mitzvah, when she reaches the age of 12. But a boy does not come of age until his Bar Mitzvah at age 13. Why, asks the Gemara (TB Niddah 45b), does it take a boy an extra year to come of age? Rav Chisda cites a verse from Eve’s creation (Gen. 2:22): “וַיִּבֶן יְקֹוָק אֱלֹהִים׀ אֶת־הַצֵּלָע” – “The Lord God ‘built’ (Heb.: “וַיִּבֶן”) the flank of man’s body into the woman, and brought her to Adam.” In addition to the word “וַיִּבֶן” implying “building,” it is also a derivative of the word “בינה,” discernment and wisdom. Women were created with greater wisdom (“בינה יתירה”) than men, and this is why a girl matures faster than a boy, and is thus held responsible for her actions at a younger age. Why did God create woman with a greater “binah”? The verse indicates that it has to do with her relationship to her male counterpart. Perhaps God was aware of the impending curse that would befall Eve, dooming women to be “subservient” societally and physically to their husbands (this has been the case for most of human history; thankfully, the social disparity between men and women has been reduced substantially in recent generations). We have a principle in Judaism, “אין הקדוש ברוך הוא בא בטרוניא עם בריותיו.” – “God does not set up His creations for failure.” That is, if an individual being is created with some disability or disadvantage, Hashem will compensate for that disadvantage by endowing the individual with an enhancement that allows for success despite the handicap. For example, it has been scientifically demonstrated that people who are blind have enhanced abilities in their other senses. It may be that Hashem, recognizing the disadvantages that women would have in dealing with their male counterparts, granted women an intellectual advantage, giving them a greater insight into the human condition, and infusing them with a certain intuition about life that men simply lack. From the very inception of woman’s creation, the imbalance was evident, and thus Hashem compensated for it accordingly. As Harry Belafonte sang, “That’s right, the woman is smarter,” and this is why girls become savvy a year before boys.

Universal message of the Torah

With this same principle, that God does not set up His creations for failure, Hashem wanted to symbolically show the other nations of the world that even though they were not at Mount Sinai, they were still not completely disadvantaged. The Law given at Sinai contains within it not only a specific message of behavior for the Jewish people, but also the universal messages of morality, ethics, and the imperative for man to look beyond himself in seeking a purpose for living. Unfortunately, for reasons known to God, the other nations were not directly privy to this wonderful revelatory gift. Hashem’s response to this handicap, to the nations visiting our borders, is this: Finding purpose in an existence that often seems chaotic and unfair is very difficult. You may suffer from the angst of not having the answers to so many questions about existence. If you had been granted the Torah directly, these questions might have been more easily answered. Realize, however, that the Torah’s message, while containing universal ideas, is still concealed with plaster, a “closed book” for the non-Jew. So many aspects of the Torah are meant to be practiced and studied by Jews alone. I, God, nonetheless grant you an enhanced wisdom to know how to plumb the depths of this Jewish text, and bring it back to your own culture to provide answers for how to live a life of purpose and meaning. Don’t think that just because you weren’t at Mount Sinai, the Torah’s ideas are inaccessible to you. You’ve been endowed with a great sense of intuition, with a growling gnawing in your gut, and with an unrequited curiosity that will draw you to the borders of Eretz Israel. Don’t be satisfied until you have overturned every rock, and chipped away at the occlusive plaster that conceals the truth contained within the Jewish nation.

Universal access to Torah

There is so much concealment of truth in today’s world. The more we advance technologically, the more we have access to information. But that access has also been our curse, since so much information is completely unfiltered, haphazardly mixed with half truths and lies. We believe, however, that as occlusive as our current society is, as much as it conceals the hidden nature of God and our reality, the truth can still be accessed by real truth-seekers who are prepared to chisel away at the facades of our modern society. Both Jew and non-Jew alike have this opportunity to arrive at the universal truths of the Torah. Part of the responsibility of the Jewish people is to erect, metaphorically, those large stones on our borders and allow access, whether by lesson or by example, of the universal aspects – the ethics, morality, and kindness – of the Torah. The greater the confusion that is out in the streets, the greater the responsibility it becomes for those who possess the truth to share it. King Solomon said (Pr. 25:2): “כְּבֹד אֱלֹהִים הַסְתֵּר דָּבָר וּכְבֹד מְלָכִים חֲקֹר דָּבָר” – “It is the glory of God to hide something, but it is the glory of kings to discover it.” That which Hashem conceals, He provides the opportunity for those worthy “kings” to discover. May we all merit to discover the truths of ourselves and our world and share it with others, so that we can finally envision the Redemption that is all around us, bb”a.

The Real You

By Rabbi Daniel Korobkin Our parsha is famous for its apparently disjointed mitzvot that seemingly have little or nothing to do with each other. We will point out a series of three mitzvot that present with this mysterious juxtaposition. In ch. 22, we find the following series:

v. 4: You may not stand idly by when seeing your friend’s donkey or ox falling down on the road due to its uneven load. Help your friend readjust the animal’s load and help the animal regain its footing.

v. 5: No woman or man may cross-dress. Transvestism is forbidden by the Torah.

v. 6: When you happen upon a nest with eggs or chicks, you must send away the mother bird before taking her offspring for yourself.

Shiluach HaKen

While there is no apparent connection between these three commandments, a comment by the Abarbanel on the mitzvah of Shiluach HaKen, sending away the mother bird, is very revealing. He understands that this mitzvah is a symbolic representation of something that occurs within each human being over the course of a lifetime. We are composites of body and soul, and over the course of our lives, our soul feels imprisoned by the body. Our bodily desires draw us to indulge in physical activities that are completely distasteful to the soul, to the point where the soul feels sullied by being dragged along through life to participate in these activities. The soul’s desires, on the other hand, are to engage in spiritually beneficial and virtuous activities. The soul constantly yearns to be liberated from the body and return heavenward. When the Torah tells us to free the mother bird, it is representing this ideal that we try our best to liberate our soul from the shackles of physical imprisonment. We can do this while alive, by following the soul’s desires instead of the body’s, that is, by doing good acts instead of indulging our desires. By doing so, we are able to harvest the product of the soul’s yearnings, the spiritually beneficial acts of a life well spent. We keep the product of those efforts for ourselves for all eternity. This is represented by keeping the eggs or the chicks of the liberated mother bird.

The body and soul struggle

Taking the mitzvah in this light, we see that the Torah is addressing the dichotomous nature of man, and his constant struggle between body and soul. With this, we might better understand the first mitzvah in our series: When you see a person’s donkey or ox, his beast of burden, struggling under its load, help your friend out. When you see that a person’s body is prevailing, that his priorities are more hedonistic than spiritually driven, help him or her with their struggle. Realign their sights, and help them from buckling under the tremendous allures of peer pressure, societal pressure, and the desires of the flesh. Help your friend move forward in a healthy relationship with his body, so that he can feed his physical needs without collapsing under them entirely. This leads to the next mitzvah in the series, the prohibition against cross-dressing. In recent years, this practice has been all the rage in the news. It’s part of the “woke” culture that allows every person to define exactly who and what they wish to be. One’s gender, it is argued, is not defined by one’s birth biology, but rather one’s mental and emotional state. It’s certainly true that some biological males have feelings of femininity and some biological females have feelings of masculinity. Beyond the very binary gender of one’s biology, there’s greater fluidity and nuance in one’s psychological “gender”. So why does the Torah prohibit cross-dressing? Firstly, there is a very real concern, as Rashi states in his commentary, that allowing men to dress as women may lead to licentiousness, when men can enter women’s washrooms and locker rooms and use this as an opportunity to exploit the opposite gender.

The true self

Beyond that, there is a fundamental ideological mistake in practicing transvestism. If the mitzvot contained in our section address the difficult balance between body and soul, it’s important to realize that the body is not the main forum for establishing one’s true identity. My body, with all of its unique characteristics and flaws, was given to me by G-d via my parents’ genetics and other factors. I may be dissatisfied with my hair, my eyes, my nose, or other parts of my body. Especially for those with disabilities, there is every reason to be dissatisfied with one’s body’s shortcomings. Certainly, when modern medicine allows us to repair the broken or malformed parts of my body, I should take advantage of modern medical amenities. But in the end, my body is not the real ME. My true self is contained in the metaphysical and the spiritual, and that it is the part of ME that I should strive to focus upon, cultivate, and develop. One who cross-dresses, regardless of that person’s genuine motivations, is in effect not only rejecting G-d’s choice of physical gender for themselves. Because they are displaying who they are through dressing of the body, that person is also declaring that the main part of who they are as an individual human being is their body, not their soul. The continuity of the verses for these three mitzvot can now be appreciated as three facets of the same theme, that of emphasizing the soul over the body: Helping your friend’s struggling “animal”: We all struggle with our physical desires and vices. Don’t just take care of your own struggles; help your fellow human being with his or hers, too. Cross-dressing: Don’t define your true essence by your bodily manifestations. Accept your body as a shell of the real you, which is your spiritual essence. Regardless of your mental or emotional state, maintain your body in the way G-d gave it you, and then focus on and nurture your soul. Your feminine or masculine identity will emerge naturally in your soul without you having to dress up your body artificially. Send away the mother bird: Liberate your soul by freeing it from the fetters of your physical desires. By listening to your soul’s inner stirrings and acting upon your lofty spiritual calling, you will be able to reap the sweet fruits of a life well lived, the “eggs” of the “mother bird.”

Sharpening the message

Society’s new “wokeism” allows every person’s identity to be as fluid as they like. But this runs counter to this ideal of the duality of the human condition and the primacy of the soul in that hybrid composition. When we look at ourselves in the mirror and see only our exterior as our defining persona, then we are losing touch with the Torah’s message that the most “real” part of who I am is my soul. Instead, we should embrace and celebrate the body that was given to us by Hashem, while at the same time placing our main focus of interest and effort on the good deeds and altruistic efforts in life that are reflections of the soul’s influence upon us. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to hear the messages of the Torah amidst the din of social media and societal pressure. Our current culture has all but erased the spiritual essence of man. For these High Holidays, our goal should be to rediscover the muffled voice of our neshama, crying to be heard and recognized. May this effort usher in new blessings and redemption for the coming year, bb”a.