Part II
HaRav Elyashiv's ruling about human hair from India being
subject to the prohibition of an offering made to avodoh
zora awakened an interest in the subject that has not yet
died down. In the first part, Rabbi Grossman quoted the
Rambam who explains how the idea of avodoh zora
started out as a mistaken attempt to serve Hashem through His
intermediaries. HaRav Dessler explains that this is a lesson
that we must still learn today. We see people who honor the
means of performing a mitzva, for example, buying a costly
silver menorah, while it doesn't occur to them to think about
the Chanukah miracle and use it to strengthen their faith.
They neglect the inner spiritual lesson and delude themselves
by valuing the outward means of fulfilling the
mitzvah.
Looking Around
This lesson is applicable to all areas of life. Ours is a
shallow generation that tends strongly to focus on externals
alone and this influences the Torah public. All we need to do
is look around, in order to see the extent to which people
flock after all kinds of charms and segulos, even
those whose sources are scant or obscure. These
segulos have become the most fundamental thing in the
lives of some Yidden.
It hardly occurs to them that the real way to achieve
whatever it is they are seeking lies in heartfelt prayer and
strengthening their Torah study, fear of Heaven and good
deeds. Large sums are invested by people of means in items
with "special properties," while a great Torah scholar would
advise them instead that giving money to tzedokoh, and
supporting Torah institutions in particular, is the way to
merit blessing. "It is a tree of life for those who hold onto
it and those who support it are happy."
The foundation of every seguloh is the strengthening
of faith in Hashem as the Source of all salvation to which it
is supposed to lead. Every such symbolic object or activity
is supposed to deepen our awareness that Heaven controls our
destiny and that itself is a merit through which Heaven might
bestow whatever is needed. Regarding an external symbol as
having some special active power leads to very fundamental
mistakes.
Many chareidi publications provide another contemporary
example, unfortunately. Their pages are filled with articles
that take a superficial and lighthearted approach to Torah
outlook and to daas Torah as it is articulated by the
Torah leaders. Nonetheless, these very publications regularly
print pages and pages of photographs of gedolei
Yisroel attending various events, conveying the overall
message that their pictures are more important than their
teachings.
This raises a more general and more fundamental problem with
the aforementioned publications. The mussar works
write that love of this (material) world and love of the
(spiritual) World to Come cannot coexist within a person. The
same can be said of the relationship between inner content
and outer "packaging." Focusing on outward appearance by
definition demotes serious contemplation of a thing's
essence to being peripheral and insignificant.
External appearance and inner content, means and ends,
instrument and essence -- are constantly in conflict with one
another. Man's obligation is to determine within himself what
is sign and what is substance, not attaching exaggerated
importance to instruments and means, which was essentially
the mistake of the earliest idol worshipers.
Strategy and Goal
This is the approach that our teachers bid us take towards
the entire phenomenon of the chareidi establishment, when
necessary. It is well known that the gedolim of
previous generations decided that the Torah world should
become organized in a hierarchy of representative
institutions. This in turn spawned a vast array of
organizations, movements, newspapers, periodicals and
communal institutions, whose activities, carried out in the
Torah spirit and subject to the authority of gedolei
Yisroel, were undoubtedly of vital importance.
However, we ought always to remember that these were all
merely ways and means of strengthening the Torah outlook and
of bolstering the ranks of the faithful. If a person focuses
all his spiritual energy and attention on this "machinery,"
vital though it may be, it must lead to his ignoring
our most fundamental obligation: our responsibility, both
collective and individual, to strengthen Torah and to repulse
the threatening influences of heretics and misleaders.
This is why several decades ago, the gedolim took a
public stand against a certain chareidi movement (Poalei
Agudas Yisroel) that acted against daas Torah on
drafting women for national service. Their opposition to the
actions that were taken stemmed not only from the resultant
damage itself, but also from the movement's wish to stray
from daas Torah out of opportunism. The members argued
that their supreme priority was their movement's survival and
it was this argument that aroused the ire of the
gedolim.
In an evaluation of the episode that he wrote at the time,
reflecting the views of the gedolim, Rav Moshe
Scheinfeld zt'l stated that the members' mistake had
been in allowing the party apparatus to take precedence over
its ideology i.e. preferring the means to the end. He quoted
from Rav Shamshon Rafael Hirsch zt'l in order to
illustrate this point.
Rav Hirsch reads the posuk, "For you had as many gods
as you had cities, Yehuda" (Yirmiyohu 2:28) as meaning
"your number of cities were your gods." He explains,
"the cities that you built and fortified, cries the prophet .
. . seemed to you like gods; not as the means to an end but
as an end in themselves!" (published in Hashkofoseinu,
Vol. 1-2)
Rav Scheinfeld also quotes HaRav Aharon Kotler zt'l
who used a parable to issue a sharp warning to that
movement's leaders. A human being, said Reb Aharon, is kept
alive by his soul which, for all its importance, is utterly
invisible. His arms, legs and other limbs are evident and
make themselves felt. When his soul departs however, the body
is like a broken potsherd. It is of no interest to anyone
and, after some time has passed, it is impossible to remain
in its proximity.
This is the fate that awaits a party and all its
organizational machinery and institutions, if it detaches
itself from its life source -- daas Torah.
No Intrinsic Holiness
This idea's relevance is by no means confined to the
relatively recent manifestations that have been mentioned
thus far. It has been applied by the luminaries of past
generations to some of our most historically and religiously
significant symbols. The Meshech Chochmoh elaborates
for example, on how the Torah ensures that we retain the
correct perspective on as important a site as Har Sinai,
where we received the Torah (parshas Yisro, piece
beginning "Bimshoch hayovel").
"In truth," he writes, "[our] religion's fundamental purpose
was to uproot all manifestations of idolatry from Bnei
Yisroel's hearts and show them that they `had not seen
any image' (Devorim 4:15) because no creature
possesses [intrinsic] holiness apart from the Creator . . .
This is why it says that they shouldn't imagine that there
was something holy about the mountain on account of which
Hashem was revealed there. `At the horn's blast, they can
ascend the mountain' (Shemos 19:13) which was the lair
of animals and creatures. It was only holy while the
Shechinah rested upon it, due to Hashem's holiness.
This is why it says, `A person's place does not accord him
honor; he accords honor to his place.' This is a worthy
idea.
"For this reason, in the Beis Hamikdosh, whose
holiness was everlasting, all who were impure, even those who
had contact with a dead body, were allowed to touch the
building's rear wall (Toras Cohanim, beginning of
parshas Tazriya) -- so that people shouldn't think
that the building possessed any intrinsic holiness. This
demonstrated that we only fear the One who rests His Name
upon the House. The Luchos and the seat of His glory
were inside the building. Therefore its inside was holy, not
[the outside of] its back wall."
A Grave Misconception
Elsewhere, the Meshech Chochmoh explains that it was
this that lay behind the breaking of the Luchos (parshas
Ki Siso, piece beginning "Vayehi ka'asher
koreiv").
"Torah and emunoh are the fundamentals of the
Israelite nation. All the [different] types of holiness, of
Eretz Yisroel, of Yerushalayim etc. are all branches of Torah
and are made holy through the Torah's holiness. There is,
therefore, no difference in any part of Torah between
different times and places; it applies equally in Eretz
Yisroel and outside it (with the exception of the land-
dependent mitzvos). It also is equally binding at the highest
level [that a human can reach, that of] Moshe Rabbenu, the
man of G-d and also at the very lowest. . . The Torah refers
to Moshe as a go-between [bringing Hashem's Torah to bnei
Yisroel] but Torah is not ascribed to him. It has to
exist for `Hakodosh Boruch Hu and the Torah are one'
and just as Hakodosh Boruch Hu must exist, so does the
Torah. Its existence depends solely upon the First Cause,
yisborach Shemo."
The Meshech Chochmoh then points out the difficulty
that the puny human intellect has in comprehending the
existence of a limitless and ungraspable First Cause. He
explains that this was what led men to seek ways of making
forms and likenesses of the heavenly bodies, which they
claimed were the Divine chariot and the controllers of
worldly events. They worshiped and sacrificed and offered
incense to these forms and their dances and fevered moods
were solid and tangible ways of relating to the object of
their veneration. Thus, "When they saw that Moshe was
tarrying, they fell from their faith and wanted to make a
calf and bring a heavenly spirit to rest upon it and relate
to it as the divine chariot and the controller of worldly
events, that had taken them out of Egypt. This was also the
sin of the calves that Yerovom made . . ."
Moshe thus rebuked bnei Yisroel, asking them, "Do you
imagine that I am significant and that I posses any
independent holiness that doesn't derive from His command, to
the point where you made an eigel because I was
absent? Choliloh, I am a man just like the rest of
you! The Torah doesn't depend on me. Even if I hadn't come
along, the Torah would still exist without any change,
choliloh."
End of Part II
