“A TORAH THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK” Published and Transmitted by Chabad House of Delmar-Rabbi Nachman Simon 109 Elsmere Ave. Delmar, NY 12054 Tel. (518) 439-8280 E-mail: DelmarChabadSimon@gmail Watch “The Jewish View” with Rabbi Israel Rubin, Director, Capital Chabad Rabbi Rubin reminisces about his 40 years since he was sent to Albany by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Grand Rebbe of the Chabad Lubavitch movement. youtube/watch?v=okklOxNzJnU ************************************************************************ “NO REGRETS?” The Talmud states: “There are four things whose creation G-d regrets every day. The first is galut (exile).” Regret implies that one now knows something that one did not know before; that one’s earlier decision or deed was flawed or ill informed; that one has now matured to the point that he can look back and reject a deficient past. None of this can be related to G-d. Then again, nothing we say about G-d can imply quite the same thing it does when applied to a fellow mortal. For example, when we say that G-d “hears” our prayers, do we mean that the sound waves generated by our vocal chords must vibrate a divine “inner ear” and stimulate a divine “brain” for G-d to “hear” our request? When we say that G-d hears our prayers, we mean “hear” in a purely conceptual sense, “hear” as in “take notice of” and “pay attention to” and, hopefully, “respond to.” In discussing G-d, we inevitably use terms whose meaning is saddled with the dynamics of our experience – an experience bounded by time, space and our human limitations. Our only other option would be not to speak of G-d at all. Thus, when the Torah tells us that G-d regrets something, it expects us to strip the term “regret” down to its bare conceptual bones. To divest it of all connotations of failing, past ignorance – indeed, of time itself – before applying it to G-d. Regret, to us, means that something that was desired in the past is no longer desired. Applied to a timeless G-d, “regret” implies both these states simultaneously: something that is both desired and not desired, with the greater emphasis on “not desired” (the “present” state). This is what is meant when we say that G-d both creates and regrets the creation of galut. G-d abhors the manifest reality of galut---the physical suffering and spiritual homelessness that the daily experience of galut entails. So why does He create it? Because He desires its inherent, though all but indiscernible, positive essence. He desires the fortitude it reveals in us, the depths of faith it challenges us to, the globalization of our mission in life it achieves. With our ultimate deliverance from exile, all this will come to light---but then, of course, galut shall no longer be. The state of galut is a state in which its non-desirable elements dominate while its desirable yield is subdued---a state of divine regret. And since a thing’s “existence” is the expression of a divine desire that it be, the state of galut exists only in a very limited sense---only inasmuch as G-d desires it. Only its “desired” element possesses true existence; its “not desired” element, despite it ostensibly greater, more “present” reality, is a nonentity, nothing more than the illusionary shadow of its truly existent, though presently obscured, positive function. Today, galut is no longer what it used to be. Although we still suffer the spiritual rootlessness of galut, its more blatant expressions are fading away: today, a Jew can live practically anywhere in the world in freedom and prosperity. But to feel comfortable in galut is the greatest galut there can be, the ultimate symptom of alienation from one’s essence and source. To feel comfortable in galut – to perceive it as a viable, even desirable, state of affairs – is to live in perpetual contradiction to G-d’s daily regret of galut’s creation. On other hand, we know that galut, devoid of all but the faintest echo of divine desire, possesses no true reality, no matter how formidable a facade it may represent to us; it is ever poised on the brink of dissolution – at any moment the desired goals of galut can manifest themselves and banish galut to the regretted past that it is. Based on the talks of the Lubavitcher Rebbe ************************************************************************ SHABBAT SHALOM! ************************************************************************ Calendar - Week of 2 Adar 1 to 8 Adar 1 Light candles Fri., Feb. 7, at 4:58 p.m. Shabbos ends Feb. 8, at 6:01 p.m. Torah Portion: Tetzaveh (Exodus 27:20 - 30:10) ***********************************************************************
Posted on: Sun, 02 Feb 2014 18:09:22 +0000
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