A guest entered a house and asked the head of the house: "From what do you make a living?"
"I don't have a fixed livelihood at home," the host replied, "but the world provides me with what I need to live."The guest asked: "What do you study?"
The host answered, and they continued talking together until they spoke in real earnest, heart to heart. The host began to feel a tremendous yearning to know how to reach a certain level of holiness.
"I will study with you," said the guest. ...
The host escorted him outside. All of a sudden he seized him and started to fly with him.
Thus starts Reb
Nachman of Breslov’s story, “The Guest”. I shared this story with our 2011
Bronfman Fellows this week at our closing seminar: Over three days in NYC, we
explored with them “New Voices in American Judaism”, and revisited the lessons
and defining moments they experienced during their summer in Israel. In some
ways their involvement with the Bronfman Community is only beginning, but there
was a palpable sense of parting in the air. It was a proper context in which to
discuss yearning.
Yearning is the
driver of this short story. The ability of the guest to turn a random encounter (“from what do you make a living?”) into a moment of “real
earnest” and then of “tremendous yearning” is what allows the host to learn how
to fly. It is a powerful reminder of the importance of hosting such guests in
our life: the people and moments that take us out of our mundane interactions
and awaken a desire for something beyond: yearning.
For Reb Nachman yearning
is the most human and the most holy of emotions. When you peel away all the
imperfect actions and the rambling thoughts, it is yearning that is left. And
it is Shabbat which epitomizes the move from mundane existence to a sense of yearning.
Vayakhel-Pekudei, this week’s
parsha, opens with a description of the Shabbat:
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For
six days is work to be made,
but
on the seventh day there is to be holiness for you,
Shabbat,
Shabbat-ceasing, for God;
Exodus 35:2
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שֵׁשֶׁת יָמִים, תֵּעָשֶׂה מְלָאכָה,
וּבַיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי יִהְיֶה לָכֶם
קֹדֶשׁ
שַׁבַּת שַׁבָּתוֹן, לַה'.
שמות לה:ב
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Perhaps the most mystifying
part of Shabbat is that transition from work week secularity to Shabbat holiness. It is a hard transition to
create, so we use various rituals to guide us through it. Some light candles,
others leave the house for a synagogue. My family drinks single malt whiskey.
The Talmud (Beitzah 16) describes the transition from “six days of work” to holiness as a moment when a
person cracks open and cries out “Oy Vay! Where has my soul been all week?” [The
Rabbis are playfully interpreting the Biblical verse שָׁבַת וַיִּנָּפַשׁ “Shabbat
VaYinafash” (Exodus 31:17). They pun “Shabbat? Vay-Nefesh!”]. Shabbat becomes the
moment when a person catches themselves and suddenly realizes: “Where have I
been all week? How can I collect myself now and become present in my life?”
In his "Likkutei Moharan", Reb Nachman ties this moment to the idea of
yearning, placing yearning as the most important act of the human psyche:
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עִקַּר הִתְהַוּוּת הַנֶּפֶשׁ, הוּא
עַל - יְדֵי הַהִשְׁתּוֹקְקוּת וְהַכִּסּוּפִין שֶׁל אִישׁ יִשְׂרָאֵל אַחַר
הַשֵּׁם יִתְבָּרַךְ. כָּל אֶחָד לְפִי מַדְרֵגָתוֹ שֶׁהוּא נִכְסָף
וּמִשְׁתּוֹקֵק וּמִתְגַּעְגֵּעַ לְהַגִּיעַ אֶל מַדְרֵגָה לְמַעְלָה מִמֶּנָּה,
עַל - יְדֵי הַכִּסּוּפִין אֵלּוּ נַעֲשֶׂה נֶפֶשׁ.
כְּמוֹ שֶׁכָּתוּב (תְּהִלִּים פ"ד): "נִכְסְפָה
וְגַם כָּלְתָה נַפְשִׁי", הַיְנוּ מַה שֶּׁאֲנִי נִכְסָף וְכָלֶה
אַחַר הַשֵּׁם יִתְבָּרַךְ, מִזֶּה בְּעַצְמוֹ נַעֲשֶׂה נַפְשִׁי. וְזֶה
שֶׁאָמְרוּ רַבּוֹתֵינוּ, זִכְרוֹנָם לִבְרָכָה (בֵּיצָה ט"ז.):
"וַיִּנָּפַשׁ" 'כֵּיוָן שֶׁשָּׁבַת וַי אָבְדָה נֶפֶשׁ'. הַיְנוּ שֶׁבִּתְחִלַּת הַשַּׁבָּת
שֶׁצָּרִיךְ לְקַבֵּל נֶפֶשׁ יְתֵרָה אָנוּ זוֹכְרִין מֵאֲבֵדַת הַנֶּפֶשׁ
בְּחֹל, וְאוֹמְרִים:
"וַיִּנָּפַשׁ", וַי
אָבְדָה נֶפֶשׁ, וּמַתְחִילִין לְהִתְגַּעְגֵּעַ אַחֲרֶיהָ. וְעַל - יְדֵי - זֶה
בְּעַצְמוֹ שֶׁאָנוּ מִתְגַּעְגְּעִין אַחַר הַנֶּפֶשׁ, מִזֶּה בְּעַצְמוֹ
נִתְהַוֶּה הַנֶּפֶשׁ הַיְתֵרָה:
ליקוטי מוהר"ן קמא סימן לא
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According to the degree to which one yearns, aches, or pines to
achieve a higher self, through that yearning itself the self comes into
being.
As it is written: “My
being longed, even languished for the courts of the Lord” (Psalm 84:2). In other words, in my act of
longing and languishing for God, in that act itself the self is created.
Similarly, when Shabbat begins one is awakened to seek a sense of “added
self”. At that moment we recall how we’ve lost our sense of self during the
days of the week, and we say: Vay! I have lost my “self”!
At that exact moment, when we begin to long for our sense of self – the
“added spirit” of Shabbat comes into being.
Likkutei Moharan I:39
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Without
longing, there is no sense of self. Without having some “otherness” to desire
for, some alternative reality, the self cannot take hold (Shabbat, holiness, the
idea of God, are all simply ideas that point in that direction). Constructed
this way, a sense of self is not a barrier to holiness/meaningful-life. As Reb
Nachman says elsewhere, a self based in the yearning to achieve a higher
personhood (more moral, more compassionate, more holy) is in itself the “world
to come”.
Back
to our Bronfman fellows. As I gazed at our wide-eyed 17 year old fellows this
week, I saw the yearning in their eyes – to achieve a higher personhood, to be
the good people they want to be, to create the better world they yearn for. I also
sensed a fear (in them, in myself?) of the speed with which that yearning can
be lost. In a world of external achievement (academic, financial, social), compounded
by the desire to “win” and the threat of cynicism towards self and society that
seems to be an integral part of adulthood (at least mine) – the yearning is
quickly set aside.
This
is where the guests come in. Be they mentors, old friends, memories or “palaces
in time”, we need those friends to come and redeem us from small talk to
earnestness, form cynical sleep to heart-throbbing yearning, from being grounded
in the game to taking flight.
Shabbat
Shalom,
Mishael
p.s.
To read the entire short story “The Guest”, by Reb Nachman, click here.
Rabbi Mishael Zion | Bronfman Fellowships | Vayakhel-Pekudey 2012 | Text and the City
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