לראות ולהיראות לפני ה׳ | הרב יהושע שפירא | שיחה לחג סוכות

Happy holidays. A central mitzvah of the holiday. Anyone who studies Torah is as if they offered a burnt offering. And we shall offer the words of our lips instead of bulls. This is the mitzvah of Re'iyah (appearing before G-d). There are two mitzvot regarding Re'iyah; the Rishonim differ on the connection between them. We will not deal with that. The mitzvah of Re'iyah and the burnt offering of Re'iyah. A verse we mention more than any other during the Three Pilgrimage Festivals. Three times a year, all your males shall appear before the Master, etc., and they shall not appear empty-handed. There is also a negative commandment here not to appear empty-handed. To appear, but not empty-handed, and also "all your males shall appear.""Do not appear empty" certainly refers to the sacrifice; "all your males shall appear " also implies appearing without a sacrifice. And "All your males," says the Mishna at the beginning of Chagigah , all are obligated in appearing, except for a deaf person, a mentally impaired person, a minor, a tumtum, an androgynos, which are doubtful, women, and slaves who have not been freed. The lame, the blind—the blind is exempt, as it is written "shall appear," and the sick and the elderly, etc. And who else can go up on his feet? The Gemara asks, "All"—who does it mean to include? "All" is to include whom? Meaning, the Mishna opens with "all are obligated in appearing," and from here we learn there is someone else. Who is included among the obligated and is not part of those exempted. And the Gemara searches for who it is; it brings a suggestion: one who is half slave and half free, and then rejects it. Eventually, it returns to it, but in the middle, it brings another suggestion, which is that "all" includes one blind in one eye. Meaning, he sees, but only with one eye. He does not see with the second eye. And Even though he doesn't see with one eye. The Gemara says essentially the Mishna means "all," that he too is obligated. Why do we need to say this? Because there are those who hold that one blind in one of his eyes is truly exempt. Does this remain the conclusion or not? There is room to discuss this, because the Gemara afterwards returns to a different answer. But here the Gemara says essentially: there is a dispute whether one blind in one eye is obligated or exempt. And the author of our Mishna, who says all are obligated in appearing, includes even one blind in one eye—and this is not like the Tanna who exempts one blind in one eye. For it is taught: Yochanan ben Dahavai says in the name of Rabbi Yehuda, one blind in one eye is exempt from appearing, as it is said...before we see the text, let us just say that there is "all your males shall appear" —Keri and Ketiv (read and written). Now, Keri and Ketiv are often different words, it's not the same letters at all , but here the Keri and Ketiv are...the exact same letters, just as we find in the Hoshana prayers. Ashkenazim say in the Hoshanot: "Ani V'hu Hoshia Na"(I and He, save now) and "V'hotzeiti"(and I will take out) and "V'hotzeiti"(and I took out). Meaning, "I took you out," that the Holy One, Blessed be He, took Israel out of Egypt, and we say—and there are other examples like that— " V'hotzeiti"(and I will take out), as if the Holy One Himself was enslaved until I...and the Hoshana, that even the Shechina, so to speak, needs redemption and salvation, "Ani V'hu Hoshia Na," and Oh, Hoshana says there is a Keri and Ketiv: "V'hotzeiti"(I will take out ) and "V'hotzeiti"(and I took out). The plain meaning is that I am taking you out, and "V'hotzeiti"(and I will take out with you), that I myself am going out together with you. And "V'hotzeiti" is the exact same letters, but here it is just a midrashic interpretation. Regarding "all your males shall appear, " there is more than just a midrash. There is a Ketiv and a Keri. A Ketiv and a Keri. The Ketiv, in general, apart from the Gemara and what the Sages revealed to us, we have no information about, because in the written Torah, there are no vowels. So we do not know what is written there. We read, we say it in the Musaf, " yera'eh kol zechurcha," but it can also be written with a chirik vowel instead of a tzeire. "Yera'eh kol zechurcha." The Gemara here makes a comparison according to Rabbi Yehuda between " yera'eh" with a chirik and "yera'eh" with a tzeire. And the Gemara says: As it is said, from where does Rabbi Yehuda learn that one who is blind in one of his eyes is exempt from appearing? It is said "yera'eh"[He shall appear], "yera'eh"[He shall see]. Just as He comes to see, so he comes to appear; just as seeing is with both eyes, so appearing must be with both eyes. Meaning, the written text gives us no inherent understanding, only the way the Sages revealed the written text is "yera'eh." And we certainly speak of two eyes. Who is the "yera'eh"? "Just as He comes to see"—Rashi explains this is the Holy One, Blessed be He. Just as the Holy One, Blessed be He, comes to see with His two eyes, we find the verse "The eyes of the Lord roam throughout..." Plural, two. What does this mean regarding the Above? That is not being discussed today at all, but as it were, there are two eyes above, and He sees the man who comes to the Temple with His two eyes, and this is " yera'eh" with a chirik. And the Gemara learns a connection between the written and the read text. Just as He comes to see, so he comes to appear. Meaning, just as seeing is with two eyes, that the Holy One, Blessed be He, sees him with His two eyes, so too the man must appear before the Blessed One with his two eyes, and both refer to the Holy One. Either the Holy One sees with His own two eyes, or I need to appear before Him—He comes to appear, meaning He comes so that I will appear before Him, and I must also do this with two eyes. That is how Rashi explains it. Tosafot says: This does not seem right to Rabbeinu Tam for two reasons. One reason, says Tosafot, is that it is not appropriate to say " comes" regarding the Above. Why? Tosafot here says it is because the Holy One, Blessed be He, is present everywhere. So there is no such thing as arriving. Even though it says "The Lord descended on Mount Sinai," and there are other examples where it seems the Holy One, Blessed be He, does appear. As if He changes His place, there is a pillar of fire, a pillar of cloud, and "He descended"—in any case , Tosafot says it cannot be that "comes " refers to Heaven, and in Sanhedrin, Tosafot says the meaning is not that... ...He is everywhere, but in the Temple, He is still present. Meaning, it is not certain that this is a dispute. Meaning , Rashi at least sees it as one thing. The Holy One, Blessed be He, is in the Temple. Consequently, He does not need to arrive there. So there is no such thing that "comes" refers to the Divine Presence. That is one question that Rabbeinu Tam asks. And therefore, he rejects Rashi’s interpretation. But he asks another question. Rabbeinu Tam says, what is the result according to the calculation here? It turns out that you......are relying, the reliance, The support is "yera'eh" with a chirik, and what you learn from it is the "yera'eh" with a tzeire. Rabbeinu Tam says: This does not seem right to say. Why? Because here "yera'eh" is what we always say, and there are no vowels in the Torah scroll, so "yera'eh" is just an abstract piece of knowledge. To say that the "yera'eh"[appearance/fear] is the foundation and upon it we build the "yera'eh." Since "yera'eh" is what we always say and the other "yera'eh" is just knowledge—actually, in the written text without vowels, it is written "yera'eh," it is not plausible. Therefore, to answer these two difficulties, Tosafot goes the other way and says: We are talking about the man who arrives. He has the opposite reading in the Gemara, because the Gemara says: Just as he comes to see ( lir'ot) without a yud, so he comes to be seen (lehera'ot) with a yud. To see. "Lir'ot" is intended with a tzeire; " lehera'ot" is intended with a chirik. This is our version of the Gemara, saying: It is not read that way, but rather just as...he comes to see, so he comes to see, and it refers here not to the Holy One, Blessed be He, nor to the Shechinah, but to man. And man, just as he comes to see before Him, blessed be He, seeing Him with two eyes and man is seen—so who is the seer? The Holy One , Blessed be He. Just as a man comes to see before the Shechinah, seeing Him, as it were, with two eyes, so he comes to be seen himself with his two eyes. And therefore, it must be exactly two eyes, and one who is blind in one eye is exempt. That is the opinion of Rabbi Yehuda. And as stated, The claim of the Mishnah that opens Tractate Chagigah, that all are obligated, according to this answer, does not hold that way, but rather holds that One who is blind in one eye is also obligated. That is to include everything, including the blind in one eye. Although it may be that according to the answer the Gemara returns to, perhaps our claim also holds like Rabbi Yehuda and no, we did not find a dispute in this; so then all the study is for everyone's opinion. Perhaps, in any case, it turns out that there is a dispute between Rashi and Tosafot. One dispute is who is the support and who is built upon it: for Tosafot, it must be that the support is the "yir'eh," which is the language we say, as we said today in the morning and on all festivals, and upon it we build the "yera'eh," which is only common knowledge that this is the written text. Conversely, Rashi says that "yera'eh," which is written—that is what is in the book, as it were ( even though there is no vocalization in the book for this)—that which is in the book is the support, and upon it we build the "yir'eh," which is the vocalized reading. And usually, indeed, the written text is the base, and the reading, when it is not identical to what is written, is what is taught. The second dispute, and it is central now to our discussion, is who arrives? Who is "coming"? Does "coming" refer to Above, that the Holy One, Blessed be He , comes, or does "coming" mean that man comes? According to Tosafot, man comes either to see with the eyes of God or to see with his own eyes. And according to Rashi, the Holy One, Blessed be He, comes either to see with His eyes or to be seen before man. I want to discuss this dispute of Rashi and Tosafot and preface it with an introduction. It is accepted in the inner dimension of the Torah that although in the revealed, " these and these are the words of the living God" and the law follows so-and-so. Because since one must decide what to do, in the revealed we can never leave a dispute but must decide—except for places where we can remain in some theoretical state where it makes no difference, but usually a dispute must be decided. But in the inner dimension, the great rule is that there is no need to decide, so both remain at the level of "these and these are the words of the living God," and one said one thing and one said another , and it is not that they are contradictory; both are true. And to our matter here: one said one thing and one said another, meaning Tosafot explained with one light, and Rashi, the great grandfather of Rabbeinu Tam, said with another light, and both are true. And when we, as students before our masters Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam, say both this and that, we effectively have four possibilities that are all true together. True, before we arrange them, there are of course different ways to order them, and I have chosen my own way, so let us just introduce a premise : perhaps the first, simple order is Who is arriving, which is the basis of the dispute; according to Rashi, the Holy One, blessed be He, is arriving, while to the Tosafot, the person is arriving. And it seems to me a simple matter that saying the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself arrives, if such a thing indeed exists (and for Rashi it certainly does, and perhaps Tosafot also knows such an aspect exists, only it is not correct to study or explain it that way), then this aspect is certainly more sublime. Meaning, between Rashi and Tosafot, to say that the Holy One, blessed be He, comes for the sake of the commandment of appearing on the festival is certainly a supreme and exalted level. So therefore, between Rashi and Tosafot, I am inclined to say that Rashi speaks of a more elevated world and Tosafot of a more realistic world. And in our world, Rabbeinu Tam’s question remains: How does the Holy One, blessed be He, come? He is already present. But in a more elevated world, certainly those who have already Generations have passed and the inner dimension of the Torah has revealed its teaching at great length, so it is a simple matter. That when we talk about seeing or not seeing , we are not talking about being present or not present. That is, there could be someone in the room and I don't see him: it’s dark, there is a partition, my eyes are shut, I am blind , or I am unobservant. Meaning, there is some reason that despite someone being present, I do not see. And it could be that the blind person opens their eyes, or the partition is removed , or the light is turned on, and then one sees who was not seen before. Meaning, it is not that he was not present, but he was not revealed. And it may be that the whole matter of " seeing and being seen," if we are speaking from above, refers to a level of revelation. And to connect this to what our Sages say, perhaps this is the very depth of the matter here. When He is revealed in physicality, it is a layer; on the pilgrim festivals, they would roll back the curtain before them and show them the cherubim, saying to them: "See how dear you are before the Omnipresent, like the love of a male and a female." Meaning, there was a kind of viewing of a part that had been hidden behind the curtain. It is not that the cherubim were not there before , but they were kept private. And even the High Priest on Yom Kippur, which we just passed, when he enters, he must do so with a cloud of incense over the ark cover so that he does not die. It is forbidden even for the High Priest to see. And therefore he must bring the incense when he sprinkles the blood of the bull and the goat. And here they roll back the curtain and show it to the entire congregation, not just to the priest—they don't enter inside, right? Which is a higher status for the priest than the people, but still, there is no incense, no curtain, no partition, and it is possible to see with one’s eyes: "See how dear you are before the Omnipresent." So there is here a literal expression in physicality that during the appointed times, what was hidden at other times is revealed. Therefore, there is great room to say that what Rashi intends, even if it is on a more internal level, is the internal level of the revelation of what was hidden; it does not mean that the Holy One, blessed be He, arrives—as if He was not there and now He arrives—for everyone serves before Him in the Temple. We do not want (and perhaps this is the argument of Rabbeinu Tam) to diminish the merit of the Divine Presence throughout time and say that there is a Presence only now. On the other hand, there are levels of revelation, and that is why Rashi says: Now there is a higher revelation of the Divine Presence. And the fact that there is a higher revelation of the Divine Presence is certainly a greater merit in this entire commandment of appearing before the face of God, compared to just me ascending to the holy place, which is not the same level. But more specifically, I want to present a great rule we hold: that the bond between a groom and bride is always— "see your affection before the Omnipresent," the Beloved and the spouse are viewed there in the Holy of Holies. Essentially, there are two here that are four, because the groom has two personas within him. If we observe him a bit deeply, there are two personas in him. There is the groom as he is in himself before he knew the bride, when he is at work, when he is even considering getting married, but he has not yet chosen her, he is only considering. So there is the persona of the groom that stands by itself, and there is the persona of the bride within the groom, whom the groom focuses on and wants her to be his partner. And likewise, the opposite: the bride as she is in herself, and as she is projected within the groom. A large part of the marital peace issues are because the groom thinks he married the bride who is within the groom, that is, the persona he creates for himself of the bride. And afterwards, it is revealed to him that the bride is a different persona than what he imagines, and also vice versa. The bride thinks she is marrying the groom who is in her fantasies, and later realizes that he is someone else. And when one knows in advance that there are four here, then the happiness and the expansiveness of the Divine Presence between them are much richer. When we talk about "yira'eh"(appearing) and "yireh"(seeing), let us return to the two readings. So "yireh"(to see) is when each side is occupied with the other. He comes to be set on seeing who the other is. "Yira'eh"(to appear) is that he is the one being viewed. Meaning, his personality receives empowerment and awakening. Someone is observing me and wants to see me. And therefore, there is great room to say that every time we use this vowel structure, whether it is man coming— which is the bride arriving at the encounter—or whether the Holy One, blessed be He, is arriving and the groom is coming to the encounter—when we say about one of them "yireh," it is how he is occupied with the other. When we say "yira'eh," it is how he receives power for his personality from the one who is his other, and that is the difference between them. So therefore there are actually four here: there is "yireh" and "yira'eh" from above, meaning a Divine revelation in its own right that is intensified by the fact that man comes to see it. And there is that from above, He comes to see the Jew, Israel, so He goes out towards Israel. And also from below: there is the bride who comes to see her beloved, and there is that she comes to be seen by the beloved. And it seems to me that this is the more logical order. Meaning , the lowest level is that the bride is seen, and then the bride, as she is in her own confines and in her place, receives great empowerment. The Holy One, blessed be He, looks at her as she is in her place, but she is not elevated by this, but only strengthened within the space she is already in. I remember when I was a boy, not even a teenager, certainly before the age of Bar Mitzvah. I just don't know by how much: a year, two years, maybe three, something like that. We had a London Boys Choir record at home, and the London Boys Choir came for a tour and they had a show at Binyanei HaUma. It was the only time in my life I went to such a concert. And my father, peace be upon him, thought it seemed very strange. There was some good Chabad mentor there, you went to London Boys, good, but my mother, may she rest in peace, she said: let him be, let him go once. So I went, I was alone, a child. And they did a trick there: One of the songs was "Habon Yakir Li Efraim." The soloist, the singer, sang "Habon Yakir Li Efraim" and suddenly he hears a voice that accompanies him, a mature voice, and you see that he doesn't understand what is happening, and in fact, he hears his father accompanying him. His father is in London, how is this happening? Back then there weren't possibilities like today. After a while that he is singing and you see this, the father comes up to the stage—he was brought specially for the event to do such a surprise—and the father comes up to the stage and hugs the child, "Habon Yakir Li." So there is great power here for the child that the father comes to him, but it is as if in his place, while the child rises to a higher level. There is a virtue in this . He goes to the father. He is not just where he is, but the father is performing with his orchestra and the son joins. Oh, that is already something entirely different. That is the son going to the father's place. He is rising to be with the adults. It is like "yireh"(to be seen) and "yireh"(to see) of the bride. "Yireh"(to be seen) is the bride in her place. Now, that the Holy One, blessed be He, says "come , I want to see you, I want to look at you." This empowers with Divine light, in "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine," the existence of Israel. But in their place. But when they see, it is like "Draw me, we will run after you; the King has brought me into his chambers"—that I go to Him. I did not come so that He would see me, I came to see Him ("yireh" with a chirik), which is a higher level, because she climbs and ascends to the Divine space. These are the two levels of the appearances, but all of this—who makes the movement? Whether I come to be seen, or whether I come to see, I acted, this is an action. But according to Rashi, there is a much deeper story here: He says a person from Israel arrives—he does nothing. The whole movement, the whole revelation, the uncovering, the change—this is what the Holy One, blessed be He, supposedly goes through, reveals Himself. A Jew arrives at the Temple, we say: to ascend and to be seen. You have arrived to ascend, but to be seen is something else entirely. It is when the curtain is pulled back and the Holy One, blessed be He, reveals Himself to you. This is a revolution in the revelation of Divinity. Not in your own stirrings. Not in how you appear and not in what you see. And when the Holy One, blessed be He, reaches out to you, that is a completely different story. It is not like the first "yir'eh"—where I am the one seen—but rather He is the One who sees, He is the Viewer. Meaning, the weight of this intensity is found in the, in the Divine vision. That is, I have a new vision. On the contrary, not only do I not remain in my place, everything moves as our Rabbi, Rabbi Tzvi, would always say: "For they shall see eye to eye when the Lord returns to Zion," to align the human gaze with the Divine gaze. There is a Divine gaze here at all; this is a tremendous innovation. Suddenly, from the Holy of Holies, everything is observed, everything is seen—He is the One who sees, this is when He relates to me. Based on this, we can understand that the simple meaning according to Rashi, which we always recite, is built upon this. Upon the fact that the Holy of Holies has its curtain pulled back, and the Holy One, blessed be He, looks upon us—so suddenly we belong to His place . So "yir'eh": they see Him; according to Tosafot "yir'eh" means we are seen, but according to Rashi "yir'eh" means we see Him. And indeed, when the curtain is pulled back, it is as if one sees the Holy of Holies in a place where one would not die, as it is written, "For I will appear in the cloud upon the ark-cover." This is a [ Divine] gaze because it is a revelation above all the constraints of this world , and the place above all the constraints of this world is His vision , which is far beyond just looking at me with the gaze of the Holy of Holies. It is that I, as it were, the Holy One, blessed be He, wants to bring me in to be known. It says in the holy Zohar, " Why was the world created? So that they may know Me." In order that they know Me. They will know the Lord "as the waters cover the sea," meaning that this is a consequence of the Holy One, blessed be He, looking at me. And therefore, this is the supporter and the supported, for Rashi, it is that the Holy One, blessed be He, looks at me with the eye of the Holy of Holies, of that which is above the world's constraints, which must always be behind the veil, behind the partition. So, naturally, I am brought by the King into His chambers in a way that it is as if I participate there. It is hard to express it this way, but if we compare it to what we said before, it is as if He wants me to amplify the Divine light by also being a partner within the Holy of Holies. This is what is explained according to Rashi in the level of "yir'eh." And as we said, one says one thing and another says another , but there is no need to say it is a disagreement; rather, all four exist, all levels are present. When we speak of the commandment of "re'iyah"( appearing), whoever learns the Torah of the burnt-offering is as if he sacrificed a burnt-offering; whoever learns the Torah of "re'iyah" is as if he came, and he did not come empty-handed, but came with all his heart and all his soul and all the levels, and also, as it were, sacrificed a burnt-offering. So naturally, when we return time after time on the three pilgrimage festivals to ascend and appear, as it is written in your Torah, "Three times a year shall all your males appear," we also receive our place in a much more powerful way—that we are seen before Him. Also through this, we look from ourselves and are surrendered to Him to behold the pleasantness of the Lord. And even beyond that, the Holy One, Blessed be He, watches over us from the Holy of Holies, until the King brings me into His chambers, for He desires to capture my heart with one of my eyes, a single gaze, for the Holy One, Blessed be He, wants us to look upon Him, and through this, may the entire depth of the revelation of Divinity be awakened in the bond of love and the vision that we shall merit, with the help of God, speedily and in our days.