Jewish Ecology

Life In The Fast Lane

"Go for yourself…" (12:1)

Very soon, only the speed of light will limit our ability to communicate a thought, a picture, a sound or a sentence from one side of the world to the other – and beyond.

The meaning of the word "distance" has changed forever.

Just as the electron has shrunk our world, so too there has been a quiet and maybe even more fundamental revolution in the way we look at traveling. We see nothing special in the fact that several hundred people can file into a large metal room and find themselves on the other side of the world in a matter of hours.

A little more than a hundred years ago, to circumnavigate the globe would have required months of arduous, dangerous and expensive effort – almost beyond our imagining. Nowadays, the major drawback in circling the earth in a plane is an aching back from sitting in a reclining chair that doesn’t quite live up to its name.

We have breached the last frontier. Distance has become no more than a function of time spent in a chair.

The electron and the 747 have had their impact on our culture in other ways. Our cultural mindset mandates that speed is of the essence. "How fast can I get there?" vies in importance with "Where am I going?"

Immediacy has become an independent yardstick of worth. How fast is your car? Your computer?

Our age has sought to devour distance and time, rendering everything in a constant and immediate present. Now this. Now this. Now this. (Interestingly, the languages of the age – film, television and computer graphics – are languages which have trouble expressing the past and the future. They only have a present tense. Everything happens in a continuous present.)

All of which makes our spiritual development more and more challenging.

Spirituality is a path. And like a path you have to walk down it one step at a time. Your fingers cannot do the walking on the spiritual path. You cannot download it from the Internet.

Everything in the physical world is a paradigm, an incarnation, of a higher spiritual idea. Travel is the physical equivalent of the spiritual road. The quest for spirituality demands that we travel – but this journey is not a physical journey. Many make the mistake of thinking that hitchhiking around the world and experiencing different cultures will automatically make them more spiritual. The truth is that wherever you go – there you are. When your travel is only physical you just wrap up your troubles in your old kit bag and take them with you.

Spiritual growth requires the soul to journey. Our soul must notch up the miles, not our feet. The spiritual road requires us to forsake the comfortable, the familiar ever-repeating landmarks of our personalities, and set out with an open mind and a humble soul. We must divest ourselves of the fawning icons of our own egos which we define and confine us – and journey.

Life’s essential journey is that of the soul discovering its true identity. We learn this from the first two words in this week’s Torah portion. "LechLecha." "Go to yourself."

Without vowels, these two words are written identically. When G‑d took Avraham out of Ur Kasdimand sent him to the Landof Israel, He used those two identical words – LechLecha –"Go to yourself."

Avraham experienced ten tests in his spiritual journey. Each was exquisitely designed to elevate him to his ultimate spiritual potential. When G-d gives us a test, whether it’s the death of a loved one or a financial reversal or an illness, it’s always to help us grow. By conquering the obstacles that lie in our spiritual path – be it lack of trust in G‑d or selfishness or apathy – we grow in stature. We connect with the fundamental purpose of the journey – to journey away from our negative traits and reach and realize our true selves.

We "go to ourselves."

Jewish Ecology

"And G-d saw the earth and behold it was corrupted, for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth." (6:12)

The Rosh Yeshiva’s wife had to make a decision. Her dining room suite was on its last legs. An investigation was made. It would cost almost exactly the same amount of money to repair the old suite as it would to replace it with an identical new one. Obviously she would want to have a new suite, rather than an old one that had been patched up, however good the repair.

Obviously. However, without a moment’s hesitation she decided to have the old suite repaired. One of the yeshiva students asked her why she didn’t prefer to have a new suite.

"It’s not for sentimental reasons." she replied. "Around this table sat all the great Torah sages of Europeat one time or another. When they came to Baltimore, they would always stay with us. It was at this table that Reb Chaim Ozer learned Torah, that Reb Boruch Ber ate gefilte fish on Shabbat. It was on this chair that the Chafetz Chaim sat."

When we think of ecology, we tend to think of our physical impact on Nature. However our spirituality and our morality also impact the ecosphere.

Two identical tables come off the factory assembly line. One table finds its way to a bar. One to a yeshiva. The table in the bar is not the same table as the one in the yeshiva. The table in the yeshiva, supporting holy books and thoughts is a different table. Not metaphorically – but in reality. Its very essence is altered and uplifted.

Such is the power given over to man. We can alter the very eco-structure of the world.

We can destroy the world by polluting it with sin. Or through the mitzvot of the Torah we can raise ourselves and the world with us to the Heavens.

Life’s Rear View Mirror

"And G-d saw everything that He had made, and behold it was very good." (1:31)

No need for rear-view mirrors in our cars! No need to worry when walking down dark alleys at night that someone is going to jump you from behind! For teachers, the highly dangerous practice of writing on the blackboard would lose its trepidation!

Come to think of it, wouldn’t life be much easier if we had three feet? Think how much more comfortable standing in shul on Yom Kippur would be! People would be able to shift from one foot to the other – and to the other. Shoe and sock manufactures would be able to make a better living!

Another thing. Why is it that only the chosen few of us can walk on our hands, and that only with some difficulty? If we could walk on our hands we would be able to see the world from an entirely different perspective! We could revitalize the cerebral cortex with all the blood flowing to the brain! We could do Yoga and aerobics at the same time!

And what about if we had four kidneys, we could donate two of them to people in need with much less problem! And why not two hearts?

While we’re on the subject, I really don’t understand why aren’t our faces coated with plastic so we don’t need to use soap? Just a damp cloth would do the trick!

"And G-d saw everything that He had made, and behold it was very good."

When G-d created the world He consulted with His Heavenly court. G-d premeditated the creation of every organ. The evidence of G-d’s wisdom shines from every creature. If you assembled all the greatest Nobel Prize winners throughout history and gave them unlimited funds and time, they still wouldn’t be able to put life into the tiniest insect.

And even if we can admit that G-d knew exactly what He was doing with the physical creation, sometimes we question His wisdom in other areas. For example, "Why does this guy have so much money? If G-d had given it to me, I’d use it much better." Or, "Why did G-d give this person such talent, such a mind? It’s wasted on him. I’d have put that talent to much better usage."

Just as G-d created the physical world with perfection, and we need neither eyes in the back of our heads, nor hands on which we can walk, nor a third leg, so similarly, each one of us is uniquely and perfectly equipped to fulfil our mission in creation.

• Sources: Midrash Hagadol 1:26, Bereishet Rabba 39:21

The Last Day

"Moses went and spoke these words to all of Yisrael." (31:1)

A thought for Shabbat Shuva (the Shabbat between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur).

What would you do if you knew that you had just one more day to live?

How would you spend that last day?

Would you drive to the ocean with the top down for a last glimpse of the sun rising over the waves? Would you book lunch at the best restaurant in town? Or maybe you would indulge in the thrill of a dangerous sport like skydiving or bungee jumping, safe in the knowledge that there is no such thing as a dangerous sport on the last day of your life.

Or maybe, if you were a more contemplative sort, you’d spend those last few hours writing down your thoughts and feelings as you were about to depart this world.

How many of us would spend those precious last moments calling on our friends to say goodbye, to give them comfort and consolation?

That’s what Moshe did when G-d told him that he had awoken to his last day on Earth. Moshe, the humblest person to walk this planet understood that his duty on his last day was to take leave of the Jewish people and comfort them over his impending death.

And how did Moshe comfort the people? What were his words of comfort? He said, "I am an old man of a hundred and twenty years. I am no longer permitted to teach you Torah; G-d has closed the wellsprings of Torah from me. G-d will not let me cross the Jordan River, but do not be discouraged! The Divine Presence will precede you, and Yehoshua will be your leader."

What did Moshe mean when he said "G-d has closed the wellsprings of Torah from me"? Moshe was telling the people that he had lost the power to communicate Torah to them. Moshe wasMoshe Rabbeinu, Moshe "our teacher." An essential quality of a teacher is that he can adapt his knowledge to the level and understanding of his pupils. When Moshe passed from this world, however, his understanding of Torah was so elevated that he could no longer present the Torah on the level of the Jewish People. Hence the metaphor of the wellspring. A wellspring flows outward. Moshe’s ability to flow his wisdom to the people was closed up.

In fact, Moshe never found it easy to teach the People. When G-d told Moshe to return to Egypt and take out the Jewish People from their slavery, Moshe replied, "I am not a man of words… for I am heavy of mouth and heavy of speech" (Shemot 4:10). In other words, Moshe’s connection to spirituality was so elevated that it was extremely difficult for him to clothe his perception within the sinews of speech.

Moshe comforted the people with the knowledge that though he would not be there to teach them Torah, the Torah would still be with them. They would still have "The Guide To Life" and teachers who could bring its supernal wisdom into each and every life throughout the generations.

Journey To Beyond

"…to love the L-rd, your G-d, to listed to His voice and to cleave to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days…"(30:20)

It seems that for once, curiosity has not "killed the cat".

In a mind-boggling feat of near-science-fiction, the United States has managed to send a remote exploration vehicle called “Curiosity” weighing nearly a tonne,the biggest capsule Nasa has ever used, bigger even than the Apollo Command Module, to explore the surface of our nearest planetary neighbor in space – the planet Mars.

Let’s consider this journey: Eight and half months after leaving Earth, a distance of 250 million kilometers, it found its “entry keyhole” in the sky just a few kilometers across. Had it not done this, it would have had no chance of arriving at its target. The capsule entered the outer limits of Mars’ atmosphere traveling at 20,000km/hr. All that speed had to be reduced to a mere stroll, for when the rover’s wheels touch the ground a mere six-to-eight minutes later it was moving at no more than half a meter a second.

As the capsule raced downwards, it ejected ballast blocks to move its center of gravity and tilt its angle of approach. This gave the vehicle lift. And with the aid of thrusters and some dead-reckoning, the entry capsule flew a path through the upper atmosphere, the underside of the capsule heating up to over 2,000 degrees Celsius.

Then more ballast blocks were ejected to straighten the vehicle before, at 11km altitude and with the descent velocity now reduced to 1,400km/h, the capsule deployed a supersonic parachute. This immense canopy opened instantaneously and absorbed an impulse of almost 30 tonnes.

The parachute further slowed the fall to about 450km/h, and at that point, at an altitude of about 1.5km, we saw what flight system manager Mike Wallace called the “crazy” stuff.

A “sky crane” holding the rover dropped away from the parachute and using thruster rockets to further slow its descent, it headed down towards the surface of the planet.

At just 20m above the ground, the sky crane hovered and lowered the rover down to the surface on three nylon cords. The wheels made contact, the cords were cut, and the crane flew away to crash at a safe distance.

Quite a journey!

But this journey pales in comparison to another journey.

It says in the Book of Ecclesiastes, "…and the day of death is better than the day of birth. It’s better to go to a house of mourning than to a wedding feast." (Kohelet 7:1-2)

The best advice comes from someone who is about to leave this world, someone who can look back over his life with the objectivity of someone who is leaving it.

And the best advice comes from the best teacher, and no teacher was better than Moshe Rabbeinu.

And what was Moshe’s advice to his beloved people on the last day of his life as he looked back over his journey through this world?

“…to love the L-rd, your G-d, to listen to His voice and to cleave to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days…”

When we are born we face a journey that dwarfs the journey of "Curiosity." From the moment we leave the "launch pad" of birth, our days are filled with difficult and sometimes seemingly insurmountable obstacles. At every turn we can make mistakes, sometimes fatal for our spiritual well-being.

Only when we touch down on the surface of the World-to-Come can we finally relax. The whoop of exaltation in the control room of the JPL in Pasadena when Curiosity landed is nothing compared to the whoop of the soul when it finally touches down in the World-to-Come to be satiated with its just reward for having traversed a universe of trials and challenges.