Parashas Emor, Issue #2145 - By Rabbi Pinchas Winston
THIS IS NOT a perfect world. Nothing new so far. It is a perfectly imperfect world. Okay, that may be new to some, but it is not original. Perhaps not original, but certainly confusing. The only way that something can be perfectly imperfect is if the original intention was to make it that way, imperfect. But who does that?
God, for one. He made a broken world. That certainly is nothing new and people complain about this to Him every day. But, since it is what He intended to do from the beginning, because He certainly could have made a perfect world if He had wanted to, and will one day in the future, it is, well, at least according to God, perfect.
We tend to disagree on this point a lot, God and I. Apparently my idea of perfection is very different from His much of the time. Perfect to me means making no mistakes and I get disappointed and frustrated when I do make a mistake. I hate mistakes. A lot of the time God tends to embrace them and, apparently, to even cause them.
One of us is confused and getting it wrong and, contrary to my ego, I am betting it is me. I mean, after all, He IS God. I’m just one of his puny creations that many use as an example of how just imperfect Creation can be, including me. I make mistakes, sometime even when trying my utmost not to. They’re in my books, in my speech, and in my actions. And sometimes it seems as if my brain belongs to someone else.
Fortunately, I have learned enough to understand somewhat and appreciate a little why this world had to be made perfectly imperfect, why a kohen has to be born with a blemish sometimes, or even why an eleven-year old girl had her life cut short, and her parents are left behind to live with that. Not the specifics, like why that Neshamah versus another, but in general.
She has been taken to Gan Aiden, like all the others who have suffered or died while living in this country. She can see the big picture and now put her life and death in perspective. But it becomes too much to bear when thinking about the families still living down here who can only know what they can see, and who have to wake up each day to the same burning pain of an irreplaceable loss. Perfectly imperfect.
I can tell you about reincarnation and rectification. I can quote the Gemora that suffering is good. I can even paint a kabbalistic picture that portrays how the null and void of pre-Creation continued into after Creation as well. And, we can blame Adam for eating from the Aitz HaDa’as and the Jewish People for sinning with the golden calf for the kind of history that just perpetuates the imperfection of an already perfectly imperfect Creation.
People like to say, “If it aint broke, don’t fix it.” Of course, that’s only logical. But if your job is to fix things? Remember the lonely Maytag man, the guy trained to fix washing machines that purportedly never broke down? We’d be like him in real life if this world was perfectly perfect…which it will be one day…after we’re no longer expected to fix it.
This coming week is Lag B’Omer. We may make bonfires and barbecue, but the main point of the day is to celebrate the revelation of the “Zohar” by Rebi Shimon bar Yochai on that day, two millennia ago. It took over a thousand years to officially publish it, but now there are various different commentaries to guide us through its otherworldly content.
In my brief exposure to the Rashb’i’s and Arizal’s writings, I’d say the greatest benefit I have gained is seeing just how perfect this imperfect world is, and even a little of why that is perfect, for now, by being imperfect. It is small consolation for people who suffer because of that imperfection, directly or indirectly. But sometimes small consolation is all a person needs to get from one dark day to one that is a little brighter.
We have answers, but certainly not all of them. But we have enough of them to be able to conclude with confidence that there is Divine method to what people perceive as Divine madness. It leaves us room to go on and hope to fix what we can. We may not be able to see the good from what we do or go through, but it certainly has to be a lot more than giving up and being more imperfect than we have to be. That’s certainly not perfect in any way.
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Rabbi Pinchas Winston
Shabbat Shalom
