PERCEPTIONS, PARASHAS LECH LECHA, ISSUE #2070 - By Rabbi Pinchas Winston
THE VERSE SAYS, “Chochmah m’ayin timatzei—Wisdom, where can it be found?” (Iyov 28:12). But it is one of those beautifully short and seemingly simple verses that, in the world of Kabbalah, speaks universes…and then some. This one is literally the foundation of all of Creation and life.
Iyov asked it as a question, but in Kabbalah it is actually a statement: Chochmah—from Ayin you will find it. Chochmah is the name of the second highest sefirah in the system, and Ayin is the name of the level of Keser, the highest. The light of Ayin, which is so spiritual that we call it “Nothing,” only becomes something that Creation can sense once it becomes the level of Chochmah.
The Vilna Gaon explains that this is the whole point of Chochmah, to act as a means to reveal God and what He is thinking. And just as it takes the sefirah of Chochmah to filter the light of Ayin for the worlds below it, likewise it takes Chochmah to see the hidden reality of God within the world and history.
That was Avraham. The Gemora says that before Avraham, there was no such thing as old age. You could live for hundreds of years and still look your youthful self. There was no such thing as growing old or of dying from old age.
But it also made it hard to know who was the father and who was the son, and people often got it wrong. That complicated a lot of things, so Avraham prayed that people should age as they get older, and look the part, gray hair and all. Thus was born ziknus—old age.
But that’s only a Pshat level. On a Kabbalistic level, Avraham was called zaken—elder—because the three letters of zaken are considered to be a roshei teivos for zeh koneh chochmah—this one has acquired wisdom. This is why we stand for an elderly person even if they are not known to be a talmid chacham: you can’t have lived that long and not have acquired a fair bit of chochmah.
That was not the kabbalistic part. The kabbalistic part is that Avraham was considered to be a zaken for a different reason. It was because he acted in the role of the sefirah of Chochmah by filtering the light of God and making it accessible to others who would have completely missed it. It’s what he was doing here:
Avraham had all those who passed by and stayed call out in God’s name. How did he do it? After they ate and drank and stood up to bless him, he would tell them, “Was it from mine that you ate? It was from that which belongs to God of the world that you ate! Thank, praise, and bless the One who spoke and created the world!” (Sotah 10b)
And so they did, and walked away having experienced the reality of the one true God because of Avraham Avinu. He saw something in life that others did not, and then figured out a way to translate his knowledge into terms that others could relate to. It was chochmah coming from Ayin. It’s what all of history has been about, figuring out what God is thinking as He reveals it to us.
It would be an easy task if life didn’t get in the way. Life is so phenomenally distracting and misrepresenting, and more than ever before. God is sharing His thoughts with us all the time, if you know to pay attention to them, and how. The trouble is that His intermediaries do such a good job of acting as if the are the originators of what they say and do, that people reading what they write and hearing what they say actually fall for it. They forget to say, “This is only this person’s opinion. What truth about God can I extract from it?”
It is amazing how prophecies long ago predicted that the main antagonist of the Jewish people at the End of Days would be Persia, Iran in modern terms. And lo and behold, they have become exactly that. They have been forced to stop fighting their anti-Zionist war by proxy and get directly involved, arrogantly and stupidly escalating the war as if they want the War of Gog and Magog.
Israel for its part, right or wrong, feels the need to go as far with this war as Iran is prepared to make it go, and the world is willing to let it happen. But that world is the same one that allowed two world wars to already occur against all logic, as will this one too.
Against human logic, that is. Yes, it’s humans fighting the war, preparing for more of it, and talking about what has happened and what might follow. To deal with all of this on this level alone is to cut God out of the picture, to deny ourselves the opportunity to know what He is thinking, and even why. It’s the only reason why this war is happening. It’s the only reason why anything happens.
Avraham Avinu figured this out on his own, and this week shows us the door that it opened for him, and ultimately, for mankind as well. Our task is both easier and more difficult. Easier inasmuch we have his footsteps to follow in. Harder because mankind’s deception has never been more sophisticated. If you want the truth about life and history, don’t turn to Yaish (man). Turn to Ayin (God), and become a conduit for His Divine wisdom.
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Thirtysix.org
Rabbi Pinchas Winston
Shabbat Shalom
