Redeemed from centuries of spiritual mistrust, our attention is directed to what religion has always taught us to ignore – the body. * Everybody must shine on their own. The role of mentor (mashpia) is meant to be temporary.
By Rabbi Boruch Merkur
Face the irony. It took the greatest spiritualist and mystic, none other than the Lubavitcher Rebbe himself, to give us back our body.
Redeemed from centuries of spiritual mistrust and rejection, even scorn, the Rebbe redirects our attention towards what religion has always taught us to ignore.
The body is the thing we are most naturally inclined to identity with. It is the shape that defines us as human beings and conjures the illusion of separation (from other individuals and from our Creator). The body is our interface with the world. It determines our predilections, compels our fascinations, and allows us to form relationships.
The revolution began with The Baal Shem Tov, who approached the body as an ally to enfranchise and nurture:
Assist the body, the so-called “enemy” of the soul. Purify it. Refine it. Do not break it …
The love G‑d has for every Jew extends not only to the soul, but to the body as well. G‑d loves all Jews equally, from the most erudite Torah scholar to the simplest Jew.[1]
In our generation, the Rebbe uplifts the body to the next level. It is not a distraction. Not just a partner towards a common goal. It itself is the goal. By engaging the world of body, listening to it, trusting it, it can be persuaded to most reflect its Divine source.
Thus, from the time of the Baal Shem Tov, the favored haunt of the Evil Inclination undergoes an extreme makeover and is rebranded as the precious, G-d’s palace on earth. In fact,
the litmus test that one’s devotion is perfect and wholly authentic, even from a mortal standpoint … is when the lowest depth shines on its own.[2]
*
The wicks of the Candelabra in the Holy Temple, the Menora, had to be lit to shine “on their own.” This independent flame is the model of sacred perfection, applying to every domain. Everything – including and especially the otherwise coarse and material body - is meant to shine on its own.
Of course, monotheism insists there is nothing but G-d - ein od milvado. How exactly does “our own” fit in to the equation when everything depends on G-d?
But we can flip the question on its head and ask: What gives us the audacity to presume that our self-centered ego - which insists, “the world was created for me (bishvili nivra ha’olam)” - is in any way distinct from G-d’s oneness? It too reflects its Maker. In fact, “the true identity of the created self is the true Divine Self.”[3] “The identity of a Jew is itself HaAtzmus (as it were), G-d’s core.”[4]
Mattan Torah reconciles the spiritual with the physical, allowing physical things, the body, etc., to become “inherently holy, ‘going up on its own’ - not requiring, as it were, Divine inspiration (or even human initiative) to draw holiness into it.”[5]
Like any good parent, G-d wants His children to grow up to become independent, to shine Divinity on their own. True, we have been inculcated with the need to have a mashpia, a source of spiritual inspiration and guidance, but we mistakenly attribute permanence to that role. Just as parents raise children to become self-reliant adults, potential parents in their own right, the role of mentor (mashpia) is meant to be temporary. The one who had sought advice (the mushpa) is meant to shine on his or her own.
As the redemption unfolds, the dependence on mentors as personal stewards wanes and retires. In their place are the responsible, independent men and women they inspired:
Torah study begins with a Jew receiving Torah from his teacher and rabbi … The student must strive to understand Torah with his own understanding and intellect until it is engraved in his memory and mind, to the point that the Torah unites with him (and he no longer needs to go to his rabbi) … In fact, the talmidhimself becomes an innovator of novel Torah teachings and a mashpia in Torah, as “a flame goes up on its own.”[6]
The perfect and true service of G-d is that (after having been kindled by others) one becomes a flame that goes up “on its own,” meaning that the “a Mitzva is a lamp and the Torah is the light” penetrates him so thoroughly that it shines from him, from himself on its own (as a soul in a body), so that he does not need to rely on the influence of the mentor (the one who “lit the lamp”), being a “flame that rises on its own.”[7]
And the Rebbe teaches us how this is done:
The order to approach this spiritual aspiration is to first devote oneself (when one’s body obscures the light of his soul and his commitment to Torah and Mitzvos) towards evolving one’s nature through habituation, by reworking the body. Doing so reveals the power of the Divine core within the Jew’s body.[8]
Spiritual heights are attained when the body is trained to fulfill Mitzvos in a manner of “on its own” – as in the phrase, “when he would bow his head for Modim, it bowed on its own”[9] (but at the same time it is not done as “Mitzvos of those who do it by rote,”[10] but by “ascending in sanctity” (by striving to bring beauty to Mitzva observance, and the like)).[11]
The transition from identifying as the created self to the infinite Divine core is approached by first going through the motions – but not by rote (and not by relying on ongoing inspiration from a mentor). Rather, each Jew strives for Divine beauty, taking on the love and devotion to Torah and Mitzvos as G-d Himself does.
*
NOTES:
[1] https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/3073/jewish/36-Aphorisms-of-the-Baal-Shem-Tov.htm
[2] Seifer HaSichos 5751, pg. 607
[3] די מציאות האמיתית פון דעם יש הנברא איז דער מציאות פון דעם יש האמיתי – FN 50: “See Biurei HaZohar of the Mitteler Rebbe B’Shalach 43c – where it suggests that this concept is mainly with regard to the Jew’s body.” Seifer HaSichos 5751, pg. 604
[4] מציאותם גופא הוא (כביכול) העצמות– Ibid pg. 605
[5] Ibid
[6] Seifer HaSichos 5751, pg. 602
[7] Seifer HaSichos 5751, pg. 601
[8] Seifer HaSichos 5751, pg. 604
[9] Tosfos “Iyun,” Shabbos 118b, from Yerushalmi Brachos 2:4
[10] because of habituation
[11] Seifer HaSichos 5751, pg. 603