ESSAY:
In The Desert
The soul of man descends to earth to civilize the wilderness. Or is it to unfetter civilization?

Travel Clothes
Dressed to go, the Torah is swathed in the three layers of human existence: a holy veil, a blue character, and a leather environment

Two mountains figure prominently in Jewish history: Mount Sinai, upon which we received the Torah from G-d, and Mount Moriah—also known as the “Temple Mount”—which is the focus of man’s service to his Creator.[1] The former stands in a barren desert, the latter in the heart of Israel’s capital, the city of Jerusalem.

Our sages explain that the Torah was given in the desert in order to emphasize its accessibility to all. The civilized world is divided into “zones” of varying degrees of exclusivity: there are public thoroughfares, but even these have rules and regulations that govern their use; there are areas restricted to select groups of people (citizens of the country, members of the club, etc.); there are private homes, themselves divided into “public” and “private” rooms. There are open cities, walled cities, and capital cities with compounds into which entry is allowed only to those with the proper credentials. The Temple Mount represents the apex of such a hierarchy of space: our sages count ten geographical “circles,” each enclosing a domain of greater sanctity and restriction, from the borders of the Holy Land to the Temple’s innermost chamber (the “Holy of Holies,” into which only the Kohen Gadol[2] was allowed entry, and only on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year).[3] This expresses the concept that man’s path to G-d consists of many steps and levels at which a person must be deemed worthy before he may proceed.

Mount Sinai, on the other hand, which rises from the desert, represents a peak that is accessible to all, without restriction or protocol: the Torah is open to everyone, like the ownerless and zoneless wilderness. This is also alluded to by the fact that the section of Bamidbar (“In The Desert”) is always read prior to the festival of Shavuot, which marks the day on which we received the Torah, again emphasizing that it is “as free as the desert to all inhabitants of earth.”[4]

Another lesson from the borderless desert is that true mastery of Torah requires mesirat nefesh—unequivocal commitment and sacrifice. In every domain there are boundaries which delineate how far one should go. Halt! the boundary says, you have reached your limits; you cannot go on until you have graduated to the next level. Mesirat nefesh means that one does not recognize any limits on one’s capacity, or any hurdles that one is “not expected” to overcome; that one pursues his goal with a single-minded intensity, uninhibited by external powers-that-be or by one’s own limitations. In the words of the Midrash, “Whoever does not abandon himself like a desert, cannot acquire Torah.”[5]

The Torah was given in the desert. But where, exactly, in the desert? The Talmud cites two versions of how and where the transmission of the divine wisdom and will to man came about.

All agree that the “general principles” of the Torah were revealed at Mount Sinai (in the form of the Ten Commandments and in the communication to Moses during the forty days he spent atop the mountain). Regarding the particulars of Torah, Rabbi Yishmael is of the opinion that these were communicated to Moses in the Mishkan, the portable sanctuary that the Jewish people erected at each of their forty-two encampments in the desert. Rabbi Akiva disagrees, maintaining that “the general principles and the particulars of all the laws were taught at Sinai.”[6]

The Mishkan was the forerunner of the Temple. It was the epicenter of the Israelite camp, the innermost of a series of perimeters that marked successively holier domains, as the permanent Temple on Mount Moriah was to be. The Mishkan (consisting of a “Holy of Holies,” a less exclusive Sanctuary, and an outer courtyard) was surrounded by the Levite camp, which was the halachic equivalent of the Temple Mount; the Levite camp was in turn surrounded by the encampments of the twelve tribes of Israel (each tribe in its particular zone, marked by its flag), which had the status of the holy city of Jerusalem. In other words, the Israelite camp with the Sanctuary at its heart represented the “civilization” of the desert into a structured space, divided into zones categorized by function, sanctity and restriction.[7]

In light of this we can understand the deeper significance of the dispute between Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Akiva. While both agree that the Torah was given in the desert—that it is open to all without restriction, and that it must be approached with the abandon of mesirat nefesh—Rabbi Yishmael sees this as the “general,” elementary quality of Torah, which should then give way to a structured study of its particulars. Everyone is free to study Torah, but one must follow its step-by-step formulae, including those that govern who should study what, and when. A person should sacrifice everything he has and is for the sake of Torah, but he must also exercise restraint and not overreach his limits. The mesirat nefesh must be there in the background, but the actual pursuit of Torah must be “civilized” by the same laws and boundaries that apply to every holy endeavor.

Rabbi Akiva, however, maintains that both “the general principles and the particulars of all laws were said at Sinai.” That the universality of Torah permeates its every chamber, and that one’s self-obliterating abandonment to its study should be total and all-consuming. The Torah, to Rabbi Akiva, is all desert: an open terrain of unrestrained mesirat nefesh.[8]

These two perspectives on Torah were mirrored in the lives of their proponents. Rabbi Yishmael was a lifelong scholar and a Kohen Gadol. Rabbi Akiva was a descendant of converts to Judaism, and until his fortieth year was an ignorant shepherd who, by his own attestation, harbored an abysmal hatred toward Torah scholars.[9] Thus Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Akiva embody the respective paths of the tzaddik, the perfectly righteous man who follows a lifelong program of developing the good in himself and in the world, and the baal teshuvah, who propels himself from the depths of iniquity to the heights of achievement. The tzaddik’s route is orderly and unwavering; step by step, he climbs the stairs of Torah to increased knowledge of and union with G-d. The baal teshuvah’s life is anarchic and volatile, involving sharp falls and meteoric ascents. The tzaddik internalizes his mesirat nefesh and builds upon it a holy civilization; the baal teshuvah agitates it to drive his explosive life.[10]

As in all Torah disputes, “These and these are both the words of the living G-d.”[11] Both these approaches to Torah are to be adapted, compounding the ordered perfection of Rabbi Yishmael[12] with the power and passion of Rabbi Akiva.

Based on the Rebbe’s talks, Iyar 20, 5725 (May 22, 1965)[13] and on other occasions

Travel Clothes

And when the camp journeys on, Aaron and his sons shall come and take down the dividing curtain [of the Sanctuary] and cover the Ark of Testimony with it. They shall place upon it a covering of tachash hide, and spread over it a garment wholly of blue-wool, and set [the ark’s] carrying poles in place.

Numbers 4:5-6

When Moses went up to heaven, the angels asked G-d: “What is a human being doing amongst us?” Said He to them: “He has come to receive the Torah.” Said they to Him: “This hidden treasure, which was secreted with You for nine hundred and seventy-four generation before the world was created, You wish to give to flesh and blood?...  Place Your glory upon the heavens!”

Said G-d to Moses: “Answer them.”

Said [Moses]: “Master of the Universe! This Torah that You are giving to me, what is written in it? ‘I am the L-rd Your G-d...   You shall have no alien gods.’ Do you dwell amongst idol-worshiping nations?” asked Moses of the angels ...  “What else does it say? ‘Remember the day of Shabbos.’ Do you work? ...  ‘Do not swear falsely.’ Do you do business? ... ‘Honor your father and your mother.’ Do you have parents? ‘Do not kill,’ ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not steal.’ Is there jealousy between you?  Do you have an evil inclination?”

Talmud, Shabbat 89a

The ultimate purpose of Torah–as Moses demonstrated in his celestial debate with the angels–can be realized only upon its descent into the mundanity and corporeality of the physical world, to be implemented by human beings with negative inclinations in their character and negative influences in their environment.

Specifically, Moses speaks of three incarnations that the soul of the Jew undergoes in order fulfill the mitzvot of the Torah: a) its placement within a physical body; b) its saddlement with negative traits and evil inclinations; and c) its entrenchment in a corrupt and pagan world. The body subjects the soul to the trappings of physical life–family, work, money, etc.–so that it may observe mitzvot such as honoring one’s parents, resting on Shabbat and dealing honestly with one’s fellows. A further descent for the soul is its ensnarement within an “animal self, replete with negative drives and desires; resisting one’s own evil inclinations–observing mitzvot such as “Do not steal” or “Do not commit adultery”–provides further opportunities to implement the divine will. Finally, soul, body and deleterious character are subjected to a pagan world, in world so alienated from it Maker that some even deny His very existence.

When from the depths of this triple exile the soul applies the Torah to its daily existence, manifesting the divine truth in the lowest tiers of G-d’s creation, it fulfills the ultimate function of Torah: to make the world a “home” for G-d, an environment hospitable to, and expressive of, His all-pervading reality.

Screen, Garment and Covering

The three layers of corporeality that cloak the soul have their parallel in the three coverings of the “Ark of Testimony” that stood in the innermost chamber of the Sanctuary. When the ark was carried from camp to camp in Israel’s journey from Egypt to the Holy Land, it was encased in three different coverings: the parochet (the curtain that divided the “holy of holies” in which the ark stood from the rest of the Sanctuary), which was removed and draped over the ark; a “garment” of blue wool; and a “covering” made from the hide of a tachash.

The parochet, itself a sacred component the Sanctuary, represents the body, itself a positive and holy part of the human being, even as it veils the spirituality of the soul. The more external “garment” represents the more negative “animal soul,” while the coarse leather “covering” corresponds to a society and environment even more corrupting than a person’s own negative inclinations.[14]

When the ark stood in its place in the Holy of Holies, it had no need for coverings; but to journey on, G-d commanded that it be “swallowed up”[15] by its triple vestment. The same applies to the Torah, which the ark contains and represents.[16] If Torah is to remain in its spiritual incarnation–as it did until the day that Moses ascended Mount Sinai–it need not be subjected to contact with flesh and blood. But G-d desired that it journey on, that it carry His truth to the darkest reaches of the material world. So He took His “hidden treasure,” the most intimate expression of His wisdom and will, and translated it into a guide to physical life—life enmeshed in bodily needs and relationships, in negative drives and inclinations, and in a world still distant from its Creator.

Based on an address by the Rebbe, Shabbat Bamidbar 5725 (June 5, 1965)[17]

Adapted from the teachings of the Rebbe by Yanki Tauber