“This is the statute of the Torah…which has no blemish, upon which a yoke has never come” (Bamidbar 19:2). The Mayana shel Torah brings the Chozeh m’Lublin who explains that people who consider themselves as having no faults—no blemishes, have obviously never carried a yoke—meaning the yoke of Hashem’s kingship. For if they had accepted it to any extent, they would know that they still have many faults.
One of the most difficult things for a person to deal with is his imperfections, shortcomings, mistakes, failures—i.e., his blemishes. We will do anything to not deal with them, to cover them up, to hide them from ourselves and others. The pain of having to deal with them outweighs the fabrications that the denial mechanism has to offer. We’d rather fool ourselves and others to think we’re all good and fine than to accept our blemishes. Moreover, we might steer our lives in the wrong way just to negate the possibility of coming face to face with that which we don’t like in ourselves.
For those involved in helping other Jews spiritually, it’s difficult for them to see their fellow brethren on different playing fields, far away from the world of Torah and Hashem. Moreover, when such brethren display apparent animosity toward Hashem and Torah, it might make the inspired believe that these brethren really do hate what we cherish and know to be the truth. But I thought of a perspective based on this Chozeh m’Lublin: perhaps we got it all wrong and are judging incorrectly. Perhaps the deeper reason for the attitude of these brethren of ours is not because they have delved into the gamet of philosophical argument and historical data and came to the conclusion that it’s all terrible. But rather, it could be that they subconsciously know that once they pledge their allegiance to Torah and Hashem, that once they “carry the yoke of Hashem’s kingship,” they will realize that this new lifestyle will impose many self-revelations: they will be hit with the recognition that indeed “they still have many faults,” that they too have blemishes. All the years of living in mistake, the “willful” abandonment of Torah, the wasted time, doubts of whether Hashem will “accept them,” the guilt, the blemishes incurred from all those years—it’s simply too much to bear. Deep down they might highly despise their blemishes, and coming to terms with the Torah might reveal them too strikingly. So instead, they might take that disliking they have of themselves and express it toward the Torah and Hashem—the Source of what they may feel is trying to make them feel small. It might just be a fear of dealing with the blemishes, not true animosity. Someone who views the life of Torah and Hashem’s kingship simply as a threat is not quite the same as someone who is a lamdan in heretical philosophies that deny God and pose spite toward Torah.
This idea has very practical ramifications, particularly for those who are out in the trenches dealing with religiously difficult people who seem to be anti-Torah. A person in such a role not only needs tremendous patience, but he or she needs to develop the tact to speak the language that speaks to their crowd in a way where the audience can feel the true beauty of Torah, and to inspire them in a way where they can understand Hashem’s patience and willingness to accept. The great Rebbi Akiva—before he became the Rebbi Akiva that we know of—was a person who wanted to “bite talmidei chachamim like a donkey.” What inspired him? He saw how water—drop after drop—gradually made a hollow in a rock so tough, and the lesson he gleaned from that was: if easygoing water can little by little make an impact on such a rough surface, so can Torah—slowly but surely—make an impact him. Sometimes with people we need to be like that flow of easygoing water, where drop after drop of Torah wisdom and inspiration can be relied upon to slowly but surely make an impression in those brethren whom we seek to bring closer to Hashem’s kingship.
By Binyamin Benji
Binyamin Benji is a graduate of Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yitzchak Elchanan and Wurzweiler School of Social Work. He currently learns in Lakewood and is the author of the Sephardic Congregation of Paramus’ weekly Torah Talk. He can be reached at [email protected].
