[Aspaqlaria] Aspaqlaria

[Aspaqlaria]

Aspaqlaria

///////////////////////////////////////////
A Thought About Maoz Tzur
 
Posted: 20 Dec 2006 10:41 PM CST
http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2006/12/thought-about-maoz-tzur.shtml


One line in Maoz Tzur I particularly love. The 5th verse of Maoz Tzur describes the Chanukah story. One phrase in this verse is ufortzu chomos migdalai, which would be literally translated and they opened up the walls of my citadel. Mentally, I always pictured breaking down the walls of the Beis haMiqdosh, or perhaps a fortress. However, I found the following Mishna in Middos (Ch. 2, mishnah 2 in the Yachin uBoaz edition, mishnah 3 in Kahatis  who splits up the YuBs mishna 1 into 2 parts). The second chapter describes the Beis haMiqdosh as it would appear to someone walking in from outside the Temple Mount to the Altar. This mishna picks up right after you walk through the gate and onto the Temple Mount.

Inside of it is the soreg, 10 tefachim [appx 26] high. It had thirteen peratzos (broken openings) there, that the Hellenist kings partzum (broke open). They returned and closed them off, and legislated corresponding to them 13 prostrations.

To help you picture what a soreg is, the root means woven. The Bartenura describes the soreg as a mechitzah woven out of thin wooden slats running at diagonals. The Bartenura compares it to the part of the bed used to support the mattress, with plenty of open space inside the weave.

He goes on to say that the Hellenists opened up holes in the soreg opposite each of the gates in the outer wall to let anyone see in. Note the shoresh used /p-r-tz/, the same as in the piyut. The soreg marked the limit for gentiles, they were not allowed in beyond that point. To the Hellenist mind, this havdalah bein Yisrael laAmim, separation between the Jews and the other nations, was repugnant. It ran against their assimilationist efforts.

Chomos migdalei, the walls of my citadel, were not the mighty walls around the Temple Mount or the walls of a fortress. They were a see-through mechitzah, the realization that the Jew, as one of the Mamleches Kohanim, has a higher calling.

(Everything above this point was published 8-Dec-2004. The following is new.)

One possible reaction to assimilation is to build up the fortress walls. We can hope to stave off negative influences by reducing out exposure to the outside world. The idea that we need to stay distinct is not necessarily one that isnt heard, but perhaps one that we are overly stressing.

I think this too is a message of the soreg. Yes, there is a separation between Jew and non-Jew, but  it is only waist high and woven of slats with far more space than wood. The walls of my fortress are a reminder, not a solid barrier.

We are charged to be G-ds mamlekhes kohanim vegoy qadosh  a country of priests and a holy nation. We need to balance the separation implied by the concept of qedushah with our role as qohanim, a priesthood providing religious leadership. We can not be priests if we do not stay to our special calling, but our special calling is self-indulgent if we do not use it to serve others. Ki miTzion teitzei Sorah  because from Zion the Torah shall come forth. By wallling ourselves in we not only protect ourselves, we prevent ourselves from teaching others.

This is an important facet of R SR Hirschs concept of Torah im Derekh Eretz. Yes, it does mean that we are to import derekh eretz, the ennobling elements of our surrounding culture and its sciences. But it also means that we are are to be the worlds moral voice, to contribute to the nobility of that society.

Noach blessed two of his sons, Yaft E-lokim leYefes, veyishkon beohalei Sheim  G-d gave beauty to Yefes, and dwells in the tents of Sheim. To Rav Hirsch, this is a description of a partnership, Yefess mastery of derekh eretz and Sheims spiritual gifts.

Unfortunately, by building up the fortress walls, we miss many opportunities to act as a priesthood. It is a shame that its not the most observant Jews who are most vocal about Darfur. If we accuse the world for their silence during the Holocaust, then people who feel that the events in Darfur do qualify as genocide can not stand by when it happens to someone else. How much more so if we recognize ourselves as kohanim to the world!

Similarly, helping out at the local soup kitchen. Earlier today I received an invitation from a synagogue to serve meals there. I was disappointed, although not surprised, to see that the synagogue was not Orthodox. Yes, we need to worry about Jewish causes; there are far more people out there to see to the general need. But I was proud of the local Young Israel, who used to staff a similar kitchen on days like the upcoming Monday (Dec 25th), when non-Jewish volunteers tend to have family obligations.

Antiochus breached the soreg in an attempt to unify his empire as a melting pot, everyone Hellenized. This would have destroyed our goy qadosh, our nations unique voice in the world. However, the ideal soreg defines a distinction, not forces a separation. Once the tile that is the Jewish people, our role as teachers, moral guides and a conduit of sanctity, is protected and intact, then it can and must be part of Hashems glorious mosaic. Only by having a serug can we balance integrity and priesthood.

The word migdalai not only means my towers or my citadels, it can also be read those things that make me great. Only by having both separation and contact can the walls of our miqdashei meat, our synagogues and batei medrash, truly be chomos migdalai.



///////////////////////////////////////////
Why do we light the new candle first?
 
Posted: 20 Dec 2006 09:28 PM CST
http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2006/12/why-do-we-light-the-new-candle-first.shtml


My son (4th grade) had a class Chanukah party, for which he was aked to prepare a short devar Torah. A short vertl, a question and answer to fit in less than a minute.

My son wanted to know why we light the Chanukah menorah starting from the left candle and working your way to the right. Usually mitzvos start on the right! He was so drawn to this question, he was going to present it even though he didnt have an answer.

Heres what we eventually came up with (2 minutes before showtime):

One of the most important things in Yahadus is to  constantly growing, to always try to be a greater tzadiq than one was the day before. We light the left candle first because it is the new candle. As we rule (following Beis Hillel), we light every day more than the day before because maalin beqodesh velo moridin - we ascend in holiness, not refress. We therefore start with the symbol of progress.



///////////////////////////////////////////
Shiluach haQen
 
Posted: 20 Dec 2006 09:20 PM CST
http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2006/12/shiluach-haqen.shtml


This entry is a continuation of the previous one.

I - Shiluach haQein

האומר על קן צפור יגיעו רחמיך ועל טוב יזכר שמך מודים מודים משתקין אותו:

One who prays, Upon the birds nest your mercy extends[, so too may you have mercy upon us]  we silence him.




- Mishnah Berakhos 5:3 (33b)




פליגי בה תרי אמוראי במערבא רבי יוסי בר אבין ורבי יוסי בר זבידא חד אמר מפני שמטיל קנאה במעשה בראשית וחד אמר מפני שעושה מדותיו של הקדוש ברוך הוא רחמים ואינן אלא גזרות

Two amoraim in the west (i.e. Israel) are divided about it, Rabbi Yosi bar Avin and Rabbi Yosi bar Zeveida. One said: Because he places jealousy upon the creatures of Genesis. And one said: Because he makes the attributes of the Holy One to be Mercy, but they are only laws.





-Berakhos 33b






We are obligated to send away the mother bird before taking eggs or hatchlings from her nest. This is the mitzvah of shiluach haqein. We are told here that the mitzvah can not be about having mercy on birds because (1) if it were, there would be similar laws for mothers of other species; and (2) they exist as laws upon people, not as part of Hashems relationship with His birds.

It would seem that shiluach haqein is similar in thrust to why we make a berakhah on bread before other items. We show respect to bread, the staple of our diet, beyond the respect shown other foods. Similarly, Aharon, not Moshe, initiates the plagues of Blood, Frogs and Lice. As Rashi repeats form our sages, this is because the Nile saved Moshe when he was hidden there as an infant, and the sand saved him when Moshe killed the Egyptian taskmaster and buried him in the sand. Even though bread, the Nile and the sand of Egypt are inanimate objects, and do not feel the gratitude shown them, people need to express the gratitude, to reinforce the middah in ourselves.

I think this is the second explanation in the gemara. The mitzvah is not for the sake of the bird experiencing receiving mercy, but for the sake of the person having the excercise showing it mercy.

But does the bird not suffer to see her children taken from her? Why is it wrong to acknowledge Hashem sparing it that suffering? And why arent there mitzvos sparing other animals mothers such suffering?

II - Can Animals Speak?

The simplest explanation of the Targum I discussed in the previous entry describing the human soul as a ruach memalela  a speaking spirit is that there is some fundamental skill necessary for true speech that people have and animals lack. In recent years, this has become difficult to identify. There are apes that have been taught American Sign Language. They lack grammar; the ape Koko will say Koko wants banana and Banana wants Koko interchangably. Perhaps grammar is the critical skill implied. Without grammar distinguishing I threw the ball and a ball threw me, all we know is that an ape can identify that the world involves a ball, itself, and throwing, and not necessarily describing the event itself.

However, more recently the orangutan Chantek was taught ASL, and not only can phrase her needs, she invented tomato toothpaste as a sign idiom for catsup. While there is still no sign of an ape mastering grammar, thats impressive.

To further complicate things, its unclear how non-human Chantek is. It depends what the gemara means when speaking of adnei hasadeh. If I take the aggadita part literally, the are human beings that grow off stalks; their navel is on a stem that goes into roots in the ground. Halachically, killing one can qualify as murder. Is this a hypothetical case  people say these things exist, and if they do, it would be murder? Or is the aggadita metaphoric, and its talking about apes or some subset of apes. Perhaps the aggadita speaking of how they would die if you took them from their habitats and thus are attached to the ground. The Malay orang + hutan (man + wilderness) sure sounds a lot like adnei hasedeh (men of the field).

Back to the point, I now find it possible but difficult to explain Targum as saying that people qualitatively have some communication skill lacking in animals, rather than quantitatively superior skills. This drove my conclusion that the speech here is internal to the self, the stream of consciousness of the seikhel, and motivated much of the previous entry.

III- Are Animals Self-Aware?

Revisiting the issue of the Turing Test and if it can produce false positives: Do animals have this ability to perceive their own thoughts? Are they self-aware? Does an animal not only recognize self, but have an I in their consciousness that can know what its like to make that recognition?

Targum Unqelus describes the human soul as being uniquely a ruach memalela. We noted that animals are also described as having a nefesh, but no mention of their having a ruach. And we also argued that self-awareness is a feature of free will, which people have and animals lack.

If the mother bird lacks self-awareness, she can still feel and respond to the pain of losing her children. It is pain because it is something she responds to by trying to minimize. But there is no I to experience that pain, the pain isnt internalized by the koach hadimyon within the birds soul. It is pain, but it is not suffering. Which would explain why the Torah is not concerned with her suffering. Rather, it is concerned with creating people who are capable of inflicting pain. It is not Divine Mercy on birds, it is a personality-shaping law given to man.



///////////////////////////////////////////
Ruach Memalela
 
Posted: 20 Dec 2006 01:27 PM CST
http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2006/12/ruach-memalela.shtml


I - Ruach Memalela

Heres the creation of man, as described in the Torah.
וַיִּיצֶר יְ-הוָה אֱ-לֹהִים אֶת-הָאָדָם, עָפָר מִן-הָאֲדָמָה, וַיִּפַּח בְּאַפָּיו, נִשְׁמַת חַיִּים; וַיְהִי הָאָדָם, לְנֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה.
Hashem G-d formed man, dust of the ground, and He breathed into his nostrils a living spiritual-soul; and man became a living life-soul.
- Bereishis 2:7
וּבְרָא יְ-יָ אֱ-לֹהִים יָת אָדָם, עַפְרָא מִן אַרְעָא, וּנְפַח בְּאַפּוֹהִי, נִשְׁמְתָא דְּחַיֵּי; וַהֲוָת בְּאָדָם, לְרוּחַ מְמַלְּלָא.
Hashem G-d created man, dust of the ground, and He breathed into his nostrils a living spirtual-soul; and it became in man a speaking will-soul.
- Targum Unqelus, ibid

Nefesh, ruach and neshamah are defined as the ideas are developed in Qabbalah. There are many posts in this blog that touch on the subject. The distinction between them must be addressed here, as all three words are used.

The Torahs version of the pasuq uses the root yatzar, to gives shape or form to something that already exists. Hashem shapes man, breathes into him a neshamah, a spiritual soul, an existence in heavenly realms. This transforms man into a living nefesh. Being a nefesh alone does not make man unique. The prohibition against eating blood is for the blood is of the nefesh. Animals have a nefesh, which lends significance to their blood as well. The relavent term here would seem to be that the nefesh of man is chayah, living.

Unqelus uses terms that stess what is new and unique about a person. He opens the pasuq with the word uvera. Unlike yetzirah, beriah is creation of something toally new, yeish meiayin  ex nihilo. And while the Torah speaks of how the breath transforms man into a living nefesh, Unqelus speaks of it as a new thing  a speaking ruach that is within him. Ruach (lit: Wind) is the flow from the neshamah, the breath before it fully leaves the Breather, and the nefesh, the breath at rest. (See Nefesh haChaim 1:5 or the translation and discussion here.) The soul as wind, the unseen will which can change the universe.

The Torah writes of the being of dust becoming living, a changing, growing, dynamic nefesh. Nefashos existed before, in animals, as did the body. The fact that its living is a change, not a creation. Unqelus writes of man now having a will that speaks. As his work is a Targum, not a commentary, presumably these are two sides of the same coin: being endowed with a speaking ruach is key to giving chiyus (life and dynamicity) to a nefesh.

II - Two Ways of Thinking

By my own experience, conscious thought happens two ways: the internal monologue we call a stream of consciousness, and by setting up thought-experiments to run through. For example, there are two ways to think through the question Does an elephant have hair?

Streams of consciousness, hereafter seikhel (for reasons that will become evident later), are a common tool of an authors trade because its thought in the form of words. A solution based on this mode of thought might run something like this: Elephants are mammals, all mammals have hair, and so unless elephants are the exception to the rule, they must have hair. Elephants are well known and discussed animals. Could they be an exception to the rule and I dont know it? Nah, they must have hair.

On the other hand, when I someone, and realize he has red hair, I dont simply pick up another fact about the person, I have the experience of seeing red hair. I can remember and reproduce the image of him and his red hair in my mind. The knowledge isnt reducable to words, it involves qualia, attributes of internal experience. And when I imagine what he would look like with black hair, I manipulate an image, not simply reason with concepts reducible into the words of my seikhel. There is a shared feature to seeing and hearing something when it happened, remembering the event, and imagining what the event would be like. When I remember my sons face, I do not simply remember facts about it translatable into my seikhel, the flow of words in my head. I actually recreate the experience of seeing it. When I remember last Yom Kippurs Kol Nidrei, I reproduce the experience of hearing the Chazan sing it, the congregation singing along.

This is the koach hadimyon, the ability to make likenesses”. It is usually translated as imagination, but this translation is anachronistic  the word imagination changed meaning since first coined by Aristotilians (such as the Rambam). Dimyon is the laboratory of my thought experiments.

Solving the elephant problem through dimyon, you can remember elephants you saw, or saw pictures of. The detail may be blurry, so you may have to manipulate the picture a bit. Finally, a version of the picture which has a tuft of hair at the tail, maybe (if your memory is good) some downy hair around the eyes and ears, strikes you as the most familiar, the most real. And again you could reach the conclusion that elephants have hair.

Note that both require being aware of ones thoughts: there is no stream of consciousness without a listener hearing the thoughts. There is no dimyon without an observer (and listener) watching the theater. This is a kind of self-awareness essential for the idea of free will to be meaningful. Free will is the ability to choose ones actions and reactions, which is impossible if one can not perceive which thoughts to choose among.

And therefore, the ruach, the seat of will, must be self-aware. Conscious thought comes from the awareness of our thoughts, including our awareness of that awareness itself, and so on in an infinite regress. Free will comes from being able to monitor ones thoughts and edit them based on judging what one monitors.

III - Yeitzer Hara or Key to Nevuah?

Rav Yisrael Salanter opens his Igeres haMussar (The Mussar Letter, Ohr Yisrael ch. 10; heb  eng, smoother English trans.) with the following (tr. mine, but it and the comments are based on a combination of the above):
A person is free in his dimyon and bound by his reason.

The phrase here is assur bemuskalo. Assur literally means bound or imprisoned (beis haasurim = jail), but to anyone familiar with halakhah, the meaning of prohibited will certainly also leap to mind.

Muskal is a conjugation of the same root as seikhel (mind) using the passive mode the Haskalah chose for their name and carried echoes of that meaning to contemporary readers. It is used elsewhere in Or Yisrael to connote thought about ones middos.
His dimyon walks him unfettered in the direction of his hearts desire, without fear of the certain future, the time when Hashem will call to account for all he caused to happen.

Is Rav Yisraels dichotomy between muskal and dimyon the same as the one we laid about above between seikhel and dimyon? Can we really take a mixture of Aristotelian thought and my own observation of what goes on in my mind and assume it is Rav Yisraels intent? And if that is the distinction he is drawing, why is dimyon being demonized?

After all, nevuah (prophecy) also uses dimyon.
The information that is made known to a prophet in a prophetic vision is made known through a parable whose meaning is immediately engraved [understood] in his heart in such a manner that he knows what it is.
- Rambam, Yesodei haTorah 7:3

I think therefore we must conclude key of Rav Yisraels thought is more in the contrast between free and confined than in dimyon vs. muskal. Dimyon is far more readily uncontrolled. Emotions are more readily fired by events rather than ideas, and so of our thoughts, our ability to create and recreate events has a strong ability to shape our desires.

As Rav Dessler writes (Michtav meiEliyahu IV pp 251-255) in the name of the Alter of Slabodka, this very same ability, when controlled, gives us the leverage to shape ourselves, to climb the Mesilas Yesharims ladder to prophecy and beyond. Dimyon as a mussar tool warrants its own post, beH.

Rav Aryeh Kaplan comments on the following story in the gemara (Yuma 69b). The members of the Anshei Kenesses haGedolah fasted for three days, trying to destroy the yeitzer hara for idolatry. A lion of fire came out of the Qodesh haQedashim and the navi tells the Jewish people that it is the yeitzer hara that they have been seeking. They trap it in a cauldron of lead, and ever since then the call for idolatry is muted.

Note the desire to worship idolatry is recognized only by the navi. It appears in a dimyon, a lion that exists in perception, but isnt a physical thing they see. This desire isnt purely evil, it stems from the heart of the Beis haMiqdash itself! And, as Rabbi Kaplan adds, this story is about the last of the prophets. After Anshei Keneses haGedolah, the people who trapped this inclination, prophecy ceases.

Without the challenge there is no growth; without fighting a desire for idolatry, one doesnt develop the skills for prophecy. As it is put in Mishlei zeh leumas zeh  this [is created] in opposition to that everything in this world is created to balance our opportunities for good and for evil. That quality of dimyon needed for nevu’ah that was also the main call of the idol was placed in a cauldron.

IV- The Turing Test and the Limits of Free Will

Alan Turing, one of the fathers of computing theory, decided that the question of whether machines will ever be able to think is meaningless. He instead proposed this question: Can a machine be made whose output is indistinguishable from that of a person? To that end, he designed the Turing Test. A tester is given access to two teletypes. At the other end of one connection is a human being, the other is controlled by a computer. The tester needs to decide which is which solely on the basis of the text on it. Both the human and the program must try to be identified as a human being. The program passes the test if the tester is unable to make the determination.

If you think about it, this is how we judge other people as well. We cant know whats going on inside their own minds. Rather, we assume theyre aware based on judging their behavior.

But I find this shift of the problem dissatisfying. It may be outside the purvey of science to discuss my subjective experience, but that does not mean it exists. I know what its like to be me, to see a red ball and have within my mind a mental image of the scene which I can replay by memory and modify  or even construct on my own  through dimyon.

We know from computer programming that very complex output is possible without this awareness of my thoughts, including that awareness itself as a thought of which Im aware. Perhaps even behavior complex enough to pass the Turing Test without having anyone home aware of the thoughts. No I experiencing them.

As we saw in the previous entry, angels are credited with complex activity and yet we do not assume that its the product of free will.

Not all human decisions involve free will to the same extent. Rav Dessler gradiates decisions based on their distance from the bechirah point. (See this post.) Consciousness is more involved the closer a decision is to the battle-front between ones desires. One person might have to consciously choose not to cheat a cashier at a restaurant. For others, the idea would never cross their minds  the decision is unconscious.

Psychoanalysis speaks of things happening in our unconscious, preconscious, and subconscious.

And people can be trained to have Pavlovian responses. I recall a high school science teacher make this point. He had us write an X in our notebook every time he said X. The first so many times, he said X while banging a ruler on his desk. He went at a rapid clip, not giving us time to think, and the ruler was much louder than he was. At some point, he stopped saying anything, and just hit the desk. Most of us kept on going for quite a while before realizing, writing X when we heard the slap of the ruler rather than follow instructions.

So people can act without full self-awareness. Not every decision involves seikhel that the ruach both produces and listens in on, or a dimyon that has an audience. As Rav Dessler writes, who we are is defined by where our bechirah point is, which decisions require conscious attention, what issues get address with conscious thought. And it is on the distance we moved that bechirah point, and against what odds, that we are judged.

V- A Living Soul

Perhaps we can use all of the above to address our opening question.

What does it mean to be a nefesh chayah? Sartre summarized Existentialism with the enigmatic words Existence precedes essence. When it comes to a table, one can know something about the plan for building the table, the kind of wood the table will be made from, etc and thereby know much about the table before it even exists. Human beings, however, exist before their essence is defined. We are changing, dynamic beings (as also discussed in the last entry, in contrast to angels).

In terms of the bechirah point, we mean that the topic which grab our awareness and therefore more fully enter conscious decision making changes during the course of our lives. Hopefully for the better, sometimes not so. In many different directions: we can be moved to be more compassionate or at another time, to be more spiritual. There are many different values about which we can be challenged at different levels.

For a man is a tree in the field. This pasuq refers to the prohibition against waste; do not chop down a fruit tree when attacking the city, because that tree represents future lives. However, it is also often used homiletically. I would point out that a tree only grows on the outer edge, constantly moving the bark further out and further up. The majority of the tree is static, rigid. We too only grow under that spotlight of our bechirah point. The rest of our territory is rather rigid. We change as we move that area, changing where and how we grow.

Seikhel takes ideas and develops them into new ideas. It is a rigid system guided by logic. If it is functioning properly, the only time it would reach wrong conclusions is when working from false premises. It is therefore an ideal tool for channeling our growth. Dimyon is a more effective tool for maximizing that growth. The two combine to make a vector: one provides direction, the other, quantity.

How was our nefesh given chiyus? The Targum tells us that it was our getting something new, a ruach memalela. A will that communicates, that is both a speaker and a listener. Its to be capable of engaging in conscious seikhel and dimyon, to be able to watch our thoughts, judge them, and adapt them, in one seamless loop. That is the engine that moves our bechirah point ever forward.


This posting includes a media file: http://www.aishdas.org/igeresHamussar2.pdf

--
You are subscribed to email updates from "Aspaqlaria."
To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubcribe now http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailunsub?id=317024&key=izo%2Byu3%2FM71F48ktt9O6JA%3D%3D 

If you prefer to unsubscribe via postal mail, write to: Aspaqlaria, c/o FeedBurner, 549 W Randolph, Chicago IL USA 60661

This Email Delivery powered by FeedBurner.
	
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/aspaqlaria-aishdas.org/attachments/20061221/1b68295c/attachment-0002.htm>