[Avodah] [TorahWeb] Rabbi Ahron Lopiansky: Drinking: Spiritual or Vulgar?

Fri Oct 28 07:11:06 PDT 2022

It isn't often that a parashah sheet raises a dialectic.

In any case, RALopinsky's discussion of wine as "elixir" vs "poison"
reminded me of Rav's description of the Torah. Don't know
what to make of it.

Shabbos 88b (c.f. Yuma 72b; in Widen Your Tent pp 6-7, I offer a possible
difference between RCbP's citation quoted here, and R Yehudah b Levi's
in Yuma):
    Rav Chananel bar Papa said: What is meant by, "Hear, for I will speak
    princely things, [and my lips will open with what is right]" (Mishlei
    8:6)? Words of Torah are compared to a ruler, to tell you that just
    as a ruler has power of life and death, so too the words of the Torah
    [have potential for] life or death. As Rava said: To those who go
    to the right side of it, it is a sama dechayei, a medicine for life;
    to those who go to its left, it is a sama demusa, an elixir of death.

-micha

Fcc: RAL

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Rabbi Ahron Lopiansky
Drinking: Spiritual or Vulgar?
https://www.torahweb.org/torah/2022/parsha/rlop noach.html

Wine and drinking first appear in the Torah in parshas Noach. Throughout
the Torah, wine is referred to very ambiguously. Sometimes it is treated
as the most heavenly of all elixirs, and sometimes it seems as if it is
the most poisonous of all potions. On the one hand, we know that wine
is brought together with sacrifices, and that shira -- song is recited
only over wine. We also know that we both bring in Shabbos and escort
her out, over a cup of wine. Additionally, wine is referred to as,
"that which gladdens the hearts of men" (Tehillim 104:15).

Then there is a second side to wine. A nazir is considered someone who
has become uniquely sanctified because he has abstained from drinking
wine. The downfall of the children of Aaron happened because of the
wine that they drank (Rashi, Vayikra 10:2). In our parsha Noach plants a
vineyard, drinks wine, becomes drunk and loses his dignity, and thereby
incurs shame on himself and a curse on one of his children. The Gemara
states that "wine brings about all tragedies" (Berachos 40a).

So how do we understand wine? Is it something positive and a divine
elixir, or is it a poison that drives a person away from all that is
good and noble?

This dichotomy is actually alluded to in the responsa of the Radvaz
(2, 615) where someone asks him about the nature of the drinking of
the children of Aaron. He speaks about it a bit and then he states:
"you need to be aware that there are two types of wine, the wine that
is poisonous and intoxicates, and on the other hand the wine that brings
about joy. It all depends on the intention of the drinker. The children
of Aaron were seeking the wine that intoxicates. They rejected the wine,
'that has been kept in the grapes from the six days of creation' and
therefore they deserve death".

The words of the Radvaz are cryptic. Let us try to understand them with an
explanation that the Maharal gives (Sanhedrin 78 and other places). The
Gemara there states: "Rav Chanan says that wine was created in the world
only for two reasons: to comfort mourners, and to pay the wicked their
reward in this world." It's a little bit hard to understand the seemingly
random juxtaposition of these two purposes, but we do gather that one is
very positive and one is very negative; i.e. the comforting of mourners
seems to be something very positive, whereas the paying back the wicked
with the reward in this world seems to be something very negative. So
once again we see in the words of the Gemara that there are two types
of drinking.

Let us, then, try and understand a little bit about what is it that
drinking represents and expresses. The Maharal explains that of all the
physical foodstuffs we ingest, wine is unique, because wine comes from
"something hidden, within something that's hidden". This means to say,
that the grape is the fruit itself, the juice is the hidden essence
of that fruit, and the fermented wine is hidden within that hidden
juice. This represents "sod" which means 'secret' in Hebrew. As the gemara
states, "when wine enters, one's sod (secrets) exits." The word "sod -- 
secret" and the word "yayin -- wine" actually have the same gematria
(numerical value).

This is parallel to the process of Hashem creating the world, wherein
He created the world as is perceived on the surface, together with
a multitude of deeper understandings and realities. The outer layer
of the world is that which the physical senses and the rational mind
grasp. The senses feel the object physically, while the rational mind
defines it. But there is something deeper within this world, an inner
essence. The body and senses cannot perceive this reality, nor can the
rational mind, for it, too, is limited to that which can be grasped by
the senses and extrapolated by reason. The mind cannot process that which
is beyond the senses and beyond even reason. However, when we succeed in
bringing out some of the inner essence of a person, some of that inner
awareness that transcends reason, then that person is able to "grasp"
things that lie beyond reason.

This ability to reach beyond the constraints of the superficial and
physical world is an incredible faculty, and can be a great blessing. For
instance, going back to the words of the Gemara, when someone is in
mourning, something has been lost to him forever. As far as human beings
can perceive with their senses and "reason", death is final and there is
nothing after that, and thus the loss is irreversible and eternal. Try as
hard as we may, there is no way for our physical minds to "understand"
that there is life after death. But when we loosen the shackles of our
senses and rigid physical reasoning, we are able to perceive that there
is a world after our world, a world that is eternal and whose essence
cannot grasped by the senses, or even by the mind. This is how wine
enables the mourner to rise above his sorrow.

Similarly, when a person praises Hashem, he starts with prose. While such
prose is limited to our experiences, our knowledge, and our understanding,
Hashem's true praise rises beyond that. That true praise is shira -- 
song, and that is the ultimate praise. Shira is enabled by the wine that
liberates us from our world of sense and reason, and allows us to rise
higher. This is why true shira demands wine.

This liberation is only possible for a person who has risen as high as
he can with his actions and his mind, and is now looking to rise even
higher. His "drink" is simply a push further. However, a person who
has not reigned in his physical drives and passions, and is looking for
wine to loosen the last remnants of reason from his body, is acting most
destructively. A person who has few deeds and even less developed daas
is fooling himself terribly when he claims that the wine "elevated"
him. Besides the crudeness and vulgarity that the drinking evokes,
its experiences are nonsense. What he thinks are "deeper revelations"
are in fact nothing but idle fantasies. Yes, they "transcend" the mind,
but not because they're revealing a greater truth, rather because they
fall very far short of any truth.

Thus, the Torah is revealing to us the correct understanding of the
"wine" experience. When a person has climbed the ladder of kedusha and
da'as and is using wine to say shira to HKB"H, it is most uplifting. But
when a person drinks to forget the reality around him and to free himself
from the moral constraints of da'as, then not only is one not uplifted,
rather one is falling into the deepest of abysses. Indeed, it is the
fool's paradise of the wicked!