In preparation for Passover next week, we are presenting the first part of a farbrengen held by Rav Ginsburgh a few years ago. This was one of the most powerful examples of the Rav’s method of drawing correspondence between seemingly unrelated sets of items that the sages grouped together. In this farbrengen he focused on sets of 4 elements, including the 4 Sons in the Haggadah, the 4 Cups of Wine. Many of the insights from this seminal farbrengen were included in the Rav’s Hebrew Haggadah, Sodot Min Haseder.
Rav Ginsburgh began by defining the essence of the Exodus to be the liberation of our aspiration to know and then reviewing the 4 Existential Questions that dwell deep in the heart of every Jew. The second half of this farbrengen will be published in next week’s issue of Wonders.
Freedom to Aspire
Breathing is one of the most important health hacks we possess. Around the world, many diverse cultures have focused on the healing properties of breathing. When you think of the Exodus from Egypt, when you think about Passover, breathing might not be the first thing that comes to mind. But if we ask ourselves, what is Passover’s core message, we might answer that the Exodus from Egypt allowed us to aspire again as a people. Breaking the chains of bondage and exile allowed us to become the nation we were destined to be. Breathing is also called respiration. Every time we breathe, we are in a sense re-aspiring. In fact, the Hebrew word for “inhale” (שְׁאִיפָה) literally means “to aspire!” Aspiring is the essence of the Exodus from Egypt; it is the aspiration, the yearning. Because the Exodus of Egypt is the bedrock of our people, it would not be amiss to say that Jews are defined by the fact that they aspire. The Jewish soul aspires.
There are many things to aspire to in life. Some yearn for material things, an aspiration that can never be satisfied, as King Solomon famously said, “One who loves money is never satiated with money.”[1] When it comes to physical wealth, the rule to follow is, “Who is wealthy? One who is satisfied with his portion.”[2] But when it comes to the spiritual realm, being satisfied is considered a shortcoming. Hence, the Jewish soul though is never satisfied with its current spiritual state, it always yearns for more. This is the power of the infinite that resides within the Jewish people. It is the manifestation of the blessing to “be fruitful and multiply.”[3] And this blessing is manifest most powerfully on Passover, as alluded to by the shared value of “be fruitful and multiply” (פְּרוּ וּרְבוּ) and “the Paschal sacrifice” (קָרְבַּן פֶּסַח).
An Obligation to Question
Aspiration begins with knowing. A Jew aspires to know, which is why Jews have questions. Nowhere is this more pronounced than at the Seder. We just begin the Haggadah and we come across the directive, “And here the son asks: What….” It is well known that even if there are no children to voice these questions, any adult at the table will do just as well. Even if one is celebrating the Seder alone, one is obliged to ask the questions.
This simple directive, “And here the son asks: What…” (וְכָאן הַבֵּן שׁוֹאֵל: מָה…) hides a deep Kabbalistic concept. The words for “son” (בֶּן) and “what” (מָה) are the names of two fillings of God’s essential Name Havayah.[4] The “son” (מָה) represents the backside, it is from there, where the light has not yet reached, that questions are asked. It is from the backside that one seeks and aspires to find answers. That he begins his questions with “what” (מָה) alludes to how the backside constantly seeks the frontside, constantly yearns for the light and the revelation of Godly essence that will bring clarity and resolution. Accordingly, in Kabbalah, the filling that equals “son” (בֶּן) constantly seeks to attach to the filling that equals “what” (מָה)—questions demand answers and shadows must be illuminated.
The combination of “son” and “what” is equal to “time” (זְמַן). Every moment of time is described as a product of the Divine dynamic known as “touching and not touching.” Every moment of time is a product of our aspiration to find out more and touch even that which cannot be touched.
Sets of Four
The Haggadah presents Four Questions. They are the first set of four we encounter on the Seder night. Then there are Four Sons. There are also Four Cups of wine. Rabbinic sources contain references to other sets of four, one of the best known being the four sages who entered the Pardes (i.e., Paradise). We will attempt to show how they all connect.
One simple connection is that the four cups of wine are meant to allow us to reach deep within ourselves to ask our most existential questions. The sages say that “Wine enters, secret exits.”[5] Wine has the capacity to reveal secrets. Our deepest secrets are those existential questions we carry in our heart, which we have never dared to ask. When I drink four cups of wine during the Seder, I suddenly feel I have four questions. I feel the freedom to ask. Passover is the “time of our freedom” (זְמַן חֵרוּתֵנוּ). Freedom in Hebrew (חֵרוּת) is an acronym for the four sons in the Haggadah: “the Wise one, the Wicked one, the Earnest one, and the One who does not know how to ask” (חָכָם רָשָׁע תָּם וְשֶׁאֵינוֹ יוֹדֵעַ לִשְׁאֹל). The essence of freedom is freedom of speech and the essence of free speech is the freedom to ask; to ask our Father in Heaven: “Tatee, I want to ask You four questions.” Modern psychology is well aware of repression and that sometimes, what is repressed needs to be released. On Seder night, all my repressed existential questions must come out. This is the aspiration we have when coming out of Egypt. To know.
Repressed Questions and the Evil Inside
The Rebbe Rashab taught that all year long, we are required to be in a state of knowing: “You shall know today… that Havayah is your God.” Whomever is obligated to know, must pose questions. It is in its ability to question that the Babylonian Talmud is superior to the Jerusalem Talmud. The Jerusalem Talmud has fewer questions, and consequently, it does less to rectify the evil within, because questions originate from the side of negativity. Because the Babylonian Talmud is described by the verse, “Havayah has made me dwell in darkness,” it poses more questions, it can rectify more of the concealed evil. When the questions are posed before God, “Tatee, I want to ask You questions,” they have the power to clarify and rectify the deepest evil. That too is the purpose of the Exodus from Egypt.
The Four Existential Questions
We begin by identifying the four existential questions in life. At first glance, they are not related to the four questions asked in the Haggadah, but later, we will see the deep connection between the two sets of questions.
The first existential question is: Why was I created? This is a personal version of the general question: Why did God create the world at all?
One might ask, is it even a good thing to be created? At the personal level the sages rule that, “it is better for a person not to have been created than to have been created.”[6] Since this applies to every individual Jew, all the more so that it applies to the entire world. Thus, there is an enormous question here.
Generally, it is young children who ask the deepest questions. This is why the Exodus from Egypt is described by the prophet with the words, “I recall your favor, the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown”[7] as well as, “I fell in love with Israel, when he was still a youth, and I have called him My son, ever since Egypt.”[8]
This is the aspect of youth, or small-mindedness (מוֹחִין דְּקַטְנוּת) that is the hallmark of Passover, as taught in Chasidic writings. Matzah too is an exemplar of small-mindedness. The Creator loves young children because they are clearly capable of asking deep, penetrating, and existentially challenging questions. Questions like: Why did God create the world? Why did God create me? Or in another version: Why am I here in the first place? What is the purpose of life? Nothing arouses God's essential love more than the sincere stance of the young or the young at heart, who turn to God in states of small-mindedness.
The second existential question is: Why did God choose the Jewish people above all nations?
Now that God has created me, the second question focuses and reveals an entirely different dimension. If God is already creating, if there is to be Creation at all, the ideal would be complete equality. After all, we all descend from Adam, and since Adam sinned, we all need to rectify that. So why would one people be considered superior to another?
Now, Chasidic teachings explain that only a Jew would ask this question. There are those who say this is the question of the wise son. The wisdom in this question is that no matter what special character trait you would present to justify Israel’s choice, this character trait is always the product of Divine awakening, of a Divine gift granting Israel this special trait. If you argue that a Jew is fine, that a Jew has a Divine soul, in the end, where does that come from? It comes from the Holy Blessed One. The Divine soul is not the “I.” We say every morning, “the soul You gave me is pure.” It is not mine, it is not me. You God give me my soul; You gave it, and You give it each and every day. You give me my soul, and You make me a Jew. This is why every Jew must recite the blessing, “Blessed are You Havayah… Who has not made me a non-Jew,” because it could have been, God forbid, the opposite.
We can deepen our understanding of the origin of our special status by contemplating the nature of humility. On the verse, “the humble shall increase their joy in Havayah,”[9] the tradition in Chabad, from the Alter Rebbe and on, is that a Jew’s true humility must extend even to a non-Jew. The foundation of humility in Chasidic thought is that had God given someone else the good qualities he gave me, presumably the other person would have been even better than me. This explicitly includes every non-Jew also. Everything that we identify as distinctive signs of being a Jew, things that are not conscious at all, not dependent on free choice—compassion, modesty, and kindness[10]—are gifts from God because they are the traits of the soul that is a gift from Him. But, if everything is by Divine decree, then there is no a priori explanation to why God chose me and us, singling us out as better than others. This thought creates a contradiction within the Jew himself. Our inner sensibility demands and declares equality. Thus, this is the second existential question: How is it that God favors one over another?
The third and fourth existential questions go together. The third is why is there suffering in the world? Why does God do such things? Why is there evil in the world? Our world is full of evil and injustice. And this is not merely evil in appearance. And it is not because those who suffer from it are always somehow at fault.[11] This is the well-known question of tzaddik vera lo, “a righteous person who suffers.” There is no more profound existential question than this. Moses himself asked this question regarding Rabbi Akiva, and God answered him: “Silence! This is what has arisen in My thought,”[12] I have nothing to say to you.
Indeed, we must mention that for now, none of these existential questions have a full answer. They represent the longing in the Jewish soul.
The fourth question, which is connected to the third is, why has Mashiach not yet come? This is the question the Lubavitcher Rebbe asked publicly many times. All the designated times for Mashiach’s arrival have passed,[13] everything has been accomplished, all necessary teshuvah has been done, and still Mashiach is not here. “Until when?” (עַד מָתַי). This question is linked to the third first through Moses. The question of evil and suffering is attributed to Moses and he is also linked to the Mashiach, since about Moses it says, “he is the first redeemer, and he is the final redeemer,”[14] meaning that Moses is (soul of) the Mashiach. They are also connected because when the Mashiach does arrive, one of the things we will see is an end to the problem of a tzaddik who suffers. Evil will be rectified once the Mashiach arrives.
A beautiful, original, Chasidic teaching is that there are 3 foundational principles we must integrate into rectify our mentality. We call them the alef, beit, and gimmel of Chasidut. The alef is the expression, “There is nothing besides Him” (אֵין עוֹד מִלְּבַדּוֹ), which begins with the letter alef. The beit of Chasidut is, “For me the world was created” (בִּשְׁבִילִי נִבְרָא הָעוֹלָם), whose initial letter is beit. Finally, the gimmel of Chasidut is, “This too is the good” (גַּם זוֹ לְטוֹבָה), which begins with the letter gimmel.
These three foundational expressions correspond to wisdom, understanding, and knowledge. To perceive the one true reality, that “there is nothing besides God,” is not easy and depends specifically on the sefirah of wisdom, on one’s sense of selflessness.[15] Integrating this consciousness allows me to sense the true being within me, my Divine soul, for whose service and dedication to God, “the world was created.” This corresponds to the sefirah of understanding, the beginning of “being.” Thus, the relationship between the first two principles is one of nothingness and being.
Finally, the third principle relies on our sefirah of knowledge (da’at), the ability to break reality and reveal its true inner purpose, which is to aid me in my service of the Almighty. Knowledge is where the right and left axes or must be joined, or included within one another. The pinnacle of this inclusion is to tangibly see, in actual experience, that even “this,” is for the good.
Despite how important and essential these four questions are, it is important to realize that even after they are asked, no direct response is offered during the Seder. Nonetheless, the time to ask these questions is Passover. There is something in Passover that surpasses even the Giving of the Torah. The Giving of the Torah is also, for now, about providing answers. However, there is something about Passover that allows for questions that even the Giving of the Torah cannot yet answer yet, until “a new Torah shall issue forth from Me.”[16] These are the four questions whose origin is in the young children who have just started learning Torah.
These existential questions that the young children perceive remind us of one of the principles that appears in the Responsa of the Rashba: when praying, we picture before us the same God that the child would have in mind. The child is not sophisticated enough to pray to any of God’s manifestations, to any of the sefirot, or any other quality of God. He or she prays to God’s very essence, to His being. Just as the child recognizes God’s very essence in the purest more underestimated manner, so the child can ask any question without imposing any limitation on it. And thus, to whomever the child is praying, I too must I pray.
Furthermore, the four existential questions about life are seen to correspond to the first three sefirot: wisdom (chochmah), understanding (binah), and the sefirah of “knowledge” (da'at), which divides into two lateral sides known as “the depth of good” and “the depth of evil.” They are also the five aspects of loving-kindness in the right side of knowledge (chassadim) and the five aspects of severity (gevurot) that are the left side of knowledge. These three sefirot that are divided into four also correspond to the four compartments in the head tefillin.
The first question—Why was the world created?—corresponds to wisdom, following the verse, “You made them all [i.e., all the components of Creation] with wisdom.”[17]
The second question—Why the Jewish people?— is the question of understanding, following the principle that, “Israel preceded everything in thought [i.e., within the intellectual faculty of understanding].”[18]
The third question—Why is there evil in the world?—corresponds to the left side of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.” This is the question that parallels the aspects of might or severity in the sefirah of knowledge.
Finally, the fourth question—Why has the Mashiach not come?—also corresponds to the Tree of Knowledge of Good, but this time to its right side, the five aspects of loving-kindness within the sefirah of knowledge.
From among these four questions, which is primary? We said that the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s most important and therefore the primary question is the fourth: Why has the Mashiach not come? He does not understand it, and he protests and cries out about it each day. In fact, even though we have seen the connection between Moses and the third question, the problem of suffering in the world, Moses is also explicitly connected with the question about Mashiach. How so?
When God tried to convince Moses to accept the mission of saving the people from Egypt and bringing them out to receive the Torah and to inherit the Land of Israel, Moses refused. His argument was that if God cannot make him the Mashiach, if God cannot promise that there will be no more exile after the Exodus from Egypt, then he, Moses, is not interested in fulfilling this mission. Like all great leaders of each generation, the Lubavitcher Rebbe is an embodiment of “the extension of Moses into every generation,” and therefore, for him too, the question of why the Mashiach has not come yet would be tremendously important. As Moses said, “Please send [the redemption] through whomever else You will send.”[19] I do not want to redeem this nation as the first redeemer, if I cannot be the final redeemer here and now!
Moses too wants the Mashiach to come. This corresponds to the five aspects of loving-kindness in knowledge. It also includes the five aspects of severity, since Moses ties the coming of Mashiach with the problem of suffering, “Why have You caused suffering to this nation? Why have You sent me?”
Encapsulating the two questions of knowledge, Moses asked to know God’s face[20]—for there is no one like Moses who yearns to know. We said that the beginning of aspiration is the aspiration to know, as in, “Know the God of your father and serve Him.”[21] All our service is according to the sefirah of knowledge. Every day we seek new knowledge of God. This aspiration to know more serves as the underlying principle for so much of the Chasidic path revealed by the Ba’al Shem Tov. How so?
The sages reveal that, “the Mashiach comes to bring the righteous to perform teshuvah.”[22] There is a well known parable attributed to Rabbeinu Saadia Gaon. The Ba’al Shem Tov identified with him so much that he said he was his reincarnation. The parable is meant to illustrate what it means that one should repent every day, even if one has not sinned. Daily repentance can come as the result of knowing God more from day to day. When I recognize, when I know God better today than I did yesterday, I feel that relatively speaking, all my service from yesterday was like “nothing” and that today I must begin to serve Him anew, repenting for my lack of knowledge yesterday. In a sense then, the coming of Mashiach is the ability to continually aspire to attain further knowledge of God.
When Moses asked the Almighty, “Please show me Your glory,”[23] God answered him: “You shall see My backside,” for now you will only see the back.
According to the Torah’s inner dimension, it is the essence of Joseph that has the power to transform the back into the frontside. This was the reason that Moses fulfilled Joseph’s request that, “You shall bring my bones up from here.”[24] Joseph adjures all of Israel. Joseph’s bones are understood to represent the power to leave Egypt. Moses takes Joseph’s bones to transform back into front. In the end, when Moses asks to see God’s face as it were, God replies: “You shall see My back, and My face shall not be seen.”[25] For now.
When will Moses see God’s “frontside,” as it were? Only at the very end of his life, when he reaches the fiftieth gate. It is then that he merits to die by a Divine kiss (מיתת נשיקה) and through that kiss, merits to, as it were, see God’s face.
In proximity to Passover, we read parashat Acharei (Leviticus 16), which relates the death of Nadab and Avihu, two of Aharon the High Priest’s sons, when they sought to serve God in a way not commanded. Upon their death, Moses said to Aaron, Nadab and Abihu were greater than the two of us. How so, asked Aaron. The answer said Moses is that we patiently wait for the kiss to come to us (this is how Moses and Aaron felt). But Nadab and Abihu, they could not wait. They yearned and desired with an aspiration and will more genuine than ours, to the point that they themselves drew close to the kiss.
The Four Who Entered the Pardes
We now come to another famous and well-known set of 4 mentioned by the rabbinic sages. They tell us of a mystical experience that included four of the greatest rabbinic leaders of their age: Rabbi Akiva, Ben Azzai, Ben Zoma, and Rabbi Elisha ben Avuyah (later referred to as Acher, i.e. “the other”). They entered the mystical realm of the Pardes—a figurative orchard of esoteric knowledge—each posing a different question. The Arizal explains that these sages’ purpose in entering the Pardes was to rectify the sin of Adam, all four of them wanted to hasten the coming of Mashiach by rectifying Adam’s sin. But each went in a different direction, investigated a different inquiry, asked a different question.
Ben Azzai asked the question of wisdom, and then “looked and died.”[26] Ben Zoma asked the question that corresponds to understanding, and then “looked and was afflicted.” Elisha ben Avuyah asked the question corresponding to the five severities of the sefirah of knowledge and ended up, “cutting down the plantings.” Only Rabbi Akiva—who “entered in peace and departed in peace”—asked the right question, the question closest to receiving an answer, though he did not merit to receive it. This was the question of why the Messiah has not come yet, the question that corresponds to the five aspects of loving-kindness of chassadim of da'at.
We know this because it was Rabbi Akiva who from among all the sages, actually was seeking the coming of Mashiach, in the most literal and practical sense, to bring the Mashiach immediately. The Arizal says that Rabbi Akiva was the only one to enter peacefully and depart in peace, because he began from the correct starting point: the five aspects of loving-kindness of knowledge—not from wisdom, not from understanding, and not from the severities of knowledge. Still, despite asking the correct question, Rabbi Akiva did not get an answer, but he merited to enter in peace and departed in peace.
Why did Rabbi Akiva fail? The Arizal explains that this was because the Mashiach must know where to enter and must venture to include all the questions together. This he did not do. He knew the right place to approach, to begin, to open the opening—how to include all the questions together, all our freedoms together in a single question, this he does not know. When a person truly asks, he goes all the way with it. A person who asks sincerely is not satisfied merely with having a question. The nature of a true question is to pursue it, to solve it. Just as a scientist has a question—is it enough to have a question marked “requires further investigation” (צָרִיךְ עִיּוּן)? That is not science. A scientist with a 'requires further investigation' sticker on his research, is not satisfied, does not smile because he has a 'requires further investigation.' He dedicates his entire life to solving it. So too we take this model into our service of God: there is the question of why the Messiah has not come. If this is truly a question that distresses you, that weighs upon you, you must solve the problem.
(to be continued…)
[1]. Ecclesiastes 5:9.
[2]. Avot 4:1.
[3]. Genesis 1:28
[4]. “Son” (בן) equals 52, the value of יוד הה וו הה and “what” (מה) equals 45, the value of יוד הא ואו הא.
[5]. Eiruvin 65a.
[6]. Eiruvin 13b.
[7]. Jeremiah 2:2
[8]. Hosea 11:1.
[9]. Isaiah 29:19.
[10]. Yevamot 79a.
[11]. [ed’s. note: Case in point is Job, whose companions try to convince him of his guilt, but which God ultimately rejects.]
[12]. Menachot 29b.
[13]. Sanhedrin 97b.
[14]. Shemot Rabbah 2:4.
[15]. See Tanya, ch. 33.
[16]. Isaiah 51:4.
[17]. Psalms 104:24.
[18]. Bereishit Rabbah 1:4.
[19]. Exodus 4:13.
[20]. Exodus 33:20.
[21]. 1 Chronicles 28:9.
[22]. Sanhedrin 99b.
[23]. Exodus 33:18.
[24]. Genesis 50:25.
[25]. Exodus 33:23.
[26]. Chagigah 14b.
