We all seek to move forward and improve. We all seek to better ourselves and believe that it would be best if we could realize our full potential and use it to serve the Creator. In the following excerpts from a class on the teachings of Rebbe Menachem Nachum of Chernobyl appearing in Me’or Einayim, HaRav Ginsburgh gleans new insight into how to actually asymptotically improve day by day.
These excerpts are from the full class given to yeshivah students for the week of parashat Bamidbar this year and were first published in Hebrew in the Bamidbar 5786 issue of Nifla’ot.
Consistency and Perfection
One of the principles of the Maharal of Prague’s thought is that a true actualization of potential requires that all the potential be realized. Nothing of the potential can remain in a latent, concealed form. It must all be actualized.
This principle holds with regard to the potential of the Jewish people. Our potential lies in our ability to act as a chariot for the Divine Presence in our world, to carry Godliness throughout reality.Our consummately whole state of perfection, our true actualization, will only be revealed when we have fully realized our potential in this regard. Indeed, this is our destiny, as the prophet states, “The eternal of Israel, will not lie and will not retract.”[1]
When the Jewish people, dubbed “the hosts of God,”[2] fulfill this, their purpose, then they are blessed with the words, “not one is missing.”[3] When we as His people seek to actualize our potential in this regard fully, then we are protected both when we go out to act and when we return home.
But the main point is that there is a strong connection between consistency and wholeness, or perfection. The Hebrew words for “consistent” (תָּמִיד) and “whole” (תָּמִים) differ only in their final letter—the first with a dalet, the second with a mem—and these two letters have the same reduced value, 4. We can extend the connection by applying it to the famous verse, “I set Havayah before me constantly”[4] (שִׁוִּיתִי י-הוה לְנֶגְדִּי תָמִיד). When will I merit to be whole, when I set Havayah before me consistently. Being consistent, constantly acting to be before God, is the toil necessary to reach a state of personal wholeness, just as consistently pursuing our actualization as God’s chariot results in the wholeness of our people. As individuals and as a community, we must fulfill the injunction that, “[what is] whole, will be desired [by God]”[5] (תָּמִים יִהְיֶה לְרָצוֹן). Again, to attain this state of wholeness, all that is in potential must be actualized.
Our Names and Our Soul
In Hebrew, the word for “soul” (נְשָׁמָה) is cognate with the word for “name” (שֵׁם).[6] Knowing our name is knowing our soul. The letters that comprise an individual’s name are the conduits through which he or she receives lifeforce, including the energy needed to become conscious of their mission in life. By the force flowing through the letters of his or her name, a Jew “serves God, learns Torah, and prays to God.”[7] These three correspond to the pillars of the world: Torah, service, and acts of kindness.
Serving God here refers to serving God through the love of one’s fellow Jew, as interpreted by the Ba’al Shem Tov and thus corresponds to the sefirah of loving-kindness (chesed), Torah corresponds to the sefirah of beauty (tiferet), and prayer corresponds to the sefirah of might (gevurah). The order in which the conduits provide lifeforce for these three categories of action are right-middle-left. Following the wisdom of permutations, this particular permutation of right, left, and center, corresponds to the sefirah of eternity (netzach), alluding to the eternal and consistent wholeness of the Jewish people.
A tzaddik lives life through his name and therefore remembers it even after passing from this world. In contrast, the wicked individual, by ignoring his name, i.e., his mission, during his lifetime and neglecting to use the lifeforce running through its letters to perform his duty of loving his fellow, ultimately forgets his name after passing on. All the more so if he not only neglects to love and aid his fellows, but even pains and harms them.
Elevating Souls
The opening of the Book of Numbers contains the commandment, “Take a census of the entire community of Israel,”[8] which literally would translate as, “Elevate the heads of the entire community of Israel” (שְׂאוּ אֶת רֹאשׁ כׇּל עֲדַת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל). What this means is that we are commanded to elevate all souls. It was not only Moses who was commanded to do so, it obligates every individual Jew, for in every individual, there is a spark of the soul of Moses, the kernel of our Divine consciousness.
The burden was not placed on Moses alone to elevate all the souls by himself. Rather, that he penetrate every individual with the spark of his own Divine consciousness. This can be gleaned from the way in which the commandment is phrased, “God spoke to Moses in the desert… saying.” The last word, “saying” (לֵאמֹר) means that God commanded Moses with the express intent that he repeat this commandment to the entire congregation.
The spark of Moses’ consciousness that enters every individual Jew specifically constitutes the awareness that come what may, “everyone must be lifted and elevated, even though they have degenerated.” Something must be done and it is an existential imperative that it happens. Recognizing this encourages every individual to expend every effort so that it does indeed happen, and now, in this reincarnation. No one should have to wait for another incarnation, as some Chasidic sources would seem to suggest.[9]
[1]. 1 Samuel 15:29.
[2]. Exodus 12:41.
[3]. Numbers 31:49.
[4]. Psalms 16:8.
[5]. Leviticus 22:21. See also Derech Mitzvotecha, Ahavat Yisrael, ch. 2.
[6]. See Cheshek Shlomoh (Papenheim), s.v. Shem.
[7]. Me’or Einayim on Bamidbar.
[8]. Numbers 1:2.
[9]. Me’or Einayim, loc. cit.
