In a world fueled by sheker, Shabbos brings a taste of undiluted truth

The World of Emes

The Seventh Day // Rabbi Menachem Nissel

NOone needs me to tell them that today Klal Yisrael is facing formidable challenges from our foes. But it’s possible that as a result, Shabbos can take on a new dimension in pleasure. Rav Chaim Vital (Eitz Hadaas Tov, Tehillim 124) teaches us that the last galus before Mashiach, Galus Yishamel, will be, in his words, “kashah mikulam,” more difficult than all of them. One of the hallmarks of Yishmael is that he represents sheker, falsehood (see, for example Rashi, Bereishis 21:17). This is in contrast to his father-in-law, Eisav, who represents ra, evil.

The era we’re living in is defined by sheker. Indeed, the Talmud (Sotah 48b) teaches us that one of the signs of Mashiach’s imminence is, “v’ha’emes tehei ne’ederes,” truth disappears.

A classic anecdote to understand Yishmael’s sheker tells the tale of an old Arab trying to fall asleep on a sunny Jerusalem afternoon. Outside, kids are noisily playing ball. Our “hero” pulls himself out of bed, opens the window and declares, “Hey, kids, don’t you know that they’re giving out free temarim (dates) at Shaar Shechem?”

They drop everything and start running toward Damascus Gate. Triumphantly, he crawls back into bed and enjoys the quiet. To his dismay, the silence is short-lived. He hears a tumult in the streets and once again schleps himself out of bed to investigate the commotion. He is shocked to see the street filled with people running. They’re screaming, “Free temarim at Shaar Shechem! Come and get them!”

He has no choice. He gets dressed, goes outside and starts running toward Shaar Shechem….

Don’t make the mistake thinking that Yishmael’s falsehood is expressed when CNN and the BBC accepts information from the Gaza Health Ministry as emes. It’s much deeper than that, embedded in the fabric of our lives on every level.

It’s not that the Washington Post “Fact Checker” team catalogued over 30,000 untruths in the Trump presidency. It’s that lying has become trivialized. We expect smoke and mirrors. Nobody believes anything and nobody cares.

In society, sheker is fueled by the imaginary worlds of dimyon. The biggest culprit of this is the Internet. For example, our emotions tell us that when we facetime, we’re having a conversation with a tzelem Elokim, but our brains know we’re talking to a piece of metal and the rest is technology.

Friday afternoon, as the sun sets, we light candles and exit Galus Yishmael. Shabbos is called Sa’adusa D’kshot, the Testimony to Truth (Zohar 2:90b). It gives us a taste of the undiluted emes of Olam Haba. Our tefillos are focused on elevated matters. We bathe in the authentic joy of family, friends, and the parshah.

And the perfect cholent — what can be better?

Hashem’s Reminder

Overheard and Overseen // Mrs. Elana Moskowitz

Botox. Microdermabrasion. Hyaluronic acid fillers. Almost every neighborhood circular I pick up advertises some form of antiaging treatment. Apparently, no one over 40 wants to look her age. And I get it, there’s something very unsettling about our skin developing wrinkles, sunspots, and other age-related blemishes. Didn’t we pay our dues with acne in teenagehood?

Our body showing signs of quiet decline can send us racing toward every youth-enhancing formula on the market. But perhaps, as we run for the Botox, we should consider aging from a spiritual perspective.

Hashem gifted us with a guf as a means to actualize the spiritual yearnings of the soul. The guf is eminently capable of accomplishing physically in This World, but it’s utterly clueless as to what it should be accomplishing. Our neshamah functions as a spiritual Waze: “turn left, turn right, careful — accident ahead, recalculating.”

As long as the guf is subservient to the neshamah, and we recognize that its chief function is to physically manifest the neshamah’s desires, the balance between guf and neshamah is healthy and whole. But when the guf starts issuing orders to the neshamah, the imbalance threatens our ability to accomplish our life’s goals, the reason for which we were given time on earth.

“Kashah rimah lameis k’machat babasar hachai” (Berachos 18b). The body’s decomposition process after burial is as painful as needles piercing the flesh. This obviously describes psychic pain, as physical pain is no longer relevant after death. What kind of psychic pain does the body’s natural disintegration generate?

If we relate to our body as our trusty companion in This World, primed to follow the higher calling of the neshamah, when they part ways after death, there’s no emotional pain. Our body served its purpose, and the neshamah is grateful to it for its years of service and is undisturbed when the body returns to dust.

If our body was our life’s focus, and we lavished infinite time, money, emotion, and headspace toward beautifying it, then when we watch its demise, the pain of having such an invested part of our life end so ingloriously will trigger considerable emotional pain.

Aging is a reminder from On High that we’re here for a limited amount of time, that we’ve approached the equinox and are headed toward the second half of life. In fact, the declining faculties associated with aging are meant to help us loosen our grip on our body, not frantically redouble our efforts on its preservation. It’s Hashem’s way of gently guiding us away from the hyperfocus on our physical self and pivoting us toward more meaningful spiritual living.

Yearning for Yerushalayim

Around the Campfire / Mindel Kassorla

“Shir Hamaalos b’shuv Hashem es shivas Tzion” (Tehillim 126).

There we were, a group of second-year seminary girls seated around a small table, dressed in our Shabbos best. We’d share the divrei Torah we’d heard that week at our teachers’ homes, and over the soft hum of kumzitz-style singing, we’d usher out the Shabbos with a simple but respectable meal.

I’ll never forget my friend Dani quipping in her sweet ’n sharp manner, “You know, we’re never too full for mac ’n cheese at two a.m., but no one’s hungry when it comes to a mitzvah!” That loaded me up with enough guilt to get me washing for Melavah Malkah just about every week since.

And because we’d all washed, we all bentshed. We sang and sang and sang until we segued into Tehillim 126, the introduction to Shabbos bentshing — and Motzaei Shabbos, too (good sem girls that we were, of course we checked the halachah).

My friend Rochel Fox was the one to creatively borrow a tune we’d listened to regularly on our MBD Kumzitz on the Roof album, and she fit it quite nicely to the words of “Shir Hamaalos b’shuv Hashem….” This tune was composed by Shlomo Carlebach, originally for the words of “Im eshkachech Yerushalayim.” Yet here we were adjusting it to “…es shivas Tzion hayinu k’cholmim…” Oh, the contrast! Rochel, with her optimism and purity of heart, took the pain of galus and transformed it into the hope for Geulah. A beautiful way to close Shabbos and enter the new week.

And that’s how, in a little cottage of seminary girls on the Michlala Campus, our unique rendition of Shir Haamalos was born. And we continue to daven, as the mizmor tells us, for the day when, “hazorim b’dimah, b’rina yiktzoru,” that the very same labor we did in tears, will bring us the greatest simchah imaginable.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 902)