The Voice Within Me is Eden
Re’eh, 5769
Shmuel Herzfeld
Our daughter, Kolbi Aden, is named in memory of my Uncle Karl (Kalman) Josephy. My uncle was a gentle, kind, and spiritual soul who never raised his voice or said a bad word about anyone. He had a great sense of humor and when I was a little kid he loved to tell us jokes and riddles. He was also a brilliant scientist and in his position as lead scientist for Avery Labels he was directly responsible for inventing many of the things we now take for granted in life, like press-on nails, adhesive stamps that we don’t have to lick, and batteries that can be tested to see if they are still active. It is our prayer that Kolbi Aden will emulate these fine characteristics of her namesake.
It states in this week’s parsha: “Lo tochal kol toevah, you may not eat any abomination.” The Torah then proceeds to enumerate the animals which are forbidden to us like, for example, the camel, the pig, and the vulture. We are also taught that we may not cook a kid in the milk of its mother. The essential laws of keeping kosher are based upon this chapter of the Torah.
Why are these prohibited food items specifically referred to as abominations, or toevah? Many of us might assume that there is nothing inherently abominable from an objective perspective about eating non-kosher food, rather it is simply forbidden because the Torah says so.
One answer to this question is that the word “abomination” is a very poor translation for the word “toevah.” Toevah does not mean “abomination” in the sense that it is an activity that is morally reprehensible by modern standards rather it simply means that it is biblically prohibited. In fact, the Talmud understands the words to mean “toeh attah bah,” you are making a mistake, i.e. there is nothing morally abominable, it is simply not the path of the Torah.
But Nachmanides suggests a different answer. He argues that if we eat these food items there is something inherently defective in them from a spiritual perspective. Even if we ingest these food items accidentally, there is something about the very essence of prohibited foods which wil have a spiritually corrosive effect upon us. He writes, “ki hamaachalim ha-asurim hagasim yolidu ovei ve-atimut ba-nafesh,” these forbidden foods will create coarseness and opaqueness in the soul.” In this opinion, there is something objectively dangerous about these non-kosher foods that they can literally transform your inner soul and shut it down so that it is not receptive to the message of Hashem.
There are stories of great rabbis who after being told that they accidentally ate non-kosher food, they immediately threw themselves up. They did not want the abominable non-kosher food to ruin their souls.
Whether or not you agree with Ramban’s provocative explanation of the spiritually defective nature of non-kosher food, we see an important principle in his teaching. It is essential to Judaism that our souls be open and soft. The coarse and opaque soul is distant from God; it is distant because it is immersed in impurities; it is distant because it is unable to transcend the physical reality of the material earth. But the Torah wants us to have a soul that that is open and soft. This means we are constantly seeking to deepen our connection with Hashem and that we are constantly seeking to move beyond our mundane everyday existence in order to feel the presence of Hashem.
This is the prayer for our daughter that is contained within her name Kolbi Ayden. The name Kolbi means “the voice within me” or “the inner voice” and Ayden, comes from the Garden of Eden. The name we have given her is a prayer that she always recognize that Hashem has given her (and all of us) an inner voice, a soul that has the Garden of Eden within it. Our job is to foster the sound of our inner voice and open our soul to the message of Hashem. All of our spiritual potential already exists within us. We just need to always remind ourselves that the sound of Gan Eden is always within us.
But there is another prayer we have for Kolbi Aden as well.
In order to have a truly great spiritual relationship with Hashem it is not enough for us to only work on our inner spirituality. Much more is required. Spiritually by definition must be focused outward.
We learn this lesson from God Himself. God is the ultimate good. In the creation of His world, God limits Himself and contracts so that the world can exist. We must emulate God in order to come closer to God. In order to have a meaningful relationship with God we must limit ourselves and focus on performing acts of goodness and kindness for others. If we do this we will be imitating God’s ways and moving closer to God.
So the path to God does not only involve allowing your inner voice to be open and receptive, but it also requires your soul to look towards others so that it may eventually come closer to Hashem.
As you might know Kolbi Ayden is our sixth child. Every moment of our lives we are grateful to Hashem for this sixfold blessing in our lives. This idea of the spirituality of giving to others, of literally giving to the world, is contained within the mystical meaning of the number six.
The most famous mystical vision of God in the Bible is Ezekiel’s vision of a chariot. Ezekiel saw a vision of God on a chariot surrounded by angels called seraphim, that had four wings. But actually, the Talmud in Chagigah (13b) says Isaiah had an even greater vision than Ezekiel. Ezekiel was like a villager who saw the king, while Isaiah was like a city dweller, leben krakh she-raah et hamelekh. While Ezekiel saw seraphim with four wings surrounding God, Isaiah saw seraphim with six wings!
Why six wings? Six is a number that represents God’s presence in the world. The world was created in six days. The ancient world decided that the number six would be the numerical basis of the world. So for example, there are 60 minutes in an hour which is 10x6 minutes. There are 360 degrees in a circle; and there are 24 hours in a day which is 6x4. And of course most objects on this earth have six sides to them.
So when Isaiah saw six-winged angels surrounding God, he was seeing a vision of God’s presence filling the earth, impacting the earth, and transforming the earth. His vision of God is not only a theoretical prophetic vision, it is a command for us to conduct ourselves in the image of his vision—filling the earth, impacting the earth, and transforming the earth.
This is our second prayer for our daughter: We want her to hear the sound of God within her and to bring out this sound to the earth so that she may transform the earth in the image of Hashem.
I want to close with one more prayer for our daughter. This prayer is based upon a prosaic story about my uncle.
I told you that my Uncle Karl was a very gentle man. But even the gentlest of souls must know that sometimes in this world you need to be a little assertive in order to survive.
One time when I was around 6 years old my uncle came to dinner at our home. There were seven of us in our family. And we were a rowdy and festive group. So Uncle Karl was on a business trip from California and he decided to sleep in our house and eat dinner with us. He sat down at the table and was waiting for the food to be passed to him. But he was used to dinner laid back California style. We kids on the other hand were in a hurry. We moved quickly, passing the food, eating the food, reaching and grabbing. By the time Uncle Karl got his bearings most of the food was gone. The next time Uncle Karl came for dinner, he was very assertive and got his food right away. The lesson: It is good to be gentle, but if you want to get your dinner you sometimes need to speak up.
So we have prayed for Kolbi Aden to hear the voice of Hashem inside her and to bring this voice out into the world. We have prayed for her to transform the world with her presence. We have prayed for her to be gentle, but also to know when to be assertive. May Hashem hear our prayers and so may it be His will!
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