Start With One Or With Eight?

I want to change.

Should I stop engaging in destructive behaviour abruptly, or should I gradually focus my effort on introducing positive behavior into my life? My eating habits are terrible, should I cut out all the sugary and fatty foods all at once - because ‘what’s the point of eating a vegetable with one hand, while holding a bottle of Coke in the other?’ - or should I slowly introduce broccoli and lettuce into my diet, increasing the health foods gradually. I want like to write a book. Should I stop everything that I am doing and devote every minute of the next year to the task, or should I focus on writing for ten minutes each day?

I would like to climb out of my spiritual darkness. I can put all my effort into stopping the negative behaviour, or, understand that, for the time being, I will not be able to stop sucumbing to my evil inclination, I should put my effort into introducing productive activities into my routine, and overtime all the positivity in my life will eradicate the negativity.

This question, explains the Rebbe, is the source of the Talmudic dispute about the amount of lights kindled on each night of Chanukah. The house of Shammay maintain that on the first night of Chanukah we light eight candles, and then decrease one candle each passing night. While the house of Hillel maintain that on the first night we light one candle, and then increases one candle per night, until the eighth night when all the candles are lit. As the Talmud explains:

Beis Shammai say: On the first day one lights eight and after that gradually reduce; but Beis Hillel say: On the first day one is lit and thereafter they are progressively increased. Ulla said: In the West [Israel] two Amoraim, Rabbi Yosi Bar Avin and Rabbi Yosi Bar Zevida, argue: One maintains: The reason of Beis Shammai is corresponding to the days still to come, and that of Beis Hillel is that it shall correspond to the days that are gone. But the other maintains: Beis Shammai's reason is that it shall correspond to the bulls of the Sukkos, whilst Beis Hillel's reason is that we rise in [matters of] sanctity but do not descend.

Let’s examine the second explanation: Shammay says we decrease corresponding to the bulls offered in the temple on Sukkot, and Hillel says we increase because, as a rule, we are meant to increase in holiness and not decrease. This requires additional explanation. How does Hillel explain why the Torah commands to decrease the amount of bulls offered each day of the holiday, does that not contradict his principle that we much increase in holiness? As for Shammai, does he not believe in the message of increasing holiness?

Shammai says that the first thing you must do is fight your evil. Completely. When you want to fight the evil you can’t take baby steps. You have to come out swinging. You must tell yourself things like “I will never touch alcohol again”. If you say “I’ll only have three drinks instead of four”, says Shammai, you will never win. Taking small steps in the right direction, argues Shammai, is like building a sand castle on a beach, it will be washed away by the first wave of the raging sea.

Therefore, on the first day of Chanukah you must kindle all your lights, as you need every ounce of energy to fight the evil. The good news is that tomorrow it will be a bit easier. You weekend the evil on the first night, so there is less of it on the second, hence all you need on the second night is seven lights, and eventually you will rid yourself of the darkness and you won't need any light to fight the darkness.

Hillel says: forget the evil.

Perhaps in temple times we had the spiritual strength to battle the darkness head on. In exile, bereft of the spiritual power of the holy temple and the bulls of the Holiday, we need a new strategy altogether.

We need to focus on positive action.

Don;t worry about the darkness, just take one small step in the right direction. Just light one small candle. No big deal. Anyone can do it. The key, however, is tomorrow you add a one more light. Small but consistent steps. Before you know it your Menorah will be full.      

Your Heart and Your Mind - Jacob and Esau

Your mind and heart are opposites.

Your mind breaks everything into small bite size pieces, while your heart sweeps everything in as one. 

Your heart, knows no details. If your heart is in love, it is in live completely. If it loves someone, then the totality of that person, with all his or her complexities, are all swept up in the love. In the moment of love there can be no annoying details. If someone tells you ‘I love all of you except for one small detail about you that annoys me’, then you know it is not their heart talking it’s their mind talking. for the heart is blind to detail. If her heart loves you then she sees no bad in you.   

Your mind, on the other hand, is analytical. It breaks an idea into small parts, it analyzes them, accepting some polishing others and throwing some out. When something exciting happens, your mind’s job is to cool you down. It knows that, indeed, the news is exciting, but it is smart enough to know that ‘the devil is in the details’. The mind gets paid to tell you things like: ‘sure you love the new job offer, but are you really willing to put up with the extra commute time?’, or ‘sure he makes you happy, but is he really right for you?’.

So the next time you are not sure if what you love is right for you, and you take a sheet of paper and list the pros and cons, what you are doing is applying the analytical mind to the passionate heart. This application does not come without a cost. You see, the reason the heart can get so much more excited then the mind is precisely because it does not look at details. For when you weigh every detail individually, somehow, the magic escapes. 

But following the passionate heart, is also not a great solution. Sure, the passion and drive are powerful forces that can propel you to great heights, but, like the saying goes, it’s like ‘the blind leading the blind’. Follow your hearts passion, without the mind’s approval, and you may end up in places you don’t want to be. For the heart is from the world of ‘Chaos’, intense passion bit no direction, and the mind is all about ‘Order’. And the holistic lifestyle is the one where the mind, cool and collected, shows the heart where to express it’s passion. In Kabbalistic terminology: only the world of order can elevate the world of chaos.

This, says Chasidic philosophy, explains all you need to know about Esau and Jacob.

Isaac loved Esau. Why? Because he saw the energy of chaos. For the Judaism to survive, argues Isaac, you need passion, commitment, and emotional strength. The intellectual may have the right ideas, but he also has no drive to fight to protect those ideas. You need an Esau to carry the safeguard and implement your message.

Rebecca disagrees. Esau has awesome potential. Indeed. But he needs Jacob as his compass. Give Esau the blessings and you risk him using them to further his base desires rather than the perpetuation of his grandfather's legacy. So she convinces a reluctant Jacob to steal the blessings designed for Esau. She understands, that we need Esau’s great quality. But Esau’s chaotic power needs direction.

It needs a Jacob.     

Sync Your Calendars - New version of old post.

Humans have always looked up to the sky for a clue into the mystery of the universe, and for an understanding of their place within it.

Some fell in love with the moon. Intrigued by her soft and gentle glow, comforted by her light illuminated the night sky. As they watched the waxing and waning of the moon, completing a cycle in just about thirty days, they realized that she offered a convenient and straightforward way to mark the passage of time.

As people became more sophisticated, inventing technology and developing agriculture, they began to realize the power of a solar calendar.  although the changing in the sun's position in the sky is harder to notice as compared with the changing shape of the moon, they  understood the power of the solar calendar to predict major economic events. From following the agricultural cycle to predicting the overflowing of the Nile, you need to look to the sun. Craving the sun’s power, strength, and brilliance, they began moving away from the lunar calendar and adopting the solar one.  

The first Commandment G-d commanded the Jewish people, just as he was about to liberate them from Egypt, and establish them as an independent free people, was the commandment to establish a Hebrew calendar. As slaves they did not control their own time, nor were they free to think about time on their own terms. Their time and their perspective on life was enslaved to the powerful Egyptians. To be truly free, they would have to learn to think about time, it's purpose and meaning, on their own terms.  

So which calendar should they choose?

Which would be their primary one? would they identify with the mighty, powerful, masculine, sun, or with the more subtle, reflective, feminine, beauty of the moon?

The essential feature of the Hebrew calendar, is that it synchronizes the lunar and solar cycle. It does so by establishing a leap year, adding a lunar month approximately every three years, closing the eleven day gap between the lunar and solar cycle.  

While not the first to do sync the calendars (ancient Egypt, for example, eventually moved to eliminate the discrepancies between the solar calendar, wit's primary one, and the lunar calendar, by introducing a leap year with a thirteenth month), the Hebrew calendar is the first to place the synchronization of the sun and the moon as it's central feature.

The way we think about time informs our attitude to the universe as a whole: Is there a purpose to creation? Is there meaning to life? Is there meaning to the time that is ticking by?  The Jew’s answer is that the purpose of everything is the unity of the sin and the moon, of giver and receiver, of G-d and the Jewish people.

The brilliant sun symbolizes the consistent, powerful and illuminating light of G-d. The moon shining in the dark sky represents the Jewish people, whose job it is to reflect the light of G-d into a dark world. The Jewish people, therefore, are subject to challenges imposed by the world, at times they shine in all their glory and at times their light is invisible.

The first commandment demonstrates the goal of all the following commandments, which is to synchronize the sun and the moon. Every Mitzvah we perform draws down Divine energy and connects the light of G-d with the Jew in this world, uniting them, forming one reality where “in the heaven above and on the earth below there is nothing beside him[1]”.

No surprise then, that the commandment to establish the calendar was one of just a few commandments related to both Moses and Aaron: “ The Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying[2]”. If our calendar synchronizes the sun and the moon that it's commandment should be given through our, metaphorical, sun and moon. Moses - the giver of the Torah is our sun. He shines with a radiant light shines from above, communicating Divine wisdom, with great passion and energy.  Aaron is our moon. He teaches us how to refine ourselves to the point that we can reflect the light of G-d. He teaches us how to get along with other people. He is passionate about people. He understands that peace may, in some cases, be more important then truth.

Both the word of G-d and the way the people absorb and reflect it are important to our mission. We need a Moses and an Aaron. A sun and a moon.

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[1] Deuteronomy 4:39.

[2] Exodus 12:1.