Kel Shakkai: Faith That Says “Enough” to Suffering

1“And may Kel Shakkai grant you mercy before the man.” The Midrash Tanchuma asks: “Why did Yaakov see fit to bless them with Kel Shakkai? To teach you that many sufferings had passed over Yaakov. While he was still in his mother's womb there was Esav …; he fled from Esav to Lavan …; after that came the trouble of Binyamin. So he prayed with Kel Shakkai, saying: ‘He Who said to heaven and earth “Enough!” may He say to my sufferings “Enough!”’ For when the Holy One, blessed be He, created heaven and earth, they kept stretching out … That is why it says, ‘And may Kel Shakkai.’”¹ What does the creation of heaven and earth have to do with suffering, that Yaakov Avinu mentioned it in his prayer about his sufferings? We must also explain the word dai, “Enough,” in Yaakov Avinu's words. Why did he not ask in some other way that Hashem remove the sufferings from him?

2Let us also first cite Chazal's teaching: “The Chanukah lamp on the left and the mezuzah on the right.”² This implies that the Chanukah lamp and the mezuzah are connected. What is the connection between them?

3We will explain this through the words of my holy father and teacher, zt"l, on the verse “And it came to pass at the end … and behold, he was standing by the river.”³ The sweetening of the harsh judgments comes through faith: through believing that everything is Hashem's goodness. Even when He conducts the world through the attribute of judgment and there seems to be some evil, good is hidden within it too. In this way the judgments can be sweetened even when the attribute of judgment is stretched tight over the world, in the merit and by the power of the faith that everything, at its root, is His great goodness. This is Vayehi mikeitz, which Rashi explains as “at the end.”⁴ It alludes to the last generations, in the footsteps of Moshiach, the era just before the redemption, when the judgments will grow strong and troubles will multiply. That is why it says vayehi, a word that expresses distress:⁵ it speaks of the troubles of the footsteps of Moshiach. The counsel for these times is “and behold, he was standing by the river,” the ye'or. Ye'or alludes to faith, along the lines of the Midrash on the verse “Who aroused the righteous one from the east”: “Do not read he'ir, ‘aroused,’ but he'ir, ‘gave light.’”⁶ Through believing that the root of all suffering is Hashem's goodness, the judgments are sweetened. Those are his holy words.

4aLet us explain this a little more fully. There are two levels of faith. The first and simplest is this. When, Heaven forbid, troubles and judgments come upon Klal Yisrael, we, “believers, sons of believers,”⁷ must know that “a person does not so much as bruise his finger below unless it is decreed upon him from Above.”⁸ And we must believe that the Holy One, blessed be He, surely does not pass judgment without justice.⁹

4bBut there is a greater level of faith, one that awakens the sweetening of the judgments of which we have spoken. It is to believe that even within the sufferings there is good, as it says, “Out of the mouth of the Most High do not come forth evils.”¹⁰ The root is always good; only, at times it is hidden and we do not sense it. But when we recognize and know this, then in the merit and by the power of this knowledge we are privileged to have the judgments sweetened. The evil itself turns into good, and then comes “only good.”¹¹ For when we have faith that the sufferings are, at their root, complete mercy, we move Hashem to have mercy on us, to remove the evil concealment from us, and to bestow only good upon us, until the good is seen openly. This comes by the power of the Name Shakkai, in the spirit of “may He say to my troubles ‘Enough!’”: Hashem puts an end and a limit to our troubles and sets a boundary for whatever hides the attribute of mercy. In the merit of this faith, mercy is revealed from the Omnipresent.

5This is the meaning of “Blessed be the Name of His glorious kingdom forever and ever,” the words said after the first verse of the Shema. We recognize and know that “forever,” that is, always, even when troubles and judgments grow strong, everything comes from “His glorious kingdom.” For we believe that “there is no place empty of Him,”¹² since at the root of the judgments and sufferings, everything comes from His goodness.

6This is what Chazal meant: “He Who said to heaven and earth ‘Enough!’ may He say to my sufferings ‘Enough!’ For when the Holy One, blessed be He, created heaven and earth, they kept stretching out …” That is, the concealments kept growing stronger, and Hashem said to them, “Enough!” so that they would no longer keep creation from recognizing His power. Yaakov Avinu prayed that He would likewise say “Enough!” to the sufferings: that He would sweeten the judgments, and the root of the troubles, which is good, would be revealed. That is why he mentioned the creation of heaven and earth. When we believe wholeheartedly in the creation of heaven and earth, that everything comes from His goodness, and that Hashem creates and guides the world and does all deeds,¹³ then by the power of this faith the Name Shakkai is awakened. Hashem says “Enough!” as He did to heaven and earth, and sweetens our troubles and judgments, so that everything turns into complete mercy.

7When the “tribes of God”¹⁴ went down to Egypt to Yosef, the exile of Egypt began. Yaakov Avinu foresaw how harsh the bondage of that exile would be, so he taught his sons how to travel the long road of the bitter exile. He said to them, “And may Kel Shakkai grant you mercy.” The Name Kel is the attribute of mercy, as it says, “The kindness of Kel is all the day.”¹⁵ And the mercy will be drawn down through the Name Shakkai, in the spirit of the Midrash's “may He say to my sufferings ‘Enough!’”: Hashem will sweeten the evil, and it will turn into only good. That is why he said yiten lachem rachamim, “grant you mercy.” How will you come to awaken this? Through believing with simple faith that everything, at its root, is Hashem's goodness, in the spirit of Kevod Malchuso Le'olam, “His glorious kingdom forever” [its first letters are the letters of lachem].¹⁶ This means that “forever,” even amid troubles and judgments, everything comes from “His glorious kingdom,” as we have seen. Through this the Holy One, blessed be He, will bestow complete mercy upon you, and so you will be able to endure the bitter exile.

8This is what happened at the time of the Chanukah miracle, when the Chashmona'im, the Hasmoneans, were granted great miracles in the war and with the cruse of oil. We know that when Klal Yisrael needs a miracle, it must first stir itself below with the very attribute it needs to awaken and bring down from Heaven. So the Jews of that time surely believed, with great faith, that all the judgments are, at their root, mercy and kindness from the Holy One, blessed be He. They believed this in order to draw down from Heaven the great miracle, in which mercy and kindness were shown to them.

9This is also the meaning of the Name Shakkai that we write on the back of the mezuzah.¹⁷ As is well known, this Name is for our protection.¹⁸ We may say that its purpose is to show and remind us, when we leave the house for the public domain to go about the work of our hands, that nothing we do comes from our own strength; everything is from Him. When we go out into the public domain we very much need to remember that everything, at its root, is good from Hashem, and we need the Name Shakkai to guard us always.

10This properly answers our question about the connection between the Chanukah lamp and the mezuzah. From the Chanukah lamp, too, we should learn this for ourselves: to believe that everything comes from the Holy One, blessed be He, and from His goodness, just as the Chashmona'im were stirred to their great faith at the time of the miracle.

11May Hashem grant that we truly be privileged to serve Him wholeheartedly, out of simple faith, in the spirit of “His glorious kingdom forever,” believing that everything is Hashem's goodness. Chazal have said: “The exiles are gathered in only as the reward for faith; and so you find that our fathers were redeemed from Egypt only in the merit of faith.”¹⁹ So through this we will also be privileged to see the coming of the righteous redeemer. Amen, may it be His will.