Always at the Doorway: Endless Inner Gates

1a“And he was sitting at the entrance of the tent” [Bereishis 18:1]. We can explain this holy verse along the lines of section 1, using the Gemara (Berachos 8a): “R' Chisda said: A person should always enter two doorways and then pray. Two doorways? Can that be? Rather, say: the distance of two doorways.” I heard an explanation of this from my holy teacher, the Rebbe of Radzymin¹, zt"l, based on the Midrash (cf. Devarim Rabbah 7:2). The verse does not say “to watch daily at my door,” but “at my doors” [Mishlei 8:34], two doors. When a person enters through one doorway, he should see that many more doorways open up after it, and that he has not yet reached the innermost one. Those were his words.

1bThat is what David HaMelech meant: “In Your light we see light” (Tehillim 36:10). When Hashem shines His light on a person, he sees that there is a still higher light. Compared to that second, higher light, the lower one is called “black beside white light,” as the holy books and the Zohar explain. Besides, the life Hashem gives a person is new existence at every moment. Hashem “does the work of Creation,” in the present tense: at every moment He renews the work of Creation and does it again. This is the meaning of the verse “To Him who makes great lights, for His kindness is forever” (Tehillim 136:7)². Forever and always, in His great kindness, He is making great lights.

2aThis explains the story Chazal tell (Semachos 8; Avos d'Rabbi Nasan 38). When R' Shimon and R' Yishmael were led out to be executed, R' Yishmael said to him, “My master, two more steps and you will be placed among the tzaddikim. Why are you weeping?” The “two steps” mean the same thing: one step to leave this world, and one step to enter the World to Come. That is, to leave one's previous life-force and come into a new one. This is also the meaning of our prayer, “Guard our going out and our coming in”: our going out from the previous life-force and our coming into the new one, which happens to every person at every moment. And it is the meaning of the prayer “Let my soul be like dust to everyone; open my heart to Your Torah.” Through humility, I will merit to see the many doorways, each further inside than the last. I will see that I have not yet come to the innermost doorway and am still standing at the outer one.

2bFear of Heaven, too, is called a doorway, as Chazal say: “Anyone who has Torah but no fear of Heaven is like a treasurer who was handed the inner keys but not the outer ones. How will he enter?” (Shabbos 31a–b). So my prayer is that through a pure heart I may make a doorway, a gate, for the Torah. Then I will see that many more doorways follow it, each above the last. As Chazal say, “One mitzvah draws another” (Avos 4:2): through one mitzvah a person sees how many more mitzvos he still has to fulfill. His longing and desire for the next mitzvah are a sign that the first was done completely and with humility, as the Torah requires. When my heart is opened and I see how many doorways there still are to serving Hashem and knowing Him, I will not grow lax. I will long to do more mitzvos and good deeds. That is the meaning of “and let my soul pursue after Your mitzvos”: after doing a mitzvah, my soul should pursue more mitzvos and good deeds, to reach yet another doorway.

3When Avraham Avinu fulfilled the mitzvah of milah in every detail, he gained still greater humility and self-nullification. He grew even stronger in the sense of being “dust and ashes” [Bereishis 18:27]. He circumcised the foreskin of his heart [cf. Devarim 10:16] and longed to merit more mitzvos, above all the mitzvah of hospitality, through which one draws those who are far into love and friendship (cf. Sanhedrin 103b). This was all the more so after he had fully perfected the attribute of Yesod, the attribute of giving and bestowing [linked to the covenant of milah]. He wanted to bestow holy abundance on the world, both material and spiritual. Yet he felt that he had not yet reached the inner depth of this mitzvah and this attribute. He was only “sitting at the entrance of the tent,” at the doorway, and had not yet gone inside, as explained above. Ohel, “tent,” is related to light, as in “Even the moon does not shine (ya'ahil)” (Iyov 25:5). He felt that he had not yet merited to sense the light of this mitzvah in its fullness.

4This is what the Midrash on our parshah means (Bereishis Rabbah 48:8): “You opened a good doorway for those who pass by and those who return.” “Those who pass by” are those who have merited to go ahead and greet the King, as in “and he passed the Kushite” (Shmuel II 18:23). “Those who return” are those who have sinned, Heaven forbid, and need teshuvah. Someone who has merited to feel in his soul even a tiny part of the primordial wisdom should know that he is only at “the entrance of the tent.” He is in the corridor before the banquet hall [Avos 4:16], and has not yet entered the hall. And someone who has sinned must not tell himself, Heaven forbid, that it is hopeless. A doorway to teshuvah is still open before him. Even if, Heaven forbid, he has blemished the holy covenant, so long as it was not in rebellion and betrayal, like one who tries to undo his circumcision and despises the holy sign, let him trust in Hashem. Let him know that Avraham Avinu sits at the entrance of Gehinnom and does not let anyone who is circumcised enter (Bereishis Rabbah 48:8). By the power of that holy seal, he can still merit teshuvah. As Chazal say of David, “When he remembered the milah in his flesh, he was glad” (Menachos 43b). Finding himself bare of every mitzvah, he still trusted in the merit of the holy seal, and that he would merit the tikkun we described. (From the author's handwritten manuscript.)