Truth and Faith in the Darkest Exile

1The Midrash Rabbah [Bereishis Rabbah 70:10–11] on the verse “Yaakov said to them: My brothers, where are you from?” [Bereishis 29:4]: R' Yose bar Chanina applied the passage to the exile. “And they said to him: We are from Charan”: we are fleeing from the charon, the wrath, of the Holy One, blessed be He. “He said to them: Do you know Lavan the son of Nachor?” [Bereishis 29:5]: do you know the One Who will whiten [lelaben] your sins like snow? “He said to them: Is it well with him? And they said: It is well” [Bereishis 29:6]: in what merit? “And behold, Rachel his daughter is coming with the sheep”: as it says, “Thus says Hashem: Restrain your voice from weeping … and there is hope for your future” [Yirmiyahu 31:15–16]. “And he said: Is there peace between you and Him? And they said: Peace.” On the verse “And behold, three flocks of sheep” [Bereishis 29:2], Chazal in the Midrash there give several interpretations.

2aTo explain the Midrash, let us begin with what my father and teacher, R' Yechiel of Alexander, zt"l, said on the verse “Why have You done evil to this people?” (Shemos 5:22). The difficulties are well known; for one, what does the word vegam, “and also,” mean in Hashem's answer [Shemos 6:5]? It seems one may explain as follows. Moshe Rabbeinu complained to Hashem, “Why have You done evil to this people … and You have not saved them” [Shemos 5:22–23]. But did Moshe not know that when a Jew sins, Heaven forbid, and Hashem wishes to give him merit, He brings suffering on him to arouse him to teshuvah? As the holy Zohar says, “A log that the fire will not catch — they splinter it” [cf. Zohar III:168a]. So why was Moshe Rabbeinu astonished? The Jewish people were sunk in Egypt in the forty-nine gates of impurity, and that is exactly why Hashem sent them this hardship: to bring them to teshuvah!

2bRather, Moshe Rabbeinu's complaint was this. True, “Hashem desired to crush him with sickness” [Yeshayahu 53:10], as Chazal expound (Berachos 5a). But that applies only to a person of understanding. Through the suffering he takes to heart what this is, why it has come upon him and for what purpose, and he “returns to Hashem, and He has mercy on him” [Yeshayahu 55:7]. But if a person is a fool who feels nothing at all, who does not take to heart what this is and why these sufferings have come, so as to be roused by them to teshuvah, then seemingly there is no need to bring suffering on him. For no evil comes from Hashem, only perfect good, as is known. This was Moshe Rabbeinu's complaint: “Why have You done evil to this am, this people?” They are on the level of am, the common folk, a low and inferior level, and they take nothing to heart to rouse themselves to teshuvah. That is “Since I came to speak in Your name, he has done evil to this people”: only harm has grown out of it for them. “And You have not saved them”: they gain no deliverance at all through it.

2cHashem answered him that this is not so. Moshe heard only the outer voices, at the level of am. But Hashem hears a voice from the inner depths of their hearts, from the “portion of Yaakov” [cf. Yirmiyahu 10:16] within every single Jew. This is the meaning of “And also I have heard the groaning of the Children of Israel” [Shemos 6:5]. Besides the outcry that Moshe hears, Hashem hears yet another groaning, from the depths of their hearts and from the portion of Yaakov within them, and that is what is called “the groaning of the Children of Israel.” The voice of Yaakov roars from the abysses of their hearts. Only “I have heard” it, for He is Hashem, Who “tests the kidneys and searches the heart” [cf. Yirmiyahu 17:10].

3aThis is the meaning of the Midrash, “R' Yose bar Chanina applied the passage to the exiles.” The three flocks of sheep asked Yaakov Avinu: What will happen at the end of days, in the footsteps of Moshiach, when your children are given over to distress and captivity, Heaven forbid? With what will they strengthen themselves and revive their wretched, crushed souls, so that they still remain within the Jewish faith? How will they understand the purpose of the troubles and the subjugation that have come upon them, and return to Hashem so that He will have mercy on them? “Yaakov said to them: My brothers [achai]”: through brotherhood and friendship. By binding together and uniting, all forming one band to serve Hashem shoulder to shoulder [cf. Tzefaniah 3:9], they will merit the redemption. That is “My brothers, from where [me'ayin]”: through the trait of ayin, nothingness, being as naught and nothing in one's own eyes. A person sees how precious the whole Jewish people is and, over against it, how low his own worth is. So he sets himself aside before the whole, and binds and unites with them in brotherhood and friendship.

3bThrough self-nullification, humility and righteous meekness a person merits truth. As long as he feels his own self and his own ego, he cannot be truthful, since truth is the middle line, leaning to neither extreme. That is “My brothers, from where are you [atem]”: atem has the same letters as emes, truth. Through this we will have endurance and strength, as Chazal say, “Truth endures” (Shabbos 104a). Truth and faith are “a law that will not pass away” [cf. Tehillim 148:6]. They are like an iron pillar: even if all the winds in the world come and blow against it, they cannot move it from its place. “He is truth and She is faith,” as male and female¹ (Zohar III:230). And as the Ibn Ezra writes, emunah, faith, comes from emes, truth. So if a person merits the trait of truth, he believes in Hashem as a matter of course. That is what Yaakov told them: through the trait of truth Hashem will be for them “an everlasting light” [Yeshayahu 60:19]. For Yaakov is truth (“You will grant truth to Yaakov” [Michah 7:20]), and he is the middle pillar. (See above, Parshas Toldos, maamar 3, where we discussed at length the Midrash on “Yaakov, who redeemed Avraham” [Yeshayahu 29:22].) Through the trait of truth we will draw close to the Creator, the source of truth, as it says, “Hashem, God, is truth” (Yirmiyahu 10:10).

3c“And they said: We are from Charan”: we are fleeing from the wrath of the Omnipresent. The anger is great, we no longer have the strength to bear it, and so we are fleeing. But in truth, all this applies only before a king of flesh and blood: if a person fears and dreads him, he runs away from him. Before the King of kings, Hashem, it is the opposite. Out of great fear of Hashem and dread of “the glory of His majesty” [Yeshayahu 2:10], there is no other way but to flee to Him, to draw close and cleave to Hashem. As the holy Alshich and the Radbaz wrote on the verse “You shall fear Hashem your God, serve Him, and cleave to Him” (Devarim 10:20): if a person fears Hashem, the main advice is “cleave to Him,” to draw near and cleave to Hashem.

4aBut they did not know this, and so they said, “We are fleeing from His wrath.” “He said to them: Do you know…”: do you know the One Who will whiten your sins like snow? That is, your ways are not His ways, and your thoughts are not His thoughts [cf. Yeshayahu 55:8]. Heaven forbid, this is not His essential way of conducting the world. The Merciful Father does not aim to punish you and strike you with suffering, may the Merciful One spare us. His intent is to refine and purify you, “refined sevenfold” [Tehillim 12:7], from every stain of sin. As Chazal say, suffering scours away a person's sins (Berachos 5a), and exile atones (Sanhedrin 37b). Out of pressure and distress comes salvation: “It is a time of distress for Yaakov, but from it he will be saved” [Yirmiyahu 30:7].

4bAs Chazal say (Shabbos 77b), “First darkness, then light.” That is what we say in the evening prayer: “He rolls away light before darkness, and darkness before light.” And the holy Zohar says (II:184a), “There is no light except the light that comes out of darkness.” That is “Who will whiten your sins like snow”: through the suffering. This is also the hint in the Midrash's words, “R' Yose bar Chanina applied the passage to the exile”: the exile serves only to scour away sins and sweeten the harsh judgments, and it is not, Heaven forbid, Hashem's essential way. The name itself hints at this. As is known, Yose has the numerical value eighty-six, the same as the Name Elokim, the Name of judgment, while bar Chanina comes from chanan, grace. That is, the exile is only to sweeten the judgments and turn them into grace and mercy. Now the three flocks of sheep were worried and afraid. They feared that because of the intensity of the darkness and the troubles at the end of days², when “darkness will cover the earth” [Yeshayahu 60:2], they would all be unable to bear the suffering or to strengthen themselves with this knowledge.

5a“He said to them: Is there peace to Him [hashalom lo]?” That is, they should bind themselves to the Creator, for when the Jewish people is joined to Hashem, that is called shalom, peace and wholeness. “And they said: Peace”: in what merit? That is: how, and by what means, can a na'ar, an immature youth, whose worth is diminished by “the leaven in the dough”³ [Berachos 17a] and by the subjugation to the nations, which confuses a person's mind, merit to bind and cleave himself to “the light of the face of the King of life” [Mishlei 16:15]? “And he said: Behold, Rachel his daughter is coming with the sheep”: “and there is hope for your future [acharis].” It is known that there is a “depth of the beginning” and a “depth of the end” [Sefer Yetzirah 1:5]. The depth of the beginning is a person at the height of stature. His da'as is pure, clear and bright. He sees “the bright light in the heavens” [cf. Iyov 37:21], the light of the face of the King of life, senses perceptions of the Creator's holiness, and draws himself close to the Creator. As the holy Zohar says, “Fortunate is the one whom the King draws close with His right hand.” That is, the Creator draws him close with love and kindness, so that at every moment he feels the delight, pleasantness, love and sweetness of the Creator. The love of Hashem is sweeter to him than honey from the comb [cf. Tehillim 19:11]. This is the level of the depth of the beginning.

5bThe depth of the end includes even someone in the very lowest state, who sinned so much that he went down to the depths of the great abyss. Even so, he can take to heart how great his soul's distress is and reflect on his bitter state. Truth and faith are one: “He is truth and She is faith,” since faith is the opposite of falsehood, as the verse says, “A man of faithfulness abounds in blessings” (Mishlei 28:20). Through them he believes with complete faith in Hashem and His great compassion. Hashem has mercy on all souls, “so that no one banished be cast away from Him” [Shmuel II 14:14]. As the verse says, “For I, Hashem, have not changed, and you, the children of Yaakov, have not been consumed” (Malachi 3:6): just as there is no change at all in Hashem's Name Havayah, so the children of Yaakov have not been consumed. He puts his trust in Hashem, the Merciful One, that He will have mercy on him too, out of His own goodness, “for He desires kindness” [Michah 7:18]. What difference is there to Him between the depth of the beginning and the depth of the end? Is not everything in His hand, the One Who gives light to all the worlds?

5cWith this steadfast faith, which is beyond intellectual perception and beyond reasons, he arouses the Supreme Will from the heavens above, from an exceedingly high place, beyond the grasp of any created mind. For will has no reason. That is what we say in the Kedushah: “From His place may He turn in mercy to His people,” that is, from the place of which it says, “evil does not dwell with You” [Tehillim 5:5], where no sin and no touch of the nations can reach. That is what the Midrash said: “and there is hope for your end [acharis].” Even when they are in the depth of the end, this itself will stir their hearts, and they will see that there is still hope for their souls. Through truth and faith, peace is made between them and our Father in Heaven, and their souls cleave and are joined to the Creator. This is a healing remedy for a Jewish soul, so that he can strengthen himself in his time of darkness.

6aThis is what the holy Zohar says on this parshah: “‘And I [anochi] did not know’ [Bereishis 28:16]: is it any wonder that he did not know? Rather, what is ‘and anochi I did not know’? As it says, ‘and I have not entreated the face of Hashem’ [Shmuel I 13:12]. He said: All this was revealed to me, and I did not look to know the Anochi, the Divine I, and to enter under the wings of the Shechinah to become whole?” [Zohar I:150b]. This follows the Midrash Tanchuma on this parshah. “And he dreamed, and behold, a ladder”: R' Shmuel bar Nachmani said, This teaches that the Holy One, blessed be He, showed our father Yaakov the prince of Bavel going up and coming down, and so on, and the prince of Edom going up, and he did not know how far. At that moment Yaakov Avinu was afraid and said, “Perhaps this one has no descent?” That is, he saw all the exiles to the very end. He saw and understood that in the last exile his da'as could not grasp how great the darkness and troubles would grow, and that they would have nothing with which to strengthen themselves. That is what the Midrash means by “he did not know how far.” He saw that da'as itself would be in exile, and he was very afraid.

6bThat is “and anochi I did not know”: from great pressure and poverty they will neither know nor understand how to make their souls whole and bind them to the Anochi. Yet looking toward the time of the end, he saw and said, “Surely Hashem is in this place,” which the Targum renders, “In truth [bekushta], the glory of Hashem is in this place.” “And he said: How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God” [Bereishis 28:17], which the Targum renders, “How awesome is this place; this is not an ordinary place, but a place of favor [ra'ava] before Hashem.” As we said above, by the power of truth and faith a person arouses the Supreme Will, which is beyond the grasp of created minds and is only “before Hashem.” That is “Surely Hashem is in this place”: he saw that only through the trait of truth and faith will Hashem be for them “an everlasting light” [Yeshayahu 60:19]. Through this we will have endurance and strength.