Letters of Light. Kalonymus Kalman Epstein
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homily refers also to another rabbinic agada, this time having to do with the ḥitzonim, demonic agents, for which bodies were never created due to the entrance of the Seventh Day following the days of creation. The very name ḥitzonim indicates their externality and their opposition to all that is holy. Reflecting Hasidic teaching’s emphasis upon interior meaning and the inner life, the name ḥitzonim defined those demonic forces as the antithesis of Hasidism’s own value-system. It would follow that understanding the world and life and humans and the Torah itself solely in terms of their external character brings in its wake something that is in itself potentially demonic in nature.
Humility and the World’s Sustainability34
“Such is the story of heaven and earth when they were created . . . .” (Gen 2:4)
As it appears in the Torah-text, the word b’hibarʾam (“when they were created”) contains one letter, hei, written very small, an occurrence which has been explained in various ways including reading that word as bʾAvraham (through the merit of Abraham, simply situating the same letters in a different order).35
. . . When the worlds evolved one from the other, down to this physical world, its inhabitants forgot God’s Divinity and came to think that they have no Lord or ruler over them. Each person said, “I shall rule,” and consequently they were destroyed.
The important point is the need to know that God is the master and ruler and the Root of all the worlds36 and to be humble before Him, like Abraham who said, “I who am but dust and ashes” (Gen 18:27). And through the merit of such a person, the world is sustained. And this is b’hibarʾam: bʾAvraham (through Abraham), continuing in the way of the quality of Abraham which is one of humility before God, unlike that of the early generations, each one of whom said, “I shall rule” and, accordingly, were destroyed. And the small letter hei alludes to his humility; conveying that each person should consider himself small and lowly before God, and in this way the world can continue to exist.
Comment: In the Torah’s opening chapters Abraham emerges as a figure who stands in rather sharp contrast to the generations that preceded him. While all else conveys a picture of consistent and repeated human failure, only Abraham stands out in a positive way against that background. In that one word, b’hibarʾam, that rabbinic midrash claimed to locate a somewhat concealed reference to Abraham already in the Torah’s account of creation; the letters of that word, given a different order, could read as bʾAvraham, conveying that the world was created for the sake of Abraham and those like him.
That thought in itself might be interpreted in terms of various qualities or actions of Abraham, but Kalonymus Kalman, in the above passage, focuses on one particular quality, namely Abraham’s humility. The homilist here viewed Abraham’s humility as his distinguishing trait. And in the context of Hasidic teaching, humility represents the antithesis of egotism which is itself understood as taking seriously something that lacks any true place in existence itself. Humility, in this sense, is a recognition of truth and a rejection of distorted self-centered perceptions of oneself in comparison with others.
When One Person Judges Another37
“(Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat;) but as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it . . . .” (Gen 2:16–17)
The person who comes to serve God must be careful not even to look at the fault of his fellow, and not to consider himself wise and capable of understanding his fellow and his way. “Man sees only what is visible, but the Lord sees into the heart” (1 Sam 16:7). The person who looks upon the faults of his fellow does so out of one’s own arrogance, whereas if that person were humble, recognizing his own shortcomings, he would have a more favorable picture of his fellow and would not come to any awareness of the latter’s shortcomings. It is only due to a person’s sense of self-importance that his fellow’s words and ways fail to meet his approval. In contrast, our father Jacob, may he rest in peace, who was a mild man (Gen 25:27) did not look upon himself as a person of wisdom capable of judging the ways of others.
This thought connects with the verse, “but as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it . . . ” For if you do, pride and the Evil Inclination will enter into you, and because you perceive yourself to be a person of wisdom, your heart will be drawn to discern the ways of your fellows and to consider whether they are good or evil. And this was the claim of the serpent, “And you will be like divine beings who know good and bad” (Gen 3:5), for by eating of the tree you make yourself wise (in your own eyes), believing that you know how to evaluate the ways of your fellow and to know whether they are good or evil. And you will reach a conclusion that you would not have arrived at otherwise.
And this is heard in the words, “And they perceived that they were naked” (ʿarumim, Gen 3:7), which connects with the words, “Now the serpent was the shrewdest, eirom (of all the wild beasts that the Lord God had made,” Gen 3:1). For as a consequence of their eating from the tree, they opened themselves to the Evil Inclination and to arrogance, and in their guile they attributed to themselves wisdom. And this connects also with the man’s saying, “And I was afraid because I was naked (ʿarum) . . . ” (Gen 3:10)—I fear because I see that my heart arrogantly puffs up within me saying, I am shrewd and wise. And we should be very fearful of that.
Comment: In this homily, the Kraków master offered his interpretation of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in a way that amazingly brings that theme very much down-to-earth. While statements concerning the effects and consequences of eating from that tree have included very far-reaching and complex implications, for Kalonymus Kalman in this brief homily, the meaning of the sin of the First Man has to do with something extraordinarily commonplace: the tendency of people to be judgmental concerning others and the self-importance involved in a person’s viewing others critically. A rare beauty is displayed in the very simplicity of the master’s interpretation.
8. Maʾor va-shemesh (Warsaw, 1877), I, 2b.
9. b. Ber. 55a and Menaḥ. 29b, Midr.Gen 1.9 and y. Ḥag. 77c; Ginzberg, Legends, 5:56, n. 10.
10. Midr. Gen 3.4; Pirqe R. El, ch. 3.
11. Note Zohar I, 1b-2a, and Scholem, Major Trends, 220–21.
12. Midr. Exod. 3:6 (Sh’mot), perhaps on basis of Ps 82:8.
13. Maʾor va-shemesh, I, 2b-3a.
14. b. Ḥag. 12a, Midr. Gen 3.6, Midr. Exod. 35.1, and Midr. Num. 13.5.
15. See Ba’al shem tov ʿal ha-torah, 1:48–49 (#32–35). Also Shivḥei ha-Besht, In Praise of the Baal Shem Tov, 49 (#33), and 89 (#69).
16. Zohar II, 148b-149a.
17. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, 214–15 and Muhammad is His Messenger, 130.
18. John 1:1, 9; also The Apostalic Fathers, 1:51 (Second Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, #14).