Parshat Vaeira – Resurrecting Holiness
“And they didn’t listen to Moshe, due to exhaustion and hard work.” The Yidden were very much interested in changing the way they lived. They understood that freedom doesn’t depend on the luxuries that surround them or the circumstances of life. Moshe asked Pharaoh at the end of last week’s portion to allow the Yidden to take Shabbos off, the ability to take a day off doesn’t require us to have a couch and a beer in our hand, rather Shabbos is a gift to each and every human. (See Gemara Sanhedrin 35b.) But our ancestors in Egypt were so stuck in their day to day chores of slavery that even hope wasn’t able to penetrate their aching hearts.
The toil of man on earth is to learn how to shed physicality from themselves. It is the earthly desires that pull man into spirals of wishes, dreams and hopes, and even when those particular goals are met, their voids are just as empty or, in most cases, worse than before. Even as we mature and realize that we don’t need every ‘candy’ that grabs our attention, we still need to work on our impulses so that we don’t end up chasing those false hopes and dreams like a zombie. We want to bury those desires so that we don’t ever resurrect it again. We are done wanting this nonsense and from now on it is the truth that we seek.
We bury things all the time. We had a past where we gave into our weaknesses. We allowed ourselves certain freedoms that were contrary to our moral essence, we always left the door unlocked so that we have options when the struggle becomes real. We never truly buried those old habits with an engraved tombstone, declaring it dead for good. But once we take life seriously and aim to be the driver of our vehicle, we know that we don’t want to walk around with crutches anymore. We don’t want substances to be our way to happiness and we don’t need pleasures to calm the storm for us. Our goal is to be strong on our own feet with our abilities, and for this we must get rid of all Klippot and externals that have given us the illusion of greatness until today.
Burying those pasts does not mean that we erase it, rather it means that we only take along the lessons we have learnt along the way. The memories won’t ever fade in our minds, but the weaknesses of those moments will forever teach us right from wrong. We don’t want to struggle with the resurrection of our old weaknesses, because once we bury them and they come back out, that’s when we feel like giving up. We feel like failures since we’ve tried for so long to keep ourselves strong in our life, but when we fall and bring back the old stupid ways, we beat ourselves up and those zombie habits haunt us.
The truth is that we get stronger and stronger each time. If after every mistake we learn a lesson, then, after ten mistakes we will have at least ten lessons. We become smarter with each trial and we grow at each stage. It is a natural step to bury our weaknesses and still have them come up from the grave, because this is how Hashem created the world. Let me explain. When Hashem created the world He produced a light so beautiful that it didn’t just light up the physical world like the sun does today, it is a light of hope and truth that when experienced, we feel a light of such intense love that heals all brokenness in nature and beyond it. Hashem buried this light and is keeping it hidden for the end of days, as mentioned in the commentaries on Parshat Bereishit.
This light is meant to be uncovered from its burial plot. It is not meant to stay underground forever. It is actually the work of mankind to seek out the treasure through the map given to us on Sinai. And just as this is the case with holiness the same is true with the other side. Anything that is put away is bound to be uncovered, the question is what are we doing in order to keep ourselves pure and holy so that we continue living with the light instead of the darkness. The emergence of the light will come as we walk close and closer to its spot, and as we get closer we distance ourselves from the earthly desires and physical addictions that we’ve buried behind us.
We may still fall back, since it is hard for every day to be filled with momentum, but we have to keep our purpose of being here on earth, in mind, “We are creators!” We can create and resurrect, but what good will it do if our creations are the cause of destruction. Why would someone be happy when he created a virus that will kill him? It is our mission to be self standing humans who work tirelessly to achieve the dream of living in the light of Hashem without being pulled down by the external physicalities that weakens us.
The Yidden were stuck in their minds, exhausted and overworked. They barely had the strength to fight for their lives and now they had to start worrying about their spirituality? The answer is, of course. Spirituality does not require one to be in a certain setting or affluent by nature, it is a humanly accessible gift for all stripes and colors. It was upon them to understand the gift of Shabbos where they can see that when we bury the entire week behind us and decide to live each moment as a gift, we end up living a life filled with light. Even though the work week will show up again on Sunday, it is the moment right now where I can feel true freedom. Learning how to bury the old exhaustion and labor and instead resurrecting the light that was buried so long ago, it is then that we start living with the truest meaning of all and we are ready to be a nation that can stand on its own two feet.
Much like an addict needs to know that the future will have doubts and that as much as we can find inspiration in the good days, the bad days are inevitable. And along with that they must know that no matter what moods they fall into and how hard it is to overcome the painful desire, it is true light that they are seeking and they will choose the right thing to do as much as they can. The same is with our nation. We know that we will fall back into the slave mindset, we’ll blame him and her for our falls, we’ll cry over the uncertainties of tomorrow and we may even lose hope in redemption. But once we learn the secret of Shabbos and know that we can stop the exhaustion by simply picking up our heads and living with the light, at that point we will start creating a future that will last for thousands of years like we see today.
From burying to resurrecting, from false dreams to realized prophecies, our nation has learned that the only way forward is to escape the illusion of time and the prison it keeps us in. We break free and live to uncover our purpose as free people. No matter the tyranny surrounding us, our freedoms will forever endure, since there is no freer man than the one who lives Torah.
David Lemmer is an Orthodox Jewish Writer and Hypnotherapist. He can be reached at LemmerHypno@gmail.com