Ask The Rabbi

Ask The Rabbi

category:  Chassidut

The Rav Name: Rabbi Yitzchak Arad

24. Why should one distance oneself from spiritual approaches like becoming a Nazir and separating oneself from worldly/mundane matters?
Until the Torah was given, it was decreed that “The Heavens are heavens for the Lord.” This meant that ‘Heaven’ represented spirituality, and ‘Earth’ represented physicality. The two entities were separate and could not be connected.
Therefore, someone who wished to achieve a spiritual ascent and connect to the source of holiness, of necessity had to disconnect himself as much as possible from everything physical. The Patriarchs and the tribes were shepherds and therefore were able to spend their time in solitude and spiritual contemplation, far from worldly and material matters. Although the Patriarchs performed the Mitzvot, it was on a spiritual level, not in a way that changed the nature of the physical environment.
The giving of the Torah changed the world: “And the Lord came down on Mount Sinai.” The Holy One Blessed-be-He ‘came down’ and exuded Holiness—His Divine Presence—into the physical world, thus making it possible to connect and unite the upper and lower worlds. The Mitzvot that we were commanded at the Giving of the Torah have the unique ability to allow holiness to penetrate into physical objects. In this way, the skin of an animal can become a holy object like Tefillin (phylacteries) or a Mezuzah.
So, since the Giving of the Torah, the true connection to spirituality or holiness is not through spiritual approaches that involve removing oneself from the physical world, but through living a Jewish lifestyle within the limitations of the physical world, and imbuing it with holiness through keeping Torah and Mitzvot.,

Shalom and thank you for such a beautiful question! It is an excellent question. How does HaShem put a ‘piece of Himself’ in each of us and still have Himself?

This would be a problem if HaShem was only something physical, something like a pizza. If you divide a pizza into eight pieces and Joey gets two, Sarah and Moishy get only one each because they are much smaller, and the twins Berl and Menucha get two each because they really love to eat pizza, then the pizza is finished and you have to order another one for Mom and Dad and for Yanky when he comes home from Yeshiva. One tray of pizza is enough for only a few people.


When Mommy lights Shabbat candles, she may light a special large match, or small candle, and with that she lights many candles, one for ‘shamor’ – to keep the Shabbat holy, and one for ‘zachor’ to remember the Shabbat, and then one for Yanky, another for Berl, and for Menucha, for Joey, for Sarah and for Moishy. The candles are all lit and glowing. All of a sudden, there’s a knock on the door. Tante Malka has come for Shabbat and there’s still time to light, so now Tante Malka picks up a match and lights it from the candles that are already lit. Two more Shabbat guests arrive also in time to light, Sally and Eliana. The one flame that Mommy lit was enough to light those other candles, and you know what? You could keep taking candles and lighting them from the other candles. That first flame is still burning in a candle. It didn’t lose anything by lighting other candles. That is the nature of fire, that is the way HaShem made fire. You can light a flame,  then another flame from the first, and another flame from the second, and so on and so on! That first flame doesnt lose anything from itself!


This is a little bit like HaShem. HaShem breathed life into Adam – the first person. That means that HaShem made Adam’s body and then breathed a soul into it so that it would live. When you breathe out you are taking air from inside of yourself to the outside. So HaShem breathed a soul out of Himself into Adam and then he made Chava and breathed a soul into her. All the people in the world came from Adam and Chava, just like the candles that all came from the first one that was lit.

King Solomon wrote in Proverbs “נר השם נשמת אדם’. ‘A candle of G-d is the soul of man…’ Just like the candle that Mommy lights, from which you can keep lighting more and more candles and it doesn’t lose anything of itself, so G-d breathed a soul into us and it doesn’t take anything away from Him.


In the book of Tanya, (in Chapter 37 in the section for 18 Adar 2,) which is a very important book written by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, it explains that there are six hundred thousand Jewish souls. All the souls of all the Jewish people in the world come from these six hundred thousand souls. There are millions of Jewish people and each one has a soul that is a spark of one of the six hundred thousand that received the Torah from HaShem at Mount Sinai, just like candles that are lit from other candles.


Why did HaShem create these souls? HaShem creates souls so that they should help make the world a very good and nice place to live. HaShem wants the world to be a place where people learn Torah and keep Mitzvot,  like Shabbat and keeping kosher, and giving Tzedaka and teaching Torah and helping people. This way the world will become better and better until everybody will be doing good things and nobody will be doing bad things.


There are six hundred and thirteen Mitzvot in the Torah. Each mitzvah that we do makes us close to HaShem. Unfortunately we can’t keep all the Mitzvot properly until we have the third Beit HaMikdash, the house of HaShem. When the Moshiach comes we can all visit the Beit haMikdash and do Mitzvot that we couldn’t do before. Our souls want to keep Mitzvot and make the world a better place so that Moshiach can come and we will have the Beit haMikdash in Yerushalayim and the world will be completely fixed up!


So what Mitzvah are you going to do today so that your soul will shine and make this world a better place?



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