Concealed Light
"כִּדְרַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר. דְּאָמַר רַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר: אוֹר שֶׁבָּרָא הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא בְּיוֹם רִאשׁוֹן, אָדָם צוֹפֶה בּוֹ מִסּוֹף הָעוֹלָם וְעַד סוֹפוֹ. כֵּיוָן שֶׁנִּסְתַּכֵּל הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא בְּדוֹר הַמַּבּוּל וּבְדוֹר הַפְּלַגָּה וְרָאָה שֶׁמַּעֲשֵׂיהֶם מְקוּלְקָלִים — עָמַד וּגְנָזוֹ מֵהֶן, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״וְיִמָּנַע מֵרְשָׁעִים אוֹרָם״.
The Gemara answers: This should be understood in accordance with Rabbi Elazar, as Rabbi Elazar said: The light that the Holy One, Blessed be He, created on the first day was not that of the sun but a different kind of light, through which man could observe from one end of the world to the other. But when the Holy One, Blessed be He, looked upon the generation of the Flood and the generation of the Dispersion and saw that their ways were corrupt and that they might misuse this light for evil, He arose and concealed it from them, as it is stated: “And from the wicked their light is withheld” (Job 38:15).
This text, taken from the Talmud, from Masechet Hagigah, describes the “concealed light” or Or Haganuz. This is not light we are able to perceive, such as the light of the sun, but rather the essence of God, which fills everything. This is the essence of infinite abundance and good.
When humans sinned, God concealed that light in a process known as Tzimtzum (contraction) and from that point on, it was up to us humans to reveal it, one fragment at a time.
Our tradition teaches that this light can be revealed in many ways; for example, by engaging in acts of kindness, justice and mercy or by curbing selfishness, anger and pride.
It is also believed that this light is more available to us on Shabbat, during the High Holidays, and during important lifecycle events such as marriage or birth. Hasidic tradition teaches that light that is revealed on Shabbat can sustain someone for a whole week. Light which is revealed on Hanukkah can sustain a person for a whole year.
The Ramban (Nachmanides) in his reading of the portion Beha’alotecha, explains that the Hanukkah candle light is a continuation of the light of the Menorah which was first put in the tabernacle. That Menorah is a continuation of the concealed light.
The Hanukkah candles bring down the concealed light to dwell below the Ten Emanations; we also call it Shechina.
Today, in honor of Hanukkah, I’d like to focus on another way to reveal the concealed light, this time not only through acts of kindness but also, through studying.
Midrash Tanchuma on Noach says:
אוֹר גָּדוֹל, אוֹר שֶׁנִּבְרָא בְּיוֹם רִאשׁוֹן, שֶׁגְּנָזוֹ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא לַעֲמֵלֵי תוֹרָה שֶׁבְּעַל פֶּה בַּיּוֹם וּבַלַּיְלָה, שֶׁבִּזְכוּתָן הָעוֹלָם עוֹמֵד,
‘‘The great light alludes to the light created on the first day of creation, which the Holy One, blessed be He, reserved for those who devote themselves to the study of the Oral Law day and night.’’
According to this Midrash, the concealed light can be revealed by studying.
The entire field of philosophy is divided between thinkers who believed that knowledge about the universe was discovered or revealed, and between those who believed that this knowledge was constructed or invented.
Classical thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle belonged to the first group, whereas philosophers like Immanuel Kant and other idealists, phenomenologists and structuralists believed the latter.
Some were in-between, like Albert Einstein, who said in an address to the Prussian Academy of Sciences in the early 1920s:
“As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”
Jewish tradition suggests that all the knowledge about the universe is imminent and our task is to reveal it through studying Torah (written as well as oral).
In the Gemara in Masechet Nidah, it is written that an infant is born knowing all the knowledge of the universe. But as soon as he or she emerges, an angel appears, and slaps the infant, who immediately forgets everything. (Some explain the ridge under our nose as the evidence of this). It is therefore a human being’s lifelong mission to discover and reveal that knowledge.
Between (1768–1834), a Protestant philosopher and theologian named Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher lived in what is now Germany.
Schleiermacher contributed tremendously to the field of modern Hermeneutics. Hermeneutics, the theory of interpretation, comes from the Greek word for interpreting and originates with the name of the Greek god Hermes, whose role was to deliver messages or interpret the words of the gods to humans.
Like our tradition, Schleiermacher believed that understanding was not a state that one reaches but rather an activity that one sustains. In other words, understanding was a lifelong task.
Schleiermacher theories lead to the idea which was later expanded by other Hermeneutic thinkers, that of the Hermeneutic cycle. The idea is that in order to understand a whole, one needs to first understand the parts of the whole, but in order to understand the parts, you need to understand the whole — hence a cycle.
According to Schleiermacher, the act of understanding happens on two planes: the first is the technical or grammatical, meaning the analysis of the language, its grammar as well as its context and history, the time it was written. The second plane is the psychological which is about reconstructing the inner life, the intention, and the situation of the speaker or writer.
Because Schleiermacher believed that every individual was radically unique, the task of understanding was always dialogical.
I brought Schleiermacher today because many centuries before his writings Jewish tradition developed a Hermeneutics system to study Torah Known as Pardes. Pardes, which in Hebrew means orchard, is also an acronym that refers to the four levels of understanding the Torah.
Pshat - the understanding of the text as written, at the surface level
Remez - a comparative reading of the text, placement, context and repetition
Drash - the subtext meaning, fables, metaphors, expansions (midrashim), analogies
Sod - the use of the language structure and the actual letters, sometimes by assigning numerical values to them, to decipher codes to the actual metaphysical understanding of the universe.
Schleiermacher's grammatical understanding could be analogous to Pshat and Remez, whereas the psychological understanding may have been partially analogous to Drash.
Jewish learning, just like Schleiermacher suggested, is indeed extremely dialogical. The process of interpretation in our tradition is always through dialogue and debate. Our entire Talmud offers case studies through dialogues and debates between rabbis. It is then suggested that the debate should always be studied in a Chevruta - by more than one person, offering multiple understandings of the text.
This lifelong engagement could eventually lead to an understanding in the Sod level, which is the understanding of the universe itself.
This Hanukkah unfortunately we were once again painfully reminded of the darkness which still prevails in our world. As we light the Hanukkah candles with a symbolic attempt to contract that darkness and reveal more light, we must remember that in addition to actual deeds which bring light to others, we have a role to reveal light in the universe by the task of studying to understand it.
As we head toward a new calendar year in our “Philosophy on the Parshah,” I would like to wish that our continued studying of Torah shines a light on big ideas, proposed by any human on planet earth. Hopefully together, by an ongoing engagement with this task, we can reveal some of the concealed light, which in turn will make our world better.
As written in Proverbs:
"כִּ֤י נֵ֣ר מִ֭צְוָה וְת֣וֹרָה א֑וֹר וְדֶ֥רֶךְ חַ֝יִּ֗ים תּוֹכְח֥וֹת מוּסָֽר׃
“For this command is a lamp, this teaching is a light, and correction and instruction are the way to life”
Hebrew video here:
