Rabbi Steinsaltz’s Answer to a Confused Visitor

By Rabbi Yisroel Zavdi, Shliach in Huntington Beach, CA

Entering the Kotel courtyard after not being there for 15 years was a riveting experience.

This is where it all happened! All of it! The history that increasingly defines my life. The glorious days of the Kohen Gadol intensely performing the Yom Kippur service. Dovid Hamelech gazing affectionately at this mountain, envisioning the house of Hashem. The tragedy and destruction that unfolded in this very spot.

As warriors and humble souls, it was the place where the Jewish people, my ancestors, gave history its very purpose; it was the place where Hashem chose to encounter his beloved children.

It felt like the point of contact with the very essence of existence.

Several days later, I had the opportunity to meet Rabbi Adin Even-Yisroel (Steinsaltz) for the first time. For someone who is so powerful in his thoughts, so daring in his analysis of life, so persistent in his pursuits; Rabbi Adin was a most humble and soft-spoken man.

It was a Shabbos afternoon after Davening, and on the threshold of an obscure doorway in the Old City stood a man from whom I’ve studied so much and always admired. In my mind, he was the person whom I can ask life’s ultimate questions, he seemed like he had it all worked out. Yet here I was standing before him and…nothing; I couldn’t think of what to say. What do I ask? What’s THE question he can help me with?

I couldn’t come up with THE question, but I had something on my heart.

“Rabbi,” I began, “I’ve been here in Israel for a few days and when standing by the Kotel, I feel such a deep connection inside with the glory and the history; I feel a realness of Hashem’s presence that is undeniable.

“The problem I’m struggling with is, when I go back to the experience of Hashem that I felt while studying Maamorim in a basement in Brooklyn, it feels very different, the feelings seem irreconcilable. One experience is Hashem as this majestical warrior with all the drama and color of our glorious past; the other seems nuanced, abstract and different from the raw nature of our history.

“Which one do I go with?” I asked, “They are both my experience of truth but they are causing a split in my soul.”

Rabbi Adin listened with a gentle smile on his face and looking into the distance he replied: “It’s Ok, go with both of them; don’t feel the need to let go of either of those experiences.”

And then he asked me, “Did you ever ask your wife these questions? You should ask her what she thinks. Don’t just ask her for recipes, ask her where she thinks the soul goes after 120…”

Great! Wait, What?

His answer was reassuring, profound and unsettling.

On one hand, I was granted permission to hold on to both, I didn’t have to choose. On the other hand, I didn’t know how. How do I live with this inner dichotomy? And (due to the above mentioned spiritual education with a bunch of guys in a basement on Troy Ave, I wondered) what truth can my wife tell me that I have not read in the books?

With time I came to understand the lesson he was imparting to me.

In life, it’s tempting to try and fit everything into our familiar world view. It’s based on a belief that our sense of truth does not expand, that our experience of Judaism does not grow and that we must always submit to a specific flavor of truth even when that flavor was an added ingredient.

It’s that flawed stubbornness that got me stuck and created a false dilemma, telling me I had to choose.

When we have the courage to examine our understanding of Hashem and what He means to us, when we open our heart to the challenge and joy of inner growth; we will discover a more comprehensive and holistic relationship with Hashem.

The key is patience. Accept the discomfort of expansion and growth; and stop trying to run back to familiar but frozen and unresourceful patterns. Chassidus teaches us, as we embark on life’s journey we are to search out Hashem in all our new endeavors, in fact, it’s the very reason we are in the place we are. If we do it right, it will be simultaneously uncomfortable and expansive.

Hashem is found in the deep Maamorim of Chassidus and in the glorious history and messages of the Neviim, and the notion that there is some type of dichotomy is just an additive of my imagination. We are taught what happens to the Neshamah after 120 years in many books; and with that, the spirituality and intuition that women naturally possess can give men a sense of that truth that we cannot get in Yeshiva.

Rabbi Adin was a brilliant teacher, a powerful thinker, a resilient leader and a rebel against the laziness of conformity. Yehei Zichro Baruch.

—–

Rabbi Zavdi’s writings and classes can be found on his website: www.UnfoldedWords.com