Vanquishing Fears

Rebbe Nachman explains that the first pasuk (verse) in our parashah begins to outline the travels of B’nei Yisrael that they experienced because of sinning with “others gods.” Idolatry leads to exile. But at the same time, when we travel, we have the opportunity to rectify a blemished faith. By elevating fears to the fear (awe) of Hashem alone, we can vanquish all other fears.¹

We read;

אֵ֜לֶּה מַסְעֵ֣י בְנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֗ל אֲשֶׁ֥ר יָצְא֛וּ מֵאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרַ֖יִם לְצִבְאֹתָ֑ם בְּיַד־מֹשֶׁ֖ה וְאַהֲרֹֽן.׃
These are the travels of the Jewish people who went out of the land of Egypt according to their legions, under the leadership of Moshe and Aharon.²

Reb Natan teaches that wherever B’nei Yisrael traveled in the desert, they subdued the kelipah (forces of evil), and transformed the spaces and places from a spiritual wasteland into an oasis of Torah.³ What began as a manifestation of something bad became a rectification into something sanctified and sealed as an important lesson in the Torah.⁴

If we look at the order of the wording of the pasuk, it reads, “Moshe wrote down their exiles and travels according to God’s Will; these are the travels in their exiles.”⁵ We see the verse first mentions exile then travel, because B’nei Yisrael’s sins caused exile and the necessity to travel. Then the verse flips the order beginning with travel followed by exile alluding to their repentance, which elevated their travels and rectified their exile.⁶ 

We read in this parashah of Massei:

וַיְדַבֵּ֧ר ה’ אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֖ה בְּעַֽרְבֹ֣ת מוֹאָ֑ב עַל־יַרְדֵּ֥ן יְרֵח֖וֹ לֵאמֹֽר. נאדַּבֵּר֙ אֶל־בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל וְאָמַרְתָּ֖ אֲלֵהֶ֑ם כִּ֥י אַתֶּ֛ם עֹבְרִ֥ים אֶת־הַיַּרְדֵּ֖ן אֶל־אֶ֥רֶץ כְּנָֽעַן׃וְה֨וֹרַשְׁתֶּ֜ם אֶת־כָּל־יֹשְׁבֵ֤י הָאָ֙רֶץ֙ מִפְּנֵיכֶ֔ם וְאִ֨בַּדְתֶּ֔ם אֵ֖ת כָּל־מַשְׂכִּיֹּתָ֑ם וְאֵ֨ת כָּל־צַלְמֵ֤י מַסֵּֽכֹתָם֙ תְּאַבֵּ֔דוּ וְאֵ֥ת כָּל־בָּמוֹתָ֖ם תַּשְׁמִֽידוּ. וְהוֹרַשְׁתֶּ֥ם אֶת־הָאָ֖רֶץ וִֽישַׁבְתֶּם־בָּ֑הּ כִּ֥י לָכֶ֛ם נָתַ֥תִּי אֶת־הָאָ֖רֶץ לָרֶ֥שֶׁת אֹתָֽהּ.

In the stepp of Moab, at the Jordan near Jericho, Hashem spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan, you shall dispossess all the inhabitants of the land; you shall destroy all their figured objects. You shall destroy all their molten images, and you shall demolish all their cult places. And you shall take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have assigned the land to you to possess.⁷

Our entire journey both prati (personal) and klali (general, as a nation) is to reach our Promised Land (here referred to as Canaan, but eternally as Israel). It is our path towards light; our clinging to love and living in alignment with both. But it’s the struggle that sows the rewards that will be reaped. Hashem is speaking to Moshe on a sod level (the fourth level of understanding any pasuk/verse in the Torah is Sod, which means secret). These pesukim (verses) are telling us that the Israelites, in order to reach their promised land, need to rid themselves of all that opposes holiness. This rival force is called the sitra achra, which internally fights to keep us away from the Promised Land. It plays out differently in all of us – for some it is intense anxiety, for others it is fear that hinders progress, crippling doubt, or lack of clarity keeping blessings at bay.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe articulated our struggle perfectly, “The source of all illness is the lovesickness of the soul. She yearns to return to her Beloved Above, and so is repulsed by the human form, her prison of pain. Two things, then, must be repaired, and body and soul will be healed: The human body must open itself to become a holy temple for the Infinite G‑d who desires it for His dwelling. The soul must learn to discover the Infinite G‑d from within this human form, the place where He most desires to dwell.”⁸

In Chassidut, all ideologies and visions are part of the Ein Sof (Light of the Infinite); they are eternal and embedded deep in our souls. Our task is to fan the spark to the point that a flame is linked to the fire Above. The Baal Shem Tov teaches that there is both light and darkness in all of creation, including humankind. This is seen in each of our various attributes and characteristics pulling either from the side that is connected to illuminated holiness, or to the sitra achra. We see this in romantic love connections, which can be rooted in light or dark, trauma or healing, while Supernal Love is from the light source itself. The way to elevate earth-bound love, is realizing that the characteristic of it is rooted in holiness with its essence in the Ein Sof, and it is just that it fell into the kelipot (negative forces) of the universe which tries to convert light into darkness. That realization can motivate us to cling to the Source in order to connect what’s become natural to what can be supernatural – a Supernal love that is pure.

The pasuk above from our parashah is teaching us how to align with purity by disposing of all the inhabitants of the land – the sitra achra throughout our bodies and minds that creep in, such as thoughts and urges that we need to overcome at times. We need to destroy these images that creep in and try to inhabit our space, distance ourselves and eliminate the places and spaces of this element. It is then that we can “take possession of the land and settle in it,” as it already awaits. Hashem has already “assigned the land to you to possess.”

The ten sefirot to the side channel the Divine Creation and parallel the ten sefirot in each of us and the basic channels of each personality and power within that. The sefira of yesod in each of us, is the urge to love and is linked to the desire to cling to the Ein Sof (each according to the vessel that the person works on), and is a part of the upper Divine characteristics. (To dive deeper into these ideas, read the Key Kabbalistic Concepts chapter.) As King Solomon writes in Kohelet, everything was created one opposite the other  (זֶ֤ה לְעֻמַּת־זֶה֙)⁹ in perfect equilibrium in order for us to exist in free choice where in this world the positive and negative forces are balanced. This was the price for eating from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil.¹⁰ Even in the ten sefirot of light and holiness there exists the opposite fueled by the force of the other side, the sitra achra. 

Just as the entire dynamic of the holy “side” of the universe has its counterpart in the sitra achra; so too the ten sefirot of holiness and ten corresponding faculties of the Nefesh Elokit (Godly soul) each have their unholy counterpart, referred to in the Zohar as “the ten crowns of impurity.”¹¹ In Kabbalah, we learn that between the levels of purity and holiness and the levels of impurity lie the kelipat nogah. The kelipat nogah, literally ‘‘shining/translucent shells or peels,” contain visions of both good and evil, making it harder for us to get to the pure essence that is underneath/behind all of creation. Nogah, the translucence – the ability to see the light, even if it’s somewhat obscured – represents freedom of choice, our ability to take life in either direction. The Alter Rebbe explains in Tanya that it is this finely balanced tension between potential good (which can also be misused) and potential evil (which can also be sublimated).

The ten sefirot/powers within the Nefesh Habehmit (the animal soul) are referred to in the Zohar as the ten crowns of purity,¹² While a crown is not attached to us, it influences our thoughts. When we indulge in the crown of impurity, we are separating from our true essence and attaching ourselves to this outside influence powered by the sitra achra, which is essentially anything that is not serving our awakening, but so to speak, keeping us asleep. It is these elements that keep us from “possessing our land.” Moshe is tasked with teaching us how to subdue the other side to possess what has been promised to us from the Creator. 

It is our task is to unify all of our disparate parts to serve Hashem with both our yetzer tov and our yetzer hara; to make our animal soul, which desires to gratify physicality, subservient to our Godly soul, which only desires to transcend the limitations of the finite and unify with the infinite.

In high school, I used to drive my Nissan around town, blasting the NY rapper Nas on the stereo. One of his most famous lines is, “I never sleep, ’cause sleep is the cousin of death.”¹³   

I think if there were ever to be a Jewish remix of Nas’s song “N.Y. State of Mind,” it would be titled, “Jew York State of Mochin,” and the famous line would be replaced as, “I never doubt, ’cause doubt is the cousin of death.”  

We need to focus on faithfulness and remove doubt, because as with everything there is a balance. Sleep brings dreams and in Talmud Brachot it teaches that a dream is one sixtieth of prophecy¹⁴ and in Midrash in Bereishei Rabbah it says, ‘the buds of prophecy are dreams.’¹⁵ As the Zohar teaches in regards to dreams that “there are six levels [each one encompassing ten sub-levels] between netzach (eternity) and ratzon (will).”¹⁶ 

But the flip side of sleep and dreams is the one sixtieth of death, and the flip side of faith is doubt which begins a vicious cycle of anxiety and brings us further from faith and peace. Many have been taught and can certainly feel that Shabbat is one sixtieth of the World to Come, that is why the world to come is referred to as kulo Shabbat. When we keep Shabbat fully, when we pause on interfering with creation and meditate on creation itself, we can lessen our anxiety, we can tap into oneness, we can doubt less because we can feel and be mindful of that the Source of Creation is in charge, that we can only push ourselves to a point and then let fate free us from our worries. Shabbat is a time in space that we could feel unbound by both time and space because we are fully connected to the infinite, one sixtieth of infinity to be exact.

I thought I’d end this chapter with a poem by Rav Kook; 

Expanses, expanses

Expanses my soul craves

Do not confine me in any cage,

Neither material nor spiritual,

My soul soars through the heavens,

Walls of the heart will not contain it,

Nor will the walls of deeds, morals, logic or propriety.

Above all these my soul soars and flies,

Above all that can be named,

Above all delight, pleasantness and beauty,

Above all that is exalted and noble.

“I am love sick….”¹⁷

– Erez Safar

1. Likutey Halachot VII, p. 200
2. Numbers 33:1
3. Likutey Halachot II, p. 166
4. Likutey Halachot VIII, p. 141a
5. Numbers 33:2
6. Likutey Halachot VIII, p. 141b
7. Numbers 33:50
8. Maamar Ani Hashem Rof’echa – From the wisdom of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, of righteous memory; words and condensation by Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
9. Ecclesiastes 7:14
10. Etz Chaim 49:3
11. Zohar III, 41b
12. Ibid 3, 41b
13. “N.Y. State of Mind” a song by Nas
14. Talmud Tractate Berachot 57b
15. Midrash Rabbah Genesis 17:7
16. Zohar Pekudei 254a
17. Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hacohen Kook, Hadrav, Mevasseret Zion 1998, p.49