Am I a chicken?

From Birdsong from Inside the Egg by Rumi* :

 ...A chicken invites a camel into her henhouse,

And the whole structure is demolished...

Coop by Yael Unterman

Rav Kook said that no one can

imagine the pain of the eagle

locked up in a chicken coop.

Was he cooped? I have felt

that entrapment in a life

that feels like a too-small jacket,

buttons popping off

Through the remaining holes

my life’s blood spills out onto the ground

cries out to God

I am here  I am here.

My professor added,

But what about the chicken

roaming senselessly in eagle’s domain?

Think what pain.

I could not listen further,

for wondering which one I was.

 * Rumi poem at http://andylal.blogspot.com/2011/07/blog-post_6185.html

Seeing Elijah

"בכל דור ודור חייב אדם לראות את עצמו כאילו הוא יצא ממצרים"

"In every generation, each of us must see ourselves as if we ourselves emerged from Egypt."

I want to revisit the above statement in a bit of a chassidic way - I have adapted the following story:

The story is told of a young man who was pestering his rebbe. "I want to see Eliyahu at Pesach time, I want to really meet Eliyahu." He pestered him thus for days. Finally the rebbe said: "Not just anyone gets to see Eliyahu. You have to earn it. Here, take this food and medicine and walk a day and a half's journey to a Jewish family who live in a distant village."

Eagerly, the young man took the supplies and set off. The journey was difficult, he got lost, and when he finally arrived, he had trouble locating the Jewish family. He gave them the supplies. They gratefully asked him to stay for dinner, and even though he was running late and impatient to get home, he stayed and smiled with them so as not to ruin their joy. The next morning he had to get up extremely early and go back the way he came, getting lost again.

Finally he arrived home, irritated and exhausted."Rebbe, I did everything you said and I did not meet Eliyahu! You lied to me."

Calmly the rebbe said: "The reason you didn't meet him is because he is right here in the next room!"

The young man's face lit up, and he followed the rebbe's finger into the other room. "Look to the left as you walk in and you'll see him!" the rebbe called after him.

Disappointed, the young man came out again.

"Did you see him?"

"All I saw was a mirror!"

"Exactly! And when you looked in the mirror, what did you see? The Eliyahu Hanavi in yourself."

In every generation, each of us must see ourselves - for that is the very essence of leaving Egypt. To see the highest self we can perceive when we look in the mirror, and live in the knowledge of that expanded self.

(And כאילו is like כאליהו [thanks Ursula!])

Now I know the beauty

ספר בראשית פרק יב
(יא) וַיְהִי כַּאֲשֶׁר הִקְרִיב לָבוֹא מִצְרָיְמָה וַיֹּאמֶר אֶל שָׂרַי אִשְׁתּוֹ הִנֵּה נָא יָדַעְתִּי כִּי אִשָּׁה יְפַת מַרְאֶה אָתְּ:

Genesis 12:11. And it came to pass, when he came near to enter to Egypt, that he said to Sarai his wife, Behold now, I know that you are a pretty woman to look upon.

Had Avraham not been aware before of how his wife looked? Yes, but he was now looking at her through the eyes of Egyptian society and seeing her afresh.

For me, two important points emerge:

1) Let us use anything we can to refresh our eyes to the beauty of what is around us - even if it is Egyptian society. Even sources that are debased in some way might be able to teach us to see the beauty of G-d's world in a new way. The world of art, though flawed, can do this.

Let us always refresh our eyes to the beauty of the world. Every morning, press that existential F5 button, wake up, חדשים לבקרים, רבה אמונתך

2) Perhaps we may deduce that Avraham was used to looking at inner beauty, not externals. Perhaps he did not even know how attractive his wife was physically, for he was involved with her soul. Now he was forced pragmatically to reevaluate her physicality, so as to prepare for the dangers it might bring to them in this new land.

In the movie "Prelude to a Kiss," a lovely young bride switches bodies with an old man. The groom is in love with his new wife, but she now comes in a very unattractive wrapper. He struggles with this; there is a barrier between then. Then during one profound scene, we see him break through the externals, entirely aware of the person he loves within; able to love her and reach out to break through the barrier.

How much do and should externals mean to us, in the day to day, or in searching for a life partner? In Taanit 20b, an arrogant rabbi runs into a hideous man on the road, and says "How ugly you are! Are all the citizens of your town as ugly as you?" His fellow replies, "I do not know! Go and tell the craftsman who made me, How ugly is the vessel you have made!" Attempting to interpret this exchange could lead us down several paths, but what strikes me is that the ugly man is reminding the rabbi of G-d. "You are lacking in a sense of G-d at this moment, for were you mindful of G-d, you could not speak like this. Could you stand before G-d and speak of an ugly vessel? Ignoring inner parts? Go talk to G-d and let us see you speak in this fashion!"

Just as Hillel says, The bride is always beautiful. If you cannot see the beauty of a bride on your wedding day, clear out your eyes; employ your inner eye.

No, we are not built to ignore externals, they are a part of our lives. But let us, just for a moment, try to see what's inside, the beauty that shines within. We might be surprised.

Haman the Ungrateful

As R Shalom Arush points out, Haman's evil lies in his not being satisfied with his life. Haman says in Esther 5:13:

וְכָל זֶה אֵינֶנּוּ שׁוֶֹה לִי בְּכָל עֵת אֲשֶׁר אֲנִי רֹאֶה אֶת מָרְדֳּכַי הַיְּהוּדִי יוֹשֵׁב בְּשַׁעַר הַמֶּלֶךְ

Yet all this avails me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate.

Haman had so much - supportive wife, many children, friends, high position, wealth, but he cared about none of it because he was eating himself up alive over another person. This is the essence of Amalek. Being ungrateful means you are seeing daily miracles and scoffing at them, belittling - which is what Amalek, Haman's ancestors, did after the miracles in Egypt.

My friend Mosheh Givental pointed out to me that we Jews go by three names: עברים - meaning we are boundary-crossers; ישראלים, we are Godwrestlers; and יהודים, we are thankers - Jew coming from Judah, whose name came from his mother's decision to stop pining after Jacob's love, after her lack, but thank instead for what she had.
The person known most prominently as the יהודי in the Tanach is Mordechai. Mordechai the grateful (though I don't know if we necessarily see this trait explicit in the megillah - what do you think?)

Hold him up against Haman the Ungrateful and contrast.

The joy and gratitude of Purim prepares us for the דיינו of Pesach. And that is freedom - where no matter what happens in our lives, we hold on to our inner practice of gratitude.

The Bearable Lightness of Being

Midrash Tanhuma on Ki Tisa:

Since he came down and approached the camp and saw the calf, the written letters flew away from them and were found to be heavy on Moshe's hands, immediately (Exodus 32:18) "And Moshe's anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hand"

Interesting. A bunch of letters chiseled into the stone allowed Moshe to be able to carry these huge stone tablets . In their absence, the tablets just became lumps of stone and Moshe dropped them (the Midrash changes our understanding of the verse that Moshe flung them down in anger; but see discussion here)

I see this Midrash as a metaphor for life. The tablets are our lives, with all of their challenges and burdens. The letters, our spiritual life - Torah learning, awareness and mindfulness, prayer and service of G-d. If we invest in keeping those letters nice and sharp, they can carry our lives for us and we can feel light and clear at every moment. If we let them drop and fade, whether out of laziness, anger or pain, we risk life becoming a heavy burden to schlep around. That's been my experience, anyway.


It reminds me of the Hassidic tale of the man who hitched a ride on a wagon. The man sat there with a huge bag on his knees. The driver said: "Why don't you put your bag down on the floor?" The hitchhiker replied: "You've been kind enough to take me, I don't need you to take my bag as well."

I think we can drop our bags - our baggage - and trust that if G-d can carry everything else, G-d can carry our bags for us too. We're not being helpful when we schlep all that stuff around, just foolish.

Thus, too, the ark was said to "carry its bearers" rather than the expected, that the bearers carried it.

So our job is to invest in our spiritual lives, and then they will carry us, G-d will carry us, our baggage, and all those things that currently feel so heavy. We have "wings of spirit", as Rav kook writes, and with them we can soar.