Description: Belief in Creation 01
Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh
Volume I Pages 57 – 59
We now begin the third chapter of Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh, titled, ‘Emunah – Borei v’Nivrah,’ Belief in the Creator and Creation.
Until now, we have addressed how to go about acquiring the most basic concept of Emunah – the fact that Hashem exists. We’ve explored the necessity of this becoming a part of us, a thought process that never leaves our minds, something that we live with. We’ve developed strategies how to incorporate this into our day, and slowly but surely adapt to constantly being aware of Hashem’s existence in everything we do, every moment of the day. We are aiming to move this from a fact hiding in our intellect, to a feeling we feel with our heart all the time.
Truthfully, we shouldn’t move on to the next step before we’ve acquired this first, most important level. We know that this is a time-consuming process, with small steps, acquisition after acquisition, and we aren’t really ready for the next step yet. Nevertheless, we will proceed in our learning what our goals are, where we are headed, and we will try to be ‘koneh’ something of each level we will address, with the hope to work more and more on them, and perfect them individually.
The next step is the recognition that we are the creations of Hashem. Until now, we have worked on recognizing Hashem’s existence, now we will try to internalize that we were created by Him.
Obviously, this is a simple belief that we all have. It seems silly to believe in Hashem and not believe we are His creations. What’s the need for developing this step?
But if we look in the Torah we find a person, quite a celebrity, who believed just that. None other than Pharaoh, is recorded in Tanach as saying, ‘li yeori v’anochi asitini,’ the river (the Nile,) is mine, and I created myself! Pharaoh believed he was not created by Hashem, rather was self-sufficient from creation. He did believe in Hashem – even before the Makkos he said to Moshe and Aharon, ‘mi Hashem asher eshmah b’kolo,’ who is Hashem that I should need to listen to Him? He believed in Hashem’s existence, didn’t think He was all-powerful, and really thought that his own creation happened independently.
We might say to ourselves, ‘Who cares what Pharaoh thought! So, there was a foolish king some 3000 years ago, that held a silly belief that he created himself. Who knows what other foolishness they believed in then? He died and his mistake died with him. Why would this be something we need to think about, ourselves?’
The truth of the Torah dictates to us otherwise. Meforshim and our rebbeim have taught us that every aspect of the Torah, each detail of every story, is relevant to our soul – every single person’s soul. Every persona in Torah represents a force, a power in a person’s neshamah. We all have some of Avraham Avinu, Yitzchak Avinu, Sarah, Rivka, Rachel, Leah, and so on, within us. We also unfortunately suffer from the powers of Nimrod, Lavan, Esav and Pharaoh as well.
These aren’t hints, remazim, or mussar thoughts demonstrated by the stories of the Torah. This is much more than that. Avraham is a force of purity, of taharah, of chessed and ahavah, that exists within each one of us. Likewise, each of the Avos, and the seven ‘ro’im’ shepherds of Klal Yisrael, each represent a spiritual force of kedushah and taharah, that we all possess. Their actions and deeds in the Torah are there for us to recognize and identify this force within us, and to help us develop these middos. We learn about Avraham to be able to bring out and grow the Avraham potential we have in us – learning about withstanding nisyonos, doing hachnassas orchim, teaching others and so on. We learn about Yitzchak to teach us how to develop the power of prayer and Avodah.
Likewise, on the other side of the fence, we learn about Pharaoh and all the other reshaim of the Torah to identify the forces of evil, of tumaah that reside within us, so that we can learn how to overcome them and control our tendencies, and refine our neshamos. The Rambam writes, ‘Pharaoh is in truth the Yetzer Horah!’ Meaning, every person has a little Pharaoh within them. All of Pharaoh’s arguments and deviousness, that are explained and pinpointed by the Torah, all of his evil character traits of haughtiness, chutzpah, and kefirah, reside in a certain measure in every person’s soul. Pharaoh is gone, but that is just the physical Pharaoh. The spiritual Pharoah lives on, and we have our hands full dealing with him! We therefore have to recognize him, identify him, and figure out how to nullify his false beliefs.
Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh
Volume I Pages 57 – 59
We now begin the third chapter of Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh, titled, ‘Emunah – Borei v’Nivrah,’ Belief in the Creator and Creation.
Until now, we have addressed how to go about acquiring the most basic concept of Emunah – the fact that Hashem exists. We’ve explored the necessity of this becoming a part of us, a thought process that never leaves our minds, something that we live with. We’ve developed strategies how to incorporate this into our day, and slowly but surely adapt to constantly being aware of Hashem’s existence in everything we do, every moment of the day. We are aiming to move this from a fact hiding in our intellect, to a feeling we feel with our heart all the time.
Truthfully, we shouldn’t move on to the next step before we’ve acquired this first, most important level. We know that this is a time-consuming process, with small steps, acquisition after acquisition, and we aren’t really ready for the next step yet. Nevertheless, we will proceed in our learning what our goals are, where we are headed, and we will try to be ‘koneh’ something of each level we will address, with the hope to work more and more on them, and perfect them individually.
The next step is the recognition that we are the creations of Hashem. Until now, we have worked on recognizing Hashem’s existence, now we will try to internalize that we were created by Him.
Obviously, this is a simple belief that we all have. It seems silly to believe in Hashem and not believe we are His creations. What’s the need for developing this step?
But if we look in the Torah we find a person, quite a celebrity, who believed just that. None other than Pharaoh, is recorded in Tanach as saying, ‘li yeori v’anochi asitini,’ the river (the Nile,) is mine, and I created myself! Pharaoh believed he was not created by Hashem, rather was self-sufficient from creation. He did believe in Hashem – even before the Makkos he said to Moshe and Aharon, ‘mi Hashem asher eshmah b’kolo,’ who is Hashem that I should need to listen to Him? He believed in Hashem’s existence, didn’t think He was all-powerful, and really thought that his own creation happened independently.
We might say to ourselves, ‘Who cares what Pharaoh thought! So, there was a foolish king some 3000 years ago, that held a silly belief that he created himself. Who knows what other foolishness they believed in then? He died and his mistake died with him. Why would this be something we need to think about, ourselves?’
The truth of the Torah dictates to us otherwise. Meforshim and our rebbeim have taught us that every aspect of the Torah, each detail of every story, is relevant to our soul – every single person’s soul. Every persona in Torah represents a force, a power in a person’s neshamah. We all have some of Avraham Avinu, Yitzchak Avinu, Sarah, Rivka, Rachel, Leah, and so on, within us. We also unfortunately suffer from the powers of Nimrod, Lavan, Esav and Pharaoh as well.
These aren’t hints, remazim, or mussar thoughts demonstrated by the stories of the Torah. This is much more than that. Avraham is a force of purity, of taharah, of chessed and ahavah, that exists within each one of us. Likewise, each of the Avos, and the seven ‘ro’im’ shepherds of Klal Yisrael, each represent a spiritual force of kedushah and taharah, that we all possess. Their actions and deeds in the Torah are there for us to recognize and identify this force within us, and to help us develop these middos. We learn about Avraham to be able to bring out and grow the Avraham potential we have in us – learning about withstanding nisyonos, doing hachnassas orchim, teaching others and so on. We learn about Yitzchak to teach us how to develop the power of prayer and Avodah.
Likewise, on the other side of the fence, we learn about Pharaoh and all the other reshaim of the Torah to identify the forces of evil, of tumaah that reside within us, so that we can learn how to overcome them and control our tendencies, and refine our neshamos. The Rambam writes, ‘Pharaoh is in truth the Yetzer Horah!’ Meaning, every person has a little Pharaoh within them. All of Pharaoh’s arguments and deviousness, that are explained and pinpointed by the Torah, all of his evil character traits of haughtiness, chutzpah, and kefirah, reside in a certain measure in every person’s soul. Pharaoh is gone, but that is just the physical Pharaoh. The spiritual Pharoah lives on, and we have our hands full dealing with him! We therefore have to recognize him, identify him, and figure out how to nullify his false beliefs.