Acting or Teaching?
The belief in the Messianic Age and the Resurrection of the Dead – according to the Kabbalists – is not merely a further step in the journey of the soul and in its climb to unprecedented heights, as Maimonides would have us see it. They represent a totally different parallel approach to Mitzvot and the purpose of our souls in this world.
For this distinct approach the analogy of an artist or actor will not do. Rather, the analogy of a teacher and a student would be more appropriate.
A teacher, by definition, must have more knowledge than the student must possess (at least in the area that s/he is teaching). The teacher is usually a more refined, intelligent, educated, cultured and accomplished person, than his/her student.
To teach, however, is not only hard work and sacrifice. The teacher is generally remunerated for his/her efforts. Besides the pay a teacher receives for the job of teaching, the teacher receives a sense of satisfaction, when they see how a piece of raw material is transformed into a thinking individual. Moreover, a teacher – his/her superiority notwithstanding – can only be challenged by his/her students. In the words of our sages: “I have learned much from my teachers, more from my colleagues, but I have learned the most from my students.”
Yet, despite the multiple rewards for teaching that accrue to the teacher, the primary reason for teaching is not for the benefit of the teacher. It is for the student.
True, a community might build an entire empire of institutions with multiple layers of workers, just for the children. A school thus has a teaching staff, an administration, a maintenance crew, cooks and all sorts of support personnel. But, their job is to serve the students. The building of a school in a city will employ all of the above plus the builders, electricians, plumbers, etc., whose money, in turn, will support other businesses such as supermarkets, drug stores, doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc. etc. yet, all of these are ancillary to the students. An entire universe can be built to revolve around the student.
When we view the role of the soul and the body (and the entire material world), we can view it as the opportunity of the soul to grow, through the challenge posed by the physical world. This, indeed, is the first level that was discussed earlier.
There is another radically different way of viewing the relationship of the soul to the body and that it parallels the relationship of the teacher to the student.
We are thus to view, the soul as the teacher, who was sent to the “boondocks” – i.e., this physical world, to tame, refine, purify, elevate and sanctify it. Our physical body and by extension our physical world is the student, who is not always attentive and not always interested in change. The ultimate goal of the soul, nevertheless, is to preserver until the student not only learns and grows, but also reaches the level of teacher and beyond.
The corollary of this principle is that Judaism – at least according to the formulation of Jewish Mystical thought – considers the physical world to be the essential and the end. Whereas most, if not all, religious systems view the heavens, the spiritual realms and the souls as constituting the end, Judaism, considers them to be the means. The end is for the intrinsic divinity that resides in the physical world to become manifest.
Judaism believes that the means to that end is achieved by way of the soul and the other spiritual dimensions of existence. They gradually refine the body by way of the Mitzvot to the point that its inherent divinity is revealed.
Thus, the Messianic Age is the age when the physical realm assumes full maturity, and the Mitzvot – that involve physical objects and actions – are recognized for what they are: the uncovering of the divine within the material world.
From the book Safe Kabbalah, Part Three: Journeys of the Soul by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.
