Striking a Perfect Balance
Ideologies generally stake out a position and true followers keep to it faithfully and rigidly. In Judaism, the goal is to incorporate and balance opposite traits and directions, even while leaning in a certain direction.
A Tale of Two Cities
Cain and Seth were the two sons of Adam and Eve who actually fathered children. (Abel, of course, was murdered before he had a chance to sire children.) But, that is as far as the comparison between them goes for they represented two diametrically opposite ideals.
Cain was the personification of destruction. Cain kills Abel and was punished by becoming a wanderer, never permitted to settle in one place.
Seth, by contrast, is the one whose progeny settled the land and from whom Noah and all of humankind descended. Indeed, the very name Seth, the Torah states, means foundation, “From him the world was founded.”
Despite their dissimilarities, both Cain and Seth had progeny that shared the same name: Chanoch (Enoch). But, ironically, the son of Cain was named Chanoch in conjunction with a city that his father built with the same name. In other words, Cain, the wanderer, the symbol of instability, links his progeny with a city, the embodiment of stability!
Conversely, Seth—who personifies stability and continuity—has a descendant named Chanoch who, the Torah says, was taken away by G-d prematurely.
What message lies in these two paradoxes? Cain, the ultimate nomad, connects his son with a symbol of stability, while Seth, the father of humanity, has a descendant named Chanoch, whose life is cut short.
Furthermore, the fact that the Torah tells us of these individuals and their lives, dictates that there is an important lesson for us in our lives as Jews.
Antediluvian and Postdiluvian
History can be divided into two periods. Preflood (Antediluvian) and post flood (postdiluvian). The former was anarchic and chaotic; the latter introduced a period of stability and relative tranquility.
But true stability and tranquility did not take hold until the time that the Torah was given to the Jewish people at Mount Sinai at which time the world acquired its raison d’être. From Sinai onward the world has a means to realize the very purpose for which it was created. Sinai thus solidified the world and put creation‘s goal in focus..
But, even after the Torah was given at Mount Sinai, there are still two directions Jews have taken in their spiritual and physical lives. There were those sages whose attitude was punctuated with a “pre-Sinai” detachment from the goal of making the world a permanent fixture for spirituality. There were some who divorced themselves from activities that made the world a more settled, tranquil and stable place.
Some of the greatest sages’ souls were “on fire” and sought to escape the material world. While, these leaders were spiritual giants, their focus was to get their soul’s desire’s fulfilled; to escape the material world and the limitations it posed for their soul’s spiritual advancement.
Other sages, particularly the Ba’al Shem Tov, the founder of the Chassidic movement, sought to bring holiness into the world, thus engaging the world and working within its parameters.
Two Modes of Study, Prayer and Practice
Translated into Torah study, one can study Torah for purely theoretical purposes, as a means of satisfying the desire of the soul for spiritual nourishment without regard to the effects that Torah should have on the world. Others accentuated the practical and pragmatic lessons of Torah by concentrating on those areas of Torah study that relate to the practical world.
Prayer, likewise, can either be an occasion for the soul to “escape” from the world and its concerns to unite with G-d, or an opportunity for to ask G-d to grant us all of our requests and provide us with our physical needs.
Observance of the Mitzvot similarly can reflect these two directions. For some a Mitzvah is a way of connecting to G-d, while for others the mitzvah is the medium with which one refines and changes the world.
The first seeds of these two approaches were sown by the two sons of Adam, Cain and Seth:
Cain and his temporal existence symbolize the temporal nature of this world and the desire to escape the physical constraints of existence.
Cain was so named because, as Eve said, “I acquired a man with G-d.” One way of interpreting this is that she recognized that his soul was only interested in a relationship with G-d. His focus would be a spiritually “selfish” one.
Seth, whose name means foundation, is the down-to-earth approach to life that keeps us focused on building a world that will be solid and endure.
Striking a Balance
Not only are both approaches valid, but that a person who discovers a propensity for one approach must realize that it must be combined with the other approach as well. The theoretical minded student must also devote time to study the more practical aspects of Torah. The pragmatic student, conversely, must also devote time to study Torah for Torah’s sake, even if it does not contribute to any practical result.
This explains why Seth—who symbolizes the state of being grounded—had a son whose premature death reminds of detachment from the world, while Cain — who symbolizes disconnection from the norms of the world — had a son who was associated with the permanent nature of a city. This teaches us that no matter what approach for which one has a propensity, one must incorporate the other.
Messianic Paradox
The ability to strike a balance between these two directions represents the ultimate goal of Judaism which will be fully realized in the Messianic Age, at which time the most lofty and elusive spiritual ideals will be realized within the confines of a solid, grounded, physical existence.
In other words, Moshiach will not necessarily alter the laws of nature, as Maimonides points out in his Mishneh Torah.
But together with the world retaining its natural character, it will house the most transcendent G-dly energies in a way that we will be comfortable with them within the confines of our physical lives.
In the terminology of Kabbalah: The unconventional and transcendent lights of the world of Tohu-Chaos will be fully internalized within the vessels of the orderly world of Tikkun. The light will not be diminished in order to fit into the vessels, nor will the vessels cease to be vessels.
From the book Light from the Future: Parshas Breishis by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.
