Yet when the Piacenza Rebbe, writing from the Warsaw Ghetto and a concentration camp, wrote about our connection to our Creator, he did not chose to explain any of the numerous mitzvot. Rather he began with the first passuk (verse) in the Torah portion:
When you will go forth to war against your enemies, and they will be delivered into your hand, and you will capture (shavita) its captivity (shavyo). (Deuteronomy 21:10)You. God appears to be speaking to us, the Jewish people. But, says the Piacenza Rebbe, the verbs in Hebrew are in the singular tense and therefore can also be read as directed to each individual. You, as an individual, are being spoken to. As it is said:
The Lord hath sworn and will not relent, 'you are a priest forever because you are a king of righteousness.' (Tehilim 110:4)We, the Jewish people, are a nation of priests. You, as an individual, are a priest, a king of righteousness. That title was engraved upon us at Sinai and will not be removed. But how do we actualize our potential? How do we answer God, who speaks directly to us?
According to the Rebbe of Piacenza there are two ways: avodah shel lev (worship of the heart) and avodah shel seichel (worship of the mind). Avodah shel seichel occurs through our study of Jewish texts - Torah, Talmud, Tanakh, Halacha - and becoming part of the ongoing Jewish tradition of learning the way and the word of God. Torah study is not a static activity, but one in which we engage the texts in front of us and become a part of the dialogue on the page, the will of God. Avodah shel lev, however, is accomplished through our tefilot, our prayers. When we pray, we direct our prayers directly to You, our God. Baruch Ata Hashem, Blessed are You, God. We form a relationship with God not by creating any barriers between us and Him - not priest or prophet, nor third person dialogue. We form a direct relationship through direct communication, not referring to "Him" or "Her" or "It" as an abstract, untouchable and unknowable other.
By saying You, we make ourselves connect as one with God by bringing more of Him into us, says the Piacenza Rebbe. This point, however, seems paradoxical to me. By using the second person "You" we are making God a distinct entity outside of ourselves. How is it that this act makes us, at the same time, become "one" with God by letting Him in? I think the answer (at least partly) is this: other people are a reflection of us. When we are happy and smiling, it is contagious and others we are around also tend to smile. If we are unhappy that mood also will rub off on others and we will be able to feed on that to continue our unhappiness. So too with God, what we put into our prayer to Him is returned to us and becomes a part of us. I pray to You, God, with my heart and my mind, and my heart and mind are in turn filled with God (or at least a greater awareness of God).
With this in mind, the Piacenza Rebbe relayed a different meaning of the first verse of this week's parsha: rather than reading "captives", we should read "return" (from the root of teshuva). Return to God. We must engage with Him in the dialogue that He started at the beginning of creation and continued at Mount Sinai, through the prophets, through the commentaries we have today, and through our tefilot.
Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem!
