The Sun Doesn’t Change When You Close the Blinds: A Tanya Insight That Fits Perfectly with the Rambam

 

I’m in the middle of working through the Tanya (Likkutei Amarim by Rav Shneur Zalman of Liadi) and came across this past shabbat, a passage that lines up really nicely with something the Rambam says.

In the Guide (MN 3:18), the Rambam explains that hashgacha pratis depends on how close a person is to God in thought and action. As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, the point isn’t that God changes based on us—it’s that we change. God stays exactly the same.

Right after discussing how the mitzvot affect the revelation of the Shechinah (in the Tanya’s usual mystical language), Rav Shneur Zalman adds these clear, rational words:

וְהִנֵּה, כָּל בְּחִינַת הַמְשָׁכַת אוֹר הַשְּׁכִינָה, שֶׁהִיא בְּחִינַת גִּילּוּי אוֹר־אֵין־סוֹף בָּרוּךְ־הוּא, אֵינוֹ נִקְרָא שִׁינּוּי חַס וְשָׁלוֹם בּוֹ יִתְבָּרֵךְ, וְלֹא רִיבּוּי, כִּדְאִיתָא בְּסַנְהֶדְרִין, דְּ״אָמַר לֵיהּ הַהוּא מִינָא לְרַבָּן גַּמְלִיאֵל, אַמְרִיתוּ כָּל בֵּי עֲשָׂרָה שְׁכִינְתָּא שַׁרְיָא, כַּמָּה שְׁכִינְתָּא אִית לְכוּ״? וְהֵשִׁיב לוֹ מָשָׁל מֵאוֹר הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ הַנִּכְנָס בְּחַלּוֹנוֹת רַבִּים כוּ׳, וְהַמַּשְׂכִּיל יָבִין:

“Clearly, any such diffusion of the light of the Shechinah, that is, the revelation of the light of the En Sof, blessed is He, cannot be termed mutability in Him, G-d forbid, nor multiplicity. Witness the passage in Sanhedrin, where a heretic said to Rabban Gamliel: ‘You say that on every gathering of ten [Jews] the Shechinah rests. How many Divine Presences have you, then?’ And he replied to him with an example of the light of the sun which enters through many windows…. The intelligent man will understand.”

The Gemara he’s pointing to is Sanhedrin 39a. A heretic asks Rabban Gamliel how the Shechinah can rest on every gathering of ten Jews without there being multiple versions of God showing up wherever ten people get together. Rabban Gamliel then hits the heretic’s servant on the neck and asks him why he allowed the sun’s rays to enter the heretic’s house. The heretic answers for his servant that the sun shines on the whole world—no one can prevent it from shining. Rabban Gamliel replies that if even the sun (just one of God’s countless servants) lights up the entire world, then certainly God’s presence does too.

Here’s the deeper rational point that I believe Rav Shneur Zalman is trying to communicate through this Gemara:

The sun’s rays keep shining all day. They don’t change at all whether we notice them, open the blinds, or pull the shades and sit in the dark. The only thing that changes is us—how we see and move through the world around us.

It’s the same when a person walks with God in thought and in mitzvot. God isn’t altered or affected by what we do. What shifts is our own perception and the way we approach life and the choices we make-Hashgacha Pratis

Stop Treating Your Comfort as God’s Will-the lesson of the "test" in this weeks parsha

 

God doesn’t change. So He isn’t sitting up in heaven running tests to figure people out. That’s not what a “test” is for.

The real test is simpler and harder: stop expecting the command to make your life easier right now. When things blow up, don’t call it a failure of the promise. Call it the next obstacle you’re supposed to walk through while you keep doing what God asked.

That’s exactly what happens with Abraham. God tells him:

וַיֹּאמֶר ה׳ אֶל־אַבְרָם לֶךְ־לְךָ מֵאַרְצְךָ וּמִמּוֹלַדְתְּךָ וּמִבֵּית אָבִיךָ אֶל־הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר אַרְאֶךָּ׃ וְאֶעֶשְׂךָ לְגוֹי גָּדוֹל וַאֲבָרֶכְךָ וַאֲגַדְּלָה שְׁמֶךָ וֶהְיֵה בְּרָכָה׃  

(בראשית יב:א–ב)

“Go from your land, your birthplace, your father’s house to the land I will show you. I will make you a great nation, bless you, make your name great, and you will be a blessing.”

Then a famine hits. Then his wife gets taken by Pharaoh. Abraham doesn’t freeze and say “this wasn’t part of the deal.” He keeps moving. He uses his head. With Pharaoh he follows his judgment, and it works out — not by magic, but because his mind was already walking in God’s ways.

That’s the whole point of serving God. You’re not doing it so life goes smooth. You’re doing it because it’s right and because it serves something bigger than you. When you’re actually trying to walk like God (imitatio Dei), your personal discomfort doesn’t disappear — you still feel it — but it stops being the main thing. The job comes first.

God never told Abraham he had to stay in Canaan while everyone starved. He told him to go Canaan but nothing about staying there. When the famine got severe he followed his instincts and left(as opposed to the Ramban, the Rambam doesn't mention that he did anything wrong)

וַיְהִי רָעָב בָּאָרֶץ וַיֵּרֶד אַבְרָם מִצְרַיְמָה לָגוּר שָׁם כִּי־כָבֵד הָרָעָב בָּאָרֶץ׃  

(בראשית יב:י)

“There was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there, because the famine was severe.”

Going down to Egypt and later going to war to rescue Lot are the same kind of move. Both involved his family, and neither was a prophecy telling him what to do. He didn’t need a nevuah. He was already locked into ratzon Elokim — the will of God — so he knew what justice required and he acted.

Then this happens:

וַיְהִי כְּבוֹא אַבְרָם מִצְרָיְמָה וַיִּרְאוּ הַמִּצְרִים אֶת־הָאִשָּׁה כִּי־יָפָה הִוא מְאֹד׃ וַיִּרְאוּ אֹתָהּ שָׂרֵי פַרְעֹה וַיְהַלְלוּ אֹתָהּ אֶל־פַּרְעֹה וַתֻּקַּח הָאִשָּׁה בֵּית פַּרְעֹה׃  

(בראשית יב:יד–טו)

“When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. Pharaoh’s officials saw her, praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into Pharaoh’s house.”

One week he’s willing to risk his wife. Later he’ll be willing to risk the child of that same wife. Both times God steps in via Abraham walking in the ways of God, and both are saved. The pattern is clear: the person who is actually serving God keeps walking toward justice without waiting for a new command every time. He’s already in the stream.

In the future his descendants would take the same path down to Egypt. What started as an apparent exile and the eventual slavery of his great-grandchildren, ensured their flourishing and the birth of a nation with the giving of the Torah. That’s what God promised Abraham in this week’s parsha. His children may not have it easy in the moment, and what seems like injustice turns out to be the greatest gift to Abraham, his descendants, and the world as a whole.

In our own time, many people — in modern Judaism and in the Chareidi world — do the opposite. They take their personal beliefs, their comfort, or their fears, and then declare that this is the will of God. They become the false prophets of our generation: whether it’s progressive views dressed up as Torah, or the claim that avoiding the army (and the loss of income that comes with it) is somehow a higher divine calling. Abraham didn’t need a new prophecy to know what justice required. He was already walking in the ways of God. The question is whether we are.

Maimonides and Shadal both say the same thing about “tests.” They’re not for God to learn something. They’re public lessons so other people (including us) can see what real devotion looks like. Shadal makes the point especially about the Akeidah: the world needs to see that true servants of God will go to the extreme if commanded — even when it goes against what they personally believe is right — and also see that the true God does not actually want child sacrifice.

Maimonides is blunt about the other idea people love: that God makes you suffer now so He can give you a bigger payout later. He thinks that view is wrong and ugly. It makes God look like He needs to manufacture pain in order to hand out rewards. That’s not a just God. Real service is doing what’s right because it’s right and because it serves the larger purpose — not because you’re trying to cash in on suffering.

That’s also why God keeps pointing Abraham to the future of his children: they will become a great nation that actually does God’s will. When someone’s whole life is aimed at that, the real reward is the ongoing life of his children and his deeds.

Maimonides says it cleanly in Hilchot Avel 4:4:

וְהַצַּדִּיקִים, אֵין בּוֹנִים לָהֶם נֶפֶשׁ עַל קִבְרוֹתֵיהֶן — דִּבְרֵיהֶם הֵם זִכְרוֹנָם.

“For the righteous we do not build a monument on their graves — their words are their memorial.”

A tombstone isn’t what keeps a righteous person alive in the world. Their words and deeds do that.

The Flood, the Rainbow, and Why Walking with God Doesn’t Promise You a Comfortable Life

 

As I discussed in last week’s post, God doesn’t change, its man that changes. According to the Rambam, a catastrophic flood isn't a result of God  suddenly deciding  to do something new. The world getting wiped out can just be a natural event, the same way the dinosaurs got wiped out by a meteor. Nature does what nature does. God set the order of the world and it keeps running.

What the Torah is teaching is that a person who walks in the ways of God can see something coming and do something about it — whether through actual knowledge, ruach hakodesh, or nevuah. The people who died weren’t specially targeted. They lived like animals. They did whatever felt good instead of following justice and the way God set up the world. That’s what the Torah means by “והלכתם עמי בקרי” — if you live by happenstance, then happenstance hits you. “ויספתי עליכם מכה שבע כחטאתיכם.” You become a victim of whatever nature throws at you.

A person who is actually trying to live according to the middot built into creation is different. He’s constantly thinking about how the world works and what justice looks like, so he ends up either saving himself or the people around him from pure chance. That’s the point of the ship example the Rambam gives in the Moreh (3:17). The ship going down is chance — a natural event. But the fact that certain people got on that ship isn’t just chance. It’s tied to the choices they made. (Rambam’s own brother drowned at sea, so this isn’t an abstract example for him.)

Rambam puts it like this: in the world, individual providence only really applies to humans. Everything else happens by chance, the way Aristotle described. Providence is connected to the intellectual influence that reaches a person. The more of that someone has, the more protected they are. The less they have, the more they’re left to chance — “like the beasts.” This is the meaning according to the Rambam of "הכל בידי שמים חוץ מיראת שמים".

So Noah is the story of someone who wasn’t living by keri. Through prophecy, he saw what was coming and built the ark. Even the Ramban says the rainbow itself always existed as a natural thing — sunlight on moist air does that. It wasn’t a brand-new creation. Noah, through prophecy, turned an existing natural phenomenon into the symbol that this particular kind of destruction wouldn’t happen again. Or maybe the deeper point of the rainbow is that from now on people would start moving toward knowing God (Abraham and onward) by looking at nature and finding God in how the world actually works, and that would be what prevents another total wipeout.

There’s a caveat here, though, for anyone who thinks that walking in God’s ways means wealth, success, and personal physical happiness as the end result. That’s not necessarily true. Noah walked with God and still lost his entire society. He was traumatized enough that he got drunk and lost control. The Rambam’s whole framework makes this make sense. Providence isn’t a promise of comfort or material reward. It’s tied to the intellectual attachment and the drive to know God’s ways in the world. When someone follows that, personal needs start to matter less — or, on a higher level, there’s a kind of abandonment to God’s will as it plays out in creation. The real need becomes the survival and betterment of society and the world.

Just look at Noah: he preserved the physical continuation of mankind. Or Moshe, the greatest prophet who ever lived — he changed how the world thinks and practices for eternity, toward the eventual realization of the unity of God by all of mankind. That’s the higher end of walking in the ways of God. Not a comfortable life for yourself, but something that lasts beyond you.

God doesn’t change. Nature keeps going. What changes is whether a person is close enough to God that he’s not just another body in the path of whatever happens next — and whether he’s willing to put the world ahead of his own ease. That’s the whole story, and that’s what the rainbow is pointing to.

If every leaf falls by the decree of God, the commandments make no sense...

If God controls everything — even which leaf falls and exactly where it lands — and if the wind does not blow by chance but only because God moves it, then it is not the wind that makes the leaf fall. Each leaf falls by God’s decree. On that view there is no freedom of choice, and everything is predestined. Every movement of an animal is preordained and no one has the power to do or to refrain from doing anything. 

But then there is no point to revelation, or to the Torah’s commandments, which assume we can choose. That is why this picture is not the rational Jewish view. Free choice is foundational; without it, command, reward, and punishment lose their sense.

Something to keep in mind as we read this week about God creating the world. For more on the Torah’s view of hashgacha see the Rambam in MN 3:17.

The Torah demands we know one God. So why is His name in creation plural?

 

It always bothered me reading Elohim in the Torah. The word is plural. Why would a Torah that demands we know and believe in one unique God use a plural name for the Creator of the world — בראשית ברא אלהים?

Shadal has a good answer. The pagans believed in many powers, each ruling its own realm. Greek gods of thunder, of water, and so on. Christianity still has the devil ruling hell. Judaism, he says, used the plural on purpose: our God is not one power among others. He rules all of creation. There is no division.

His words:

אלהים: אל ואיל לשון כח וחוזק, ואלהים לשון רבים, והיה נוהג אצל האומות העובדות אלילים (כוזרי מאמר ד' סימן א'), והיו קוראים כן כל כחות הטבע, אשר הם סיבות המאורעות בארץ, והיו עובדים את כולם, וכל א' מהם יהיה להם לאלוה, ואמנם העברים בעלי היחוד קיימו שם זה בלשון רבים להורות, כי האל אשר הם עובדים איננו כח פרטי אחד, כמו שהיו הגוים אומרים אלהי הרים ה' ולא אלהי עמקים הוא (מ"א כ' כ"ח), אבל הוא קיבוץ כל הכחות ובעל הכחות כולם (וכיוצא בזה מילות ימים עיין למטה פסוק י'), כן קראו אותו בשם צבאות לומר שהוא עצמו כולל כחות כל צבאות השמים שהיו הגוים עובדים, עיין פירושי

Translation-

"El and Eil mean power and strength. Elohim is the plural. The idolaters used it for the forces of nature, and worshipped each one. The Hebrews, who hold God’s unity, kept the plural to say the opposite: the God they serve is not a local power, the way the nations said “the Lord is a god of the mountains but not a god of the valleys” (I Kings 20:28). He is the sum of every power, and master of them all. Same reason they called Him Tzevaot. He includes the hosts of heaven the nations worshipped."

The Rambam comes at the word differently. In the Guide (1:2) Elohim means God, angels, and judges. An angel is a messenger — a force of nature, a prophet, or a person carrying out God’s will (Guide 2:6). Miracles, for him, were planted in things at creation (Commentary on Avot 5:6; Guide 2:29). God does not later change His mind or suspend the decree. Providence works the same way. God does not come down, shift mood, and cancel the פורענויות. It follows a person’s connection to Him (Guide 3:17–18). We are the ones who change. By imitatio Dei, and by living the Torah, a person can behave, judge and rule in a godly manner. That is why Elohim is the name used for creation. Only by studying creation, and the will of God in it, does someone become a proper ruler(either over himself or others) and judge. That is tzelem Elokim.

We say every morning, ויעמידם לעד לעולם חק נתן ולא יעבור (Psalms 148:6). אמת ויציב says the same thing, and says who it is for: על אבותינו ועלינו, על בנינו ועל דורותינו, ועל כל דורות זרע ישראל… אמת ואמונה חק ולא יעבור. The rules of nature do not change, and they are not violated. The promise to the Avot is the same kind of decree. They imitated the will of God in creation. The generations that keep doing so do not drop out of history. The promise does not get revised. We go on, a people and a nation in sync with the will of God in creation. Both God and Tzelem Elohim will go on together hand in hand  throughout eternity

From Altar Fire to Kedusha: How “Kadosh” Began as Burning

 

Interesting Shadal on this past week’s parsha, Ki Teitzei (Devarim 22:9), on the pasuk of kilayim — which also appears in tomorrow’s daf:

ט לֹא־תִזְרַע כַּרְמְךָ כִּלְאָיִם פֶּן־תִּקְדַּשׁ הַמְלֵאָה הַזֶּרַע אֲשֶׁר תִּזְרָע וּתְבוּאַת הַכָּרֶם

“You shall not sow your vineyard with mixed seeds, lest the fullness of the seed that you sow and the produce of the vineyard become kadosh.”

The Gemara in Kiddushin 56b learns פן תקדש homiletically as פן תוקד אש — “lest it be burned by fire.” The Torah uses this language because the produce is forbidden for benefit and is to be destroyed by burning.

Shadal (on Shemot 15:11) uses this same Gemara to extend the idea further. He suggests that the term kodesh originally derived from קד אש / יקוד אש (“burning of fire”), referring first to the korbanot that were burned on the altar. From there the word was extended to anything from which one may not derive benefit, and eventually to anything set apart for God.

I would like to take this idea one step further in our parsha, with the prohibition of prostitution among the daughters of Israel (23:18):

לֹא־תִהְיֶה קְדֵשָׁה מִבְּנוֹת יִשְׂרָאֵל

“There shall be no kedeshah among the daughters of Israel.”

The commentaries (including Shadal) explain that female cultic prostitution was a common pagan form of worship: the wages were donated to the gods in the form of sacrifices to be burned on the altar. The Torah is warning against this type of “service” to Hashem — which is why the very next verse forbids bringing the wages of a prostitute as a sacrifice. This fits beautifully with the idea that kadosh originally meant something burned on the altar.

Interestingly, a bat kohen who commits adultery is punished by burning (Vayikra 21:9). Perhaps this is another reason the term kedeshah appears in discussions connected to sacrifices.

We can take this even further and see a hint to the story of Tamar and Yehuda. After acting as a prostitute, Tamar is accused of infidelity and brought out to be burned

 (Bereishit 38:24). Notice the language Yehuda uses when searching for her:

אַיֵּה הַקְּדֵשָׁה הִוא בָעֵינַיִם עַל־הַדָּרֶךְ וַיֹּאמְרוּ לֹא־הָיְתָה בָזֶה קְדֵשָׁה

“Where is the kedeshah who was at Enaim by the roadside?” And they said, “There was no kedeshah here.”

Taking this to another level: when we pray in the Amidah אַתָּה קָדוֹשׁ — it means “You are separate (holy),” but according to Shadal’s understanding it can also mean “to You we burn our sacrifices.” וּשְׁמְךָ קָדוֹשׁ — “and Your name is holy,” or “to Your name we offer sacrifices” (perhaps alluding to the times when the Kohen Gadol pronounced the Name during the Yom Kippur offerings).

And וּקְדוֹשִׁים בְּכָל־יוֹם יְהַלְּלוּךָ סֶּלָה — this too can refer to the priests, Levites, and Israelites who recited prayers over the sacrifices.

In fact, when we quote from Isaiah קָדוֹשׁ קָדוֹשׁ קָדוֹשׁ, perhaps it alludes to the tamid of the morning, the tamid of the afternoon, and the burning of the eimurim at night — which correspond to our three daily prayers.

This fits nicely with the seraphim earlier in Isaiah, which can also mean the “burners” of the sacrifices — the kohanim. When we say in the Musaf Kedusha כְּסוֹד שִׂיחַ שַׂרְפֵי קֹדֶשׁ הַמְקַדְּשִׁים שִׁמְךָ בַּקֹּדֶשׁ, it can once again be speaking of the sacrifices-the ones that speak over the burning of the sacrifices. 

The prophecy of Isaiah makes much more sense in this light, and it explains why Chazal incorporated these verses into our prayers — in memory of the Temple and its sacrifices. Time to view every mention of קדוש in a new light...

From War Spoils to the Throne of Glory: A Deeper Look at Today’s Daf

 

At the end of today’s daf (Chullin 88b) and continuing into tomorrow’s (89a), the Gemara teaches:

אָמַר רָבָא:

בִּשְׂכַר שֶׁאָמַר אַבְרָהָם אָבִינוּ

״אִם מִחוּט וְעַד שְׂרוֹךְ נַעַל״,

זָכוּ בָּנָיו לִשְׁתֵּי מִצְוֹת:

לְחוּט שֶׁל תְּכֵלֶת, וּרְצוּעָה שֶׁל תְּפִילִּין.

Rava said:

As reward for what our Patriarch Abraham said —

“That I will not take a thread nor a shoe-strap…” (Genesis 14:23) —

his descendants merited two mitzvot:

the thread of techelet and the strap of tefillin.

The Gemara continues:

בִּשְׁלָמָא רְצוּעָה שֶׁל תְּפִילִּין… אֶלָּא חוּט שֶׁל תְּכֵלֶת מַאי הִיא?

Granted, the strap of tefillin makes sense… But what is the special quality of the techelet thread?

דְּתַנְיָא, רַבִּי מֵאִיר אוֹמֵר:

מָה נִשְׁתַּנָּה תְּכֵלֶת מִכׇּל הַצִּבְעוֹנִין?

מִפְּנֵי שֶׁתְּכֵלֶת דּוֹמֶה לַיָּם,

וְיָם דּוֹמֶה לָרָקִיעַ,

וְרָקִיעַ דּוֹמֶה לְאֶבֶן סַפִּיר,

וְאֶבֶן סַפִּיר דּוֹמֶה לְכִסֵּא הַכָּבוֹד…

As it was taught in a baraita, Rabbi Meir says:

Why is techelet different from all other colors?

Because techelet resembles the sea,

the sea resembles the sky,

the sky resembles sapphire,

and sapphire resembles the Throne of Glory…

(Source: Chullin 89a)

On the surface, this seems strange. What is the connection between Abraham refusing the spoils of war after rescuing Lot and the mitzvot of techelet and tefillin?

I understand this Gemara as an expression of the core Jewish idea of imitatio Dei — “and you shall walk in His ways” (והלכת בדרכיו).

Abraham recognized the Creator, the First Cause of existence. As the Rambam describes in hus MT Yesodei HaTorah, once a person truly apprehends God, he naturally seeks to know Him by imitating His ways. That is why Abraham is remembered above all for gemilut chasadim — acts of kindness — a quality he learned by imitating God.

In the war of the kings, the balance of society was shattered. Injustice was done: hostages were taken, freedom was stolen, and property was seized. Abraham corrected that imbalance. He restored people and property to their rightful owners — and then refused to take even a single thread or sandal-strap as reward. He wanted the restoration to be pure. He would not introduce any new imbalance of self-interest. In doing so, he participated in rebalancing the world, just as God maintains balance and order throughout creation.

The Gemara is teaching a powerful lesson: this very religious ideal that Abraham pioneered — imitatio Dei — is embodied in the mitzvot we wear.

Tefillin reminds us (and those who see us) that we are called to imitate God’s ways in the world.

Techelet trains the eye and the mind to look deeper into creation until we reach the “Throne of Glory.”

According to the Rambam, the “Throne” is not a physical seat. In Guide for the Perplexed (Part I, Chapter 9) he writes:

“The original meaning of the word kisse (‘throne’) requires no comment… The term is used… to denote the rank, greatness, and authority of a person… When applied to God it signifies His greatness and majesty… not that the Omnipotent, Supreme God is supported by any material object.”

For the Rambam, the Throne represents God’s sovereign control and the ordered plan He implanted in creation. When we look at the techelet on our tzitzit, we are invited to contemplate that very plan — and to strive, in our own small way, to imitate it through lives of justice, balance, and integrity.

Abraham restored justice without taking anything for himself.

We wear the symbols of that act every day.