Glimpses of Redemption
Glimpses of Redemption

One of my favorite hassidic teachings is a metaphor told by the great defender of the Jewish people, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev:

A father once prepared a beautiful suit of clothes for his son. But the child neglected his father’s gift, and soon the suit was in tatters. The father gave the child a second suit of clothes; this one, too, was ruined by the child’s carelessness. So, the father made a third suit. This time, however, he withholds it from his son. Every once in a while, on special and opportune times, he shows the suit to the child, explaining that when the child learns to appreciate and properly care for the gift, it will be given to him. This induces the child to improve his behavior, until it gradually becomes second nature to him—at which time he will be worthy of his father’s gift.

This past Shabbat is called Shabbat Chazon, The Shabbat of Vision, The Shabbat before Tisha B’Av when our we are “shown” the Third Temple.

This is a nice metaphor, and it is nice to know that at least spiritually we “see” the Third and Eternal Temple on this day, but the whole thing seems too ethereal. Nice thoughts, but in actuality, we still don’t have the Temple.

The benefit of a glimpse is something that I’ve been thinking about recently. For instance, the above metaphor served as the basis for my article on The Jewish Way to “Shake It Off. A glimpse is all we need to lift us out of the quicksand and mire of the present; or as written in that article, to transition us from the “flash” (of something immodest) to envision what the soul sees on Shabbat Chazon.

These are good thoughts, but still thoughts.

To explain the metaphor some more, let’s turn to a talk from the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

Seeing Glimpses

As explained there, to see the Temple as a garment is to know that it is “tailor-made” according to each person’s personal and intimate relationship with God.

To quote:

Each year, on the Shabbat before Tisha B’Av, we are shown a vision of our world as a divine home—a place where all God’s creatures will experience His presence. But this is also a vision of a Godly “garment”—the distinctly personal relationship with God, particularly suited to our individual character and aspirations, that we will each enjoy when the third Divine Temple descends to earth.

If we feel without purpose it is not because we don’t see the Temple. It is because we don’t know how it relates to me and my purpose for living.

Torah concepts have a way of floating around to the world at large; and while they originate from the Torah, the connections and correspondences are often left undiscussed.

Over these past eight years I have explained some of these correspondences, especially according to Kabbalah (the original meaning of the word Kabbalah is to “correspond”); and thank God, hundreds of articles have been written and syndicated over several dozen Jewish news outlets.

But recently when I meditate upon a news headline, I feel incapable of holding on to it long enough. There is so much happening, at such a rapid pace, that the best I can muster is a glimpse of the headline’s source in Torah thought before being swept on to the next… and the next…

God helps, and frustrations for the sake of Heaven eventually led to an answer.

The thought came to me that what changed was that instead of being “given” topics, for whatever reason, now was the time to glimpse but not reveal. Not always is a secret meant to be shared with the world; and even if a secret can be revealed, not always is the timing there yet.

This is what I realized. At the same time as thoughts were coming to mind, after frustration upon frustration of feeling myself incapable of writing any of them down, I realized now why I cherished the above metaphor so dearly.

These secrets were all “tailor-made” … all derived from topics in the world that interest me like science and technology. But while I was shown these garments that assist in forging my personal relationship God, each potential article disappeared as fast as it flooded into my head.

As mentioned, Torah teachings have a way of floating around to the world, and one of those Torah thoughts was the idea around The Shabbat of Vision.

I found it in this post by Seth Godin (who I’ve written about many times on Inward News).

Telling, not showing

The brilliant decision in making the new Star Wars ComicCon reel was this: J.J. Abrams could have chosen to wow the audience with special effects, to show a little more, to try to pique interest by satisfying the tension felt by the true fans who don’t know what’s coming, and can’t stand not knowing.

Instead, of following the conventional wisdom and showing, he told. He told a story of care, of excitement, of anticipation.

He created tension instead of relieving it.

This takes resolve and guts. Most of the time, we want to blurt out the answer…

Rebuild Yourself

The lesson from all of is that seeing the Temple means to become Divinely inspired; and this inspiration should indeed manifest as God’s indwelling presence. Meaning that if you see something in the world, become inspired to perceive its Godly nature.

But it is also important to keep in mind that there is a time for glimpses and a time for revelation. To glimpse is like seeing those sets in the Star Wars reel above. Each moment contains a wealth of detail and information; and then as quickly as it came it disappears. In a flash of insight a full article-sized meditation came to mind, and then nothing–back to it’s source Above.

We could ask what’s the point of being shown these glimpses at all? Better to see the real thing. The building called the Third Temple, and the garment called the article. But why show us only to take it away?

It is doubtful that any of the ComicCon attendees, or the 7.5 million that have seen the Star Wars reel since then, think this way… that it would have been better not to have seen these glimpses at all.

If you read the comments, people are in literal tears over this reel.

Sound familiar?

We mourn the destruction of both Temples, and many other tragic events in Jewish history, on Tisha B’Av. And on Shabbat Chazon we are shown a glimpse of how the world will be with the building of the Third Temple and the wearing of our tailor-made garments … and that makes us cry. Not tears of sadness, but inspired tears… tears because before we mourn the destruction, we must first appreciate what it means to build.