The Pamphlet 'Adding Hevel'

Adding Hevel There is a slight difficulty according to Samuel, who disagrees with Rav and holds that a pit causes damage through impact and not through its hevel. Aside from the fact that this is, of course, a puzzling view in itself—for how can one understand a pit as damaging through impact?—there remains the difficulty of how anything that adds hevel can exist in the world at all. It may be answered that according to Samuel, Rava’s words may be interpreted as referring to impact: it is forbidden to insulate in something that adds blows. Thus from the Tosafot Yeshanim. Miki Had they called me Mike when I was a child, perhaps Rabbi Blumentzweig would have permitted me to be called Miki; this still requires further study. Kindness As for what we learned, that the Holy One, blessed be He, did a kindness with Israel by scattering them among the nations, there is a difficulty, for kindness is the opposite of dispersion, as taught here in this pamphlet. It seems that for Israel, their dispersion is their unity. And Rabbi Y. used to bring proof of this from what is taught in tractate Slander (Avodah Zarah 4a): Why is it that when all Israel are found in one synagogue, strife and contention dwell among them (as it is said, 'on this night all is matzah and quarrel')? Rather, because every Jew needs two synagogues: one to pray in, and one not to pray in. About this the prophet cried out and said, 'Restore our captivity, O Lord, like channels in the Negev'—but this is not the place to elaborate. In complete unity And we find on this in a certain book, whose binding is white and whose interior is paved with love, over which all the students of the holy academy here pore day and night, that he explained this matter in his way, in simple words, and this is his pure language: The lights, the sparks of justice, of the soul of the pure and exalted collective nation, are revealed only to those who possess complete, refined spiritual unity in the loftiest and purest manner, etc. ('The lights, sparks of righteousness of the soul of the general nation, pure and exalted, are revealed only to those possessed of complete, soulful, and refined unity in the loftiest and purest manner, etc.'). See there and be amazed.

Now our sages hinted to us a great secret in this little excerpt, and we shall explain it here in a fine and sufficient manner, as the good hand of the Lord is upon us. For one must ask: what connection does insulation have with hevel? What is the thing hidden in this hevel? What is the difference between while it is still day and after dark? And I further found in a Paris manuscript that this statement refers to Purim, which is puzzling.

It seems to be explained as follows, after first introducing the nature of this festival. We find that on Purim we were commanded to send portions, each person to his fellow, and gifts to the poor. The difficulty is: what do these commandments—and charity in general—have specifically to do with Purim? And another difficulty: why have all Israel adopted the custom of drinking wine on Purim until one no longer knows the difference between 'Cursed is Haman' and 'Blessed is Mordechai'?

The explanation appears to be as our sages said: When wine enters, secrets come out. ('When wine enters, secret comes out'), for the nature of wine is to bring what is within outward. When a person drinks wine, his depths are exposed. Throughout the rest of the year, the person himself is hidden from the eyes of others, and generally also from himself, and he behaves in a way that is not his true self. This is because of all the limitations imposed on a person who lives in society, both those he imposes upon himself and those others impose upon him. Therefore, contrary to what is commonly accepted, it seems that specifically throughout the year a person is in costume, whereas on Purim he is commanded to remove the disguises and be himself. The nature of wine is that it breaks down barriers. It draws people close to one another because it removes from them the outer shell (=the costume), and inside, all are close to one another, for in all of them there is the same divine element from above.

Haman said to the king: There is one people, scattered and dispersed among the nations. ('There is one people scattered and dispersed among the nations'), and corresponding to this the sages ordained that on Purim Israel should be one people in the land, a people whose essential self is revealed without disguises, and therefore it is one. For this reason we are also commanded in sending portions, each person to his fellow, and gifts to the poor.

At a deeper level, these matters become clear when we take to heart that these commandments are founded upon kindness. One performs kindness even for someone who does not need it (each person to his fellow). Kindness is the thing without limitations, the thing as it is in itself. Limitations are judgment (or 'severities,' in kabbalistic terminology), which restrict kindness (as explained in the third meal of the Sabbath of Vayakhel). On Purim we are commanded to remove the limitations, to go beyond the line and form of judgment, and to reveal the form of kindness, which is unlimited. The whole concept of judgment arose only because of limitations, since the world cannot exist solely by the attribute of kindness (the world exists through acts of kindness, and stands on judgment, as stated in the first chapter of Avot and as explained at that time of supreme favor mentioned above). Purim is entirely the breaking of limitations and the bringing of the self outward. Wine breaks all the judgments that limit us. On Purim each person must be Zusha and not play Moses our teacher. On Purim even Rabbi Michael is Miki.

In the future, all the festivals will be annulled except Purim, since all the festivals are observed in order to repair something in flawed being. They were created out of constraints and problems present in creation; these are the festivals of this world. Purim is the repaired world, in which nothing is done after the fact because of limitations or external constraints, and everything is done exactly as it ought to be done, naturally. In the future, in a repaired world, no limitations will be needed, and there will be no festival except the festival of the absence of limitations, namely Purim. In the future, too, the world will no longer be fragmented; it will be entirely directed toward the same end and wholly cleaving to its Creator. There will no longer be boundaries separating person from person and nation from nation ('scattered and dispersed'); rather, everything will be in complete unity. In such a state there is no place at all for the attribute of judgment, which limits and separates things from one another and determines the boundary of each one, but only for the attribute of kindness. Now we are slaves; next year, free people. ('Now we are slaves; next year free people').

By this, Rava’s statement above is explained as if molded in clay. 'After dark' means: once the day of Purim has entered. Then one does not insulate anything at all, neither in something that adds hevel nor in something that does not add hevel. Everything must be revealed, and nothing remains hidden inside, covered. Before Purim ('while it is still day'), one does not insulate in something that adds hevel. That is, in this world, before the repaired world, we certainly hide—and indeed it is an obligation to hide—and there are judgments that limit us in all our ways. Yet even in this period of limitation, one must not hide one’s essential self in occupations and shells that add hevel (see, for example, the author’s foreword above), but only in those that do not add hevel.

And now, once the true student has understood what lies between the body of this pamphlet and the margins, he has nothing left but to go back and read everything again from the beginning (including the foreword). Turn it over and over, for everything is in it. ('Turn it over and turn it over, for everything is in it').

One does not insulate Rava holds that it is forbidden for a person to engage in anything in the world that does not add hevel, except at an hour that is neither of the day nor of the night. Little excerpt A page of Talmud in the vernacular. Insulation in relation to hevel Even though we find that Cain hid Hevel (Abel) beneath the earth, which would imply that being hidden in Hevel is the primary law of hevel, this is not so; for here it teaches that we insulate in hevel and not Hevel, and ponder this carefully. When wine enters It is stated in the writings that wine has the numerical value of seventy, and so does secret. Hence our sages said: let the past be nothingness, the future be wine, and the present vanish in the blink of an eye—obvious enough. Contrary to what is commonly accepted As they said of blessed memory: go out and see what the people do, and do the opposite; and it is also written that the opinion of householders is the opposite of the opinion of Torah (see Sema, sec. 3). Breaks down barriers Obviously it breaks them by more than three handbreadths, for otherwise it would not be open enough for lambs and would still count as a partition, as is clear. Another version: because it is not lavud (halakhically closed). This is from the teacher’s mouth, and the first explanation is the one I heard first. The thing as it is in itself As the sage Kant explained, we have no thought, aggadic literature, ethics, Jewish law, or any grasp of it at all. See further in Kuntresei Shiurim by the all-encompassing sage, an ignoramus by Torah law and a young scholar by rabbinic law, namely M.A. Wine brings out etc. It is difficult: why does he return and repeat such a simple idea in this pamphlet? It may be answered that this is the way of people who give talks (as opposed to those who deliver formal lessons), and enough said. Zusha Rabbi Zusha of Indianapolis, brother of the author of Noam Eliphelet. This is a charm for anyone who does not have The Angel Raziel in his house, and it is effective that he also will not come to have it. Some say it is more significant than a red string on the right hand against the evil eye. And this is only according to the view of Maimonides, that there is no such thing at all as the evil eye, as we find that whispering over a scorpion sting on the Sabbath is permitted because it is entirely ineffective (see Yoreh De'ah 179:6). The same reasoning would permit putting on a red string for that reason, and ponder this carefully. The period of limitation This does not refer to the three days of restriction, for we hold that there were 364 of them (and with the walled cities, 363), as explained in the pamphlet. And this is not like the interpretation of Ben Hammedata, of blessed memory.*

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*This is not extant before us; apparently it was written after he was hanged on that tree fifty cubits high, corresponding to the fifty gates of understanding that disappeared from sight (like that meat) in shoreless waters. Alas for what has been lost.