Ordinary Life Imbued with Sacred Purity

With God's help

At the beginning of the Torah portion Vayakhel, a short passage appears commanding Sabbath observance. The Sages derived from the juxtaposition of the Sabbath and the Tabernacle that the labors prohibited on the Sabbath are the very labors used in the construction of the Tabernacle. The Torah repeatedly stresses that the building of the Tabernacle is based on wisdom and creativity, using expressions such as intentional workmanship (“purposeful labor”), designer's work (“crafted work”), every wise-hearted person (“all who are wise of heart”), and the like. Accordingly, the Sabbath labors themselves are defined as intentional workmanship, and this has various implications in Jewish law.

This raises the question of the relationship between the sacred and the mundane. Does the mundane exist only to serve the sacred? Is our entire task merely to repair the mundane and elevate it? Are art and science merely accessories of holiness? In the Tabernacle passages we see that it is possible to take the wisdom and creativity of the mundane and harness them to the sacred, to the building of the Tabernacle. Hasidic thinkers see this as a paradigm for our activity in the world: to sort out and elevate sparks of holiness hidden within the mundane, thereby making it worthy and legitimate.

But the relationship between the mundane and the sacred can be seen in a completely different way. The fact that these forms of knowledge and craft are used to build the Tabernacle may also suggest that they possess value in their own right. If the sacred is built upon them, then they are evidently a worthy basis for it. From this perspective, the sacred is meant to reveal that the mundane itself has value. The mundane was not created only so that we might repair and elevate it  ("Take care not to spoil or destroy"—“Take care not to ruin it”).

In the Hasidic view, all of creation is sacred. The mundane is wrapped in a veil that conceals this from us, and our task is to blur and erase that veil. The divine contraction of which the Ari speaks is understood there as nothing more than a metaphor and an illusion. God did not really contract Himself, for the whole earth is filled with His glory (“the whole earth is full of His glory”) and There is none besides Him (“there is none besides Him”). This is a strange conception. If we ourselves do not really exist (after all, There is none besides Him), then whose illusion are we? Descartes’ cogito, “I think, therefore I am” (Cogito Ergo Sum), shows that this claim is untenable. If I think something (or am even merely deluded), then that thinking being necessarily exists. So too here: if the mundane undergirds the sacred, that means it has independent existence and importance.

Later in the portion, various curtains and screens appear, separating the different parts of the sacred. These separations are not an illusion, nor are they something we are meant to erase and blur. They teach us that it is important to distinguish between the sacred and the mundane, also because the mundane has an independent standing that is important to preserve. The world was created for ordinary life. Wisdom and creativity were not meant only for the Tabernacle but for every dimension of our lives. Science, wisdom, and art have value; they are not merely accessories of holiness. The curtains protect not only the sacred but also the mundane from an imperialism of holiness that threatens to erase it.

Beyond the two paths that lie plainly before our eyes—the path of the mundane and the path of the sacred—there is also a third path: ordinary life imbued with sacred purity. This path sees value in ordinary life, not merely as a means. As an ideal, not merely as a concession. The world was created so that we might live in it and fully realize it. Not so that we should withdraw from it (as the Mitnagdim, the anti-Hasidic camp, held), and not so that we should extract from it the holiness hidden within it (as the Hasidim held). Aside from certain sacred implements, it is everyday life that should stand at the center of our lives and our tasks.

Originally published in the "Shabbaton" newsletter.