Earning a Living - Earning a Life

Parshat Terumah 5767 — February 18, 2007

Essay #23

“They will make for Me a Sanctuary and I will dwell among them” (Exodus 25:8).

Imagine doing your regular work like any laborer, and being credited with building a Sanctuary for God. Sound impossible? Although it took thousands of years to happen, from the time of Creation until just after the Revelation at Sinai, it did happen. And it could happen again. We just have to allow it to happen.

Rebbe Nachman taught (adapted from Likutey Moharan I, 11):

1) When a person pronounces the words of Torah that he studies aloud, his speech illumines for him pathways that show him all the places where he needs to do teshuvah, until he merits to do exactly the kind of teshuvah that he must do. With each bit of teshuvah that he does, he will ascend from level to level, until he emerges from his present low level and arrives at a deeper understanding of the Torah.

2) When a person is careful and ever mindful that the honor of God should be unblemished—while he himself is lowly in his own eyes and his own honor means nothing to him compared with the honor of God—he will merit to speak radiant words of Torah that illuminate the way to perfect teshuvah. In this way he will merit profound levels of understanding in the Torah.

3) But a person cannot merit this kind of radiant speech except by breaking his pride and conceit. He should not study Torah out of a desire for honor or out of contentiousness, nor in order to receive a position of rabbinical authority and high status. The extent to which he breaks his pride and conceit also depends on how much he guards himself from sexual pollution and transgression.

4) Pride is tantamount to idolatry. Because of pride, a person lacks the faculties of speech that help him speak in a way that radiates light for him, and he cannot open his mouth at all. Even more, the words of Torah do not illuminate the way for him to return to good—but the Torah itself becomes physical and darkened as it issues from his mouth.

5) Pride and sexual immorality go hand in hand. Therefore, when a person guards the covenant of moral purity, he is saved from pride and merits the light that illuminates the way for him to do teshuvah, and will attain profound levels of understanding of Torah.

6) The bitterness that people experience in the struggle to make a living results primarily from the blemishing of the covenant through sexual pollution. If someone guards himself in this area, even though he engages in the 39 types of work and in trade, his labor will nonetheless be on the level of the 39 types of work performed in the construction of the Tabernacle. His work will also be compared to “a dew of lights” (Isaiah 36:19). The Hebrew word for dew, TaL, has a numerical value of 39. "Dew" also connotes the idea of livelihood, since the sustenance of the Jews in the desert was the manna that fell with the morning dew. On the other hand, someone who blemishes himself with sexual pollution is pursued by poverty, he draws upon himself the yoke of earning a living with great struggle and bitterness, and his livelihood is like the 39 lashes (Deuteronomy 25:3).

First Rebbe Nachman teaches that there are depths to Torah—deep perceptions of Godliness that act as a guiding light to a person and direct him on the path he should be following, instead of always having doubts and frustrations like, “What should I do next?” or, “Is this right for me?” However, a person cannot hope to attain such a light unless he is humble and willing to negate himself before God. When a person is humble, he allows God’s light to illuminate his path and doesn’t cause any obstruction to that light. This kind of humility is only possible for the one who is morally upright and makes sure to keep himself clean from sexual sin.

Rebbe Nachman then elaborates on the great benefits of moral living and humility. Whatever a person works at, that type of work is included in one or another of the “39 Acts.” The Talmud teaches that any type of work that was employed in the building of the Sanctuary is called “work,” and 39 Acts are listed (see Shabbat 73a; Bava Kama 2a). A person who is moral and humble should know that his work is sanctified work, and every effort he makes is viewed as if he built a Sanctuary for God. Furthermore, the Torah is compared to TaL, the “Dew of Life” (Ketuvot 111b). One who merits to morality merits to the Dew of Torah, of Light, and of the Resurrection (see Ketuvot, ibid.).

So God’s commandment to build a Sanctuary was not meant only for the generation of the desert. It applies to us too. Just by going about our daily jobs, we too can build a Sanctuary!

I'll be traveling until after Purim, so please excuse the forthcoming hiatus. Have a great few weeks and a wonderful Purim!

Chaim