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Upright Practices; The Light of the Eyes
Book by MENAHEM NAHUM OF CHERNOBYL
290 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
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March 11, 2018
Just fabulous Chassidut. Green chose to present only R. Nahum’s commentary on Genesis because, as he says, the commentaries on the weekly parshayot are so wide ranging on theological and spiritual matters in general that it would be a repetitive read to include the The Light of the Eyes in its entirety.
I can’t speak to that because I only have what I have; but what’s here is absolutely fantastic. As happens when reading most Chasidic seforim, I’m blown away by how R. Nahum manages to relate lines which seem SO innocuous or plain in meaning to deep Chasidic tenets. Granted, I’m reading this in English. So I’m losing much of the word play that leads R. Nahum from one idea to the next. But I’ll give you an example: during his discussion of Bereshit, R. Nahum begins to talk about the Tabernacle in the desert. How at first it was empty. He then draws a parallel to the famous dictum that one must chase away a mother bird from her nest before taking the eggs. All of that, says he, is REALLY about emptying one’s SELF so that only then, God may enter into us. We must become the empty nest, the empty Tabernacle in order to be filled with the ark of the covenant which is God’s presence Itself: “As long as a person thinks of himself as something, he will necessarily have limits, for everything that exists has some limit. God cannot dwell in such a person, since He is infinite and without limit, and that person is a bounded one. You have to be like the place of the ark, which took up no space at all, so fully humbled that you see yourself as no being at all. Then you can be called ‘nothing’ and the Creator who is called ‘no limit’ or endless can contract Himself into you. Understand this.”
Here, R. Nahum is no advocating beating ourselves up in terms of humility...he’s referring to the unity of the cosmos...that technically we are one with everything else...when we think of ourselves as BOUNDED, or individualized, we cut ourselves off from that ever pulsing, flowing unity.
Pretty lovely.
I can’t speak to that because I only have what I have; but what’s here is absolutely fantastic. As happens when reading most Chasidic seforim, I’m blown away by how R. Nahum manages to relate lines which seem SO innocuous or plain in meaning to deep Chasidic tenets. Granted, I’m reading this in English. So I’m losing much of the word play that leads R. Nahum from one idea to the next. But I’ll give you an example: during his discussion of Bereshit, R. Nahum begins to talk about the Tabernacle in the desert. How at first it was empty. He then draws a parallel to the famous dictum that one must chase away a mother bird from her nest before taking the eggs. All of that, says he, is REALLY about emptying one’s SELF so that only then, God may enter into us. We must become the empty nest, the empty Tabernacle in order to be filled with the ark of the covenant which is God’s presence Itself: “As long as a person thinks of himself as something, he will necessarily have limits, for everything that exists has some limit. God cannot dwell in such a person, since He is infinite and without limit, and that person is a bounded one. You have to be like the place of the ark, which took up no space at all, so fully humbled that you see yourself as no being at all. Then you can be called ‘nothing’ and the Creator who is called ‘no limit’ or endless can contract Himself into you. Understand this.”
Here, R. Nahum is no advocating beating ourselves up in terms of humility...he’s referring to the unity of the cosmos...that technically we are one with everything else...when we think of ourselves as BOUNDED, or individualized, we cut ourselves off from that ever pulsing, flowing unity.
Pretty lovely.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review