Mattot-Masai
Can we notice the sparks glowing all around us?
Reflection by Carrie Watkins, US Community Manager:
"אִישׁ֩ כִּֽי־יִדֹּ֨ר נֶ֜דֶר לַֽה״ אֽוֹ־הִשָּׁ֤בַע שְׁבֻעָה֙ לֶאְסֹ֤ר אִסָּר֙ עַל־נַפְשׁ֔וֹ לֹ֥א יַחֵ֖ל דְּבָר֑וֹ כְּכׇל־הַיֹּצֵ֥א מִפִּ֖יו יַעֲשֶֽׂה"
“If a person makes a vow to Hashem or takes a prohibition upon himself, he must not break his word. All that went out of his mouth he shall do” (Numbers 30:3)."
"Parshat Mattot opens with a series of commandments around the power and peril of taking oaths to God. By providing many loopholes that might allow a person to invalidate an oath taken, the Torah appears to be discouraging the practice without outright forbidding it.
Many commentators connect these to the laws around becoming a Nazir, a practice offered in the Torah in which a man or woman may take upon themselves, for a fixed time, a specific set of ascetic vows including not drinking wine or cutting hair. Here too, while the Torah permits this spiritual practice, when the fixed time is up, the Nazir must take a sin offering to the Temple, implying that something about taking the Nazirite vows constituted a sin.
In his commentary on this week’s parsha, the early Hasidic Rebbe, the Meor Eynaim, offers a mystical explanation for these two instances of discouraging taking extra prohibitions upon yourself. Inside every single thing in the world, in the Kabbalistic understanding, is a holy spark of divinity, and our spiritual mission on this earth is to raise those sparks up by fully engaging with these physical elements of the world while holding awareness of their divinity.
`When you taste or see something good, that is God, the holy spark within that thing,` says the Meor Eynaim. He continues later, `There is Torah in everything. Every believer must have faith that there is nothing outside of God’s service, as long as it is permitted by the Torah . . . You just need to act for the sake of the creator and not just for your own enjoyment. It is all perfect devotion. This is why [someone who refrains from worldly endeavors] is called a sinner; he has prevented the rising up of the holy sparks dressed in that food from which he has abstained.`
This anti-ascetic theology, a hallmark of Hasidut, invites us into a fuller and more mindful relationship with everything we do. Every interaction we have with the world around us becomes an invitation into mindful presence of the holiness and interconnection of it all. This Shabbat, may we notice the sparks glowing all around us, and though this, may the world become a little brighter."