Discovering New Ethical Horizons
The Torah in the Parsha that we read this week, (Devarim 22:11) prohibits wearing a garment made of wool and linen, which it calls using the word "shaatnez" which the Talmud attempts to explain.
Jizkuni, Hezekiah bar Manoach, a 9th-century French rabbi and Bible commentator based on the Midrash Tanchuma (Bereshit XNUMX), comments that this prohibition is related to the story of Cain and Hevel: "Since a calamity resulted from these two brothers "They are prohibited from being together." That is, we must seek to distance from each other those personalities who carried out the first death recorded by the Scriptures.
Let us remember the text of Bereshit (4: 2): Hevel was a shepherd who took care of sheep, while Cain worked as a farmer and, according to tradition, grew flax. Jizkuni explains that the Torah prohibited using a combination of the two materials associated with these two men: wool and linen to commemorate the tragedy of Hevel's murder at the hands of his brother.
The commentator discovers a subtlety that is difficult to see at first glance. The Torah decides that throughout history, Jews refrain from mixing a by-product of agriculture with another of livestock, but it does not give us reasons, so we must look for them.
Following that line of thought, we must admit the subtlety of that association. This law of the Torah, which requires us to separate our inner part from "Cain" and "Hevel", because perhaps it is related to the fundamental error underlying the tragic episode of murder.
Hevel brought his offering imitating and competing with his brother's offering: «VeHevel heví gam hu» – “And Hevel also brought…” (Bereshit 4: 4).
Rabbi Shmuel Bornsztain, second Rebbe of the Sojatchover Hasidic lineage, (1855 –1926) suggests that Hevel deserved his tragic fate because he imitated his brother since instead of charting his own individual path in the service of the Almighty he tried to do what another did and that jealousy was the reason why Cain reacted violently. He wanted the exclusivity of the bond.
For this rabbi it is more than clear that the path to spirituality is absolutely individual. To imitate it, it is obvious that you have to pay more attention to what the other person does than to your own feeling. And whoever imitates, instead of getting closer, moves away. The feeling of the other cannot always be adopted without damage to one's own personality, to one's own feeling and to one's own desire and without becoming a fanatic trying to displace whoever one sees as a competitor, even reaching the desire to eliminate him.
Cain and Hevel were guilty of competing: Hevel felt obligated to bring an offering because Cain did, and Cain felt that if Hevel's offer was accepted, his should be accepted as well, without thought to determine the reasons for this.
Complying with the precept of shaatnez teaches us that the solution to struggle, envy and competitiveness is to recognize and respect different roles, unequal inclinations and heterogeneous lifestyles.
Cain and Hevel were two different human beings, one who produced wool and the other who produced flax, and each should have felt perfectly satisfied and proud as he fulfilled his role and followed his individual course. We don't need to feel pressured by our peers' achievements to follow their lead, as Hevel did, and we don't need to feel snubbed and frustrated when our peers enjoy the kinds of success that eludes us, as he did. Cain.
Instead, we must focus on living the lives we are best equipped to live, on working to achieve the most we can, whether with "wool" or "linen" or seeking and finding the spiritual materials and techniques, the letters , melody and rhythm, without feeling pressured or threatened by the success of others.
Each person has unique talents to nurture their challenges and overcome them, and their unique role in the world is to be able to experience joy, satisfaction, and fulfillment, without harming feelings of inferiority that could lead to stressful competition and jealousy.
Paraphrasing Rambam we would say that whoever acts like this "deviates from the truth and distances himself from himself when he seeks the compassion of the Almighty." In other words, he loses spontaneity and authenticity and becomes a buffoon. He degrades himself, and the identity of him is stripped away. And the worst thing is, he doesn't get anywhere that way.
When we already hear the shofar daily, approaching a new year, full of questions, as we have not remembered for a long time, it would be good to invest a little of our energy in meeting with our feelings and with Divinity, without interference, and without the hindrance of doing things. the same as the other one.
Rabbi Yerahmiel Barylka