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Orchard of Delights
£Redeeming Sparks of HolinessRedeeming Sparks of HolinessRedeeming Sparks of Holiness one,” deserving or destined to fall from a roof. The message that the
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A theme repeated often in the Arizal’s mystical teachings and
magnified even more by the Ba’al Shem Tov is the notion that
humanity is charged with the mission of elevating the sparks of
holiness that fell in the cataclysmic breaking of the vessels. This
primordial event manifests itself on many different levels of reality,
as well as within human consciousness. The first issue addressed in
Ki Teitzei illustrating this mission is that of the captive woman:
When you will go forth in war against your enemy and God, your
God, delivers them into your hand, and you take a captive. And you
will see among the captives a very beautiful woman, and you desire
her; you may take her to yourself for a wife. You shall bring her to the
midst of your house; she shall shave her head and let her nails grow.
She shall remove the garment of her captivity from upon herself and
sit in your house, and she shall weep for her father and her mother
for a full month; thereafter, you may come to her and live with her,
and she shall be a wife to you. But it shall be that if you do not desire
her, then you shall send her on her own, but you may not sell her
for money; you shall not enslave her, because you have afflicted her.
(Deuteronomy 21:10-14)
Chassidut understands this episode to be a deep parable (a mashal)
functioning on two primary levels: the battle men fight with their
own evil inclinations and the battle all of humanity fights against
the allure of the material world. These teachings have particular
resonance in contemporary society as the influence of popular
culture fueled by the media’s far-reaching tentacles is felt nearly
everywhere.
From a sod perspective, the beautiful female captive represents
the fallen sparks of holiness hidden within the superficial allure
of physical beauty. Our attraction to this beauty is fueled by our
own baser desires, which we must defeat. In the course of defeating
the enemy, in this case our own base inclinations, we envision new
possibilities and come into contact with sparks of holiness that can,
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verse is teaching us is to be careful that this individual does not fall
from our roofs. Since, as Rashi continues, good things occur through
the agency of good people and bad things come to pass through the
agency of bad people, we must be careful not to let our negligence
make us culpable.
Rabbi Ginsburgh explains that we must realize that when we
“go up to the roof,” we will ultimately fall from whatever new and
elevated consciousness we have reached. This fall is unavoidable as
it is built into the nature of the world and especially into humanity’s
psychological makeup. He brings King David as an example of
someone who was accustomed to going up to the roof to commune
with God. Ultimately, King David “fell” because he was on the roof:
“And it came to pass that one evening David arose from his bed
and walked upon the roof of the king’s house, and he saw a woman
bathing on the roof, and the woman was exceedingly beautiful” (2
Samuel 11:2). Thus begins the saga of David and Bathsheba, an
episode that haunted David for the rest of his life.
If the fall is inevitable then perhaps it would be better
(metaphorically speaking) to never go up to the roof, to never attempt
to go beyond one’s comfort zone. Rabbi Ginsburgh claims otherwise
and sites the commandment to build a guardrail as proof. The Torah
does not advise people to forego building new houses or to forego
going up to the roof; rather, it advises them to build guardrails to
prevent people from falling off their roofs.
Yet a question remains: how does a guardrail help if it is inevitable
that we fall? Rabbi Ginsburgh answers that the guardrail symbolizes
our orchestrating the fall! How so? By adopting an attitude of
humbleness and humility at the very moment that we experience
the climactic peak of “being on the roof,” we are able to control
the inevitable fall. Because if we maintain true humility then our
fall becomes purposeful and directed, a positive balance to the new
heights of consciousness achieved in “the run” of the soul. We only
truly fall when we have no fence, no guard against the undo pride
or ego that we experience when the actual experience of elevation
overly inflates our egos. (This idea complements the Slonimer
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