Building Worlds and Taking Them Down

Opening There is a moment every one of us knows. The moment after. After you fell, after you failed, after you did what you did. And there it sits, that wrong you did, like a weight that will not come off. And you tell yourself: It happened. It is real. It is already woven into the fabric of reality, and there is no way to pull it out. Maimonides, the great medieval Torah sage, writes something about a person who has come back to Hashem that is hard to take at face value: “He is not the same man who did those deeds.” He does not say “he became a better person.” He does not say “he wiped out the debt.” He says he is not the same man, in his very being, at his core. How can that be? The wrong really did happen. This very body did what it did. What can it mean that he is not the same man? First Step: A World Created Every Moment To understand Maimonides, we first need to grasp a basic idea. The Tanya, the classic book of Hasidic thought, builds it in its section called “The Gate of Unity and Faith.” Hashem did not only create the world once, long ago. He creates it anew at every single moment. As we say in our prayers: “In His goodness He renews the work of creation every day, constantly.” This is not just poetic prayer language. It tells us what reality is. Reality keeps being renewed. It is an unbroken stream of creation. On this foundation the Midrash, the ancient teachings of our Sages, opens with a deep statement: Hashem “builds worlds and destroys them.” Our Sages are not telling an archaeology story about worlds that existed before Creation. They are showing us something about the nature of creation right now. In the present, Hashem creates worlds and lets worlds pass away. At every moment a “draft” of reality is being built, and with it there is a “draft” that no longer exists. Worlds of chaos and worlds of repair all come forth from Him, blessed be He. If so, reality is not something fixed and closed. It opens up anew at every moment. Second Step: Returning Means Moving Over, Not Erasing And here is the turning point. When a person returns to Hashem, it is not “what was, was,” and now he tries to forget. And it is not only “Hashem forgave him.” Something deeper happens. The person moves over into the reality Hashem is creating now. In that reality the power of that wrong is cancelled at its root. This is the meaning of the beautiful words of our tradition: “It is as if he had never sinned.” If this were only forgiveness, the words would be “he was pardoned” or “he was forgiven.” But “as if he had never sinned” is no exaggeration. It describes what is real. In the world the returning person has risen into, that failure did not happen. It stayed behind in the “destroyed world,” and this person is no longer there. And this is what Maimonides meant: “He is not the same man.” It is not a figure of speech. It describes where he now stands. A Note: The Greatness of Those Who Return Now we can understand a saying of our Sages that always seemed strange: “In the place where those who return to Hashem stand, even the completely righteous cannot stand.” But the righteous person never sinned. Why should he stand lower than someone who did? The answer is this. The completely righteous person has lived in the “world of repair” from the start. That is his place, and he was always there. But the person who returns has done something entirely different. He knew the “world of chaos” from the inside. He felt its broken pieces. And still he chose to rise. He made an active, full movement toward the repaired reality. By doing this he softens harsh judgments. He also lifts up sparks of holiness from places the righteous person never touched. Closing: Redemption, When the Whole World Moves Over What happens to one person when he returns is the model for what will happen to the whole world at the redemption. The prophet Isaiah says in Hashem’s name: “For behold, I am creating new heavens and a new earth.” It does not say “repairing” the heavens and earth we have now. It says creating new ones. The redemption is not a renovation of this world with all its failures. It is all of reality moving over into the repaired “version” that Hashem has already prepared. Each one of us who returns takes a step on the way there. That means every Jew who decides to rise, to come back, to choose again. This personal move from “world one” to “world two” prepares for the great redemption and is its model. Then the whole world will move over.