Walking Among Those Who Stand

“I will give you places to walk among these who stand.” A Troubling Verse There is a verse in the book of the prophet Zechariah that should trouble us, if we really listen to it. Hashem speaks to Joshua the High Priest and says: “I will give you places to walk among these who stand.” Who are “these who stand”? They are the angels. And the promise to this righteous man is that he will be given a way to walk among them. So we have to ask: is this praise, or is it a put-down? The angels are holy and pure. What is so great about walking among them, instead of standing still the way they do? The Nature of an Angel: The Perfection of Standing An angel stands. This is not because he is lazy. It is because that is simply what he is. His level is fixed. His job is set. Even his name shows this: Michael is always Michael, and Gabriel is always Gabriel. He never falls, and he never rises. For him there is no tomorrow that is different from yesterday. He is complete in what he is. But that completeness is also his ceiling. A human being is built completely differently. The Nature of a Human: The Life of Walking The soul did not come down into a body in order to stand. It came down in order to walk. Every day is a new field. Every prayer is a meeting that has never happened before. Every time you learn, there is a discovery waiting to be revealed. But here lies the great danger. Routine is not rest. Routine is a dangerous imitation of the angel’s standing. Think of a Jew who repeats yesterday exactly. He says the same prayer at the same speed. He opens the same book with the same level of connection. Maybe he feels safe. But the truth is, he is not alive. He is standing. And for a human being, standing still is not perfection. It is a kind of death. Dear fellow Jew, you know this feeling. Your spiritual life has turned into one endless repeat. You pray because that is what people do. You learn because that is what people do. This is not failure. It is a call. It is a call to you: Come alive. Move. Falling Is Part of Walking But there is more. Someone who truly walks will sometimes fall. Here is the great new idea. King Solomon wrote: “A righteous person falls seven times and gets up.” Seven times. He does not say it with bitterness or with shame. He says it as a plain fact of life. Falling is not the end of the road. It is part of the journey. An angel cannot fall, and that is also his limit. A human being can fall, and that is exactly why his rising can reach higher than any place an angel could ever stand. Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, author of the Tanya, the classic book of Hasidic thought, explains it this way. The Tanya speaks of the “in-between person.” The in-between person is not someone who never falls. He is someone who gets up. The inner battle itself, the struggle that goes on and on, is the very purpose of serving Hashem. The point is not the final victory. The point is the walking itself. Closing “I will give you places to walk.” This is the gift. Not a crown. Not standing still in the Garden of Eden. The gift is walking. Movement. Searching. Discovering. Do not chase what you already know. Chase what you have not discovered yet. Ask a question you have never asked. Open a page you have never opened. Say one prayer as if it were your very first. The angels stand, and we walk. That is not weakness. That is our greatness.