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Lessons from a Chilean Cave: Concealment and Discovery
By
Rabbi Shlomo Einhorn
A rabbi opens scripture and finds powerful allusions
There was a cataclysm of emotion as we watched the first survivor emerge from the mine in Chile — Florencio Avalos — seeing his 7 year old burst into tears and entirely overwhelmed. While we are all suckers for rescue missions and tales of survival, there was something particularly stirring about this experience. Was it the unknown tension lingering in the question of whether it would work? Maybe. Was it the possibility that the transport cage might get stuck? Maybe. But still there was something calling out "mimakim", from the depths, of that mine. And there was something so triumphant in the emergence of the 33 survivors. There were two phases here (or two miracles at work): the period of concealment (in the cave) and the period of discovery (coming out of the cave). I would like to explore both.
CONCEALMENT
Job 27:11 — "I will teach you concerning the hand of G-d; that which is with the Almighty will I not conceal" (achached in gematria [ the system of assigning letters numeric values,] is 33) Joshua 10:16 — "And these five kings fled and hid themselves in the cave at Makkeda" (hid in gematria is 33) Magnificence and beauty in our religion is revealed in the concealed. Abraham is told by G-d to "go to the land which I will show you." Why didn't G-d identify the land that He was sending Abraham to? According to the foremost commentator, Rashi, G-d wanted to make the land more precious in Abraham's eyes. That which is hidden is more powerful. This is why we wrap a gift before presenting it. The wonder and mystery of what may emerge generates an extra element of excitement. The great Rabbinic leader of Israeli Jewry at the turn of the 20th Century, Rabbi Yaakov Moshe Charlop, interprets "the land that I will show you" as meaning: Even if it appears to the eye that it is like all other lands, it has rocks, it has trees, the truth is that such is not the case. It's a very different land. The treasures hidden within are amazing. So G-d is telling Abraham you have to look in the way that I show you. You have to look with the glasses that I give you. You must learn to reveal that which is concealed. This also forms the basis for the notion of modesty in the way we dress. There is great power, tremendous mystery, in that which is hidden. When one is dating, a good indication that you are with the right person is when you run out of things to say and you are comfortable in the silence. That beauty is in the hidden. This is the element of concealment but then there is the discovery, recovery.
DISCOVERY
The number 33, is not just a number of hiddeness and concealment but it is also a number of discovery and return. It correlates to the concept of repentance, as the Talmud (Sanhedrin 103a) states that the wicked King Menashe repented for 33 years and G-d received him. We also find that the 33rd day between Passover and the holy day in which Jewry reenacts the Revelation at Sinai, Shavuos, is a time that is associated with elevation and the opportunity for tremendous growth. The 33rd day of the Omer is the time when we memorialize the great Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai who spent 12 of his most formidable years isolated with his son in a cave. It is often this isolation which yields our greatest victory. It can afford us the opportunity to find out who we really are. The number 33 in the Torah reading of Lech Lecha is in the gematria of the Hebrew word "yichyeh", which means to live. Lech Lecha is Abraham being asked to recover his true self, the secret that lies within. The imagery of being isolated in a cave is a pattern we often find in Tanach: Joseph, King David, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and others. The Alter of Kelm comments on Psalm 142: "A thought of David when he was in the cave...", that each of the heroes mentioned in Tanach or in the Talmud, achieved their greatness in the midst of their isolation. It is precisely in the isolation where they realized that no matter how alone, no matter how cut off nobody could take away their essence, their ability to think. This is a powerful belief made famous by Viktor Frankl in "Man's Search for Meaning." While in Auschwitz he realized through the torture and isolation that nobody can take away our power to simply be. [The allusions to the mine continue this week. See Genesis 14:10 where, according to a Midrashic interpretation advanced by Rashi, we find that the King of Sedom falls into a pit, only to be saved through a miracle.] We all have our pit, that space where there is nothing else around us but ourselves. It is that space where we can pay attention and listen to the worlds greatest secret — ourselves. Perhaps what has been powerful in the Chilean mine process is the fact that we can imagine ourselves deep inside that mine and wonder how we would have survived, how we would have sent love to our family, how we would have struggled, and how we would have found ourselves. JewishWorldReview.com regularly publishes uplifting articles. Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
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JWR contributor Rabbi Shlomo Einhorn is spiritual leader of the West Side Institutional Synagogue in Manhattan.
© 2010, Rabbi Shlomo Einhorn
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