Developing a Torah Personality
Based on addresses by Harav Aharon Lichtenstein
Adapted by Rav Ronnie Ziegler

Part 1: "Le-shomrah" - To Honor, Protect and Preserve

To address the issue of the development of a Torah personality, we must relate to at least three levels of expectation and responsibility. These can be regarded as concentric circles which move from the broader to the more specific: 1) the universal demands placed upon one simply as a human being; 2) as a Jew; and 3) as a ben-Torah (one who makes Torah study a central part of his life and embodies its values). I want to deal today with the first level. What basic, cardinal, universal values should you be striving for in these very formative years of your development?

Let us open a Chumash (Pentateuch) to the chapter describing the creation of man and see what task was assigned to him.

"The Lord God took the man and placed him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to guard it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, 'Of every tree of the garden you are to eat; but as for the tree of knowledge of good and evil, you must not eat of it; for as soon as you eat of it, you shall die.'" (Bereishit 2:15-17)

The gemara in the seventh chapter of Sanhedrin derives the seven universal Noachide Laws from the last two of these verses. However, I would like to address myself to the first of these verses: God placed man (Adam) in the garden "le-ovdah u-leshomrah," to work or cultivate the garden and to guard it. Here we have, of course, two distinct tasks. One, "le-shomrah," is largely conservative, aimed at preserving nature. It means to guard the world, to watch it; and watching is essentially a static kind of occupation, seeing to it that things do not change, that they remain as they are. This is what Adam was expected to do, and part of our task in the world is indeed to guard that which we have been given: our natural environment, our social setting, our religious heritage.

In a sense, we are expected to be a shomer (guard) of the Torah itself. What do Anshei Knesset Ha-gedola mean when they instruct us to "Make a fence around the Torah" (Pirkei Avot 1:1)? They mean to guard it, to watch it. Similarly, Chazal speak of "Asu mishmeret le-mishmarti" ("Set a guard around My guard" - Mo'ed Katan 5a, Yevamot 21a). We often use the term "shomer mitzva" to describe someone. This doesn't just mean that he does what it says in the Shulchan Arukh, but also that he guards it; he sees to it that the mitzva as an entity, as a reality, remains pure; he envisions himself as having a sense of responsibility towards it. All this is included in the term "le-shomrah" (to guard it).

And at the same time, there is "le-ovdah" (to cultivate it), which describes an essentially creative task: to develop, to work, to innovate. This applied even in Gan Eden, which, according to some of the Midrashim, was already a perfect environment.

Here we have, then, two foci of our primary obligation: to guard, to have a sense of responsibility in relation to that which we have been given; and to work and to develop. Although Adam was commanded specifically to till and guard the Garden of Eden, I think that we would not be stretching things too far if we were to understand that this mandate applies far beyond that particular little corner of the Garden within which Adam and Eve were placed. What you have here is a kind of definition of how man is to be perceived in general: as a shomer and as an oved.

WHO IS THE MASTER?

As I said, the mandate to guard relates in part to the natural world; the concern for ecology has some basis in this. To some extent, this mandate extends to the society one is in. But to a very great extent, it applies in relation to oneself. One must guard the human personality itself and everything appended to it, one's "dalet amot" (four cubits) which he assumes to be his own private domain.

Now, this is of great importance and needs to be stressed, because we are here dealing with a fundamentally religious perception which runs totally counter to the notions prevalent within the widely secular society in which we find ourselves. The essence of modern secular culture is the notion of human sovereignty - man is his own master; individual man is master over his own self, and collective man is master over his collective. This creates problems as to where the line is to be drawn between individual and collective man, and that is the crux of much of modern socio-political theory - when the state can interfere, cannot interfere, etc. But the common denominator of all these discussions is that they think fundamentally in terms of human sovereignty, the question being whether you speak of humanity or of a particular person.

From a religious point of view, of course, eilu va-eilu divrei avoda zara (both this and this are words of idolatry). Here one sets up individual man as an idol, and there one idolizes, in humanistic terms, humanity as a whole. The aleph bet (the ABC's) of any religious perception of human existence is the sense that man is not a master: neither a master over the world around him, nor a master over himself.

"THE EARTH IS THE LORD'S"

Of course, this is not to say that the notion of private property does not exist. It certainly exists within religious thought generally, and within Judaism specifically; the notion of private property is a very central concept in Halakha, and large sections of the Talmud are devoted to it. Rather, what this means is that the notion of property is never absolute. It is always relative; ultimately, "La-Hashem ha-aretz u-melo'ah" - "The Earth is the Lord's and all that it holds" (Tehillim 24:1). But within the world in which we exist, we can say that relative to Shimon, Reuven has been granted ownership; and relative to the individual, the community has been granted authority.

In this manner, one can understand the gemara in Berakhot (35a-b) which points out a seeming contradiction between two verses in Tehillim: on the one hand, "The Heavens belong to the Lord, but the Earth He gave over to man" (115:16), and on the other hand, "The Earth is the Lord's and all that it holds" (24:1). The gemara answers: "This is not really a difficulty. The one verse is speaking of the reality before a person has made a berakha (blessing) and the other verse is speaking of the reality after a person has made a berakha."

A person who partakes of the world without making a berakha has, so to speak, stolen from God; he has committed an offense of me'ila (misusing that which has been consecrated to God). However, when he makes a berakha, this does not mean that the item is now absolutely his. It is not like purchasing a loaf of bread from the storeowner who then disappears from the picture. Chas ve-shalom! "Mine is the silver and mine is the gold, says the Lord of Hosts" (Chaggai 2:8). What it means is that, at an operational level, there are two different levels of one's mastery over the object, in terms of the permissibility for one to go ahead and to use it. Initially, you cannot partake in any way. But once you say the berakha, you have in effect recognized God's ownership. You recognize His hegemony, you accept the fact that you live subject to Him, you have acknowledged His sovereignty, and now you partake of the world with His permission. Through our reciting a berakha, God grants us permission the way a medieval king might have delegated a fief to a particular person.

What the Gemara says in a narrow halakhic sense about some forms of kodshim (sacrifices) - "Mi-shulchan gavo'ah ka zakhu," "They have acquired it from Heaven's table" (see Beitza 21a, Bava Metzia 92a) - in a broader sense is true of our ability to partake of the world in general. We are guests at God's table. This means that whatever we have in the world, we have as shomerim (guards) - it has been given to us to guard awe are never truly masters, but rather arealways acting in the capacity of guarding it.

Now, of course, there are different kinds of shomerim. There are those who have only responsibility and no rights, such as a shomer chinam (unpaid guard) and a shomer sakhar (paid guard). On the other hand, a sho'el (borrower) and a sokher (renter) have both chiyuvim and kinyanim (liability and rights). In the sense that we too have both chiyuvim and kinyanim, we are analogous to a sho'el or sokher. (However, the analogy is not exact, since, unlike a sho'el, we do not have rights against the owner; we merely have rights to use the property, given the owner's continuing consent.) And if this is true regarding property, it is equally true of our own selves, our own being.

IT'S MY LIFE

I mentioned earlier the prevalent secular conception of one's "ownership" of himself. One hears this argument in various contexts, especially with regard to the question of abortion: it's a woman's right, it's her own body, she can do what she wants, etc. Years back, I was asked to testify before a subcommittee of the Knesset which dealt with abortions. [This was later printed as, "Abortion: A Halakhic Perspective," Tradition 25 (1991), pp. 3-12.] Among other things, I mentioned that leaving aside the significant question of whether it is the woman's body only or whether the fetus has some rights as well, there is a more fundamental problem. Even if we were to accept that indeed this is the woman's own body, we totally reject the conception that if it is her body, then she can do with it what she pleases. This is a completely anti-halakhic perception. It rests on a secular assumption that, as it were, "My Nile is my own; I made it for myself" (Yechezkel 29:3), as if we are the source of our own existence and therefore the masters of our own being. This is assuredly not the case. In absolute terms, a person does not own himself.

In fact, there are prohibitions which apply to how a person relates to himself. Just as one is forbidden to injure or curse others, so is he forbidden to injure himself (see Bava Kama 90b-91b and Rambam, Hilkhot Chovel U-mazik 5:1) or to curse himself (Rambam, Hilkhot Sanhedrin 26:3). Similarly, the mitzva of "Ve-nishmartem me'od le-nafshoteikhem" ("Take utmost care of yourselves," Devarim 4:15) specifically prohibits a person from taking unnecessary risks, even though he won't affect anybody else. The whole notion that a person should be free to do what he wants with relation to himself is at absolute odds with our conception. We believe that you are never an independent entity, nor do you "own" yourself; you are always a shomer appointed by God. And that applies, as I've said, to your "property," it applies to your own self, and it certainly applies to your relationship to whatever is around you.

HONOR GUARD

Let us now further refine our understanding of the duty of "le-shomrah." It has not only a negative pole, namely, that a person does not have the right to dispose of objects arbitrarily or even to deal with himself as he wishes. It has also a positive pole: there is an obligation to be a shomer, and not only in order to avoid damage. Although this is essentially a passive activity, there nevertheless is an active aspect to it as well. The Rambam says (Hilkhot Beit Ha-bechira 8:1):

"The guarding of the Temple is a positive commandment. This applies even though there is no fear of enemies or bandits, for its guarding is in order to honor it. A palace with guards is not comparable to a palace without guards."

Even though there is no fear of invasion, nevertheless the Mikdash (Temple) must have shomerim. Why? They serve as an honor guard. Le-havdil, the Swiss Guards do not protect the Vatican from enemies, nor do guards stand outside Buckingham Palace out of fear that someone is going to enter. Rather, guards are stationed out of a sense of kavod (honor) for the "palterin shel melekh" (palace of the king); there's a sense of elevation, of nobility, of something which is unique and requires guarding.

Now this sense of "palterin shel melekh" which requires guarding is presumably part of the mandate which Adam initially received. At the time that he was placed in the Garden "le-ovdah u-leshomrah," against whom was it being guarded? The animals were part of the Garden, and there was nobody else around, no one to invade. Rather, you guard something which you value and appreciate; you hover over it constantly. And while, of course, the Mikdash is "palterin shel Melekh" in a very special sense, the world as a whole is also "palterin shel Melekh" - "The heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool" (Yeshayahu 66:1). In this sense, we must all cultivate a concern for and a sensitivity to the natural order as a whole, to that Gan Eden into which we have been placed. This is part of kevod Shamayim (honor of Heaven), yirat Shamayim (awe of Heaven), and malkhut Shamayim (majesty of Heaven). In fact, our responsibility with respect to the orders of creation - natural, human, social, and personal - is now heightened, since, subsequent to Adam's sin, there are indeed real dangers which threaten them.

There is a term which Chazal always apply in relation to shomerim: "achrayut," responsibility. In our capacity as shomerim, we must live with a sense of responsibility, of obligation, and of demands. What is demanded is not simply a kind of passive awareness, but rather the application of consciousness. What does a shomer have to do? He must be alert. His human self must be asserted, that part of him which can watch, which is intelligent, which guards. One guards with intelligence. When he combines his intelligence, sensitivity and awareness of the importance of what he is guarding with a sense of duty and readiness - that is what being a shomer is all about.

(Based on a transcript by Ramon Widmonte.

This sicha was originally delivered to first-year students at Yeshivat Har Etzion in Winter 5747 [1986-7]. It has not been reviewed by Harav Lichtenstein.)

This shiur is provided courtesy of the Virtual Beit Midrash, the premier source of online courses on Torah and Judaism - 14 different courses on all levels, for all backgrounds.

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