By Yochanan Gordon
If you have any children in sleepaway camp, chances are you jumped into the Catskills scene this past Sunday and were somewhere near us as we inched along Route 17, the Palisades, and over the GWB at about 10 p.m. It has only been about ten days since we feverishly packed the kids out of the house with enough money and snacks to last them two months, but I guess the assumption is that we miss them so much that we had to visit this past Sunday.
In order to avoid driving to the mountains and back in the same day, and to ensure we made it on time and had a full day of activities together, we decided to spend the weekend in the mountains near our kids’ camp in Ferndale. We’re thankful for the generous hospitality of Rabbi Rephoel and Naomi Franklin who invited us to join Dini, Eliezer, and their family for Shabbos at their farm on Happy Ave. in Beth El, the town that is famous, among other things, for hosting the Woodstock celebration in August 1969.
Aside from a weekend or two each summer, and the month during COVID that we spent in a rented house in Ellenville, I have been out of the Catskills scene for quite some time. The truth is, there is something paradoxical about the Catskills that I would like to contrast with our experience on the farm this past Shabbos.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe, in his inimitable tongue-in-cheek manner, ridiculed the practice of going upstate for the summer, noting the distance that people had to drive to live in much smaller lodgings with—at that time anyway—less availability of the staples of Jewish life. But the truth is, for people who live in Brooklyn, a highly urban population with lots of noise and pollution, having to be cramped up at home with young kids and no eruv to enable walking freely with babies and toddlers on Shabbos, it really is a no-brainer, and even possibly a necessity, to get away. But what is ironic is that anyone who has followed the overdevelopment of the Catskills in the past decade or so is aware that they essentially transplanted Boro Park, Williamsburg, Flatbush, and the Five Towns upstate.
If I were a year-round resident who was subjected to this for two or three months a year, it would set me on edge. As somebody who was raised within the center of urban Jewish life, the access to all of the amenities that make New York Jewish life so convenient is perfectly understandable; however, after having spent upwards of 30 hours on a farm in the presence of cows, sheep, and other members of the animal kingdom, which normally make me feel uncomfortable, I began to understand the allure of farm life and the value that it provides those of us who take the amenities of the big city for granted.
One of the differences between Yosef and his brothers is that the shevatim were, by and large, shepherds living a more or less ascetic lifestyle in contradistinction to Yosef, who was the viceroy to Pharaoh in the cosmopolitan society of Egypt. A shepherd thrives on quietude and distance from the hubbub of the big city, which is a distraction for the shepherd who is focused on achieving unity with his Creator.
Essentially, the objective of the big-city dweller is no different than the shepherd in the sense that they are both seeking to reveal G-d’s oneness. The difference is that for the ascetic, the focus is on his attaining true oneness with G-d, whereas the cosmopolitan seeks to reveal G-d’s unity within the details of his highly particularized and nuanced existence.
Chassidus accentuates this distinction by pointing out that the term “b’Schem,” which is where the brothers were when Yaakov sent Yosef to check on them, is an acronym of the words Baruch Shem K’vod Malchuso; in regard to Yosef, the Torah adds the word “lo,” meaning “to him,” but which completes the verse since the letters lamed and vav are an acronym of the words “l’olam va’ed.”
As Shabbos continued to march on, and the distinction between farm life and everything the big city represents continued to play itself out in my mind, I started to realize that these two environments quite possibly are the roots of the conservative and the progressive—not necessarily in the political sense, but more so in the sense that one seeks to embrace original life while the other seems to expand and build upon what was originally given.
Then, the following teaching from the Book of Formation planted itself within my headspace, suggesting that it held the key to the finality of this thought. It says: “If your heart runs, return to the place.” Another version states: “Return to the one.” The terms ratzo v’shav, which are rooted in the vision of Ezekiel describing the running and returning of the chayos, the heavenly angels, is a concept expounded upon in Chassidus. It describes the pining of one’s soul to expire in the ineffable Divine Oneness only to abruptly return to the seeming multiplicity of this world charged with the mission of revealing the unity within the multiplicity.
The Gemara in Chagigah recounts the story of four tannaim who embarked on a mystical journey that ended rather tragically. Of the four tannaim, consisting of Ben Azzai, Ben Zoma, Acher, and Rebbi Akiva, only Rebbi Akiva is said to have entered and emerged peacefully. The Gemara relates that Rebbi Akiva exhorted his colleagues, “When you arrive near pure marble stones, don’t declare, ‘Water, water.’” This rather cryptic statement requires elaboration. What is going on? This, too, seems to contrast the struggle between oneness and multiplicity, farm life and cosmopolitan city dwelling, that has been the theme of this piece.
The verse in Tehillim states, “Above the thunder of the mighty waters, stronger than the breakers of the sea, is the L-rd majestic on high.” Rav Chaim Chaikel of Amdur, in his sefer Chaim V’Chesed, explains that this verse speaks of external love and essential love, and the importance of experientially distinguishing between the two. Despite the virtuousness in unveiling the unity within the details of existence, there is an occupational hazard of mixing up essence with external reality. He points out that the first letters in the words “Adirim mishbirei yam” spell “Imi,” my mother, which is an allusion to binah, gevurah, and all the particulars of reality. “Adir ba’marom Hashem” comprises the word “Avi,” my father, which is an allusion to chochmah, the essential wisdom of G-d.
Given the highly sensitive nature between what essentially exists and what our senses perceive, these two experiences can never overlap. We have to be constantly running and returning between the two experiences without ever being rooted in one or the other. This describes another term in chassidic philosophy known as mati v’lo mati. This describes a situation where we are within some place but at the same time not there.
In a 1971 yechidus with the Lubavitcher Rebbe, then-Israeli President Zalman Shazar spoke of the pashtus, the simplicity, of certain Jews, to which the Rebbe added that the Aibershter is pashut b’tachlis ha’pshitus, meaning that G-d is completely elemental, simple, as opposed to sophisticated and multifaceted.
In fact, the great appeal of many of the products emanating from Pelleh Poultry and Beth El creamery on Happy Avenue in Swan Lake is the fact that they are organic and use only the most natural and essential ingredients. Their milk, chocolate milk, cheese, and yogurt are in a class of their own and are used exclusively by the most discerning palates. All El Al flights out of the West Coast serve exclusively Beth El yogurt in their breakfast menu. In the food industry there has been a movement to embrace foods without preservatives and emulsifiers, all of which represent perceived reality versus what is essentially true. And it is particularly that lesson which came into my purview during my time at the farm.
These are just some of the thoughts that emerged after my weekend of quietude and asceticism. I really want to relate more about the conversations I had with Rabbi Franklin and to perhaps write about his most fascinating journey from the mountaintops of Montana to the Catskill Mountains, but that will have to wait for another week.
Yochanan Gordon can be reached at ygordon5t@gmail.com. Read more of Yochanan’s articles at 5TJT.com.