Tzav
Reflection by Ronen Gradwohl, graduate of Or HaLev’s Tiferet Teacher Training:
How can the lesser hold the greater?
“In our parsha, G-d says to Moses: `Assemble the entire community at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting` (Leviticus 8:3). And the entire community—according to tradition, six hundred thousand people—gathers at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting! How is this even physically possible?
According to our Sages (Vayikra Rabbah 10), there’s a secret here called `the lesser that holds the greater`: a place that in one dimension is small, but in another dimension holds much more. This secret also appears in the creation of the world, in the Holy Temple, and in prophecies about the end of days.
Rabbi Nachman of Breslov teaches that silence, too, can be a `lesser that holds the greater` (The Story of the Seven Beggars). He describes a reality filled with innumerable, cacophonous voices. Often we want to hear all the voices, to understand, to grasp, to control. But the secret of “the lesser that holds the greater,” as expressed in silence, points to a different movement: a movement of letting go of the need to control, of opening up to the flow of the many voices, and thus of being able to hold it all.
Our practice can support this kind of movement. We bring our attention to an anchor, for example the breath, the body, or the sounds around us. Yet very quickly attention is pulled away by thoughts, sensations, and emotions—in other words, it gets caught in a crowd of innumerable, cacophonous voices. Over time, however, our awareness learns to release its grip on this crowd, allowing it to flow without trying to grasp or control it. This silence and letting go cultivated in our practice become the `lesser` capable of holding the `greater,` enabling us to open to the flow of life.
Shabbat shalom.”