Touching Outer Space

Exploring the Depths of Judgment, Place and Understanding

Another year, another Elul. Of course, given the challenging context of the past ten months, it isn't just another Elul. The October 7 massacre of Jews and the subsequent international reaction make clear the current stakes in the most visceral way possible. When we stand before God pleading for life, how can we not think of the horrors inflicted on our people this year? How can we avoid acknowledging the relentless tide of virulent Jew-hatred that threatens us all? Perhaps for the first time in many of our lives, we will experience Rosh Hashana in a way analogous to our noble ancestors. For them, the worries of death, abuse, and terror felt all too real.

And yet, we would be amiss if we focused only on physical risks. No doubt, when we hear the cantor ominously chant, "Who will live and who will die, who by fire and who by sword..." we can't help but feel the sharp stab of human mortality. Still, even animals fear death. An impala freezes as the dry grass stirs. The sparrow flits wildly as a hawk looms overhead. Human beings are, and must be, so much more.

What lies ahead is a period of profound communion with our Creator. This is true on a national scale. But the paradoxical peril and potential is that this meeting also takes place on an intensely personal level, within the deepest recesses of our souls. We will have to confront the most intimate and unsettling truths about ourselves.

Getting Personal

On Rosh Hashanah, each of us will be scrutinised for judgment in an intensely personal fashion. Portraying God as an all-knowing judge, our Sages evoke the imagery of "כִּבְנֵי מָרוֹן", typically understood as sheep passing single file before a shepherd. The metaphor is profoundly unnerving. Despite inhabiting a vast collective, every individual stands before God alone. At that moment, all externalities are stripped away.

Rosh Hashanah commemorates the Sixth Day of Creation, the fateful juncture when mankind first appeared as Adam. Tragically, humanity's progenitor failed in his duty, ate from the Tree of Knowledge, and was disciplined accordingly by G-d. Now, what of us, the children of Adam? On each Rosh Hashanah, as at the very dawn of time, man is called before his Creator to give account.

To understand why the Din (Judgment) of Rosh Hashanah pertains to the lone individual, we would do well to explore the concept of Binah (Understanding) and its association with Teshuvah (repentance).

Understanding Binah (Pun intended)

Teshuvah is related to Binah as in the verse: "ֹ his heart will understand (וּלְבָבוֹ יָבִין), and he will return and be healed” (Yeshayahu 6:10). Similarly, in our daily Shemoneh Esrei prayer the request for Binah immediately precedes a call for repentance. But how are they related?

A foundational insight into the interplay between Chochmah and Binah, the two main classifications of knowledge, is drawn from the following verse:

“Where will wisdom be found (והחכמה מאין תמצא) and where is the place of understanding (ואיזה מקום בינה)?” (Job 28:12)

Chochmah embodies the most primordial flash of insight, an undifferentiated insight that bursts from the depths of Ayin (nothingness), a dizzyingly transcendent realm of pure Being. Not a void or non-entity, but rather, the ineffable source from which all creation flows. For Chochmah has no autonomous, à la carte existence. Rather, it is a fleeting glimpse of revelation born of God's infinite and undivided existence.

Binah, on the other hand, takes this undifferentiated insight and breaks it down into distinctions. Where Chochma winks at the undifferentiated unity beyond human understanding, Binah toils and chugs away. It patiently teases apart the strands, delineates the boundaries, and draws the fine lines of distinction that allow us to make sense of the world around us. Binah's like a hardworking Robin to Chochma's chaotic Batman. The industrious worker bee who concretises its superior's brooding brilliance.

Robin found that being Batman’s hardworking assistant wasn’t as glamorous as the job description had made it out to be

Binah’s etymological link to the word "בין" or "between" speaks to its relentless drive to parse, compare, and establish the frameworks by which we might locate and apprehend the myriad facets of existence. Yet Binah requires a comparative framework to fulfil its role of differentiation in place. And the concept of place is about to become really important.

Space: The Place of Differentiation

Physical differentiation is impossible without place. Physical space must separate a table from a chair to distinguish them. The table's uniqueness as an object, its 'table-ness' as it were, is defined, at least in part, by its context. This is what distinguishes anything from its surroundings. Without space, perception would blur into a single, undifferentiated whole. It would become an endless, enveloping expanse of indistinct indistinction, where even the most basic building blocks of spatial awareness have melted away into a muddled homogenous glob.

But our need for place extends beyond physical location. Even in the world of ideas and abstract thought, there must be some sort of "conceptual place" in which distinctions can emerge. Just as physical objects need space to be detached from one another, ideas need an intellectual framework or "place" to exist as discrete entities.¹ For example, kindness can be explained by comparison with cruelty and indifference. However, contrasts can only be achieved if the mind segregates each concept into its own zone. Without this idea-based space, all information would be indistinguishable, confused and inchoate. Binah would simply cease to operate.

It turns out that, much like physical things, Binah requires a "place" to function. A fundamental underscored by the verse: “Where is the place of understanding?” (ואיזה מקום בינה). This "place" is not just spatial but also abstract and provides a framework within which distinctions can be made.

Nevertheless, the conceptual space home to Binah is not independent but is ultimately provided by God, Who is described as "מָקוֹם שֶׁל עוֹלָם" — the Place of the world. Just as physical space is necessary for objects to exist as distinct entities, God is the ultimate Makom, the broader space within which all existence unfolds. Only He provides the framework for the differentiation process, whether in the physical or mental realm. While Chochma emerges from the Infinite (from אין), Binah requires a Makom, a space, and that space is equally rooted in the Divine.

The Invisibility of Space and Self

Space, the medium through which we perceive all things, is impossible to comprehend in its entirety. Because space is all-encompassing, we cannot step back and get a look at it. Space is simply no less than the water we swim in. A fish submerged underwater can never get an 'outside look' at its aquatic abode. The Talmud reflects this truth when using the term "סגי נהור" (too much light) to describe a blind person. While ironic, this expression also hints at a nuanced truth about perception. Our ability to see depends not only on light but also on shade, gradient and absence of illumination. As any photographer knows, increasing exposure washes out differentiation—without contrast, all becomes undifferentiated whiteness. We require a relative framework, a point of comparison. When struggling to articulate what space is, we remain blind to our immediate perceptions without a broader context. Limited to our singular perspective, defining reality proves as challenging as sight for the literally blind.

Akin to space, the self has no external frame of reference. Man can never stand apart from himself to objectively evaluate his own essence. There can be no vantage point from which we might gaze dispassionately upon the self, for the self is the very lens through which everything we encounter is coloured. All that we know, all that we feel, all that we think - is inextricably bound to and conditioned by the ebb and flow of our own interiority. And so we find ourselves hopelessly entangled in a Gordian knot of selfhood, unable to parse the strands binding us to our own subjectivity.

‘There can be no vantage point from which we might gaze dispassionately upon the self, for the self is the very lens through which everything we encounter is coloured.’

Parallel dilemmas arise when we begin to contemplate the nature of the self and the essence of space. For in both instances, we are confronted by the inexorable constraints of our subjective vantage points. Comprehensively grasping either phenomenon would necessitate the capacity to see oneself or circumstances from an exterior viewpoint. To cultivate an outlook disengaged from the interiority that inevitably forms our comprehension.

And as if this were not vexing enough, Charles Taylor and other communitarian thinkers have demonstrated that the self is radically enmeshed in and influenced by others' selves. This fatally complicates any attempt to understand it in isolation. Any attempt to peel back the layers of your essential nature is doomed to fall short. For the self is not a solitary island but a shifting, amorphous entity, constantly in dialogue with others. It would be like trying to contain a flutter of butterflies swirling in a hurricane.

We will never grasp our total selves as long as we inhabit the material world. Yet, there is a time every year when we glimpse what such an experience might entail.

The Shofar on Rosh Hashanah: Judgment of the True Self

Judged individually on Rosh Hashanah, you are not defined by your reputation, credentials or social group. Instead, you are characterised by your essence—your core self, choices, and actions. This encounter with God embodies both tremendous intimacy and terrifying responsibility.

One of Rosh Hashanah's focal elements is the blowing of the Shofar. A trumpeting ram's horn cuts through the daily din with haunting, isolated cries. When the Ba'al Tokeiah—the one tasked with blowing the Shofar—performs this act, halacha requires there be no intervening substance, or "chatzitza," between his mouth and the Shofar.

In halachic law, chatzitza refers to an intervening substance that prevents direct contact between the body and a required medium—for example, water used during Mikvah (ritual immersion). Fascinatingly, when it comes to the Mitzvah of Shofar, halacha uniquely considers the presence of air -usually regarded as immaterial- as a chatzitza. Shofar blowing requires an unbroken interface between the blower’s mouth and the horn. So much so that even an air gap can invalidate an otherwise valid connection.

But what is the reason behind this apparent halachic irregularity? Rav Yitzchak Hutner² explained that while air is considered a non-entity in every other scenario, Shofar is viscerally different. When blowing a Shofar, one's entire focus is on the air being breathed into the horn. Thus, it is impossible to remain indifferent to it!

I want to read Rav Hutner's reasoning even deeper. As a Kabbalistic concept, air represents inconsistency, frivolity, and instability. Air is fleeting, yet it appears to be something. A giant inflated balloon may take up tremendous space, yet the slightest puncture shows it to be nothing. We have come to recognise this and will thus use the term hot hair to refer to someone full of bombast yet without substance. Although speech is a quintessentially human faculty, it can frequently serve as a veneer, obscuring our authentic selves. Most daily chatter is a mere regurgitation of our societal context - the words and ideas we absorb from news websites, social media and general conversation. So much of our speech is no more than hot air.

A giant inflated balloon may take up tremendous space, yet the slightest puncture shows it to be nothing. So much of our speech is simply hot air.

Rav Moshe Shapiro explains how the Shofar bypasses the outer layers of speech and expression, which are often shaped by extraneous influences. In contrast to regular speech, the Shofar's wail is primal. It emerges not from the mind but from the bowels of the heart and soul. Its cry is the call of the core self. For once, the breath that escapes our lips is not bluster but the real deal. At that moment, the air we exhale shifts from a non-entity to the most concrete thing possible.

Rosh Hashanah's decisive judgment is not merely a review of our past actions but also a searching appraisal of our innermost being. It is our fundamental identity that stands naked before the Almighty. The Shofar shatters our superficial masks, leaving us face-to-face with God in our most authentic form.

Bringing things together

Jewish thought associates Din (judgment) and Binah (understanding) with fire. Fire reduces all it touches to its bare core, burning away the extraneous and leaving only the essential. Judgment prunes all fraud and falsity, exposing the inner reality of our actions. Understanding is a similarly cleansing flame. It penetrates layers of assumptions, sifting through notions until only the utmost clarity remains.

Binah, differentiating and understanding requires space—a relative framework. But we encounter a formidable obstacle when facing the self: the self, like space, has no external frame of reference. It is all-encompassing, without objective perspective. Understanding our own nature demands an unusual vantage - we must stand outside that which has no outside and view the viewer.

On Rosh Hashanah, in solitude before God, we sense a higher level of Binah. This is the ability to transcend usual frameworks and better discern our inner self. For in that moment outside time, unencumbered by worldly concerns, we begin to see with new eyes – to view ourselves as God surely does, devoid of masks or influences, in our raw state. This is the gift of the High Holy Days—a chance to reflect clearly, unclouded by the outside. Through Teshuvah, we can align our lives with Din. And with this renewed understanding, we can face ourselves as we actually are. Hopefully, we can then adjust to God's desires. With His help, we should all merit a new year of growth and life.

Keep Pondering, and Have A Meaningful Rosh Hashana!

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1. I got this idea from the Maharal in Gevuras Hashem. He cites a Midrash, which tells of a single donkey created during twilight on the sixth day of creation. This donkey was used by Avraham during the Binding of Yitzchak, by Moshe when returning to Egypt, and will be used by the Moshiach. Maharal explains that this is not physically the same donkey but multiple donkeys who fulfil identical roles. In the conceptual sense then they are considered the same donkey.

2. I heard this said over by my good friend Solly Levy