By Marco Del Monte
“G-D OR OF GOD”
Parashat Chayei Sarah brings us before one of the most delicate and profound scenes in the Torah: Eliezer, Abraham's faithful servant, asks Hashem for a precise sign to recognise the woman destined for Isaac. And it happens immediately: “And it came to pass, before he had finished speaking...”.
Rivka arrives at the well, performing the exact sign requested: she is from the right family, with perfect kindness. Yet, the Torah says that Eliezer remained silent, hesitant: “The man, meanwhile, gazed at her, wondering in silence whether Hashem had made his mission successful or not.” A luminous miracle and still he doubts. Why? Because between what the eye sees and what the heart accepts there is the vulnerable space of the human.
Rabbi Nachman teaches in the Likutey Moharan that we must “bind ourselves to the wisdom that is hidden in everything.” The world is a great living Midrash, every encounter a message, every face a secret master. Hashem is called “Alufò shel Olam”, the Hidden-Master of the world, He who speaks through what seems like chance. Yet we, like Eliezer, ask for confirmations even when the evidence is before our eyes. In reality, the mystery of apparent disbelief is addressed by the Midrash, which reveals the hidden knot: Eliezer wanted Yitzchak to marry his daughter. A human desire, understandable, but still a personal interest. And this is where his hesitation is understood. It is not a doubt about the goodness of Hashem, it is a doubt created by the ego. When personal interest sneaks into spirituality, even the miracle becomes ambiguous. Prayer can become a way to seek confirmations, not truth. It is the subtlest trap: using the language of faith as a manipulative act to support what suits us. Opposed to all this is the figure of Moshe Rabbenu, who at the darkest moment of Israel's spiritual history says: “Blot me out of Your book, but save the people.” Moshe does not want a role, he does not want a title, he does not want to leave a name; he wants only the good of others. His infinite greatness is the total absence of personal interest. Moshe's act is the cure for spiritual pollution: the ability to make space for the other (Klal Yisrael) to make space for G-d. For Moshe, the good of the people is his good.
And even further back is Adam HaRishon. The Masters teach us that all souls were contained within him: the “I” and the “We” were one single thing. There was no competition or separation but only integration and collaboration like the balanced organs of the same apparatus. Sin introduced the fracture, the ego, the I that obscures the gaze. Since then, seeing clearly the will of Hashem is difficult, not because God is distant, but because we are divided within. For this reason, the essence of the tree of Knowledge-Daat was internalized. “Knowledge”, in the Torah also means “union”, as when it is said: “And Adam knew Eve”. Daat is integration, uniting the inside and the outside, the self and the other. Eating from the tree meant acquiring the ability to integrate within oneself the potential that should be experienced in society: a most powerful force, which can lead to union with one's neighbour and with Hashem... or to union and integration with one's own “Ego” (see Assagioli's psychosynthesis).
The message is clear: we live in a world full of the Divine Presence, full of signs and messages, but a fragment of personal interest is enough to distort everything. It is not always easy to distinguish whether what we feel comes from D-o… or from D’io (the Italian word for 'God' spelled with an apostrophe to resemble 'I'), from our ego disguised as inspiration. It is no coincidence that in Hebrew, the same letters that formאֵין (Ein, the Infinite, the Ein Sof, Hashem) can be manipulated and inverted, forming אֲנִי(Ani, “I”). It is our eternal choice: to live in the nullification and light of the Ein Sof, or in the prison of the Ani. In this regard, the models of the Torah characters offer us educational visions: Eliezer shows us how the spiritual ego clouds vision; Moshe shows us how humility purifies it; Adam reminds us that we were a single soul, that the other's good is our good; Rabbi Nachman teaches us to bind ourselves to the Chochmah that Hashem has hidden in everything.
May each of us have clear eyes to see everyday miracles, an honest heart to recognise when the ego enters the scene, and the strength to follow the path of Moshe: making space for the other to make space for God. May the Alufò shel Olam continue to speak to us through our days and the faces we encounter. May we learn to recognise Him in the magnificent miracles of the everyday; in the extra-ordinary of the ordinary.
Shabbat Shalom.
Translated from the Italian with Google Gemini. The Italian text is the original.