The Land I Will Show You, sec. 7, chapter 9
Heaven on Earth
(For the previous chapter of “The Land I Will Show You,” click here. For the ToC, click here.)
9: Heaven on Earth
The struggle with Satan is a struggle over earth’s character – whether it will be heavenly or not. Satan is particularly associated with the earth; it is his place where he roams, as it is written: “And Hashem said to Satan, ‘From where do you come?’ Then Satan answered Hashem, and said, ‘From roaming the earth and walking about in it’” (Job 1:7). Maimonides wrote: “Then it mentions that this Satan roamed and went all over the earth. Thus there is no relationship whatever between him and the upper world, in which there is no road for him. That is the meaning of its saying: ‘From roaming the earth and walking about in it.’ Thus his going to and fro and his roaming take place on the earth.”1 The earth differs from the heavens, the place of Hashem, in that it is the place of Satan.
Corresponding to this, the heavens are emphasized in the story of the Akedah. Twice an angel of Hashem called to Abraham from the heavens, as it is written: “And an angel of Hashem called to him from the heavens” (Genesis 22:11); "And an angel of Hashem called… a second time from the heavens” (ibid 15), the second time with a blessing that Abraham’s seed would be as numerous as the stars of heaven. The Akedah effects that the earth becomes elevated and connected to the heavens, a notion expressed also in this Midrash:
At that time, Abraham said before the Holy, Blessed be He: “Master of the Universe! A man tests his fellow, for he does not know what is in his heart, but You, who know what the hearts and kidneys advise, do You need to do so to me?” ... Immediately, the Holy, Blessed be He, opened the heavens and the fog: “And He said, ‘By myself have I sworn, declares Hashem’” (ibid 16).2
The heavens opened, and man stood before God, with no need for him to be tested by Satan.
Let’s understand this. The heavens are Hashem’s, and the earth is Satan’s place, but there is a possibility that the earth, too, can become heavenly. What does it mean that Hashem is in the heavens and that Satan is on the earth? The heavens behave in accordance with His will, in perfection. In them, the divine kindness, justice and righteousness are expressed without any disruption. Everything is unified and good there; everything that happens accurately reflects the will of the good Creator, and this is the meaning that Hashem is in the heavens – there, His attributes are fully revealed. Not so the earth: Since Hashem gave the earth to humans, who have their own opinions, there is a possibility of distortion of the divine ideals. The divine opinion undergoes filtration through the human intellect, and only then is it implemented on earth by human beings.
When humans do not fully understand the divine opinion, they create other forces, satanic, evil, other gods, the works of human hands and his schemes. When human values do not align with divine values, and people conduct themselves on earth in a flawed and defective manner, they create a place for the indwelling of Satan that nests in the crooked human heart. Satan is the force of division, each and every opinion with its private interests. This is what it means that Satan is on earth: On earth, it is possible for the divine attributes to remain partially hidden.
However, if humans on earth conduct themselves in a way that mirrors divine behavior, by studying His goodness and emulating Him, then the earth will reflect the heavens. Satan is expelled, and the Shechinah dwells within it. The earth, too, becomes divine, properly reflecting God’s ways of kindness, justice and righteousness that always appear in their purity in the heavens, the place protected from other opinions and the human perspective.
The redemption of the land from the hands of Satan is its sanctification, it is the mitzvah of "Lech Lecha" that the Akedah came to complete. Sanctifying the land is giving divine form to the domain of man. In that way we cause God, as it were, to be at home on earth, as His attributes are properly reflected in human actions on earth.
Man’s victory over Satan will bring about that there is no need for trials, there is no evil inclination, and there is no death – the three roles of Satan.3 The matter is profound, and we will have to be content with just the key points.
How would there be no trials? If we organize the earth according to the divine plan, His will would be clear and known, with human thought the same as His, and there would be no need for a physical demonstration to function as a lighthouse in the dark, a tangible image that can be emulated even without seeing the complete truth. How would there be no evil inclination? When we manage the earth in the model of the heavens, according to His good attributes, there is no evil but good, like all that was made in the six days of creation, and humans would dwell without sin. How would there be no death? When seeing things from the perspective of the individual human, the narrow, satanic perspective, the end of the human body’s existence seems to be and is defined as death, but if we adopt the divine perspective to see things as He sees them and apply this model to the earth, then we would see absolute, unified eternity and understand that the many individual bodies that come and go do not determine the lasting reality, and their absence does not determine the absence of reality. A person who transcends the narrow human perspective will see the expanded reality as it truly is, with a divine eye that sees only good and life.4
All these are profound matters that there is no need to explain in full, just as there is no need to explain how the Akedah was supposed to complete the victory against Satan and what went wrong with Sarah’s death; the main thing, for our purposes, is to understand what is the sought-after sanctity of the land and how to rectify the sin of the spies and achieve that sanctity today.
The mitzvah of “Lech Lecha” is to redeem the land, all through achieving “I will show you.” If we would see with a divine eye instead of a human eye, Satan will be expelled from the land, the land will become heavenly and sanctified, and the Shechinah will dwell in it. There will be a holy society, a holy economy, a holy government, that is – one resembling God and shaped according to His goodness. That is holiness.
To achieve this requires a whole nation always seeking His ways of goodness and striving to build a society and state based on them. For this purpose was chosen the nation that would dwell in Zion, to create a place where the Shechinah can dwell, where holiness can be made manifest.
In summary: If we believe that God is good and His work is good, there is no more sacred obligation than to understand His work and emulate Him, to extend His goodness also into the domain of man on earth. Questions of theology (or: metaphysics) are the most important in the world and also the most practical. They are of utmost importance in day-to-day life because we will not know the pure good if we do not seek to understand His goodness, and to the extent that we know His ways of goodness, we will know how to walk in His ways, to plant heavens and to establish the foundations of the earth and to say to Zion, “You are My people.”
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As explained in the previous chapter.
The connection between the Akedah and death will be further explained in chapter 12.