Bishalach – La Différence

Our ancestors’ wondering “Is Hashem in our midst or not?” is followed immediately in the Torah by Amalek’s attack (Shemos 17: 7-8). The word expressing Klal Yisrael’s existential doubt – “or not?” – is ayin, which can also be translated “isn’t,” “not there,” or “nothing.”

It’s a word that we find in a seemingly different context in Koheles (3:19), where Shlomo Hamelech says that u’mosar ha’adam min habeheima ayin – “and the superiority of man over animal is nothing.”

Which, as it happens, well encapsulates Amalek’s philosophy. Famously, its name in gematria equals safek, doubt, which reflects Amalek’s conviction that human life is meaningless, just the yield of random evolution, that there is in fact no essential difference between people and animals; and, thus, that there is no ultimate meaning to human life.

That sentiment, of course, isn’t Shlomo’s true conviction; he concludes Koheles with the statement that “kol ha’adam” – the essence of man” – is reverence for Hashem and fulfillment of His directives. The “no difference” pasuk is an unwarranted cry of exasperation, not a description of final fact.

I remember seeing a worthy thought about what that word ayin in the Koheles pasuk might hint at, rendering it not an uninformed cry but, rather, a statement of deep truth.

The first time the word ayin is used in the Torah is in the sentence: vi’adam ayin la’avod es ha’adama – “and man was not yet there to work the land” (Beraishis 2:5).

As Rashi explains, for the first vegetation to emerge, there needed to be rain, and rain would only arrive when there was a consciousness that could appreciate it as a divine gift. The “working” of the land, the avodah alluded to, was thus avodas haleiv, the “work of the heart” – a recognition and declaration of gratitude.

And so, the “difference between man and animal” may in fact be precisely “ayin” – namely, what the word hints at in Beraishis: awareness of Hashem and gratitude for His benevolence, which only conscious human beings can feel and express.

© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran

My most recent Ami column, “An Ugly Law of Human Nature,” can be read here.