Chapter XV · 2 min read
Why Chanoch Had to Leave
A world that could not yet hold him
Chanoch's transformation can be misunderstood if it becomes a universal ideal of religious escape.
The logic would be simple:
Physical existence is low.
Angelic existence is high.
Chanoch becomes an angel.
Therefore the goal of holiness is to leave matter behind.
But חֲסִידוּתChassidusThe Chassidic teaching, and in particular the Chabad discipline of bringing the highest concepts into a form that transforms the person contemplating them.Glossary gives a different final purpose.
נתאוה הקדוש ברוך הוא להיות לו יתברך דירה בתחתונים.
Original text
HaKadosh Baruch Hu desired a dwelling in the lower realms.
A dwelling.
Not an evacuation route.
The highest purpose is not fulfilled by making earth sufficiently ashamed of itself that it becomes heaven.
It is fulfilled when the lower place becomes capable of housing Divine presence while remaining the lower place.
This is what Chanoch could not yet accomplish in the same historical mode.
He lived before מַתַּן תּוֹרָהMatan TorahThe giving of the Torah at Sinai, after which holiness enters matter through mitzvos rather than requiring the holy person to be taken up out of it.Glossary.
Before the cosmic joining of above and below enacted through Torah and mitzvos.
Before the command could enter a physical object and make that physical object itself holy in the post-Sinai manner.
So Chanoch's extraordinary holiness resolves upward.
He is taken.
The later Jew receives a different possibility.
The cowhide need not become fire.
It becomes tefillin.
The parchment need not leave matter.
It becomes a mezuzah.
Wine does not cease being wine.
It becomes קִידּוּשׁKiddushThe sanctification spoken over wine on Shabbos — the essay's chosen image of Divine will entering grapes, glass, a hand and a table.Glossary.
Bread does not flee breadness.
It becomes challah on a Shabbos table.
A coin remains metal and becomes tzedakah.
The human hand remains physical and wraps tefillin.
This is greater than escape in the particular dimension of the Divine purpose for creation.
Not because Chanoch's ascent was deficient.
Because the historical architecture had not yet completed the descent.
His solution was true for his station.
Sinai opens another station.
Chanoch became what his world could not yet contain.
The final purpose is a world that can contain it.