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The Jewish Home | AUGUST 4, 2022
Self-Mastery Academy
Individuality and Community Are these Fundamental Contradictions? By Rabbi Shmuel Reichman
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ountless Torah themes and halachos are centered around the value of the community (tzibbur/ klal) and how one must dedicate themselves to the greater good of the Jewish People. If everyone is unique and individually important, how can we understand the concept of unity and the need to work toward becoming part of something bigger than ourselves? Must we sacrifice our uniqueness and individuality for the sake of the “klal,” for the greater good of the community? What is the deeper Jewish approach to this struggle and conflict between individuality and community, between uniqueness and being part of a unified group? In our last article, we began opening up this topic by explaining R’ Dessler’s three levels of order. In this piece, we will delve deeper into this topic in order to build a paradigm through which we can answer these questions on an even deeper level.
Beauty and Music When you look at a beautiful sunset on the beach, where exactly is the location of beauty? Is it the sunset? The reflection on the water? The contrast of the beach against the sunset? It’s none of them and all of them. Beauty is when separate, seemingly contradictory components somehow melt into a oneness, whereby they each bring out something transcendent from within all the other components. This is the deep truth behind physical and spiritual beauty. The same principle applies to music. Anyone who plays an instrument knows that music is nothing other than a bunch of individual notes being played one at a time. Each note by itself is not music; it’s just a sound. Music is when the notes are played in the correct sequence, at the perfect tempo, at the right pace; when the musician is able to string the notes together into a melodious oneness so that the listener no longer hears the notes, only the music.
That is music. The same is true of a symphony. When you watch a symphony, there are so many different musical instruments, so many different musicians, each one playing their own unique notes. The beauty of a symphony is when the hundreds of different musicians come together in such a way that all you hear is the symphony – not the violin, not the cello, but the symphony as a whole, as one.
Each Part Is Fundamental In our last article, we discussed the highest form of order. In this level of order, pieces come together in such a way that they create something greater than the sum of their parts. It’s where the parts come together into a oneness in a way that creates something that transcends the parts themselves. An identifying characteristic of this form of order is that when a single piece from the structure is missing, the entire
structure is affected. This is because each piece is intrinsic and fundamental. If a single screw in the radio is missing, the entire radio won’t work; if a single note in the song is missing, the entire melody is affected. However, if any number of books are missing from the library, the rest of the library will be unaffected. This idea is most potently clear in its application to human genes and DNA. If a single chromosome is missing from an embryo, the child will unfortunately grow up with extremely severe defects. All of this from one missing chromosome. This is the deep explanation behind a cryptic halacha regarding Sifrei Torah and mezuzos. If a single letter is missing from either, the Sefer Torah or mezuzah is rendered pasul (invalid). Many are confused by this; how can a single letter ruin an entire Sefer Torah or mezuzah? However, based on our discussion about the third level of order, the answer becomes clear. As the Ramban explains, in the introduction
