21 Feb TERUMAH: THE ID, THE YID, AND THE SUPER-EGO

THE THREE
LAYERS OF
SELF
The Jew and the
General
A Jew ends up
sleeping in the same cabin as a Russian
General of the Czar’s army. He tells the
conductor to wake him up at 4:00 a.m.
so he can get off at his stop. He is
awakened at the proper time, yet due to
the darkness he mistakenly puts on the
cloth of the general instead of his own.
When he arrives home, his wife asks
him if everything is all right with him.
When he takes a look in the mirror and
sees that he is wearing the general’s
uniform, he tells his wife, “It seems like
the conductor woke up the general
instead of me.”
Three Arks
The holiest article in the Tabernacle
that the Jewish people constructed in
the desert was the Ark, which housed
the Tablets of the Ten Commandments.
In this week’s portion (Terumah), the
Torah commands the Ark to be made of
acacia wood and to be covered within
and without with gold.
To fulfill this stipulation the Jews made
three boxes, tucked into each other. The
larger visible box was made of pure
gold. Inside it, they placed a box of
acacia wood. Then a second golden box
was made and it was put inside the
wooden one. Thus, the middle wooden
box was covered with gold inside and
out.
But why did they need to build three
arks in order to fulfill this condition?
Why could they not build one ark of
wood and plate it inside and out with
gold?
Three Layers of the Soul
Gold is an inanimate metal, while
wood belongs to the botanic world of
growth and development. Yet wood has
nothing of the brilliant glitter and
splendor of gold. And while wood may
be developed into a magnificent
structure, it can also — unlike gold —
deteriorate and rot.
The spiritual masters teach that the
psychological structure of every human

being consists of three strata, one
“beneath” the other: The deepest, often
invisible, stratum is the quintessential
soul that may be unknown even to a
person himself or herself (even if its
impact is present in some form). Then
there is the conscious personality —
including all of our instinctive thoughts,
feelings, moods, instincts, and desires.
Finally, there is the layer of behavior —
the active thoughts, words, and deeds
we express and carry out during our
daily lives and interactions.
The three arks that the Jewish people
constructed three millennia ago in the
Sinai desert represented these three
dimensions of the human structure. The
most inner ark, made of pure gold and
tucked inside the other two arks,
reflected the most inner dimension of
the soul, which can be defined as “pure
gold.” This is the Divine, spiritual
essence of our identity, displaying a
brilliant luster of sacredness, integrity,
and love. At the core, you are a
“derivative” of infinite oneness, a
manifestation of G-d’s light in this
world.
Just as gold coming from the inorganic
world is not subject to real change, so
too the golden essence of the human
soul cannot be altered, tarnished,
tainted, or compromised. No matter
how much we were abused or we abused
ourselves — the core of our consciousness
remains a piece of gold. Just as G-d is
indestructible, so are you. In that Divine
space, you remain fully intact, full of
confidence, fortitude, joy, possibility,
love, compassion, and courage.
The middle ark made of wood reflected
the more visible conscious personality
of the human soul. Just like wood, our
feelings and attitudes go through many
changes during our lives. We may
develop and refine our “wooden”
character so that it becomes exquisite
and beautiful, or our personality may
experience decomposition.
Our “wooden” self may vacillate
between extremes. At times we may feel
idealistic, virtuous, and spiritual, but at
other times we find ourselves consumed
by bleak emotions, negative cravings,
and dark ambitions. We feel rotten and
decayed inside.
Finally, the third and outer ark,
conspicuous for all to see, was made of
pure gold. This reflected the Torah’s

blueprint for the most external
stratum of the human structure
— a person’s behavior.
Though we may feel our
personalities to be torn inside,
and at times even saturated with
gloom and pain, we need not
grant them permission to dictate
our behavior. We need to
remember always that even
while our conscious moods may
gravitate toward decadence, our essence
remains pure gold.
This is Judaism’s fundamental code of
human behavior. Even while you feel
selfish, unholy, and obnoxious inside,
your behavior — what you do, how you
talk, and how you consciously think —
can reflect the beauty and splendor of
your innate G-dliness and infinite
holiness. You can feel your “wood” in
all of its nuanced manifestations and
then choose the golden path.
The Gift of the Tanya
This was one of the primary
contributions of Rabbi Schneur Zalman
of Liadi, known as the Alter Rebbe
(1745-1812), in his classical Chassidic
work, the Tanya (published 1796 in
Russia). Generally speaking, the
writings of ethical Judaism before the
Tanya differentiated between the
Tzaddik (the righteous person) whose
heart and deeds were perfectly pure and
holy vs. the Rasha (the sinful individual)
whose heart and deeds were blemished
and wicked. Many people, of course,
were situated somewhere in the middle
of the two extremes, always feeling
unfulfilled because they fell short of
reaching the state of the ideal human
being — the spiritually perfected
Tzaddik.
In the Tanya, Rabbi Schneur Zalman
placed as his ideal human being a new
spiritual model whom he called “the
Benoni,” or “the possible man.” The
Benoni is a person whose inner character
often resembles that of the Rasha,
consisting of the good/evil dichotomy
that is the original natural state of every
human. But the Benoni’s behavior can
be as mindful as the Tzaddik’s.
Rabbi Schneur Zalman taught that
there is no need, nor is it even a
possibility for most people, to have all
of their three “arks” turned into pure

gold. It is not tragic if our middle “ark”
remains dichotomized. Having bad
feelings, insane feelings does not make
me a bad person. It just makes me a
nuanced person, who has a lot “going
on” inside. My innermost ark is forever
gold, and my behavior, my active
thoughts, words, and deeds, can reflect
my innate and primal Divine love and
goodness. G-d did not desire holy
people doing holy things; He desired
unholy people doing holy things.
In beautiful prose, the Alter Rebbe
teaches us that in our service of G-d
there is no need to “amputate” any part
of our emotional selves, to repress any
part of our internal experience, in order
to be a good Jew. We can embrace every
part of our identity, realizing that each
one of our “arks” plays an indispensable
role in our emotional and spiritual
growth, and that even our most
challenging and painful emotions and
wounds are there to help us grow, attain
self-awareness, and reach our spiritual
destiny. The light of G-d can be found
everywhere, even in our dark moments
and gloomy experiences.
(The Tanya makes an important
distinction between instinctive thoughts
vs. conscious thoughts. While
instinctive thoughts are beyond the
control of a person, they are a mirror of
my unconscious fears or primal needs,
conscious thoughts remain under my
“jurisdiction.” While our instinctive
thoughts may be painful, addictive,
immoral, reflecting the good\evil
dichotomy inherent in human nature,
our conscious thoughts may always be
fashioned of gold. It is the gift of
freedom we each have to help our neural
pathways construct new “highways.”)
Do not make the error of the Jew
sleeping on the train. Do not confuse
who you are with what you are wearing.
It is a sad error to allow yourself to be
defined by your external rotten mood in
lieu of your inner golden self. Nothing
and nobody can ever damage your gold.