Our downstairs neighbors have a pet cat that seems to be engaged in a mostly futile attempt to bring home the neighborhood pigeons for dinner. The pigeons fly higher and the cat is left perched on our porch, or sometimes even on the porch above us, trying to figure out how to get back down. That is usually when a small rescue mission begins.
After this happened a number of times, I started to wonder why we talk so much about climbing, but so little about coming back down? We praise ascent and romanticize growth, yet the real challenge may not be the climb itself. The real problem may be getting stuck, like that cat, scrambling upward with intensity and then realizing there is no graceful way back down.
David HaMelech writes in Tehillim1, מי־יעלה בהר ה׳ ומי יקום במקום קדשו, “Who will ascend the mountain of Hashem, and who will stand in His holy place?” The Shem MiShmuel2, citing the Maggid of Kozhnitz, explains that while ascending the mountain of Hashem may seem like the achievement, the deeper achievement is “who will stand,” meaning, who can remain there without falling.
He explains that every person lives in a pattern of ratzo v’shov, running and returning. Sometimes the mind is clear and illuminated, and sometimes it is the opposite. In Kabbalistic terms, we move between mochin d’gadlus and mochin d’katnus, expansive and constricted states of consciousness.
Moshe Rabbeinu was the rare exception, always in a state of mochin d’gadlus. He was always prepared for nevuah. The rest of us are built differently.
At first glance, that sounds discouraging. Are we excluded from “who will stand in His holy place?” The Shem MiShmuel flips the question.
Moshe Rabbeinu lived in a constant state of clarity, while most of us do not, and we are not meant to. Even the nevi’im (aside from Moshe Rabbeinu) had times of mochin d’katnus, which is a kind of “fall,” and that pattern is part of how the world works, for our benefit. As Shlomo HaMelech wrote, כי שבע יפול צדיק וקם, “Seven times a righteous person falls and gets up”3. When a person is high, he can feel far from the coarse details of life. The descent is part of the mission, not a bug in the system.
Rav Kook writes4 that this is indeed the natural state of the tzaddik: when his light dims and his faith in himself weakens, he can feel spiritually exhausted and assume that he is no different from everyone else. That feeling itself is part of the test. The tzaddik must remember that the very shape of his soul is different, built for constant yearning for holiness and deveikus, and that other souls draw nourishment from his larger neshamah. Even if he falls “seven times,” the fall does not erase who he is. The challenge is to hold on to faith in the essential holiness of his soul and to say with a full heart: Hashem has set aside the chasid for Himself; Hashem will hear when I call.5
Rav Joey Rosenfeld explains6 that mochin d’katnus is not the absence of consciousness and not the loss of the soul. It is the soul revealing itself through constriction. The light is always present. When it feels absent, it is only because it is concealed.
He adds that if I believe katnus means distance from Hashem, then escaping it requires going far beyond myself to find Him, and hope often slips away. However, if I know that katnus is still Hashem, then leaving myself is unnecessary. Remembering is enough. I never lost Hashem. I only forgot His presence.
The human being was created to elevate sparks of holiness from every layer of reality, including the lower layers. The “down” brings you close enough to gather what you could not reach from above, and when you rise again to the higher levels of mochin d’gadlus, you carry those sparks with you. In that sense, the descent is necessary for the ascent.
The question becomes: what helps a person remember, and how do we transition from constriction (katnus) to expansiveness (gadlus) without forcing it?
One of the most accessible pathways is shirah. Song can bypass the narrow passage of ordinary speech (katnus).7 It reaches the heart and the mind without detouring through argument or analysis. It opens more than it persuades. It creates space where space had previously been closed. In that sense, it is the song of the birds.
Rav Pinchas of Koretz writes8 that birds are called ba’alei shirah, the possessors of song, in a way other creatures are not. Shirah is what emerges when something lifts itself from the ground toward the sky.
The Sfas Emes9 explains that we were given the ability to rise above nature toward Hashem, and that this strength comes from the mitzvah of tzitzis. He explains that the Torah’s word for corner is kanaf, the same word used for a wing.
With that in mind, it makes sense that the cat is chasing birds.
Birds are fascinating because they live in the middle. They can rise, and they can also settle, belonging to the sky and the ground at once. Birds become a symbol of ratzo v’shov, a life that moves upward without losing the ability to return.
Rav Nosson of Breslov writes10 that birds occupy an intermediate category between fish and animals. Fish were created from water and animals from dust, while birds were created from mud, a mixture of water and dust, and that in-between quality mirrors their spiritual role in the world.
Rav Nosson goes further and connects that “in-between” quality to inner life. Birds stand between the category of human beings, associated with da’as (conscious knowledge), and the category of animals, associated with pure instinct, which is why he links the “spirit” in a bird’s wings to the “spirit of speech.” The point is not biology. The point is that wings represent a kind of inner lift that stays connected to the ground, and that is exactly what a person is seeking when he moves through katnus and looks for a way back into da’as.
This idea puts into words a familiar tension. We want to rise, transcend, and live in the realm of meaning, vision, inspiration, and da’as. But we also need to live. Everyday life still requires a home, work, and the routines and responsibilities that fill a day. If we only climb, we can end up trapped on a ledge, proud of our height but resentful of our life.
Rav Nosson11 connects this question of ascent and landing to something surprisingly practical. He understands the pasuk mentioned above, מי יעלה בהר ה׳ ומי יקום במקום קדשו, as a question about da’as itself: who can enter that clarity, and who can remain there. He then points to the answer the next pasuk gives: נקי כפים ובר לבב, anyone who has clean hands and a pure heart, because through a pure heart come clean hands. In other words, true da’as is not only a state of intentional thought. It moves downward into the body, into action, into what you touch and what you build. Holiness is not only ascent. Standing in it means letting it shape your hands and your everyday life.
To understand this concept further, consider the difference between a ladder and a trampoline. A ladder is linear, taking you up or down. A trampoline works differently: it takes what is down, converts it into energy, and sends you upward, only so you can return again.It creates a rhythm that can look like escapism at first glance, even when it is actually the opposite.
In life, we do need to climb, grow spiritually, and also, we need to come back down to earth. We need to bring the spiritual into the physical and then lift the physical back toward the spiritual. We need to become something like a trampoline. Or, to use Rav Nosson’s imagery, we need to become like a bird.
This week we read Parashas Shekalim, which adds a communal and practical frame to this entire discussion. Chazal12 describe it as something that “lifts the head” of Bnei Yisrael each year. That lifting means that by counting each person, we grant dignity. Each Jew is being told: you matter and you will not get lost in the crowd. Rav Tzadok13 explains further that each soul has its own inner point and its own irreplaceable letter in the Torah of Klal Yisrael.
However, a spiritual lifting can also awaken judgment. That is why the parashah pairs the elevation of being counted with the giving of the half-shekel, which serves as a kofer nefesh, a kind of protective ransom. Hashem shows Moshe a “coin of fire” to teach that even something as physical as money has a spiritual root, and that when it is used properly it can protect what is uplifted from collapsing into a fall. Parashas Shekalim teaches how to ascend without breaking, because it teaches how to return and rise again.
The Torah is sometimes described as wings. When we do mitzvos, they become our wings, carrying us higher without disconnecting us from the world we actually live in.
Rav Nosson writes14 that the words of a tzaddik are like holy wings, with which a person can glide and soar within the “waters of da’as.” The image is clear. A person can feel stuck in katnus, weighed down and unable to rise, and then a word of truth, spoken at the right time, allows him to rise up. Wings make movement possible inside the world.
That is where the difference between song and speech becomes practical. Song lifts up the heart above the tightness of the moment and reminds a person that he is larger than what he is currently feeling. Speech grounds that uplifting feeling into something that can be held. It names what is happening. It gives shape to the experience, so the person can return to his life with actionable clarity rather than crashing back down.
Shirah can bring you up, while speech can help you land, and together they create a rhythm a person can live with, rising without escape and returning without collapse.
Before the advent of airplanes, the Leshem wrote that it would be extraordinary if human beings could fly like birds, because the closer the neshamah comes to its Source in the heavens, the more it can understand15. He is describing more than a physical ability. He is describing a shift in awareness where height changes what you can see, and spiritual “height” changes what you can understand.
Rav Kook sharpens this idea16. He does not only describe a higher altitude. He describes a higher way of seeing. He invites a person to look at the world and train his eye to notice the light of the Shechinah throughout the universe. He explains that this light flows through every corner of existence, through the spiritual and the material alike, through what the eyes see and what the inner eye can learn to see. A person should treat this as reality, not as a distant theory or a dim “plan” projected from far away. That is why Rav Kook speaks in the language of knowing. Know the reality you are living in, yourself and your world, and learn to find the source of life within, above, and around you.
He then adds a warning that feels painfully modern. Names, slogans, and letters can swallow a person’s soul. Words are precious, and they are necessary, yet they are meant to be held in your hands, not to hold you. When the mind becomes cramped, the light grows faint. When the heart expands, love returns to its root, with strength and gentleness, and the Infinite becomes newly present inside what a person can grasp.
That is the introduction to his oft-quoted call:
בן אדם,
עלה למעלה, עלה.
עלה למעלה, עלה, בן אדם.
עלה, למעלה עלה.
כי כח עז לך,
יש לך כנפי רוח,
כנפי נשרים אבירים.
אל תכחש בם,
פן יכחשו לך.
דרש אותם – דרוש, בן אדם,
וימצאו לך מיד.Keep going up, because you have strength. You have wings of spirit, wings like mighty eagles. Do not deny them, or they will deny you. Seek them, and they will be found.
There is a song that tells a simple parable about a dove who is given wings from beneath Hashem’s throne. At first, the wings feel heavy, almost like they are too much to carry, and the dove experiences them as a burden instead of a gift. The turning point comes when the dove understands that wings only feel heavy when they are treated like weight. When wings are used for what they were made for, they lift you. As the song puts it: “The little dove- that’s you and me, and the Torah- that’s our wings...” 17
That is exactly what Rav Kook is saying. Rise. Seek your wings. Rise in a way that still leaves you able to land, because even the bird needs a place to land.
In the zemiros of Shabbos we speak about the yonah that found manoach, rest. Many understand this as the dove that Noach sent from the teivah, which finally found a place to settle. Some even connect that “rest” to Shabbos, though the timing is not explicit in the Torah.18
Others understand this differently and connect it to Yonah HaNavi, who found a strange kind of stillness in the belly of the fish, or who finally found rest after being cast out of the fish (on Shabbos) and returning to his mission.
Rav Moshe Dovid Vali offers another layer. He explains that “yonah” refers to the Shechinah19, and that throughout the week of galus, the Shechinah does not have rest20. The Vilna Gaon, in his commentary to Sefer Yonah, writes that “yonah” is a name for the neshamah, and that the neshamah yeseirah of Shabbos allows a person to rest. Yonah matzah bo manoach.
There are times to rise like a bird, and there are also times to land. There are times to settle and be fully present on earth. We must remain aware that when we turn spirituality into perpetual flight, the very vessel that can hold it begins to weaken, and we ultimately lose our grasp of it.
Now what does all this have to do with Parashas Mishpatim? The answer lies in the juxtaposition between the spiritual high of Parashas Yisro and Kabbalas HaTorah, and the down-to-earth, day-to-day halachos of Mishpatim.
Rav Kook explains that the experience at Har Sinai does not end with lofty revelation. It flows directly into the “ordinary” world of civil law. The mishpatim are not merely social order, like general human justice. For Bnei Yisrael, they are mitzvos meant to draw human consciousness upward from da’ato shel adam toward da’as elyon. That is why they must be “set before them” specifically as Torah, and not simply as a functioning legal system. Only within that framework does a legal system become a vehicle of kedushah. Then even damages, loans, business ethics, and property disputes become part of the same revelation that thundered at Sinai, moving toward an ideal future in which the means and the goal merge, and “the taste of the tree becomes like the fruit.”
Rav Kook adds a principle that brings this full circle. He distinguishes between matan Torah and kabbalas haTorah, between the giving of Torah from da’as elyon and the receiving of Torah through da’ato shel adam. Torah enters the world through that human side, through interpretation and articulation, and it becomes real “according to these words,” ״כי על פי הדברים האלה כרת ה׳ אתך ברית״ 2122
That is precisely what Mishpatim is. After the lightning of Parashas Yisro, comes the work of translation. Torah of Sinai descends into everyday halachah, retaining the Har Sinai experience.23
The highest da’as elyon remains present, even as Torah is received through da’ato shel adam and applied in the most practical details of daily life.24
This is the transition from the blazing heights of Kabbalas HaTorah to the daily responsibilities of lived halachah. The Torah is teaching us what it means to live as a Jew, and the secret to our survival is the integration of Torah values with kedushah into everyday life.
Spiritual growth has to survive contact with real life. It has to move from inspiration into action and from the heights into the place where mitzvos actually happen.
The cat will climb, the pigeons will fly, and we will keep doing the harder work: rising when we can, returning when we must, and bringing what we gained above into the obligations waiting below.
Real wings do not help you escape. They help you return with something real, because the point is what happens after you land.25
24:3–4
Vayikra 9:4
Mishlei 24:16
Shmona Kevatzim 1:705
Tehillim 4
In a shiur entitled “Who Told You That Mochin D’Katnus Exist” based on the Toras Chacham
See previous post on this topic:
Imrei Pinchas, Beshalach
Sukkos 1884
Hilchos Basar Shenisalem min HaAyin 2:8
Likutei Halachos, Hilchos Netilas Yadayim 1:1
Tanchuma, Ki Tisa
Pri Tzaddik, Shekalim 1
Likutei Halachos, Hilchos Dagim 4:2
Drushei Olam HaTohu, Chelek 2, Drush 3, Anaf 8
Orot HaKodesh 1:64
Yehuda!, Higher & Higher, composed by Zale Newman - https://www.jyrics.com/lyrics/higher-higher
Rav Yaakov Emden (Migdal Oz, Beis Middos, Aliyas HaTeivah) seems to argue that it was indeed on Shabbos.
Es LeChenana, vol. 2, p. 47
ibid., p. 116 and p. 375
Gittin 60b
The Gemara tells us that Rebbe Akiva explains that “vayishkon kevod Hashem” begins from Rosh Chodesh Sivan, and that “the cloud covered it” refers to the mountain, because Moshe would go up early and return during those six days (Yoma 4). The Magen Avraham asks that if the Torah was given on the seventh of Sivan, how can Shavuos, fixed to the sixth, be called zman mattan Toraseinu? (Orach Chaim 494). Rav Kook answers that both are true, because they describe two layers of the same event: the sixth reflects matan Torah, the Divine act of giving, while the seventh reflects kabbalas haTorah, the human act of receiving. Moshe “added one day” but he did so through kal va-chomer, one of the Torah’s interpretive principles, which belongs to Torah she’be’al peh (Shabbos 87). The Maharal explains how something can be both a true derashah and still be called “from his own mind,” because Hashem prepared the general framework while the human being brings the details into articulated form through thought and interpretation (Gur Aryeh, Shemos 19:15).
Chazal illustrate that in the physical world something “new” often comes only by replacing what came before, as in the mashal of the egg that becomes something new only once the earlier form has rotted away (Temurah 31a). Rav Kook explains that the spiritual world works differently, because the earlier level remains standing when a new level is revealed (Eitz Chaim, Shaar 4, perek 3).
Peninei HaRe’iyah, by Rav Moshe Tzuriel.
Many of the sources on this essay come from Peninei Ramad Vali and from the chevre at Kisvei Breslov Chabura.
Wonderfully woven together!!