If you have a cup of Manischewitz and you want to upgrade to a cup of Dom Perignon. You can't just add the Dom Perignon to the Manischewitz. If you do, then you don't really have Dom Perignon. You'd just have a corrupted mixture of Dom Perignon and Manischewitz. The Manischewitz may be good on a certain level. But if you want Dom Perignon, you have to pour out the old wine completely and wash out the cup. It may hurt to "waste" the lower wine, but the only way to have a pure cup of Dom Perignon is by purging the cup of the lower quality wine first.This idea connects to a story that I just received from a reader about his meeting this week with the mekubal, Rav David Chaninia Pinto:
Have you heard of Rav David Chanania Pinto? He's fairly well know with the Sephardic/M'kubal community. He's also, it seems, know as a Baal Mussar (his father learned in the Novardok Yeshiva)...See also:
He asked if I had given my wife a watch. I did give her a watch when we got engaged and I got her another one about a year ago. My wife mentioned to the Rav that both of them were broken. He said "If it is broken, then it's as if you have nothing". Fairly profound mussar, if you ask me. I was a bit overwhelmed, but was able to speak with him on the phone yesterday.
I asked him about what he said regarding "if it's broken, it's as if you have nothing" in contrast to the teaching of Reb Nachman "If you believe you can damage, believe you can fix". He said that "if you do not have the skills to fix a watch, then really have nothing". If you can't fix something then you need to start from the beginning...
I wish I could write that "I don't know what to make of it", but the truth is that it's what I needed to hear.
One Must Destory in Order to Build
One Must Destory in Order to Build Part II
Picture courtesy of just-glass-online.com. Click here to get Dixie Yid in your e-mail Inbox or here to subscribe in Google Reader.
