Aryeh Sklar
The Interplay Between the Revealed and the Concealed in the Thought of R. Isaac Hutner
Reading Hillel Goldberg’s well-written “synoptic biography” of R. Isaac Hutner, we find an interesting passage of the differences between two great influences of R. Hutner’s early life and thought, the Alter, and R. Abraham Isaac Kook:
The Elder was personally closed, writing nothing, teaching through the power of insight into others, while Rabbi Kuk was personally open, spilling forth in lectures and writings that welled up so spontaneously that, for some years, he wrote only in pencil, unable even momentarily to interrupt the flow of inspiration to dip the premodern pen into the inkwell… The Elder was a pedagogue; Rabbi Kuk, an intellectual. Isaac Hutner sought to combine the two, to become the two.
...In Rabbi Kuk Isaac Hutner witnessed self-revelation, in the Elder, self-concealment, and he appreciated both.
This distinction between the revealed and the concealed, in turn, found voice in R. Hutner’s magnum opus, Pahad Yitzhak. So much of it surrounds the verse in Proverbs 25:2, “The honor of God is to conceal a matter, whereas the honor of kings is to search out a matter.” R. Hutner found in this verse a fount of insight which he applied to almost every area of religious life.
The most dedicated maamar to this idea is the first maamar to Pahad Yitzhak Rosh Hashanah. There, he questions the connection between Rosh Hashanah and Psalm’s description (in rabbinic interpretation) of the holiday as “b’kese leyom chageinu,” indicating some kind of hiddenness or concealment as a description of the holiday of Rosh Hashana. He quotes the Midrash that indicates that the first six days of Genesis are contained in “The honor of God is to conceal a matter,” and the seventh day is referred to by “the honor of kings is to search out a matter.” He notes that concealment is somehow better than revelation, since concealment is “the honor of God,” while revelation is merely “the honor of kings.” His explanation of this is that concealment is wrapped up in the act of becoming, while revelation is in the state of being. If God’s creating is concealed, then that is reality coming into being, while God’s creation is reality as it is. Apparently, the better and more glorious work is in the state of pre-creation, of the state of coming into being.
What, however, is concealed about creating? R. Hutner writes that the world was created with a hidden quality, which is the foundation of all good qualities, which is not on the surface. And that is kindness. “The world is built with kindness.” This precedes and underlies all other characteristics - all others exist in an already formed world, while kindness begins in pre-existence.
What is this all getting at? He states that people also create a world, and that’s themselves. Just as there was a creation of a physical world, each person deals with the creation of their spiritual personalities. And this happens inside, not revealed to the world. So how does one do this? Like the Creator, only with the involvement of kindness. This, write R. Hutner, is the work of Rosh Hashanah. It is not only, “yom harat olam,” a celebration of the conception of the world, but a holiday devoted to the conception of the self.
This fascinating idea of the separate areas of the revealed and the concealed actually bookends Pahad Yitzhak Rosh Hashanah. In the last chapter, Kuntres Reshimot 3, we find more about this dialectic. There, R. Hutner describes the process of confession that garners atonement. In doing so, he discusses the difference between the revealed and the concealed, which he also describes as the outer life of the world and the inner life of man (9). He calls them, “two boundaries” and “two separate areas”, “which has something the other one doesn’t.” He says a person’s actions are revealed, his thoughts and wills are hidden.
However, he says, sometimes they approach each other. Sometimes one’s actions are against one’s will. By declaring it against one’s (true) will, by revealing the will, which is normally concealed, one succeeds in achieving atonement. What the court truly cares about is one’s will, not as much as his actions, he says. He writes, the paradox of this declaration is that “the will burns to separate itself from the will of yesterday, while in the world of the revealed, he continues to be tied to the same body and limbs of yesterday.” Confession, he says, is in a stratum between the concealed and the revealed, where they touch.
Part of this whole thing is the area of thought versus speech. In the first maamar, R. Hutner deals with the concept of “convocating holiness,” the obligation of having holidays be “mikra’ei kodesh.” How can one do this for Rosh Hashanah, which as we said before, is “b’kese leyom chageinu?” He answers that there must be a way to declare something holy in a hidden way - the forming of the self. In dealing with this, he invokes the Maharal. Later, in reference to confession, he discusses the act of talking as the transferring agent of thoughts, which are hidden, to a revealed state. He says the mouth is, in fact, the middle and means between hidden and revealed, between thought and action.
We find him quoting Maharal again in Pahad Yitzhak Pesach 73. Here, he uses the familiar idea from the beginning of PY RH of “the honor of God is to conceal a matter,” as relating to before the finishing of creation, and that “the honor of kings is to search it out,” is after creation is finished. The Maharal says that this Midrash also relates to the concept in the Mishna in Chaguga of concealing Maaseh Bereshit (which, though isn’t noted, is how Rashi interprets the verse as well, though Rashi doesn’t relate the Midrash to the Mishna). Thus, concealment is related to the act of creation. He emphasizes this point. We can talk about creation. But we cannot talk about the act of creation before two. In doing so, he makes distinctions between different acts and obligations of Pesach, such as the Haggadah. The Haggadah require us to speak out the story of the Exodus from Egypt. Thus, for the most part, the speaking only covers the already created, but not the act of creation itself. “Ha’oseh gedolot ad ein cheker.”
This same reference in the Maharal is quoted in Pahad Yitzhak Hanukkah 12:5. There, he examines the Midrash and the Maharal’s statement from the standpoint of what it says about honor. “Honor of God,” and “honor of kings”, the former concealed and the latter revealed. The wish to reveal and search out the honor of something comes from a recognition of its greatness, but also the reticence from searching out honor comes from the reverence in that selfsame recognition of its greatness. He then circles back to what we saw in Rosh Hashanah, that this dialectic is the dialectic of becoming and the result of becoming, being. It is well known that the building of the Mishkan was meant to mirror the Genesis story. So therefore there are two descriptions of the building of it as well - the becoming, which is the Miluim, and the being, which is its end status as built.
We move on to Sefer Zikhronot (116) where R. Hutner discusses the aspect of “tzniut”, modesty in this context. He thinks modesty is having “an exalted view in the wellsprings of life.” He says modesty is realizing the incredibility of reality. Again he refers to the verse of “concealing a matter”, in regard to looking at the genesis of reality, and the connection to “becoming.” Normally, “pritzut” is viewed as when a person lacks the conquering of the evil inclination, when someone cannot bound themselves to proper boundaries. Rather, he says, it is a denial of the exalted view. Therefore, “tzniut” isn’t the guarding from sin, or shame from the lessening of the self, rather it has its own positive self-value.
Lastly, in the context of “God’s honor to conceal a matter”, we have Maamerei Sukkot 110. Again he refers to the Midrash of Genesis as the distinction between concealed and revealed, wrapped up in becoming versus being. He makes a point more clearly than he does in Rosh Hashanah, that Chazal’s interpretation of “and you shall go in His ways,” imitatio dei, that this is done by doin acts of loving-kindness, can only refer to the revealed, the being, because if we included becoming, then we should be forced to do Yesh Meayin. In his first Maamar of Rosh Hashanah, he says that there is in fact a Yesh Meain, or as close to getting there as we can anyway - by creating the self. Here he seems to deny that.
We have two Purim Maamarim that should be talked about in this context. One is Maamar 33 that the megilla is the hidden hallel for the hidden miracle. Two is Maamar 2:6 on the double hiddenness of God’s hashgacha - Maharal says that “hastir astir,” referring to Chazal’s finding of Esther in the Torah, is a double hiding, one for Achashveorsh and one for Haman.
And there is a Maamar in Yiddish in Shabbat page 121, that I will have to figure out in this context.
First maamar of rosh hashana
Maamar 33 in megilla that the megilla is the hidden hallel for the hidden miracle (page 84)
Rosh hashana 227 more or less
Pesach 250
Chanuka 108 (maamar 12:5)
(shabbat 121 yiddish)
Sefer zichronot 94
Maamarei sukkot 273
Purim 37 double hiddnness of gods hashgacha
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