Destruction or Construction?

As anyone with experience will tell you, having construction done is never easy. The workers arrive, ready to set up shop in your private house for some specified amount of time, which is usually just a euphemism for "indefinitely." Often the family ends up being restricted to a small area of the house that remains relatively intact, while the rest of the rooms are being remodeled, repaired, redecorated and sometimes refurnished.

On the first morning, the workers moved in. Literally.Recently, my landlord decided to step foot into the world of home improvements and spiffy up the old brick house, concentrating primarily on the bathrooms. Never having lived "under construction" before, I naively believed the builder's claims that the job would be completed in under a fortnight. Two weeks is not so long after all. A mere fourteen days of chaos sounded doable. Two months later, they were still going strong.

On the first morning, the workers moved in. Literally. They brought their radio, electric kettle, newspapers and food supplies, adjusted the heat and cooling to suit themselves and, all in all, made themselves right at home.

Sure, they also brought some tools with them. Hammers and saws and all sorts of unrecognizable machinery accompanied their invasion. Anything, it seemed, that would make as much noise as possible. And so, between their meal breaks and bathroom breaks, cigarette breaks and phone breaks, they began to work on re-doing the bathrooms.

First, they removed all the "furniture": The bathtub was taken out, leaving a large unfinished piece of floor, and the faucets dangling uselessly from the tiled wall. Next to go was the sink and its connecting pipes, making the medicine cabinet look strangely out of place in the middle of the bare wall. Following that, the toilet was removed, along with the shower cubicle and its sliding doors. Over the next few days the tiles were ripped off the walls and floor, the medicine cabinet dismantled, towel racks unscrewed and the light fixture removed. Now a lone bulb hanging by a dirty wire illuminated the bare room.

Two weeks were almost up, and I was beginning to doubt that the renovations would be completed in the promised fortnight. My suspicions were confirmed when the builders failed to show up the next day. And the next day. And the next. Five days later they reappeared, claiming a long weekend for some unknown public holiday.

After their self-appointed vacation, things moved slowly. The workers would show up, spend all day in the house and leave late afternoon or early evening. And as they shut the door behind them, I would go to check on the progress… but day after day, nothing seemed to change. Things moved around, boxes appeared, other boxes disappeared, but the room remained empty and, of course, completely unusable.

Day after day, nothing seemed to changeIt was at this point that I began to feel a little confused. The workmen were supposed to be improving the bathroom, not making it into a completely useless room. They were hired to construct, to build, to improve, but all that seemed to be happening was destruction and demolition. How could this have any role in the construction of a new and beautifully decorated room, equipped with modern appliances and shiny, stainless steel faucets?

In fact, I wondered, the bathroom looked a lot nicer before the workmen ever stepped foot in the house. How could this "destruction" be productive? Would it not be better to fix and improve what was already there, without completely demolishing all vestiges of it? At least, before, the room had been functional; now it was neither useful nor pretty. How could this possibly enhance the end result?

There is a concept in Chassidic teachings known as "yerida l'tzorech aliya," "a descent for the purpose of an ascent." This idea, which is a spiritual one, can also be demonstrated physically.

Take, for example, jumping. Stand up and try doing five jumping jacks. It is extremely difficult to raise your body from the ground without first bending your knees. Also, the higher you wish to jump, the more you must first bend your knees. In order to jump, to rise, to ascend, it is necessary to first have a descent.

Furthermore, one may infer that based on the depth of the descent, is the ascent. The lower the descent, the higher the resulting ascent will necessarily be.

Thus, the complete and utter destruction of my bathroom was necessary in order for the end product to be truly satisfactory, functional and pleasing.

This principle which can be established in the physical realm, also applies in spiritual terms, beginning with the soul's descent into the world. The soul is comfortable and happy in its place next to G‑d. However, the soul agrees to descend into this lower world, to become involved with material pursuits, in order to ultimately return to a higher place than it originally came from. By coming to this world, and collecting mitzvot, good deeds, the neshama – the soul - earns itself a higher place in the next world.

We enable ourselves to break out of our self-made limitationsMoreover, this proves true psychologically as well. How often do we, as individuals, find ourselves challenged more in one area than another? We may spend years, even decades, trying to overcome this challenge, yet it is precisely this set of obstacles which mold us into the people we are.

Not infrequently, it is the descents in our life, the difficulties, the challenges, the obstacles we are confronted with, that force us to grow and change. And by confronting our challenges, working with them and through them, we enable ourselves to break out of our self-made limitations and reach a better, happier, healthier place. A place we would not have reached if not for that descent.

This idea has been played out many times in Jewish history. The Jewish people needed to go down to Egypt and be enslaved there for 210 years in order to ultimately merit the Exodus and the giving of the Torah. Following that, the Israelites experienced another descent - they were forced to wander in the desert for forty years in order to gain entry to the Land of Israel.

With the destruction of the Second Temple, the Jewish people entered the period of descent in which we find ourselves today. This period of exile, while painful and disheartening, is a necessary step towards the end of all exiles. This longest, harshest and final period of descent in the entire history of the Jewish people is only a means to the highest ascent that we will experience with the coming of the final redemption.

As I continued to follow the construction of my bathroom day after day, it was often difficult, even impossible, to discern any progress. Nevertheless, the day came when I entered the room to discover a complete transformation. The floor and lower walls had been covered with tiles matching the calming pale blue paint of the ceiling and upper walls. A brand new, shiny sink, bathtub, shower and toilet gave the entire room a luxurious and inviting tone. It didn't happen overnight. It took plenty of hard work and a lot of patience. But the result was certainly worthwhile.