So many times we receive information and news from family or friends and we struggle to understand where it all fits in this apparently 'crazy world.' On the surface there is so much chaos, so many things out of place, so much dysfunction. How are we to make sense of all of this?

Chassidus explains the answer to this global muddle, using the wisdom of Shevirat Hakelim, The Shattering of the Vessels. When speaking of a vessel in this article, it really defines something that contains things.

On Shabbos, we all know that there is a prohibition against carrying anything in a public domain, which normally defines areas outside of the home or synagogue. This prohibition is a Torah Prohibition
(D'Oraisah) and is therefore found explicitly in the written Torah.
There have been further details defined by the Rabbis regarding this prohibition and those details would be defined as Rabbinic Laws
(D'Rabbanan). Rabbinic Laws are more implied and very often are developed to help prevent one from even having an opportunity to transgress a Torah Prohibition. This is why they are often called a fence around the Torah. One could understand that Torah laws, as contrasted from Rabbinic, would carry more gravity if transgressed, due to its explicit nature in the Torah.

Now, if one were to take a vessel, for example a plastic cup or a bowl, and carry it out of the house on Shabbos (assuming no eruv), that person would be transgressing a Torah Prohibition of a very high order. This much is clear.

However, in Jewish law, there is a measurement called a Kazayit, usually defined as the size of an ordinary olive. With regards to food, this is the smallest measurement of significance. When making a bracha over food, one normally has to eat more than a Kazayit of that food in order to make the bracha count. The famous example is on
Pesach when we are eating different varieties from the Seder plate, a person should be careful to eat more than a Kazayit of all the symbols found on the plate.

So, according to Jewish law, there is no description or measurement for food that is smaller than a Kazayit. This means that technically, half an olive does not exist. Anything less than a Kazayit is not considered significant enough to warrant a measurement.

Now, the most fascinating thing is if you put less than a Kazayit (half an olive) into a cup or a bowl and carry it out of the house on
Shabbos, all of a sudden, you are NOT transgressing a Torah Prohibition. This doesn't seem to make any sense. How is this possible?

The answer is quite simple. The whole purpose of a vessel is to contain things. Therefore, relative to its contents, a vessel becomes nothing; i.e. it is nullified to its contents. So, if the bowl you are carrying is nullified to the half olive, which itself doesn't technically exist, then Jewish Law says you aren't carrying anything.
Makes sense, but sounds very weird. Bear in mind, that today, such an action would transgress a Rabbinic Law. But as far as Torah law, you are free.

When you are sitting at the table and you want someone to pass you the olives, you ask: "Please pass the olives." You don't ask:
"Please pass the olive, and the bowl that they are in." Why?
The answer is that because at that time, the whole purpose of the bowl is to hold the olives. The bowl is in fact nullified to the olives at that point in time. The bottom line here is that it is the contents that are the defining element, not the vessel that contains things.

This is just like a page in a book. If you approached a person reading from a page in their book, and you asked them: "Hey mate, what's on that page?" The reader will tell you the idea that appears on the page. He doesn't respond with the number of letters like: "Well, there are 54 letters 'e' and 68 letters 't'" etc. Why doesn't he respond with the breakdown of letters? The answer is because the letters, put together into certain combinations (i.e. words), are vessels for ideas and concepts. That is, they contain the ideas. The letters themselves are nullified to the ideas they express, when put together in particular combinations.

SO, NOW, if you were to take a page of the most tremendously beautiful concepts. Say for instance, ideas such as LOVE, UNDERSTANDING, INTIMACY, HOLINESS, BEAUTY, TOLERANCE, ONENESS, COMPASSION, SENSITIVITY etc. and you chop up this page of words into individual letters. You then collect all the letters in your hand and spread them randomly across the table. What you would then see is the world as we see it today. The world is a collection of letters that don't seem to make any sense. You pick up a letter and the letter says: "I'm a 'b'" It has its own existence, separate and egotistical.
And so most of us sit there, confounded, beaten. We stare blankly at the table of jumbled letters, the world of dysfunction, and we wonder how on earth we are to understand this mess and deal with the appearance. Then, right there in the distance, we find the box of the jig-saw puzzle. Until now, we have only been able to put together the side pieces of the jig-saw because they are the simple pieces as their sides are straight. But, what about the middle? What about all the blue and the clouds, the green and the earth. Everyone knows how hard it is to fill in the middle of a jig-saw puzzle, how much longer it takes than the framework. Ahhhhh! But if you have the box with the bigger picture on it, the job is made a lot easier.

So this is all an analogy for this world. Developing a basic framework in this world is not so difficult. The edge pieces can be found by oneself, without the box, in the same way that one can arrange their lives in a basic way. However, the middle of the picture, all the depth and meaning can only be grasped by standing back and appreciating the whole. And this is so much easier if we have the jig-saw puzzle box - Torah, with the end result printed.

If we know the goal and we can compare it to the current mess of the puzzle we have made so far, we can see where all the extra pieces need to go.

It's the Torah which gives us the picture. It's the Torah which tells us how to take all these letters and slowly piece them back together to re-create the global vessels which can once again contain all our beautiful ideas. The Torah is our guide. It tells us how to deal with all the parts of this world that don't seem to make sense. It explains the bigger picture which helps one appreciate the larger perspective. It stresses the global goal yet encourages the individual contribution. In truth, one will find that all the vessels we eventually re-create and the words we piece back together ARE IN FACT, a sole vessel which contains the singular essence of Hashem, uninhibited and in full expression.