B"H
Yehudi Lights:
Counter-Illumination and Bitul in Chabad Chassidus
Elul 18 5785
Project “Yehudi” set out to solve a simple but profound problem: in daylight a plane is seen not because it is loud or large, but because it casts a silhouette, contrast against the sky. Engineers discovered that you could remove the silhouette not by painting the plane darker, but by adding more light, forward-facing lamps that raised the craft’s apparent brightness to match the heavens. The result: the aircraft ceased to register as a separate thing. Its “I am here” vanished into the ambient glow.
Chabad Chassidus would call that move, astonishingly modern for a wartime lab, by an ancient name: bitul. And because the project’s very name is Yehudi (“Jew”), the metaphor practically begs to be unpacked.
1) Contrast and hester: why things become visible
Chassidus begins with a paradox: the world (olam) is from the root he’elem, concealment. What we see is already filtered light. Like atmospheric haze that washes out distant objects, Tzimtzum and hester panim attenuate the Infinite Light so creation can exist. Yet at the human scale, contrast makes us stand out. Ego (yeshus) declares its borders; spiritual dullness absorbs light and re-radiates it unevenly. That’s how a “self” becomes highly detectable.
Engineers of visibility modeled this with thresholds: beyond a certain distance or under certain haze, contrast drops below the eye’s detection. Chassidus frames the same dynamic inwardly: when a person’s self-definition softens in the ambient awareness of the Divine (Or Ein Sof), the harsh edges of ego blur. One does not disappear into nothingness, but one stops competing with the Background.
2) Counter-illumination as avodah: adding light to lose the shadow
The Yehudi insight was counterintuitive: if darkness makes you conspicuous, don’t hide, shine until you match the sky. That is precisely the Chabad path of ohr pnimi, drawing inward light through contemplative davening and learning until the personal “tone” aligns with the Divine will. It’s not self-erasure; it’s self-illumination to the point of equivalence with the surrounding light.
The name Yehudi hints at this. Yehudah comes from hoda’ah, acknowledgment, bitul that says: “Everything I am is from You.” In Tanya-language, that’s bitul ha’yesh, not by crushing one’s being, but by suffusing it with awareness until the silhouette of ego no longer throws a shadow. When the inner “lamps” are on, love and awe, Chochmah–Binah–Daas engaged, the soul blends with the “sky” of Havayah. The “observer”, the world’s judgments, even the inner critic, has less to lock onto.
3) The glossy black lesson: reflect the beam, don’t diffuse it
Night-fighter tests found that glossy black outperformed matte: a specular surface reflects a searchlight in a tight beam; unless you’re at the exact angle, the plane is nearly invisible. Matte surfaces scatter light in all directions, and so they pop.
Spiritually, a Jew is safest when praise, honor, and success are reflected straight back to their Source. Lo li, Hashem, lo li, ki l’Shimcha ten kavod. Diffusing the “beam” of kavod across the self makes one conspicuous; reflecting it upward (and onward into purpose) leaves less for ego to absorb. In Chabad terms, that’s ohr chozer, returning the light; it’s ein od milvado practiced as a media strategy for the soul: don’t collect photons, pass them through.
4) Nomograms and halachah: engineering the invisible
The visibility work produced nomograms, clean, usable tools that turned complicated physics into decisions: how far until I’m seen? Chabad insists that love alone won’t guide the soul through weather; we need halachah and seder, structured “charts” that turn lofty truths into psak and practice. Fixed times for Torah, precise mitzvos, clear boundaries: these are the soul’s nomograms. They anticipate conditions (clear day, heavy haze; high mood, low mood) and tell you how to fly so that what should remain hidden (ego) stays hidden, and what must be revealed (G-d’s will) shines.
5) Havayah and Elokim: matching spectra
Camouflage scientists learned that brightness alone wasn’t always enough; sometimes spectral match mattered, colour, not just intensity. Chabad’s lifelong project is Yichud Havayah v’E-lohim: aligning G-d’s transcendent Name (undifferentiated Infinite) with the immanent Name (measured light within nature). Real bitul isn’t merely turning up the “volume” of inspiration; it is tuning the spectrum, mind, heart, speech, and action, so the wavelengths of daily life (Elokim) match the tone of transcendence (Havayah). When the spectra align, dissonance, and the visibility of ego, drops.
6) Above the haze: altitude, angles, and Makif
Observers above the haze could see farther than anyone below it. In avodah: when you lift your inner vantage to ohr Makif, the encompassing awareness that “I stand before G-d”, you penetrate confusions that stump you at ground level. Conversely, to avoid becoming a silhouette to others, adopt the altitude of humility. The higher you rise in bitul, the more you are “in the sky”, harder to hook with criticism or flattery, steadier in mission.
7) The ethical boundary: camouflage vs. emes
A final caution: military camouflage aims to deceive. Chassidus is allergic to falsehood. Our “invisibility” is not trickery but truthfulness, removing the distortion that made the self look separate from the Divine. The goal is not to become unseen to shirk responsibility, but to become transparent so that what is truly meant to be seen, G-dliness in this world, is what meets the eye.
Application
Turn on the Yehudi lights: add inner illumination (learning, contemplative prayer) until your “contrast” is bitul, not bravado.
Polish the surface: reflect kavod and light back to their Source; don’t diffuse them into self.
Fly by charts: let halachah, fixed times, and Chassidic seder serve as your nomograms through variable weather.
Match the spectrum: align Havayah and Elokim, intention and behavior, so life’s color and brightness harmonize.
Climb above the haze: keep a Makif of simple faith (peshitus) over the analytics; it clears astonishing distances.
In that sense, Project Yehudi is a parable waiting for a reader: a Yehudi becomes least “visible” as a separate being not by dimming, but by shining so truly that the sky itself says, “You belong here.” And then, precisely because we stop competing with the Background, we become what we were made to be, a window through which the Divine Light enters the world.
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