Why is it so vital for Judaism to maintain such a distinction from other nations and their cultures? Why do Jews strictly avoid intermarriage, limit cultural assimilation, and uphold rigorous conversion standards?

This question lies at the very heart of Jewish identity. Moreover, it directly impacts our lives today, shaping many of the disputes and divisions within Israeli society regarding the character of the State of Israel. Addressing this issue from the perspective of the inner dimensions of Torah—Kabbalah and Chasidut—is therefore of central importance.

Submission, Separation, and Sweetening

When approaching the topic of Israel’s distinction from other nations from the perspective of Chassidic teachings, the first concept to grasp is that the very word used for “distinction,” havdalah, forms the central stage in the fundamental triad of concepts introduced by the Baal Shem Tov, called “submission” (hachna’ah), “separation” (havdalah), and “sweetening” (hamtakah).

According to the Baal Shem Tov, every complete spiritual process must follow these three stages. One must first practice “submission” (humble themselves, curb their pride, and acknowledge their limitations). That should be followed by “separation” (self-refinement and separation from negative traits). Finally, the process should lead to a sense of “sweetening” (the attainment of personal wholeness and self-expression).

These concepts suggest that the Jewish people’s separation from the other nations is not an isolated phenomenon, but part of a broader process. It should be preceded by a certain “submission” with regard to our approach to other nations, and lead to a certain “sweetening” in our relationship with them. It is impossible to fully appreciate what appears to be the Jewish tendency for isolationism without appreciating it as a particular stage in a much wider developmental process.

Let us now examine how the three stages of submission, separation, and sweetening can be understood in the context of our relationship with other nations.

Submission: Equality Before God

In the context of the relations between the Jewish people and the nations of the world, submission means acknowledging the fundamental equality between Israel and the other nations.

All human beings are created by the same Creator. All our virtues and talents were granted to us from Him, and we are all entirely dependent on Him for our existence and sustenance. When we come to appreciate this, we realize we are all equal in the eyes of God. Furthermore, since God is perfect and infinite, any distinctions in greatness or spiritual rank between us are canceled by the fact that we are infinitely distant from Him (i.e., equally infinitely distant from perfection). God is “everything” and before Him, all of us are “as nothing.”

In fact, this sense of humility extends beyond our relationship with the rest of humanity and must govern our interactions with all of creation. In the words attributed to the Baal Shem Tov,[1]

Do not say in your heart that you are greater than your fellow… Recognize that you are like all other creatures, created solely to serve the Creator. How are you superior to a worm? It serves its Creator to the best of its abilities, while you, like a worm, are but dust and ashes. Were it not for the intellect that God granted you, you would be no better than a worm. Therefore, even compared to a worm you hold no inherent superiority, let alone compared to other people. Contemplate that you, the worm, and all creatures are friends in Creation. None possess power or merit beyond what the Creator has granted them, and this awareness must remain with you always.

This perspective provides the foundational attitude necessary for healthy relationships with others, including the Jewish people’s relationship with the rest of humanity. It is the starting point for all distinctions and separations that follow. Even when God took the Jewish people out of Egypt—marking the beginning of our separation into a unique nation—this act was described as, “taking one nation out of another nation.”[2] Israel was initially a nation like all others. Only after acknowledging this equality, could they be elevated to the status of a “holy nation.”

Acknowledging this equality is not only about accepting a profound truth. It also serves as a safeguard, preventing the idea of separation from becoming a tool for condescension, hatred, or oppression.

It is important to emphasize that genuine equality is only possible within the framework of faith in an infinite Creator before whom all are equal. Without this foundation, there is no compelling reason to assume equality among beings, and any social or political ideal of equality becomes an artificial construct imposed on reality, one that will eventually fail and be rejected.

Separation: Israel’s Chosenness

Building on the humble acknowledgment of the equality of all Creation, we can explore the concept of separation between Israel and the nations. This separation is rooted in the belief that the Jewish people were chosen to receive the most complete revelation of Divine wisdom, the Torah, and to use it to sanctify and perfect all of existence, transforming it into a vessel for the Divine Presence. On a personal and collective level, this distinction represents our commitment to align with the Creator, whom we humbly acknowledged in the previous stage, and to approach reality as His emissaries.

The principle of Israel’s chosenness is so fundamental to Judaism that it is impossible to truly understand it without it. Even those seeking universal lessons from Judaism (a subject discussed in the third stage below) must grapple with this concept and its necessity. Why couldn’t the Torah be given to the entire world? Alternatively, why couldn’t it have been given to the Jewish people, but without so strongly distinguishing them from other nations?

A helpful analogy for understanding the need for distinction can be found in nature, in the transition from the realm of the chemical to that of the biological. This transition hinges on a simple yet profound feature: the membrane. The membrane, which encloses and separates a living cell from its environment, provides the protective conditions necessary for the complex processes occurring within. Without this boundary, biological activity would dissolve and disappear into the surrounding chemical environment.

Similarly, every leap to a higher level of organization in nature requires a form of separation that enables new complexities to emerge. Human society, for instance, must distance itself from untamed nature to establish civilizations—protected spaces where higher pursuits, such as art and philosophy, can flourish.

The Torah’s purpose is to foster a similar leap, this time not from survival to civilization but from civilization to a culture of faith—a life lived in awareness of the Divine reality underlying creation, where every detail of existence is shaped by its connection to that reality. Like all other leaps, this leap too involves an increase in complexity, this time the cultivation of a higher state of consciousness. Those familiar with Torah study will recognize that it demands constant refinement of thought, challenging ordinary concepts and categories. Good and evil, beauty and ugliness, material and spiritual, fate and free will, logic and paradox—regarding all these and more, the Torah requires its students to “leap” to a whole new level of thinking.

To facilitate this leap, a kind of “membrane” is necessary—a protective boundary that allows the unique organism that is Jewish thought and life to grow and thrive. Like a delicate house of cards that can only be built in a sheltered space, Torah study and the cultivation of a life of faith require relatively insulated conditions to flourish. Assimilation threatens to blend the Torah with general human culture, thereby erasing or obscuring its unique message.

To delve more deeply into the need for insulation, let us look at one of the Torah’s synonyms for separation, haflayah (הַפְלָיָה). This verb first appears at the peak of Israel’s separation from the nations—during the plagues of Egypt. Three of the four times it appears in the Torah occur in this narrative. When God distinguishes the land of Goshen from the rest of Egypt during the plague of wild beasts, separates Israel’s livestock from Egypt’s during the plague of pestilence, and spares the firstborn of Israel during the plague of the firstborn, the Torah uses the verb haflayah.

The root of haflayah (פלה), is closely related to the root of “wonder” (פלא). This connection suggests that the distinction of Israel is meant to nurture a hidden wonder—a unique form of life and consciousness that can be recognized (eventually) as wondrous. Indeed, the verses describing this separation don’t emphasize Egypt’s suffering but rather Israel’s preservation: the primary purpose of haflayah is not to negate the other but to protect what lies within.

Many struggle to accept the idea of chosenness, largely out of fear that it could lead to national condescension, claims of superiority over other nations. This concern is valid, and that’s why the submission stage is a crucial reminder that Israel’s chosenness must rest on a foundation of equality.

However, just as submission is extreme in nature (“What makes me greater than a worm?”), so too must the separation be. It is a radical separation designed to cultivate a fundamentally different consciousness from that of other nations. The Torah aims to embed the infinite Divine within finite human life, a task requiring the creation of a sacred space, quite distinct from general culture.

When built upon submission, separation becomes a source not of pride but of profound responsibility. A key passage in the Torah expresses this idea: “For you are a holy people to Havayah your God; Havayah your God has chosen you to be His treasured nation from among all peoples on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more numerous than all the peoples that Havayah desired and chose you, for you are the least of peoples.”[3]  The sages interpret “the least of peoples” to mean “you make yourselves least [i.e. you humble yourselves] before others.” The less we feel entitled to chosenness, the more we become worthy of it.

Sweetening: Mutual Enrichment

We finally arrive at the third stage, sweetening, which reveals a profound insight: the separation of Israel from the nations is only an intermediate step leading to the ultimate purpose—the creation of a harmonious relationship between Israel and the nations.

Sweetening always brings a process full circle, reconnecting with the humility inherent in the first stage of submission. In this context, it means reestablishing an equal and reciprocal relationship between the Jewish people and the nations, now enriched by virtue of the separation which the previous stage established.

The sweetening stage represents Judaism’s Messianic vision, where Israel inspires the nations with the light of Torah, while simultaneously learning from the wisdom of the nations.

The prophets spoke extensively about this: “In the days to come… many nations will go and say, ‘Let us go up to the mountain of God… that He may teach us His ways and that we may walk in His paths; for the Torah will come forth from Zion, and the word of God from Jerusalem.’”[4] And, “I will make you a light for the nations, that My salvation may reach the ends of the earth.”[5]

The acceptance of worldly wisdom by the Jewish people is also a theme explored in much of Jewish thought, especially certain Kabbalistic and Chasidic writings (though it is hinted at in Scripture and rabbinic literature). As explained in previous articles,[6] the Zohar envisions a “flood” of spiritual and scientific knowledge in the Messianic era, blending the “higher wisdom” of the Torah with the “lower wisdom” of human innovation. Chasidic thought elaborates that integrating science and art with Torah reveals the “primordial Torah” that predates creation and forms an essential part of the redemptive vision.[7]

This mutual enrichment requires separation. Only when Torah and other wisdoms are clearly differentiated can their unique contributions be recognized and integrated. The clearer the distinction, the greater the motivation for mutual exchange. The same goes for the opposite: When the separation is blurred the result may be indifferent coexistence, where each side seeks neither to influence the other nor to learn from them.

This mutual enrichment sweetens the bitterness that accompanied separation. While some relish the separation stage, others feel uncomfortable with it and yearn for the harmony of sweetening. The challenge today is to bridge the gap between these perspectives. May this exploration contribute to uniting these visions, helping us see that the Torah’s ultimate plan encompasses and fulfills the hopes of all its seekers.

[1]. Tzava’at HaRivash §12.

[2]. Deuteronomy 4:34.

[3]. Deuteronomy 7:6–7.

[4]. Isaiah 2:2–3.

[5]. Ibid. 49:6

[6]. See Wonders, issue 125, pp. 3ff.

[7]. See in length in our volume, Wisdom: Integrating Torah and Science.

The post Chosen: Reframing Jewish Aloofness appeared first on GalEinai.

The greatness of the Mitteler Rebbe in the revealed Torah was concealed: he did not engage much in halachic rulings and wrote down only a few of his innovations in this area. He is famous for his greatness in Chasidic teachings, to which he truly devoted his soul. Due to the length and depth of his chasidic discourses, the Mitteler Rebbe was called "Rechovot HaNahar" (the breadth of the river).

In this context, it is told that the Mitteler Rebbe once asked his attendant: "Please report back to me: Where do people say my strength is greater? In the revealed Torah or in Chasidut?" The attendant went out and stayed for some time, then came back in and said to the Rebbe: "In the revealed Torah, your strength is certainly great, but in Chasidut, your strength is even greater." The Rebbe said: "This is not true. If I were to devote myself to studying the revealed Torah for half a year, there would be no genius like me. But what can I do, for my desire is to grasp the attributes of the Infinite Light. (In another version: my desire is that if two young chasidic men meet, they should speak about the higher and lower unifications)…"

***

When the holy Mitteler Rebbe assumed the mantle of leadership, he found it difficult to respond to the questions and inquiries sent to him. He appointed his son-in-law, the holy Tzemach Tzedek, and the chasidic genius Rabbi Nechemiah of Dubrovna, to prepare responses for the inquirers. The Rebbe would pass the questions to them, and they would study them and compose the answers. He made one condition: before sending the responses to the inquirers, they should come to him to show him the answers, so he could ensure that the response was aligned with what he would answer. They did so, and in all the responses, the Mitteler Rebbe agreed with his son-in-law, the Tzemach Tzedek.

Once, a question came, and the Tzemach Tzedek and Rabbi Nechemiah prepared the response. The inquirer requested an urgent answer due to the pressing nature of the question. The Mitteler Rebbe was very busy at that time and they did not have an opportune moment to show him the response for review.

The Tzemach Tzedek and Rabbi Nechemiah agreed that since until now the Mitteler Rebbe had always agreed with them and there had never been an instance when he did not concur, they were confident that this time too he would agree with them. And since the inquirer urgently needed a response, they sent the response without presenting it to the Mitteler Rebbe for review beforehand. After some time, the Rebbe asked his son-in-law, the Tzemach Tzedek, if they had already answered the question. He said that they had already sent the response, explaining that it was urgent and the Rebbe was busy, so they sent it without the Rebbe's review.

The Mitteler Rebbe asked his son-in-law to show him the copy of the response that was sent. When he examined the response, he told them that they had erred, and it contradicted the opinion of Tosafot in Yevamot! The Tzemach Tzedek was disheartened that he had misunderstood an explicit Tosafot. The Mitteler Rebbe, comforted him, saying: "Du bist noch nit kein Rebbe, kenst noch hobn a toi’us [You are not yet a Rebbe, you can still make a mistake]…."

***

A question arose in the house of the Mitteler Rebbe about the kosher status of a chicken that had been ritually slaughtered. The Rebbe's daughter brought the question before the Tzemach Tzedek and other rabbis, and they ruled as they ruled. But she was not satisfied, and said they should ask her father's opinion. When they came to the Mitteler Rebbe and explained their view and the sources from which they derived their ruling, the Rebbe showed them that from this very source, the ruling is the opposite, as it is from most sources…

In these stories, the Mitteler Rebbe's ability to refute the reasoning of the rabbis around him is emphasized. Even when his son-in-law, the genius, studies thoroughly, and even if all the rabbis rule like him, the Rebbe is able to turn the very same sources they used as proof into evidence for his own position. This ability is reminiscent of a statement attributed to the Baal Shem Tov, that "I can refute any logical argument in the revealed Torah, whatever it may be."

What, however, is the point? Is there real benefit in the ability to refute any Torah-based reasoning? After all, the Baal Shem Tov doesn't even say "any false reasoning," but boasts of his ability to refute any reasoning whatsoever.

The ability to refute any reasoning reveals a deeper dimension behind it and in fact behind all logical reasoning: each logical argument belongs to a certain level in Godliness, to a specific world or partzuf (persona) in the intricate system of worlds created at the moment of Creation. But the inner point of them all, the central bolt that runs from end to end, is the point where they are connected to the Godliness that gives them life. In that place, they essentially become nullified and unified with the simple Godliness that is beyond all reasoning and comprehension. A person who is connected to this inner point can freely navigate between the worlds and approaches and can also find in each one its point of nothingness, the point at which it could have been exactly the opposite.

Similar to the Baal Shem Tov, the Mitteler Rebbe could also grasp this point of nothingness, the Godliness in everything and in every reasoning. This is also related to the fact that he lived נד (54) years, the secret of the Nameד”ן  (DaN) in Kabbalah. Scholarly reasonings stem from the Name sag [יוד הי ואו הי], which belongs to the sefirah of binah (understanding). But the Name DaN [יוד הא ויו הא] is the inverse of SaG [the letters hei of the Name DaN are filled with the letter alef and the vav is filled with yud, the opposite of the Name SaG]. With its “judgments” and its assertiveness, the Name DaN nullifies all the reasonings that can flow from the Name SaG.

We won't delve deeper into Kabbalistic matters now, but it is worth noting one timely detail about this Name: The first time the combination DaN is mentioned in the Torah is in the Covenant Between the Parts: "And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge (dan)." This teaches us that to judge a nation that enslaves Israel, one must refute all its reasonings. As Rabbi Yochanan said, "He who acknowledges the words of the gentiles falls into their hands." What some nations call "humanitarianism" is actually cruelty. The terms "responsibility and discretion" serve as a laundered term for endangering Jewish lives.

The Egyptians also had a complete philosophy, a system of thought and political correctness, which enslaved entire nations without protest… As then, so today, to escape mental enslavement, there is a need for new and liberated thinking.

The post The Mittler Rebbe: A Different Perspective appeared first on GalEinai.

If we take a close look at the naming of the city as “Be’er Sheva,” we find that it was named twice. The first time was when Abraham made an oath with Avimelech over a well he had dug[2]:

He [Abraham] replied: “You are to accept these seven ewes from me as proof that I dug this well.” Hence that place was called Be’er Sheva, for there the two of them swore an oath.

Later, when Isaac digs new wells to replace his father’s wells that the Philistines had obstructed,[3] when he digs the family’s seventh well[4] (three dug by his father and obstructed and four new wells dug by Isaac), he calls the place “Be’er Sheva,” meaning “the seventh well.” In other words, the name Be’er Sheva has two explanations, either after the oath that Abraham and Avimelech took there or after the seventh well dug by Abraham and Isaac.

When considering the various commentaries on the Torah, we find that some of them argue that these were not only two origins for the same name but designated two different locations. For example, the Rashbam writes,[5]

This was not the same Be’er Sheva we read about in connection with Abraham. There were two places named Be’er Sheva as we know from the verse, “he came to Be’er Sheva in Judah.”[6]

Others though, like the Seforno,[7] argue that there is only one location named Be’er Sheva, but when it was named after the oath its name was pronounced “Be’er Shava,” and when named after the seventh well, its name was pronounced “Be’er Sheva.”[8]

In an essay on the aforementioned passage in the Zohar, the Alter Rebbe[9] explains that the plain meaning of the text as explained by the commentaries and the disagreement between Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and Rabbi Chiya in the Zohar are related. When the place is named after the oath Abraham and Avimelech took, it corresponds to the sefirah of understanding, because all oaths relate to understanding. When it is named after the seventh well, it corresponds to the sefirah of kingdom (malchut), since it is the seventh emotive faculty.[10]

Whether there are two different locations called “Be’er Sheva,” or whether these are two different names for the same location, we are prompted to see if we can identify other cities and towns in the Holy Land with the other sefirot.

A central source on the cities of the Land of Israel is Chessed LeAvraham, written by the Chida’s grandfather, Rabbi Avraham Azulay.

He extensively discusses the sanctity of the Land of Israel and mentions four holy cities[11]: Tzfat, Tiberias, Hebron, and Jerusalem,[12] in this specific order. He also corresponds them to the sefirot. The first two are self-explanatory from a geographic perspective: Tzfat corresponds to victory (netzach) which is called “the extreme height” (עֹמֶק רוּם) in Sefer Yetzirah. Likewise, Tiberias corresponds to acknowledgment (hod) described as “the extreme low” (עֹמֶק תַּחַת). Hebron corresponds with foundation (yesod) because it literally means to connect or to couple and foundation corresponds to the procreative organs in the body. Finally, Jerusalem, the capital of the Jewish people and the capital of the Almighty, is easily corresponded with kingdom (malchut). Indeed, Jerusalem contains the palace of the king of Israel as well as the Holy Temple which is the palace of the King of all kings of kings, the Almighty.

The Mitteler Rebbe writes in a letter to the Chassidic settlement in the Land of Israel that before reaching Jerusalem, one must first be in Hebron, just like King David himself. David is the archetypal soul of kingdom, and his ultimate destination is certainly Jerusalem. However, he first reigned for seven years in Hebron. Why? To unite with the three Patriarchs. This means that specifically in Hebron, one can connect with the Patriarchs, who correspond to the emotive sefirot: loving-kindness, might, and beauty.

How can we understand the reason that only from foundation can one draw down influence from the emotive sefirot and from the Patriarchs? The situation is similar to how we find in the Torah that it is Joseph, the archetypal soul of foundation, who extends from the Patriarchs and transmits their influence downward to the rest of the tribes, the sons of Jacob.

We might have thought that Shechem should be the city that corresponds with foundation, since that is where Joseph himself is buried. Indeed, there certainly is an aspect of foundation associated with Shechem. For example, we find that Jacob blessed Joseph, “And I have given you one portion (Shechem) above your brothers.” But for some reason Shechem is not mentioned in Chesed LeAvraham as one of the four holy cities.

In Kabbalah, Shechem is identified with the sefirah of knowledge (da’at), specifically Da’at between the shoulders (דעת דבין כתפין), since Shechem literally means a shoulder. Just as the flow of seed extends from the Da’at between the shoulders to foundation through the spinal cord, there is indeed an aspect of foundation that is drawn down from Shechem. However, it is Hebron that corresponds with foundation.

Hebron is also called Kiryat Arba (the City of Four), named for its connection to the four couples buried there: Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah. This is tied to the secret of the letter Shin. The shin is found on the exterior of the head tefillin. The shin is called “the letter of the Patriarchs” (אֲתָא דַּאֲבָהָן) because it has three heads, corresponding to the three Patriarchs. On the head tefillin we also find a shin with four heads corresponding to the Matriarchs. On the head tefillin, the four-headed shin is on the left, representing the sefirah of understanding (binah, or the Mother Principle), while the shin with three heads is on the right side, representing wisdom (chochmah, or the Father Principle). These need to be united and drawn into a single point at the bottom—the point of foundation at the base of the shin, when it is written in a Torah scroll.

This drawing down and coupling were accomplished by King David during his seven years in Hebron. In that time, he immersed himself in the secret of the shin. When the shin is joined to the two letters, dalet (ד) and yud (י), whose value is the same as David (דָּוִד), it forms the holy Name Shakai (שַׁ-דַּי), the name associated with foundation in Kabbalah.

Thus, David rectified the Name Shakai, and through this, he was able to “rectify the world in the kingdom of Shakai,” by drawing from foundation into kingdom—from Hebron to Jerusalem.

In modern times, the first large Chasidic aliyah to the Land of Israel was led by Rebbe Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk. He and his chasidim first settled in Tzfat and then moved to Tiberias. So they had already rectified victory and acknowledgment, the so-called “two halves of the body,” and the first two habitual sefirot. To continue moving towards Jerusalem and kingdom, the Rebbes of Chabad placed great emphasis on strengthening the Jewish community in general, and the Chasidic community in particular, in Hebron. By focusing on Hebron, the place of foundation, the rebbes wanted to continue drawing Godly revelation down from the Patriarchs, the three emotive sefirot until eventually rectifying kingdom.

All the while that Rebbe Mendel Vitebsker was rectifying Tzfat and Tiberias, the Jewish community in Jerusalem pleaded and begged for them to relocate to Jerusalem, Rabbi Mendel and his followers refused and remained in Tiberias.

This also offers us an explanation on why the Alter Rebbe (Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi), who had wanted to join his teacher, Rebbe Mendel Vitebsker was turned down by him. It was likely because, in the Land of Israel, the Alter Rebbe's destined place was not the same as that of the other Chassidim. While they belonged in Tzfat and Tiberias, the place for Chabad until the coming of the Mashiach (our generation) is Hebron. From Hebron, the Divine abundance is drawn down through the secret of the name Shakai into kingdom.

So, the great and awe-inspiring day will come when Elijah the Prophet announces the arrival of the Mashiach to the holy Jerusalem, which is known as “the Justice of the holy kingdom” (צֶדֶק מַלְכוּתָא קַדִּישָׁא). This is what we are waiting for; this is the current goal—to move from Hebron to Jerusalem.

There is still much to rectify, and we must not abandon any holy place. However, it seems that the rectification of Hebron has been accomplished to some extent. After many generations of effort devoted to Hebron, it has not, unfortunately, reached the level of physical development seen in other places in the Land of Israel. Yet tremendous spiritual energy has been dedicated to Hebron over the years and we hope that the time has come when we can ascend joyfully to Jerusalem, the holy city, together with the Mashiach who will build the Temple, the palace of the Almighty.

Guided Visualization: A Chasidic Journey Through the Holy Land

What we have constructed is a partzuf of the Land of Israel’s holy cities that are particularly related to Chasidut. We can use this partzuf to embark on a guided visualization through the Holy Land, exploring its spiritual essence and deep connections. This exercise is particularly meaningful for someone far from the Land of Israel, yearning to connect with its sacredness. Imagine yourself as a soul from a bygone era, one of the devoted chasidim, traveling through these holy sites. We are not always in favor of using guided imagination, but for our present purposes it will do.

Imagine yourself beginning your ascent to Tzfat. Visualize yourself climbing the hills leading to Tzfat. Picture the mystical air of the city, the vibrant blue doors symbolizing divine wisdom, and the narrow cobblestone streets that echo with the prayers of countless generations. Feel the elevation of your soul as you connect to the spirit of the sefirah of victory (netzach) that permeates this sacred place.

From there you continue your journey down to Tiberias, situated by the serene Kinneret. Reflect on the humility and splendor of acknowledgment (hod) that radiates from this ancient city. Feel the cool breeze from the water and the spiritual depth that arises from calling out to God “from the depths.” Let Tiberias ground your inner being with a sense of purpose and clarity.

From Tiberias you can already imagine yourself becoming a Lubavitcher heading towards the heart of Chabad in the Land of Israel in Hebron. Here, at the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, connect to the figures of our holy origins. Visualize yourself standing at the resting place of Menuchah Rochel, a symbol of Chabad's roots in Hebron. Feel the bond of unity with the Patriarchs and the spiritual flow of abundance from them making its way into the world.

Now you are ready to ascend with the Mashiach from Hebron to Jerusalem, the Holy City. Picture the bustling streets of Jerusalem, infused with sanctity. See yourself standing on the Temple Mount, alongside Mashiach, preparing to rebuild the Holy Temple—the palace of the King of Kings. Envision the Temple rising in splendor, its light radiating throughout the world, bringing redemption and peace.

All this is before we complete our partzuf of all the holy cities of the Land of Israel.

The Complete Partzuf

Now let us return to Be’er Sheva, with which we began. We saw that according to Rabbi Chiya’s interpretation, Be’er Sheva corresponds to the sefirah of understanding. Next, we also mentioned Shechem, whose root is in the sefirah of knowledge (da’at). These are two of the three intellectual sefirot. Only wisdom is missing. We can conclude that the overall sanctity of the Land of Israel is rooted in Chochmah (wisdom), as it is written: “Hashem founded the earth with wisdom.” The intellectual quality of wisdom, also known as the Father Principle shines throughout the Land of Israel.

Now we have the three intellectual sefirot in place, representing the general secret of the Land. Concerning it, it is said: “The eyes of Hashem your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.” The “eyes” signify wisdom, and Hashem’s eyes are upon the entire Land of Israel. This is why “the air of the Land of Israel makes one wise.” All of this relates to the idea that “Abba founded the daughter,” as in, “Hashem founded the earth with wisdom.”

Following this, we have the concealed aspects of Be’er Sheva (in kingdom) and Shechem (in foundation), as well as the three emotive sefirot (loving-kindness, might, and beauty) and the sefirah of foundation, which all correspond to Hebron. Then, there are the advising kidneys represented by Tzfat and Tiberias. When I imagine myself in Tzfat, I receive advice from the right kidney, which corresponds to active trust. In Tiberias, I receive the advice of the left kidney, corresponding to passive trust, a quality captured in the well-known phrase, “think good, and it will be good.” And so forth, each place and city offering its unique psychological and spiritual power.

[1]. 1:147a.

[2]. Genesis 21:30-31.

[3]. Ibid. 26:18-22.

[4]. Ibid. v. 25 and vv. 32-33.

[5]. On Ibid. v. 33.

[6]. 1 Kings 19:3.

[7]. On Genesis 26:33.

[8]. See also Radak and Chizkuni Ibid.

[9]. Sefer HaMa’amarim 5567 (third edition); also published in the Mittler Rebbe’s Biurei HaZohar 16c and ff.

[10]. Incidentally, there is a discourse by the Lubavitcher Rebbe (From Shabbat parashat Vayeitzei 5740 printed in Tiferet Levi Yitzchak – Bereishit, pp. 158ff.) on the debate in the Zohar, where he explains that the difference between the two opinions of Rabbi Chiya and Rabbi Shimon hints at two primary mitzvot that we observe each morning: the mitzvot of Tefillin and Tzitzit (the tallit). Rabbi Chiya, who expounds on the verse “The sun rises, and the sun sets, and it hastens to its place where it rises” (Ecclesiastes 1:5), says that the essence of Jacob's departure from Be’er Sheva and his journey to Haran symbolizes the mitzvah of Tefillin. On the other hand, Rabbi Shimon, who interprets the departure as a departure from holiness (the Land of Israel) entirely and an entry into the danger of chutz la’aretz, aligns his understanding with the mitzvah of Tzitzit and the Tallit.

[11]. Chesed LeAvraham, Ma’ayan 3, Nahar 13.

[12]. The value of the names of these four cities “Tzfat Tiberias Hebron Jerusalem” (צְפַת טְבֶרְיָא חֶבְרוֹן יְרוּשָׁלִַם) is 1644, also the value of “you shall love Havayah your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all your might” (וְאָהַבְתָּ אֵת י-הוה אֱלֹהֶיךָ בְּכָל לְבָבְךָ וּבְכָל נַפְשְׁךָ וּבְכָל מְאֹדֶךָ). It is also the product of 4 times “chaos” (תֹהוּ) indicating that the settling and developing of these four cities is a remedy for “chaos,” following the words of Isaiah, “So says Havayah, the Creator of the heavens, He is God, who formed the earth and made it, who alone established it, who did not create it to be a wilderness [chaos] but formed it for habitation” (כִּי כֹה אָמַר י־הוה בּוֹרֵא הַשָּׁמַיִם הוּא הָאֱ־לֹהִים יֹצֵר הָאָרֶץ וְעֹשָׂהּ הוּא כוֹנְנָהּ לֹא תֹהוּ בְרָאָהּ לָשֶׁבֶת יְצָרָהּ) and that it brings about a sense of God creating reality at every moment out of “nothing” (i.e., that which cannot be perceived). 1644 is also the product of 4 times “being from nothing” (יֵשׁ מֵאַיִן), suggesting that the perception that God is continuously creating reality ex nihilo emanates from these four cities.

The post Partzuf: The Holy Cities of the Land of Israel appeared first on GalEinai.

In the years that followed, screens have come to dominate every corner of our lives. From the TV sets that strategically positioned themselves in the center of our living rooms to the smartphones we all hold in our palms, the screens have become the technological equivalent of the ancient tribal fires around which our forefathers listened to the stories that shaped their understanding of the world.

How should we understand the sharp turn our culture has taken from text to image?

The Lifeblood of the Soul

Screens trade in images. What place does imagery play in our psyche?

As always, our best starting point is the Hebrew word for image, dimuy (דִּמּוּי). This word, alongside its siblings demut (figure) and dimayon (imagination), all derive from the two-letter Hebrew root d-m (דָּם). This root has a meaning in and of itself: “blood.”

What does this mean? Simply put, it seems to suggest that the role images play in our psyches is somehow akin to that of blood. Just as the blood’s circulatory system underlies our entire biological existence, supplying each organ with the substances essential for its function, so too our mental images serve as the psychological infrastructure of our soul.

Beneath all our lofty ideas, abstract thoughts, and moral deliberations lies the rich, silent ground of our psychic images, nourishing everything that is planted in it. It is through the lens of the images we are soaked in that we evaluate our lives and choose our next steps. Where would be without an image of the ideal future we’re striving for, an image of who we want to become, an image of what success looks like, etc.

And yet, something strange has happened. Though no sane person would dare let a stranger with dubious intentions inject unknown substances into their bloodstream, this is precisely what the vast majority of the modern world does when it comes to the soul.

Millions of us flock to darkened theaters, sit at the feet of giant screens, and allow groups of complete strangers to pour gallons of vivid, stirring images into our souls—images whose origins and contents we have never evaluated. We even go further and do the same to our children, leaving them (not to say abandoning them) in front of the home screen for hours on end. We do all this without knowing the creators to whom we entrust our souls, nor the nature of their motivations.

This compels us to raise the possibility that perhaps we are not as clear-minded as we imagine we are. Just as with the circulatory system, our imagination can either be clear and healthy or murky and diseased. If the images absorbed into our soul are of a holy and refined source, they are pure and clean. If, however, they come from unrectified sources, if they draw from the lower rather than higher strata of the spirit, if they are stitched together, Frankenstein-like, from assorted myths and legends of dubious origins—then our imagination is tainted and clouded. We may be great scholars, filled with a massive amount of knowledge, data, and insights collected from all over the world. But if the ground of our imagination is not clarified and cultivated, we will never deeply and truly understand what we think we know.

This seems to be exactly what has happened to the screen generation. From a young age, we are soaked with images upon images—spaceships, gangsters, mythical creatures, can-can dancers, samurais, cigarettes, cartoon animals—but all these are scattered in our psyches like so much flotsam and jetsam, without any flowchart to organize, place, or rank them.

One of the Hebrew words that derive from the root d-m is dimdumim, “twilight.” And so, we might describe ourselves as living in the twilight of the soul.

What can be done when the blood is so tainted? In ancient times, the common practice was bloodletting. Today, it’s more typical to introduce fresh blood into the body, gradually stabilizing and balancing it. In the case of the blood of the soul, our imagination, bloodletting is impossible, and perhaps even undesirable. Therefore, the solution is indeed a transfusion: we must find a source of clear and good images to clarify our world of imagery and reignite our imagination in a proper and purified way.

The Serpent’s Venom and Its Remedy

The Talmud recounts that the serpent in the Garden of Eden not only enticed Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge but also “implanted impurity” within her[1]—injected her with a poisonous venom that has been simmering in the blood of humanity ever since.

There are many opinions as to which desire the serpent represents: Is it sexual desire? The urge for idolatry? The craving for food? One of the greatest Chasidic masters of all time, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, offers a new, surprising interpretation that is particularly relevant to our generation: the serpent corrupted the imaginative faculty (ko’ach hamedameh) of the soul.[2] It muddled and tainted our world of images, filling us with coarse and distorted images. Indeed, the first thing the serpent did was to instill within us an inflated self-image with his promise that, “you will be like God”.[3]

This interpretation clarifies the continuation of the Talmudic midrash, which describes that there was a single moment in the history of the Jewish people when their blood was cleansed from the serpent’s impurity: when they stood at the foot of Mount Sinai and received the Torah. Somehow, the revelation of the Torah purified the muddled world of imagery in its recipients, even if only momentarily.

The explanation for this is that the Torah presented, for the first time, an alternative to the prevailing religious practices of the time, which had revolved entirely around idols—meaning around tangible figures with defined facial features. The creation of an idol is an act of denial of the wonder that lies at the core of existence, an attempt to confine in form what cannot be grasped. This is the root of the corruption of the imaginative faculty.

In contrast, the Torah was the first to proclaim the existence of a single, hidden Creator behind all natural phenomena, and it forbade the making of “any graven image or any likeness.”[4]

The purification of the imaginative faculty lasted only a short time. Forty days after the Giving of the Torah, when it seemed that Moses was delayed in returning from the mountain, the Israelites fell back into the trap of idolatry and built the Golden Calf. Indeed, according to the midrash, the idea that Moses was delayed was nothing but the product of a false image: Satan came to the people of Israel and showed them “an image of darkness, confusion, and disorder, saying, ‘Moses has surely died, and that is why confusion has come into the world.’”[5] Moreover, the numerical value of the Hebrew term for “Golden Calf,” Egel HaZahav (עֵגֶל הַזָּהָב) is precisely equal to that of “the imaginative faculty,” koach hamedameh (כֹּחַ הַמְדַמֶּה). The Golden Calf embodies, more than anything else, the corrupted imagination clothed in idolatrous form.

Although the purification of the imaginative faculty wrought by the Torah was temporary, the very fact that it occurred teaches us that the Torah is the means by which we can renew and clarify our world of imagery. Indeed, an entire layer within the Torah, the aggadah or lore layer, is dedicated to constructing a holy and rectified world of imagery. The aggadot form a rich tapestry of stories, legends, and metaphors whose initial seeds are planted in the stories of the Bible, but from which has since blossomed a vast orchard of stories, expansions, completions, and interpretations.

The aggadah section of the Torah must be studied just like any other Torah or Talmud topic, with depth and diligence. In addition, the Jewish tradition of interpreting aggadah does not stop at finding the general moral or message behind the legends; it also examines every detail of the story’s imagery. In non-Jewish parables like Aesop’s Fables and the like, the choice of symbols—say, fox and stork, etc.—is of no real significance. They are mere trappings hiding the moral of the story. Not so in Jewish lore, where the image, symbol, and even exact wording is essential to decoding the story at hand. Details that may seem marginal at first glance are revealed, upon deeper examination, to contain a wealth of inner meanings.

The aggadah tradition offers a perspective that rests outside the whirlwind of contemporary culture’s images, including those in films, and it enables us to understand, organize, and clarify them. It provides a reference point against which any image can be measured—whether it be the image of a hero, a monster, romantic love, tragedy, or anything else you can imagine—and it allows us to grasp its nature, cleanse it of its distortions, and seek its pure heart. Afterward, we can weave new stories using the same images but reorganizing them so that their meaning is clarified and corrected.

(Here, once again, we must mention Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, who was the only individual in his generation to take the imagery of European folklore and craft entirely new stories from them, connecting them to the service of God in his book Sippurei Ma’asiot MeShanim Kadmoniyot, “Tales of Ancient Times”).

By cleansing ourselves of the serpent’s venom we rectify the sin of Adam. We restore our original form, true to the calling of what humanity was meant to be. Indeed, the word “Adam” (אָדָם) is built from the letters of d-m (דָּם), “blood,” with the letter aleph (א) preceding them. This suggests that the full stature of the complete human is made up of a “flesh-and-blood” level over which should reside an aleph—the recognition of the single divine source from which the multitude of images flow and to which they must return and relate.[6]

Hollow Masks

It would be fruitful to examine the two main words we have been using in their Hebrew version: “screen,” masach (מָסָךְ), and “movie,” seret (סֶרֶט), as they are reflected in the mirror Torah’s imagery.

The Hebrew word masach comes from the root n-s-ch, meaning “pouring,” “covering,” and also “libation.” One of the words derived from this root is massechah, which means “mask,” possibly since masks were originally made from molten metals that were poured onto a face or mold and covered them (in fact, the English word “mask” derives from the Hebrew massechah).

Now, interestingly, massechah is one of the words used in the Bible to refer to idolatrous images: “You shall not make for yourselves molten gods [elokei massechah].”[7] It turns out that in some mysterious way, the modern screen culture is related to the idols of the Biblical era. In fact, the first time the word massechah appears in the Torah is in the making of the Golden Calf, the epitome of the degeneration of the imaginative faculty: “And he made it into a molten calf [egel massechah].”[8]

Today’s screens, one could argue, are the modern reincarnations of the massechah gods of old. They gaze at us from all directions like temples on the side of the road, offering sparkling promises of happiness and abundance, drawing the eye and captivating the heart. Of the idols, it is written, “They have eyes but cannot see; they have ears but cannot hear… Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them.”[9] In the same way, the gods of the screen fashion their viewers in their own image, gradually casting upon them hollow mask-like expressions. This is especially true for the younger generation, who on the one hand “have eyes”—their eyes have seen everything, more than any generation before them; but on the other hand, precisely because of this, “cannot see”—their eyes are dull to seeing anything, and they become indifferent and apathetic.

The Hebrew word seret (film) is a modern one. It is, however, identical in sound to an ancient verb which appears several times in the Bible, which means “scratch,” “gash,” or “incision.” It appears in the verses “You shall not make any gashes for the dead [seret la-nefesh] in your flesh,”[10] and “in their flesh they shall not make gashes [yisretu saratet].”[11]

The idea arising from the juxtaposition of these cognate terms is that too many movies tear metaphorical gashes in our heart. Indeed, the term “flesh” in both verses can also be understood in the sense of a “heart of flesh,” a term appearing in the book of Ezekiel as the opposite of a “heart of stone”:[12]

I will sprinkle pure waters upon you, and you will be pure; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

The tearing of the heart of flesh from too many negative films scars it and hardens it, turning it to stone. Against this bleak fate, Ezekiel’s prophecy promises that there are “pure waters” capable of reviving the heart and making it beat again.

From Movies to Books and Back Again

In the age of the screen, the greatest revolution we can start is to once again elevate the book. Indeed, this is the very revolution we proclaim every time we raise the Torah scroll in the synagogue. This humble act challenges the technological age. It bravely declares that the screen cannot redeem itself, and that visual culture cannot be understood unless viewed through the eyes of scholars who have delved into the written word.

In fact, reconnecting to the sacred texts will enable us to return to visual media from a more rectified position. The sages say that “in the future, the princes of Judah will teach Torah publicly in the theaters and circuses of Rome.”[13] On the surface, this seems to mean that the Roman theaters will be converted into large study halls, and instead of performances, Torah lessons will be delivered there. But we can propose a bolder interpretation: that those same “princes of Judah” will perform plays and dramas in these theaters; plays and dramas whose content and spirit will emanate from the Torah and become part of it, to the point where they will be considered Torah study in every respect.

The idea that the Roman theaters will be converted to Jewish use aligns with the midrash that says that on the same day that Jeroboam the son of Nebat erected two golden calves as an alternative to the Temple in Jerusalem,[14] Romulus and Remus built the first two huts of Rome.[15] The Roman Empire—kingdom of external and forceful idolatrous images and mother of modern Western culture—drew its power, as it were, from the worship of the Jewish calf. Therefore, its rectification must come through the rectification of the sin of the golden calf within us—refining our imaginative faculty until we can produce sacred plays.

The modern incarnation of the ancient Roman theaters and circuses are today’s movie theaters (with regular movie theaters being the “circuses” that screen the more popular, commercial films, and arthouse cinemas being the “theaters” that screen more serious films). If worthy “princes of Judah” rise in our generation, they will be able to fulfill the prophecy of the sages, and under the inspiration of the Book of Books, create “films of films”—sacred films that teach Torah in a tangible, experiential way.

“And through the prophets I shall be imagined.”[16] From proper, inspired words the faculty of imagination can be rectified and revealed anew. Now is the time to return to sacred words, to leaf through them, study them, compare them, and interpret them. Instead of being flooded by external images, we must rise above them, view them from the outside, and clarify them. When our psychic lifeblood is cleared and our imagination purified, images will once again flow from us like prophecy.[17]

And afterward, I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.”

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

[1] Shabbat 146a.

[2] Likutei Moharan 1, 25:5.

[3] Genesis 3:5.

[4] Exodus 20:4.

[5] Rashi on Exodus 32:1.

[6] The word dam, “blood,” has the same numerical value in as golah, “exile”: the expansive world of imagery is the exile in which we all find ourselves. Crowning the Aleph (א) over the dam (דָּם) within us, not only transforms us us into adam, but also elevates the golah-exile into geula-redemption.

[7] Exodus 34:17.

[8] Ibid. 32:4.

[9] Psalms 115:5-8.

[10] Leviticus 19:28.

[11] Ibid. 21:5.

[12] Ezekiel 36:25-26.

[13] Based on Megillah 6a.

[14] 1 Kings 12:26-33.

[15] See, for example, Shir HaShirim Rabbah 1:41.

[16] Hosea 12:11.

[17] Joel 3:1.

The post Imagine! Purifying the Faculty of Imagination appeared first on GalEinai.

Rabbeinu Yonah was among the opponents of the Rambam and, together with his teacher, placed a ban on his books, the Guide for the Perplexed and the Book of Knowledge (one of the 14 parts of his Halachic codex). This caused a severe controversy among the Jewish people of that time, in which the Radak, Ramban, and other great sages of the generation participated. One of the harsh consequences of this controversy was the burning of the Rambam’s books by the Christians, which later even led to the burning of the Talmud.

Rabbi Hillel, a student of Rabbeinu Yonah, testifies that after Rabbeinu Yonah saw the results of the controversy, he regretted his actions and repented. As part of his repentance, he wrote the book Sha'arei Teshuvah (Gates of Repentance). On his journey to the Land of Israel, he was persuaded by the Toledo community to stay there for a while, and there he passed away and was buried on the 28th of Cheshvan in the year 5024 (1263 CE).

In a letter written by Rabbeinu Yonah's student, Rabbi Hillel, it is described that Rabbeinu Yonah strongly opposed the Rambam's philosophical inquiries in The Guide for the Perplexed and even acted to ban his books. But after seeing the results of the fierce controversy, when the Christians burned the Rambam's books in its wake, he deeply regretted it and even expressed a desire to travel to the Land of Israel to prostrate himself on the Rambam's grave and ask for forgiveness.

When he was already on his way to the Land of Israel, the people of the Barcelona community detained him and asked him to be a rabbi in their city. Rabbeinu Yonah founded a yeshivah there that produced the leaders of the following generation. Afterwards, he continued to Toledo where the request was repeated, but he conditioned it on staying no more than a year or two. Within those two years, Rabbeinu Yonah passed away, and the Ramban, who admired him, lamented bitterly: "Rabbi Yonah, father of virtues, he is unique in purity / O’ piety, o’ humility, o’ abstinence and admonitions / O’ Mishnah and Gemara, o’ Scripture and traditions…"

Indeed, the connection between Rabbeinu Yonah and the Ramban, of blessed memory, was wonderful and extremely close. Besides being cousins, they also connected through marriage as Rabbi Shlomo, the son of the Ramban, married Rabbeinu Yonah’s daughter.

An interesting response of the Rashbash (Rabbi Shlomo ben Rabbi Shimon – the Tashbetz) highlights the deep connection between the Ramban and Rabbeinu Yonah. The Tashbetz relates that shortly after Rabbeinu Yonah's passing, a grandson was born to him, to his son-in-law Rabbi Shlomo, the son of the Ramban. As is customary in Sephardic communities, the son should have been named Moshe, after his paternal grandfather who was still alive. However, despite the custom, the Ramban ordered that the newborn be given the name Yonah, after his maternal grandfather whose sun had just set in this world, thus fulfilling the verse, "The sun rises and the sun sets." The Ramban's intention was based on the words of the sages in the tractate Yoma: "Rabbi Chiya bar Abba said in the name of Rabbi Yochanan: No righteous person departs from this world until another righteous person like him is created. As it is said: 'The sun rises and the sun sets.' Before the sun of Eli set, the sun of Samuel from the Ramah rose….’”

At the conclusion of the Rashbash's response, he relates that indeed that child, Yonah, grandson of the Ramban, became a great scholar. In his words: "And so it was, for from him emerged a great man who became a rabbi and a leader in Israel."

[Based on Zichronam Livrachah]

Rabbeinu Yonah was one of the greatest sages of his generation, and in his personality and Torah he unified many contradictions: In his origins and method of study he was Sephardic, but the influence of the rabbis of the Tosafot from France, some of whom were his teachers for several years and some of whom quote him, is also evident. He also intertwines ethics and halachah inseparably, with his ethical works interspersed with halachot and his Talmudic commentaries full of guidance in Divine service. For this reason, his books became beloved by all streams of Judaism, with both chasidim and non-chasidim studying them with delight.

Rabbeinu Yonah named his book Sha'ar HaYirah (The Gate of Awe), choosing this title despite the fact that most of the book deals with various halachic matters. This expresses his perception that fear of Heaven is both the beginning and the ultimate purpose of Divine service even in the revealed part of Torah. A beautiful allusion is found in the Ramban's lament over his passing, where he calls him "HaRav Yonah" (הָרַב יוֹנָה). This expression has the same gematria as “the Sequestered Light” (אוֹר הַגָּנוּז), where the first word “light” (אוֹר) has the same value as HaRav (הָרַב) and the second word “sequestered” (הַגָּנוּז) has the same value as “Yonah” (יוֹנָה). The Sequestered Light is a phrase used by the sages to denote the light revealed to those who study Torah for its own sake, in order to fulfill it and instill it in the heart.

Even in the events of the polemic with the Rambam, his approach of embracing paradox is clearly evident. On the one hand, he stood firmly by his opinion and did not shy away from the Rambam and his followers who disagreed with him. On the other hand, he knew how to forgo his honor when he realized that the dispute had gotten out of control. His stand for truth is very fitting to his name: Yonah (which means “dove”) is the name of two central figures in the Bible: Yonah (Jonah) the son of Amitai, the prophet, and Noach’s dove, which Noach sent from the ark. Like Jonah, he is "ben Amitai" (literally, a son of truth), born of pure truth, and like Noach, he is a man of grace (חֵן, the reverse of Noach, נֹחַ) in God's eyes, which is the true grace, the opposite of the "Grace is deceitful" mentioned in Proverbs. (In addition, his day of passing, the 28th of Cheshvan, is always the day of chen (חֵן), i.e., the 58^th day from the beginning of the year.

Rabbeinu Yonah’s similarity to Noach is also expressed in the exact timing of the years in which he lived, at the seam between the fifth and sixth millennia, corresponding to the sefirot of acknowledgment (hod) and foundation (yesod). The inner dimensions and experiences of these two sefirot—earnestness and righteousness—are the two adjectives used in the Torah to praise Noach: "Noach was a righteous, earnest man." Moreover, like the dove that Noah sent, Rabbeinu Yonah too did not find rest and passed away while still on his journey. Rabbeinu Yonah repeatedly sacrificed his desire to make aliyah to the Land of Israel to guide and teach Torah to those who needed his mentorship in the Diaspora. Jonah the prophet was sent on a Divine mission specifically abroad, and Rabbeinu Yonah also recognized that his mission as a Torah teacher took precedence over his aspiration to ascend to the Land of Israel. In his devotion, he teaches us all how to fulfill the famous Yiddish dictum of the Tzemach Tzedek “moch da Eretz Yisroel” (make where you are into the Land of Israel). Even his grave in the diaspora was certainly sanctified with its holiness.

The post Rabbeinu Yonah HaChasid of Girona: A Life of Paradox appeared first on GalEinai.

This time, we would like to construct a partzuf—a Kabbalistic model—by focusing on the following verses,

And the children struggled within her, and she said, “If so, to what purpose am I?” She went to seek God. God said to her, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples will separate from within you….”[1]

The question we would like to consider is what it means that “God said to her” (ויאמר הוי' לה). We will see four different answers to this question. Once the four answers are placed in reference to a Kabbalistic model they are revealed to reflect different aspects of Rivkah’s revelation.

Rashi explains that Rivkah was answered through a messenger. She went to the study hall of Shem the son of Noach. There she asked him to reveal her fate and why she was suffering from the pregnancy so terribly and it was Shem, through Ru’ach HaKodesh—Divine inspiration—that revealed that she was pregnant with twins who were diametric opposites.

Rashi’s explanation, which states that Rivkah’s inquiry of God was not a direct appeal to Him and that God’s response to her was also indirect, is based on a Midrash that states that God never directly addressed a woman except for Sarah, and even that was for a specific reason—rebuking her for having laughed at the news that Isaac would be born. Thus, the Midrash states that despite the Torah saying, “God said to her" with regard to Rikvah, it was in fact through Shem.

In addition to Rashi's interpretation, there are two other explanations as to who the messenger was through whom God communicated with Rivkah. The Ibn Ezra and Chizkuni both write that it seems plausible the prophet through whom God answered Rivkah was her father-in-law, Abraham.

Another opinion found in the Midrash is that it was an angel.

At first glance, the Midrash's statement is puzzling: why is it necessary to assert that God never spoke directly to a woman except for Sarah? Why diminish Rivkah—who fully assumed Sarah’s role in the tent—by denying her the distinction mentioned explicitly in the verse—that God spoke to her?

Indeed, Midrash Tadshe (also known as Midrash Rabbi Phinehas ben Yair), states that God’s communication with Rivkah was literal. It lists 23 righteous women mentioned throughout the history of Israel as documented in the Bible (as well as three converts). Beginning with the four matriarchs it notes that nine of these 27 women were prophetesses.

As proof of Rivkah's prophetic status, the Midrash specifically cites the verse in question. According to this Midrash, God Himself spoke directly to Rivkah in a straightforward and explicit manner.

Since we have four different interpretations of “God [Havayah] spoke to her,” we can correspond them to the four letters of God’s essential Name, Havayah. Doing so will reveal four levels of revelation Rivkah had. Note that God is referred to as Havayah in this phrase, “Havayah spoke to her” thus hinting to our use of its four letters to build this partzuf:

That God, i.e., Havayah Himself spoke directly to Rivkah corresponds to the letter yud of Havayah, and the sefirah of wisdom, following the phrase, “Havayah is in wisdom.” Yod of the Divine Name, which represents the highest level of divine revelation.

The angel who spoke to Rivkah, according to another interpretation, would be the exalted angel responsible for the world of Creation and corresponding to the first letter hei of Havayah. The name of this angel is Mitat.

Before considering the final two interpretations regarding who it was that spoke to Rivkah, let us look at this correspondence between the angel Mitat and the letter hei of Havayah in our context a bit more.

The angel’s full name (which we do not pronounce) is written מיטטרון (similar to the angel of the world of Formation, who is the more familiar angel known as Metat, מטטרון). The gematria of his name is 324 or 18 squared, which is the value of the phrase, “Abraham’s servant” (עֶבֶד אַבְרָהָם). Abraham’s servant is the description Eliezer used to refer to himself in parashat Chayei Sarah and incredibly, the value of “Eliezer” (אֱלִיעֶזֶר) is exactly equal to the value of “Havayah said to her” (וַיֹּאמֶר י-הוה לָהּ)—the phrase we are looking at. This connection has deep significance because Eliezer transitioned from being cursed (as a Canaanite) to blessed through his dedication to Abraham, specifically in his mission to find Isaac a wife, who ended up being Rivkah. Indeed, before sending him on his mission, Abraham said to Eliezer, “Havayah shall send His angel before you,” which implies that the angel would be inhabiting Eliezer’s inner self (another meaning of “before you,” לְפָנֶיךָ, i.e., inside you, in Hebrew).[2]

Mitat is considered the root of all angels, as is evident from the Arizal, thus he is the ideal intermediary for passing on God’s works to Rivkah. His name derives from

The name Mitatron (מיטטרון) derives from meter (מֶטֶר), which means "womb"[3] with the addition of a yud signifying the secret of the semen’s absorption into the womb. As explained by Rabbi Abraham Abulafia, the world of Beriah (Creation)—the process of creating being from nothing—is rooted in the moment the seed is absorbed, encapsulating the entire future development of the womb. In any case, this angel, Mitat, is responsible for the womb and is therefore uniquely qualified to respond to Rivkah’s inquiry about what is happening in her womb.

Rivkah herself is linked to the World of Creation, as it is said, "Mother [i.e., Rivkah, the matriarch] nests in the Throne [the World of Creation]." When she earnestly inquires of God with all her heart to understand her destiny, the answer comes from within her own heart, from the angel who embodies the Zohar’s dictum that, “understanding is in the heart and with it the heart understands,” with the sefirah of understanding corresponding of course to the first hei of Havayah.

One of the simplest divisions of the four letters of Havayah is into two and two, or in the language of the Mishnah, “two that are four.”[4] The first two letters—corresponding to the two higher levels where Rivkah does not require another human intermediary—are described by the words, “the hidden things belong to Havayah our God.”[5] But the final two letters are described by the words, “the things that are revealed are for us and our children forever.”[6] In our partzuf, we indeed place the two “revealed” messengers, Abraham and Shem in correspondence with the two final letters of Havayah, as follows.

Abraham, whose attribute is loving-kindness, the attribute described in the Zohar as permeating all six emotive faculties (from loving-kindness to foundation) thus corresponding to the letter vav of Havayah (whose value is 6, denoting the six emotive faculties).

Shem, the son of Noah—identified with Melchizedek the King of Salem—naturally corresponds with the sefirah of kingdom and the final hei in Havayah. Melchizedek literally means “Just King” or “King of Justice,” where justice also refers to kingdom.

We can now better understand why, according to the plain meaning of Rashi's commentary (which also contains an inner dimension known as “the wine of Torah”), Rivkah went to seek God specifically through Shem—and not through her father-in-law Abraham (again, according to this interpretation) or her husband Isaac. Rivkah turned to the level most relevant to her as a woman, the level of kingdom, the archetype of the feminine.

This is also why the response she received through Shem is described with the words, “Havayah said to her,” because this communication resonates with her as a woman.

To summarize:

All four opinions are true as we follow the sages’ dictum that “these [opinions] and these [opinions] are all the words of the Living God.” Thus, Rivkah merits communication with God through all the possibilities found in our partzuf. She embodies and integrates all the different modes of God’s speech to her, serving as the intermediary that unifies all these levels—from receiving direct prophecy from Havayah all the way to asking the existential question, “to what purpose am I” in the way a chasid might seek guidance from his rebbe.

One of the principles of the Torah’s inner dimension is that the source of an intermediary is found at a higher level than the two or more opposites it connects. Rivkah, as the intermediary of all these levels of communication, by being sensitive to her inner tumult, merits drawing down all four modes of communication with God who responds to her existential anguish. It is this authentic and truthful experience that grants her the ability to truly understand the nature of the children in her womb, enabling her to later in the parashah recognize Jacob’s superiority over Esau.

This sensitivity to the experience of pregnancy, which distinguishes Rivkah—making her a prototype for all righteous mothers[7]—positions her, in a certain sense, as the true rectification of Eve. Rivkah becomes “the mother of all life,” who is also “the joyous mother of children,” seeking God and meriting to hear His response in the full spectrum of voices and colors.

[1]. Genesis 25:22–23.

[2]. Since it was Abraham who sent the angel in Eliezer, Abraham is deeply attuned to the dual roots of Esau (the cursed) and Jacob (the blessed) that will emerge from Rivkah and is therefore uniquely suited to convey this message (as we will see regarding the third interpretation that it was Abraham).

According to the Arizal, Eliezer’s hidden soul root is connected to the Mashiach, thus in his concealed aspect, Eliezer is considered higher than Abraham’s revealed aspect (and all the more so loftier than Shem, the son of Noach, to whom Canaan-Eliezer was a servant).

[3]. In general, in Indo-European languages mater denotes “mother” or “matter.” The sages use this word to denote the womb. See for example Yalkut Shimoni on Genesis 17:16.

[4]. Shabbat 1:1 and Shevu’ot 1:1.

[5]. Deuteronomy 29:28.

[6]. Ibid.

[7]. Rivkah and Isaac’s union is also a prototype for all married couples and even further, for the unification of the Divine Names known as mah and ban.

The post Partzuf: Communicating with God appeared first on GalEinai.

The Serious Side of Gematria

Gematria is the study of the Torah’s quantitative dimension. Most people are familiar with gematria because they have heard one that kind of stuck to their minds. Perhaps it was that the value of “Mashiach” (מָשִׁיחַ) and the value of “snake” (נָחָשׁ)—the snake from the Garden of Eden—are the same, 358. It may have set them thinking. What in the world could these two things possibly have in common? The Mashiach represents the rectification of reality, while the snake was the one who tricked Adam and Eve into eating from the Tree of Knowledge and got us into the mess we’re in, in the first place.

Or maybe it was a famous gematria from the early Middle Ages, that God’s Name, Elokim (אֱ־לֹהִים) and “nature” (הַטֶּבַע) also have an identical value, 86. Another one of these quantitative identities between words that initially seem mismatched gets our attention and pushes us to figure out the connection.

But more often than not, gematria is seen as a sort of Jewish “parlor trick.” People aiming to entertain will try their hand at connecting the names of the bride and groom with each other, or with the parashah, or with whatever else seems to work. This is an especially opportune moment to create equivalencies using the “slight of hand” known as the kollel, the seemingly indiscriminate custom of rabbis to add 1 to either side of an equality to get it to work. Though there is a serious source that provides a legitimate basis for this action (and even mathematical considerations that make it plausible), the way it is done haphazardly degrades the seriousness of gematria.

There is yet another fault at play. A lot of people have heard and perhaps agreed with the assessment that gematria is meaningless, because every number has an infinite number of possibilities of words or phrases that have its value. And so “everything can be shown to equal everything else.” But this is evidently not true. There is actually a very small number of words or phrases that equal any given number, and even less if you want the word to be one that can be found in say the Pentateuch, or the Bible, or the Mishnah.

To counter this tendency to discount the value of gematria (no pun intended), one of the early Medieval commentaries on the Torah[1] notes that the phrase, “For it is not empty from you”[2] (כִּי לֹא דָבָר רֵק הוּא מִכֶּם)—about which the sages say, “If it empty—it is from you that it is empty, because you have not toiled over it,”[3] meaning that it is your shortcomings that lead you to think that a particular Torah teaching is empty of meaning—has the same value as “gematriot” (גִּימַטְרִיָּאוֹת).

Like any part of Torah study, gematria is only as good and as revealing as the fear of heaven characterizing the person using it. To truly evaluate the importance of a certain mathematical finding in Torah, one must be a true scholar and know the vast literature dealing with gematria from the time of the sages and on.

All this being said, there is a playful air to gematria and to other forms of letter manipulation. To discover it and to enjoy it, one must have a certain idiosyncrasy to the way they think.

Building a Partzuf Based on Number

One of the most central words in our parashah is Hebron, the name of the town in which Abraham and Sarah dwelt for many years of their lives in the Land of Canaan. This is not the first time that Hebron is mentioned in the Torah. The first time was in the verse, “Avram moved his tent and came to dwell at the plain of Mamre, which are in Hebron; and he built and altar there to Havayah.”[4]

Historically though, Hebron was the first place in the future Land of Israel that Abraham purchased a plot of land and the town where Abraham buried his wife, Sarah, “Sarah died in Kiryat Arba—Hebron—in the land of Cannan…”[5] (וַתָּמָת שָׂרָה בְּקִרְיַת אַרְבַּע הִוא חֶבְרוֹן). When we construct a partzuf surrounding a certain word or concept, we are interested in seeing how other words or phrases that have an identical numerical value can be organized based on the sefirot. In our case, the value of “Hebron” (חֶבְרוֹן) is 266, so all the words and phrases—most of them taken from the Bible, but a few from other rabbinic sources—will share this same gematria, or numerical value. Thus, apart from calling this the partzuf of Hebron—the word from which we started—we could also call this the partzuf of 266.[6]

Crown (keter): Hugging and Clinging to You

Our first phrase is taken from the Hoshanot, the liturgical poem recited while circling with the Four Species on Sukkot. The phrase translates describes the nation of Israel as, “Hugging and Clinging to You” (חֲבוּקָה וּדְבוּקָה בָּךְ). The first word, “hugging” (חֲבוּקָה) begins with the same two letters as “Hebron” (חֶבְרוֹן)—chet and beit (חב). Many items, Kabbalistic sources cite the verse from the prophet Habakkuk (whose name also begins with chet and beit, חֲבַקּוּק), “Therein is concealed His power”[7] (וְשָׁם חֶבְיוֹן עֻזֹּה) as the clearest Biblical reference and description of the crown, particularly of the inner aspect of the crown’s higher partzuf, Atik.[8] The description of “hugging and clinging to You” is also referring to the soul’s highest aspect, the singular one (יְחִידָה), which at its highest level is concealed and hidden, even from the individual himself.

When Maimonides refers to this aspect of God, he describes it as “absolute [or, necessary] existence” (מְחֻיַּב הַמְּצִיאוּת), in other words, God’s existence alone is absolutely independent of anything else. “Necessary” (or, “absolute” in this context) in Hebrew (מחויב) also stems from these two letters, chet and beit. With respect to Hebron, the two first two letters, chet and beit, also allude to “affection” (חִבָּה), which is its special trait, thanks to which it makes all souls affectionate towards one another. Before passing on, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai revealed the secret ingredient that bound him with his disciples and they with one another, “For us, everything depends on affection”[9] (אֲנָן בַּחֲבִיבוּתָא תַּלְיָיא מִלְּתָא). This was in contrast with his teacher, Rabbi Akiva’s generation, which acted with might and zealotry and led the rebellion against Rome.[10]

Further, the initials of “hugging” (חֲבוּקָה) and “clinging” (דְבוּקָה) spell “one” (חד), once again suggesting the way in which the crown is singular and one.

Wisdom (chochmah): The Modest

A single word that equals 266 is “the modest” (צְנוּעִים). The connection to wisdom is explicitly found in the verse, “The modest possess wisdom”[11] (וְאֶת צְנוּעִים חָכְמָה).

Since the modest here are in the plural, it refers to the foundation of wisdom, which is described as extended, and thus joins the foundation of understanding by penetrating it and together descending until the emotive partzuf of Ze’er Anpin.

Understanding (binah): Rebbe Nachman’s Central Verse

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov writes that one of the deepest tasks we can undertake in life is to see a fellow Jew in a positive light. But according to Rebbe Nachman this doesn’t just mean judging him or her leniently and with a good eye, it means searching for something positive in them. Once you find that positive point, quality, or action, you should contemplate it continuously until it elevates the individual. He learns this from the verse, “Soon, there will no longer be a wicked individual, because you will contemplate his place, and it [his wickedness] will be gone”[12] (עוֹד מְעַט וְאֵין רָשָׁע וְהִתְבּוֹנַנְתָּ עַל מְקוֹמוֹ וְאֵינֶנּוּ). The gematria of the first three words of this verse, “Soon, there will be no longer” (עוֹד מְעַט וְאֵין), is 266, the value of Hebron. Since the verse speaks of contemplation—“you should contemplate [his place]” (וְהִתְבּוֹנַנְתָּ)—it clearly corresponds to the sefirah of understanding, which in Hebrew stems from the same root as “contemplation.”

Knowledge (da’at): Hebron

The choice of including “Hebron” (חֶבְרוֹן) itself in our partzuf may seem surprising. What we learn from this is that sometimes when we construct a partzuf, we are constructing it entirely around the central point, as it were, of knowledge.

Hebron (חֶבְרוֹן) means to connect; it is the place where all four elements are united. This is one of the reasons why (according to the Zohar) it is called Kiryat Arba, which means the Town of the Four. The inner quality and experience of knowledge is of unity (יִחוּד). Knowledge is the sefirah that unifies our intellect with our emotive attributes and the habitual faculties, just as the earth of Hebron unites the elements together. In this sense, knowledge is like the soul, or the consciousness of the entire individual.

Another perspective on including “Hebron” into the partzuf of Hebron is that its value is of course 266, and we can (as this article’s title suggests) refer to the partzuf we are constructing as the “Partzuf of 266,” and of course “Hebron” (חֶבְרוֹן) is one of the simple words whose value is 266.

Loving-kindness (chessed): Trust in God

Another phrase that equals 266 is, “he who trusts God is surrounded with loving-kindness”[13] (הַבּוֹטֵחַ בַּי־הוה חֶסֶד יְסוֹבְבֶנּוּ). Obviously, this phrase is connected with the sefirah of loving-kindness but let us explain why. We tend to put our trust in those that have our best interest in mind—those that love and care for us. About this relationship between trust and love, King David says, “he who trusts God is surrounded with loving-kindness.” What the verse is saying is that there is an infinite loop found in our relationship with God. We put our trust in Him because He cares for us and because we put our trust in Him, He loves us even more, which causes us to put even more trust in Him and so on.

Surrounding alludes to “reasons” (סִבּוֹת), i.e., types of signs. A person needs to be super-sensitive to seeing the signs that God is constantly sending him or her, showing that His Providence sees us all at every moment.

Might (gevurah): Contraction

“Contraction” (צִמְצוּם) means that everything in Hebron requires a contraction. This is the essence of might. The rectification of “contraction” is fasting—i.e., contraction in a positive manner. There are many levels of fasting and every person must find the right kind of contraction for him or herself. For example, even if a person plans on eating some seeds and he skips every other seed, that too is considered a “contraction” and counts as his having “fasted” to a certain degree.

Beauty (tiferet): Gathering the People

Beauty is the coming together of many facets or colors to create a single image. The phrase from the Torah that we correspond with beauty does indeed describe a situation in which many facets and characters came together albeit for a negative purpose. The verse reads, “When the people saw that Moses was delaying in coming down from the mountain, the people gathered against Aaron…”[14] (וַיַּרְא הָעָם כִּי בֹשֵׁשׁ מֹשֶׁה לָרֶדֶת מִן הָהָר וַיִּקָּהֵל הָעָם עַל אַהֲרֹן). The value of “the people gathered” (וַיִּקָּהֵל הָעָם) is 266. Even though this phrase appears in the context of the sin of the Golden Calf, it is rectified not very long after, during the construction of the Tabernacle—the rectification for the Sin of the Golden Calf—when “Moses gathered the entire congregation of Israel”[15] (וַיַּקְהֵל מֹשֶׁה אֶת כָּל עֲדַת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל). Put another way, the Golden Calf was the result of Moses not being there to guide them, which is why the rectification for this occurs when Moses gathers the people. Furthermore, when they sinned, they were called “the people” (הָעָם) and when Moses gathers them, they are described as “the entire congregation of Israel” (כָּל עֲדַת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל).

Let us explore the rectification further. The values of the letters of “Hebron” (חֶבְרוֹן) in reduced numbering are 8, 2, 2, 6, and 5. Amazingly, these are the numbers of letters in the words that make up the phrase, “Moses gathered the entire congregation of Israel” (וַיַּקְהֵל מֹשֶׁה אֶת כָּל עֲדַת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל): וַיַּקְהֵל מֹשֶׁה – 8 letters, אֶת – 2 letters, כָּל – 2 letters, עֲדַת בְּנֵי – 6 letters, and יִשְׂרָאֵל – 5 letters.

We can explain this further by noting that the reduced value of “Hebron” is 23, which alludes to Eve’s original name, before she sinned, which was “Chayah” (חַיָּה). Hebron returns Eve to her original name, Chayah. It also alludes a word that means “joy” (חֶדְוָה), the word used by the Zohar to designate the optimal state of the Jewish heart, “Weeping is wedged in the heart from this side, and joy is wedged in the heart from that side”[16] (בְּכִיָּה תְּקִיעָא בְּלִבַּאֵי מִסִּטְרָא דָא וְחֶדְוָה תְּקִיעָא בְּלִבַּאֵי מִסִּטְרָא דָא), a topic discussed and explained in length in many Chasidic writings.[17] In short, joy is the counterweight to the heart’s weeping over either sins committed in the past and/or our distance from God’s goodness that is the result of those sins.

Victory (netzach): God is the Highest of the High

Another key phrase that equals 266 appears in the verse, “Though Havayah is high, He sees the lowly; though lofty, He perceives from afar” (כִּי רָם י־הוה וְשָׁפָל יִרְאֶה וְגָבֹהַּ מִמֶּרְחָק יְיֵדָע). The gematria of the words, “Havayah is high” (רָם י־הוה) equals 266. The connection with the sefirah of victory is based on the Ten “Extremes” (עֳמָקִים) that appear in Sefer Yetzirah. The ones described as, “the depth of high and the depth of low” (עֹמֶק רוּם וְעֹמֶק תַּחַת) correspond to victory and acknowledgment, respectively. Thus, despite God being the extreme of height, as removed as he is from reality, still He perceives and knows all of it, particularly those that are lowly (שָׁפָל).

Acknowledgment (hod): Refrain

Corresponding to the sefirah of acknowledgment (hod), we find a simple word whose value is 266, “refrain” (סוּר) as in the verse, “Refrain from evil and do good”[18] (סוּר מֵרָע וַעֲשֵׂה טוֹב). To refrain from evil requires a steadfast commitment to follow God’s path and not to veer left or right. This is the essence of being earnest, the inner quality and experience of acknowledgment.

Foundation (yesod): A Tzaddik is Never Late

Another phrase that equals 266 is found in one of the seminal descriptions of the Mashiach and the Redemption, “it will come, it will not tarry”[19] (בֹא יָבֹא לֹא יְאַחֵר). In the context of marital relations, this phrase refers to the sefirah of foundation. One of the characteristic qualities of foundation is that all that proceeds to pass through it does so at the exact time required, a topic we have explored elsewhere. A person who is related to foundation tends to tarry but here, even though it seems that he is late, he will in fact not be late.

Kingdom (malchut): Who am I?

עני ואביון אני. King David, the archetypal soul of kingdom, describes himself in Psalms as, “I am poor and impoverished”[20] (עָנִי וְאֶבְיוֹן אָנִי), whose value is 266. Kingdom is described as “it has nothing of its own,” and it is the source of one’s feeling of ego—the source of the “I”—that King David in particular sought to rectify through his lowliness before God. As the verse from where this phrase originates begins, “A prayer from David: Incline Your ear, O’ God, answer me, for I am poor and impoverished.” The feeling of lowliness reflected in this verse manifests as a feeling that “I have nothing of my own,” I cannot take credit for all of my accomplishments, for they are should be attributed to the Almighty, “for it is He who gives you the prowess to succeed.”[21]

Let us now picture the complete partzuf:

More 266

Though there are a limited number of words and phrases whose value is 266, this was not a comprehensive list. Let us mention a few more and quickly say a few words about where each of them would fit in our partzuf:

Second-Filling of Aleph: The filling of the letter alef is alef-lamed-pei (אלף). The second filling is alef-lamed-pei lamed-mem-dalet pei-alef (אלף למד פא), whose value is 266. This would correspond to wisdom because of the well-known and often-quoted phrase, “I will teach you wisdom”[22] (וַאֲאַלֶּפְךָ חָכְמָה), where the word “I will teach” you is derived from the letter alef, which literally means to teach or to train, in Hebrew. Because the permutation of the name of the alef, פֶּלֶא, means wonder and usually refers to the crown, we might be tempted to place the alef’s second filling in the crown, however just alef (אלף) refers to the hairs of the beard of “the concealed wisdom” of the crown, which descend to become the wisdom of the World of Emanation.

Honor of Havayah: A more complex calculation we use in gematria is to take the equivalent of a “dot product” between two words with the same number of letters. Applying this calculation to the two words “honor of Havayah” (כְּבוֹד י־הוה)—an idiom that appears many times in the Bible—we get 200 plus 10 plus 26 plus 20, which sums to 266.

Interestingly the normative value (i.e., the “regular” gematria) of these two words is 58, which is the value of the word meaning “grace” (חֵן). But notice that this word is simply the first and final letters of “Hebron” (חֶבְרוֹן). This leads us to another interesting observation, that the word “Hebron” is also equal to “the grace of Isaac” (חֵן יִצְחָק), since the initial and final letters are “grace” and the value of the middle letters, 208, is the same as “Isaac” (יִצְחָק).

Where should we place this more complex calculation of “the honor of Havayah?” The angels ask, “where is the place of his honor” (אַיֵּה מְקוֹם כְּבוֹדוֹ). The value of “honor” (כָּבוֹד) is 32 and therefore it is usually associated with the 32 Pathways of Wisdom, which would suggest that this too corresponds to the sefirah of wisdom. But in the early Kabbalah there is a distinction between two aspects of honor: The honor of that which is emanated and the honor of that which is created (כָּבוֹד נֶאֱצַל כָּבוֹד נִבְרָא). These two aspects of honor correspond to supernal wisdom (חָכְמָה עִלָּאָה), or just wisdom, and lower wisdom (חָכְמָה תַּתָּאָה), which actually refers to kingdom (malchut). Thus, we correspond “the honor of Havayah” with the sefirah of kingdom within wisdom.

The Perimeter of the Chair (הֶקֵּף כִּסֵּא): In the early Kabbalah (pre-Ramak and Arizal), these six letters, organized as a mnemonic are those which when recursively “filled” lead cyclically to the letter alef. For example, if we fill the letter alef (א), we get alef–lamed–pei (אלף). But the filling of pei (ף) is pei–alef (פא). Continuing to take the filling of the final letter—alef—demonstrates that we are in a never-ending cycle with the letter alef being the “final” filling of alef. Since these six letters’ mnemonic is the “perimeter of the chair” (הֶקֵּף כִּסֵּא), which equals 266 and alludes to the World of the Throne (עוֹלָם הַכִּסֵּא), which is the World of Creation, we correspond this to the sefirah of understanding.

“Thus says [God]”: All the prophets, except for Moses, are associated with the idiom “Thus says God” (כֹּה אָמַר) whose value is 266. Prophecy is associated with eras in which there is a complete unification between Ze’er Anpin and Nukva, the latter being the equivalent of kingdom. When this occurs once again, prophecy will return to the Jewish people. Clearly, this phrase corresponds to the sefirah of kingdom

Two more noteworthy words whose value is 266 are “show me”[23] (הַרְאֵנִי) and “alright” (בְּסֵדֶר). The first was spoken by Moses after the Sin of the Golden Calf as a request that God reveal His compassion, and as a result Moses was given the Thirteen Measures of Divine Mercy. The second is not a Biblical word. It literally means “in order,” but is used colloquially to designate that all is in order, or all is alright.

(from classes given in Hebron in the month of Iyar 5754)

[1]. Pa’ane’ach Raza written by Rabbi Yitzchak, the son of Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi, author of the Kuzari.

[2]. Deuteronomy 32:47.

[3]. Jerusalem Talmud Ketubot 8:11.

[4]. Genesis 13:18.

[5]. Ibid. 23:2.

[6]. This also provides a basis for why “Hebron” itself also appears in the partzuf; see the entry for Knowledge (da’at), below.

[7]. Habakkuk 3:4.

[8]. Note that this word that means, “is concealed” (חֶבְיוֹן), also begins with the letters chet and beit.

[9]. Zohar 3:128a.

[10]. There is a well-known saying from the sages, “All sevenths are endeared” (כָּל הַשְּׂבִיעִין חֲבִיבִין), a saying with which the Lubavitcher Rebbe begins his seminal essay, Bati LeGani. One of the most beautiful mathematical allusions to this principle can be found in the 15 adjectives we recite immediately after the Shema, proclaiming that everything we have said in the Shema is true, “and certain, and established, and enduring, and right, and faithful, and beloved, and endeared….” (וְיַצִּיב וְנָכוֹן וְקַיָּם וְיָשָׁר וְנֶאֱמָן וְאָהוּב וְחָבִיב). The seventh adjective is “endeared,” i.e., the seventh is endeared!

Incidentally, because each begins with the letter vav (ו), these adjectives are known as 15 vavin. The form of the letter vav is a simple straight line. Since the value of “endeared” (חָבִיב) is 22, it also hints at the ration of 22 to 7, which is the best approximation using two-digit numbers for pi, the ratio between a circle’s diameter—alluded to by the letter vav, as noted—and its circumference. For more on pi in Torah, see our website inner.org.

[11]. Proverbs 11:2.

[12]. Psalms 37:10.

[13]. Ibid. 32:10.

[14]. Exodus 32:1.

[15]. Ibid. 35:1.

[16]. Zohar 3:75a. Tanya ch. 34 and Iggeret HaTeshuvah ch. 11.

[17]. See particularly, our treatment in the article “Perek BeAvodat HaShem” in Lev LaDa’at.

[18]. Psalms 34:15.

[19]. Habakkuk 2:3.

[20]. Psalms 86:1.

[21]. Deuteronomy 8:18.

[22]. Job 33:33.

[23]. Exodus 33:18.

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The first word in the Torah, Bereshit, can be interpreted as beit osher (a house of happiness). When we enter a ‘house of happiness,’ we sense an atmosphere of happiness, a kind of 'scent of the Garden of Eden' – even before hearing the family members and observing their behavior. It is told that the Baal Shem Tov sent his disciples to observe a couple who each sat in his or her own corner, each engaged in his own activities, without speaking to each other. The disciples sensed the peace and serenity between them. It was the air of the Garden of Eden in their home. How do we bring the fragrance of the Garden of Eden into our homes?

Smelling the Virtues of the Other

In truth, the sense of smell already exists between all couples: The decision to marry, with all its rational considerations, ultimately stems from an inner sense of smell that identifies the shared root of the two (studies claim that unconsciously, the physical sense of smell also greatly influences the choice of a partner). Even the moments of most personal and deep connection are guided by an inner sense of smell, when the senses of sight and hearing become 'unnecessary' and even interfere.

Smell senses what is hidden beneath the surface. The decision to marry, beyond identifying the connection at the root, is also based on the 'scent' of shared surprises and secrets that the future holds. Throughout life, this sense of smell is expressed in recognizing the modest virtues of one's spouse, in a wondrous sensitivity to hidden good qualities (and in parallel, in the ability not to dwell on the other's faults and cause them to emit an unpleasant odor).

This is the Messianic sense of smell, about which it is said, "And he shall smell in the fear of God."  While love tends to expand and express itself outwardly, qualities of fear, sensitivity, and modesty are relatively hidden and one needs to train the sense of smell to recognize them. One should smell when one's spouse has overcome his evil inclination, refrained from making a comment, acted with sensitivity and gentleness, given in out of love and concern for domestic peace, or modestly refrained from highlighting an achievement. This is the heavenly fragrance that we should enjoy, and it should fill us with love.

.Sweetening Judgments and Creating Contentment

Beyond the general atmosphere, there are moments of contentment that imbue the atmosphere with a good scent:

One of the husband's roles is to 'sweeten the judgments' of his wife – to dispel the bitterness of life and its difficulties, to soften criticism, and to fill her sense of lack. In Kabbalistic terms, sweetening is called perfuming. When a man succeeds in making his wife happy and turning a tense atmosphere into a relaxed one, the house is filled with a heavenly fragrance.

It is said of the worthy woman that she "does her husband's will." Chasidut explains that the worthy woman is like Sarah, who does-rectifies her husband Abraham's will until God says to him, "Whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her voice." Here too, every time the woman succeeds in fulfilling the man's desires, especially when she aims for his hidden desires, perhaps hidden even from himself (and sometimes while doing-rectifying and directing his revealed will), a pleasing fragrance rises in the house.

The sense of smell is also connected to the dimension of spirit in the soul: A loving spouse feels vitality and joy in every demonstration of enthusiasm and spiritual awakening of his partner, even when there is something childish or unrealistic about it. Suppressing the spouse's spirit, by belittling his feelings or ideas (which also has an element of violence), damages the sense of smell and clouds the atmosphere. Conversely, the supportive atmosphere that nurtures this spiritual awakening fills the house with the scent of the Garden of Eden, to the joy of all who enter its gates.

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Once, the holy Rabbi Chaim Tzvi of Siget, author of 'Atzei Chaim' visited his son-in-law, the holy Rabbi Yechezkel Shraga of Cieszanów, who was the nephew of Rebbe Yissachar Dov of Belz. Rabbi Yechezkel Shraga of Cieszanów suggested that they travel to visit Rebbe Yissachar Dov, who was then staying in nearby Holoshitz. Rabbi Chaim Tzvi did not really have the time or the money to spend on the trip, but he reluctantly agreed to his son-in-law's entreaties.

Rebbe Yissachar Dov was very happy with his guest and ordered refreshments to be brought in. Rebbe Yissachar Dov instructed the Rabbi of Cieszanów to put sugar in his father-in-law's cup of tea, as it is ruled in Jewish law that "a person is obligated to honor his father-in-law." "We find that when Abraham welcomed his guests,” said Rebbe Yissachar Dov, “he immediately said to them, 'Refresh yourselves, then go on,' even before they entered his tent. Is it proper etiquette for a host to inform his guest that he must leave after he refreshes himself?! Moreover, what did it matter to Abraham if his guests remained under his roof a little longer, and why did he need to hurry to send them away? It must be that the holy Torah wanted to teach us a lesson for life,” Rebbe Yissachar Dov continued. If a guest comes who is not interested in visiting and whose entire visit is against his will, do not detain him. “Honor him with food and drink and tell him that if he wants, he can go… As I understand it," Rebbe Yissachar Dov concluded, "the Rabbi of Siget has no time and he is in a hurry." And immediately he rose from his place, extended his hand to the Rabbi of Siget, and accompanied him to the door of the house. As they left, the Rabbi of Siget was in great awe of the manifest Divine inspiration that Rebbe Yissachar Dov had shown him and found it difficult to calm down.

Meanwhile, they saw that there was still some time left until the train's departure from Holoshitz. The Rabbi of Cieszanów suggested to his father-in-law that they also visit Rabbi Aharon of Belz (who was the son of Rebbe Yissachar Dov) and discuss words of Torah with him. Rabbi Aharon was happy to see his guests and instructed his attendant to serve cakes and tea. Rabbi Aharon told his cousin to put sugar in his father-in-law's cup of tea, as it is ruled in Jewish law that "a person is obligated to honor his father-in-law"… Rabbi Aharon then said the same words of Torah they had heard earlier from his holy father. Without omitting or diminishing, not adding or elaborating, word for word he repeated the words – and when he finished, he rose and accompanied his guests to the door. To the great awe of the Rabbi of Siget from the Divine inspiration of Rebbe Yissachar Dov, an even greater amazement was added. He did not cease praising that spiritual connection woven between father and son, to the point that they draw their words from the same well and in the same words.

Besides Rebbe Yissachar Dov's penetrating interpretation, in another version of the story, two more interpretations are added: One is the guest's response to Rabbi Yissachar Dov's words – dealing with the fact that the tzaddik should influence and strengthen the hearts of those who come to him ("and refresh yourselves") so that the influence will continue further ("then go on"). The second is the host's reaction – when he saw that the Rabbi of Siget was hesitating to taste the refreshments.

Rabbi Yissachar Dov understood that his guest was fasting, and was deliberating whether to break his fast. Therefore, he told him that even Abraham sensed that the angels were hesitant about eating. After all, their work is done without eating… But Abraham promised them that "then you shall pass on," meaning that you will not become corporeal from this and will be able to continue your work.

From the fact that both of Rebbe Yissachar Dov’s interpretations dealt with angels and their work, it is evident that the subject is close to his heart. Indeed, Rabbi Aharon, who knew his father well and was inspired by him, expressed more than once: "Father is truly an angel!" (And as the Ibn Ezra wrote, that it is possible that the three angels who came to Abraham were prophets, and it is possible that they were actual angels).

Indeed, Chasidut teaches that there are special tzaddikim, whose souls were drawn from the union of chochmah (wisdom ) and binah (understanding). Although generally souls are drawn from the union of the six lower sefirot and malchut (kingdom), these tzaddikim are more similar to angels (as is the tradition, for example, about Rabbi Yechiel Michel of Zlotchov). Here, Rebbe Yissachar Dov reveals a sense of the swiftness of angels and the mission they are imbued with, both characteristics of chochmah and binah respectively:

Chochmah is described as "a lightning flash illuminating the intellect," characterized by the speed of light and the nullification of all other conscious sensations. Binah, whose inner essence is joy, expresses the internalization of this flash and the cleaving to it, while striving with joy and motivation to realize it in the world. When souls are born from these two, they are like angels imbued with Divinity and alacrity to fulfill their mission – just as the angels urged Lot to hurry and escape from Sodom.

It is interesting to see that the three interpretations in the story can be paralleled to another angelic work: the secret of the Chashmal in Ezekiel. According to the Baal Shem Tov's interpretation, the work of the Chashmal angels consists of two parts that are three – chash, meaning silence, and mal, meaning cutting, and also mal meaning speech. These three together form a complete process of submission, separation, and sweetening: The chash part is expressed in submission to the guest's hidden desire to hurry and go on his way. Although Rebbe Yissachar Dov was very happy with his guest, he silenced and nullified his opinion in the face of the will of the hurrying tzaddik. The separation is the promise that the physical abundance will not interfere with (and will even add elevation of feminine waters to) the spirituality of the angels, a trait belonging to the rectification of the covenant (mal). The sweetening is hidden in the interpretation of the Rabbi of Siget, that the abundance received from the tzaddik remains even after one takes leave of him.

After the elaboration about the angels, it should be noted that Abraham and his characteristics were part of Rabbi Yissachar Dov's service of God:

Once Rabbi Aharon asked his brother-in-law to say something he had heard from his father, Rebbe Yissachar Dov. The brother-in-law quoted a saying in his name: "Even if a person is deserving of karet (spiritual excision), he can rectify it by collecting charity for Jews!" Rabbi Aharon was very impressed and asked: "Is that so?! Say it again!"…

The Divine service of kindness rectifies a person by means of his following in the footsteps of Abraham, the secret of the world of Akudim (Binding): In this world, all the lights are "bound in one vessel." A person who does acts of kindness also unites with the Jews he cares for. This inclusion within the collective of Israel 'immerses' the sinner in the Congregation of Israel, thereby nullifying his flaws.

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

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Let’s examine this blessing and, through it, explore the spiritual meaning of water in general in light of Kabbalah and Chasidut.

Between Dew and Rain

Water is a metaphor for Divine abundance, and specifically for Divine wisdom, primarily Torah. Water descends from hidden sources, quenches our thirsty souls, and is necessary for our survival; in this way, it serves as a living illustration of the abundance and wisdom our souls seek to draw from God.

In light of this, what does it mean that the request for rain refers to two types of precipitation— “dew” (tal) and “rain” (matar)? Simply put, it seems to suggest that we distinguish between two types of Divine abundance and wisdom.

Rain is a metaphor for God’s direct supervision of His world, as a Sovereign who resides above it. Rain descends openly from above to below, as if it pours directly from God. It is directly essential for our material[1] existence, and we depend on it for our livelihood, like servants who sit at their master’s table. Although rain falls primarily during winter (in the Land of Israel), it is the only element of the water cycle that is not deterministic. In other words, we cannot predict when and where it will fall with scientific laws. This is why the Torah refers to it as a gift from heaven which comes as a direct response to our actions: “If you will diligently obey My commandments… I will give you rain for your land in its season,” and conversely, “Take heed lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods… then God’s anger will be kindled against you, and He will shut up the heavens so that there will be no rain.”[2] It is also why the sages established the practice of praying for rain and even decreeing public fasts in response to a prolonged drought.

Dew, on the other hand, is a metaphor for God’s hidden Presence, as He dwells within our world. On the one hand, dew is constant and precipitates throughout the entire year, but on the other hand, its origin is invisible—it seems to form by itself during the night.[3] Similarly, God is universally present in our world at every moment and in every place, but He acts and reveals Himself in hidden ways that are not noticed without careful attention. In physical terms, the power of dew is less than that of rain—it cannot provide water to sustain a large population, and no one save specialists would measure how much dew has fallen at night. Spiritually, however, it resonates more deeply in our souls. It reminds us that there are subtle and hidden qualities in the soul that emerge naturally when we are in a “nocturnal” state of calm and relaxation. It is also explained that the Resurrection of the Dead will occur through the “dew of resurrection” (טַל תְּחִיָּה). Thus, dew is a metaphor for the infusion of new life within us.

So far, we have discussed dew and rain as symbols of Divine abundance. Now, what about their role as symbols of Divine wisdom?

In this context of Divine wisdom, rain represents the Torah’s revealed dimension, while dew symbolizes its hidden dimension. The revealed part of the Torah includes the commandments and laws given to us by God as Sovereign. Just as rain is needed for our material existence and falls directly from the heavens, the Torah’s revealed part ensures our physical survival and directly guides us in the world.

The hidden part of the Torah, in contrast, is secretive and nocturnal like dew and includes the inner wisdom of Judaism, which is not measured quantitatively (in terms of how many commandments we fulfilled) but only qualitatively. Just as dew forms invisibly without being seen, so too does this inner wisdom work within us beneath the surface, in ways that are not always conscious.

These parallels are beautifully illustrated in the Hebrew words for “rain” (מָטָר, pronounced: matar) and “dew” (טָל, pronounced: tal), respectively.

The word matar is the root of the word matarah (מַטָּרָה), meaning “goal.” This hints at the linear and goal-oriented thinking of the Torah’s revealed dimension and of faith in God as Sovereign. The word tal on the other hand is the two-letter root of the word bitul (בִּטּוּל) meaning “self-nullification.” This word hints at the annulment of pride and ego, which is the primary objective of the Torah’s concealed dimension and of faith in God as omnipresent.

These ideas reveal to us a profound secret about the prayer “Grant dew and rain for a blessing,” which, among other things, is a request to harmonize the revealed and hidden dimensions, in both Torah and in life.

Between Chaos and Rectification

A basic principle in the Torah states, “God has made this opposite that”[4]: everything has a positive version and a negative version. In Kabbalistic/Chasidic terminology the negative version is described as tohu—a chaotic, unrectified, or coarse version—and the positive version is described as tikkun—a refined, orderly, and rectified version.

This principle also applies to the respective qualities of dew and rain: there are a negative—tohu—dew and rain and a positive—tikkun—dew and rain, and we must distinguish between them.

The tohu rain manifests in harnessing linear, goal-oriented movement toward achievement for the sake of personal empowerment and self-aggrandizement. The pursuit of achievements whether external, like accumulating wealth or gaining fame, or spiritual, like acquiring knowledge or developing skills, when done primarily to showcase our virtues and talents, is an exploitation of the power of rain/goal-oriented energy in a noxious manner.

The tohu dew is the degeneration of noble self-nullification (bitul) into idleness (בַּטָּלָה, pronounced: batalah)—shirking responsibility in the name of unconditional self-acceptance. The tohu dew may take the form of overt laziness, like lounging in front of the TV, but it can also hide behind a seemingly spiritual facade of tranquility and relaxation. Either way, it is a damaging manifestation of the quality of dew.

How can we transition from these negative types of rain and dew to the positive ones?

In Kabbalah, it is explained that the fundamental difference between a reality of tohu and one of tikkun is that in tohu/chaos, each individual element believes it is the only one with the right to exist, and therefore the elements are separated and in conflict with one another. In contrast, in tikkun/rectification, the different elements integrate with one another—they open up to receive from one another and incorporate each other’s truths and perspectives. The tikkun versions of dew and rain are therefore characterized by their ability to contain each other’s qualities: rectified dew contains a drop of rain, and rectified rain contains a drop of dew.

Indeed, it is easy to see that the key to transforming negative achievement-oriented behavior (tohu rain) into a life of elevated, purposeful striving (tikkun rain) lies in infusing a little self-nullification and relaxation (dew) into our purposeful pursuit. All our endeavors and accomplishments are forever imbued with personal ambition and will result in chaos unless we carry them out with a sense of humility before the will of the Supreme Sovereign who sends us to do them. While striving toward our goals, we must introduce moments of surrender—pauses where we stop to take a breath and remember why we are striving to succeed in the first place.

Similarly, transforming negative idleness (tohu dew) into positive self-nullification (tikkun dew) is achieved by setting a goal (rain) to which we become nullified. The dew’s relaxed mode of being is not inherently negative but rather depends on how it is realized. If we simply nullify our will without any purpose, we end up wasting our lives away. But if we nullify ourselves to a higher goal, for the sake of fulfilling God’s will in the world and creating a life of meaning and giving, then our release from familiar perceptions and attachments becomes a means of elevation and growth.

Dew and Rain, East and West

In a broader social context, in our contemporary reality, we can identify phenomena of tohu rain primarily in Western culture, and phenomena of tohu dew primarily in Eastern culture.

In general, the West is characterized by rational, systematic, and goal-oriented thinking, as well as values of achievement, excellence, and self-fulfillment—all traits we have associated with rain. These values have led to remarkable scientific and technological achievements, but at the cost of arrogance, an inflated sense of omnipotence, and the belief that “the end justifies the means.” These flaws stem from an almost complete absence of the value of self-nullification, that is, from a lack of balancing dew.

The East, on the other hand, is characterized by a more circular and holistic worldview, less focused on conquering reality and more on integrating with it and turning inward—the qualities of dew. As a result, it has delved deeply into human consciousness and developed the inner world, but in other respects, it has remained stagnant. In the name of “accepting reality as it is”—in other words, the denial of the rain/goal-oriented mentality—it has left billions with a lowly idol-worshipping worldview, not to mention an economically underdeveloped, Third World condition.

The Torah of Israel—which geographically emerged and developed between Asia and Europe—has always sought to integrate the worldviews of the East and West. The Torah teaches us that humankind is commanded “to cultivate and to preserve”[5] the world. To “cultivate” means to develop and improve the world in the spirit of the West, and to “preserve” it means to let the world remain as is, following the spirit of the East, lest it be destroyed and corrupted.

Similarly, the Torah commands people to rectify the exterior functionality of the individual and the community (primarily through its revealed dimension, akin to rain as mentioned above) while at the same time inviting them to deepen their awareness of their interior, delving into their souls, and thereby drawing closer to the Creator and cleaving to Him (primarily through its hidden dimension, akin to dew). These and other combinations are all reflected in the Torah’s fundamental distinction between the six weekdays dedicated to labor and during which we engage in rectifying our surroundings and environment, and the Sabbath, during which we allow the world to function as is and focus on the workings of our soul.

This reveals to us another great secret about the blessing “Grant dew and rain for a blessing”: its messages of aspiration to integrate, in a rectified way, the qualities of the East and the West through Judaism. Judaism seeks to infuse the dew of the East into the rain of the West and vice versa, until the proper blending of these qualities is achieved—dew and rain of rectification in the Land of Israel.

Between Israel and Egypt

Beyond mere integration between dew and rain, where each contains something of the other, it is clear that the best scenario is to truly merge them—to be both dew and rain simultaneously. But even here, we must ensure that we achieve a tikkun combination of dew and rain and not a tohu one. What are these two types of merging?

Well, before the Jewish people were exiled to the East (Babylon) and then to the West (Rome), our forefathers were exiled to the land of Egypt. Egypt was the first exile that enslaved us, and the exodus from it was the first redemption we experienced. Egypt is also the opposite of the Land of Israel, its mirror image. This is evident, among other things, with respect to the integration of dew and rain, the East and the West. The Lands of Israel and Egypt embody two forms of merging these two cultures: a positive merging of the tikkun versions of dew and rain, and a negative merging of their tohu versions.

Interestingly, this is revealed through the comparison the Torah makes between the water systems of Israel and Egypt:

For the land that you are entering to inherit is not like the Land of Egypt, from which you came, where you would sow your seed and water it with your foot, like a vegetable garden. But the land you are crossing into to inherit is a land of hills and valleys that drinks water from the rain of heaven. A land which Havayah your God cares for; the eyes of Havayah your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

The land of Egypt does not rely on intermittent rains descending from the heavens but is constantly irrigated by the mighty Nile River flowing through it. However, this comes at a price. In exchange for the stable flow of water, the Egyptians had to build complex irrigation channels or trudge back and forth to the Nile to water their fields bucket by bucket (“and water it with your foot”). This way of life symbolizes the type of mentality that Egypt represents—a mentality that prefers to rely on earthly sources of security over maintaining a demanding relationship with a Heavenly Ruler, even at the cost of hard physical labor.

This consciousness reflects the merging of tohu rain and dew, that is, external achievement coupled with idleness. This may sound contradictory, or even impossible, but unfortunately, it is all too common in the modern era. It is manifest in the familiar middle-class lifestyle which could be described by “our goal: idleness.” People devote themselves to building a career in the first half of life, in order to indulge in a lazy retirement in the second half. Egypt’s approach, willing to work hard just to secure a life of comfort and security, represents an ancient version of this same concept.

The Land of Israel, on the other hand, is not flat like Egypt and does not have large lakes and rivers, and therefore depends entirely on rain. On one hand, this creates a challenging reality of dependence on the heavens—it is a land, “which Havayah your God cares for,” i.e. constantly lies under God’s magnifying glass as it were. On the other hand, when the rain does come, there is no need for complex irrigation systems—the farmer finishes his work, goes to sleep, and the heavens give him rain directly where it is needed. This reality symbolizes the type of mentality represented by the Land of Israel. Instead of relying on earthly sources of security, we must lift our eyes to the heavens in prayer for blessing. This demands that we invest in our relationship with God, but if we are worthy, we will receive great blessing and abundance.

This consciousness reflects the merging of the tikkun rain and dew, meaning the striving for an elevated goal together with a sense of self-nullification. This combination can be described as nullification toward a goal—complete devotion to our purpose as servants of God in this world—free of the goal of reaching retirement—coupled with a willingness to accept whatever He gives us, for better or for worse. This combination is expressed in what the Ba’al Shem Tov defined as “relaxed quickness” (זְרִיזוּת בִּמְתִינוּת). This special state of mind calls for energetic action outwardly, but from a place of inner tranquility rooted in faith. The approach of the Land of Israel, which forsakes earthly security in favor of a life of real and exposed connection with God, symbolizes this merging.

Returning to Faith

The correspondence between these two ways of merging the dew and rain energies with the imagery of Egypt and Israel sheds new light on the story of Israelites’ descent into Egypt and the Exodus from Egypt. The descent into Egypt, which, as we recall, occurred due to a severe drought, is revealed as a metaphor for a kind of spiritual decline, driven by the hardships of life, from a life of faith in Divine grace to reliance on earthly foundations. The Exodus from Egypt back to the Land of Israel through a wilderness where even bread descends from the heavens, serves as a metaphor for a willingness to return and devote ourselves to a life of faith.

The connection between the blessing of dew and rain and the Exodus from Egypt is reflected in the fact that we stop requesting “dew and rain for a blessing” and begin to request only “grant a blessing” on the first day of Passover, the official end of the rainy season on the Hebrew calendar.

But now, as we stand a few weeks after Rosh HaShanah, with a long drought behind us, and an uncertain winter ahead of us, we must dedicate this period, from the 7th of Cheshvan to the 15th of Nissan, to deep and pure prayer for dew and rain—the inner Jewish merging of attaining goals with a sense of self-nullification—bitul and matarah. With God’s help, we will thus merit a winter of literal dew and rain, and on Passover—the Festival of the Spring—a true Exodus from Egypt.

[1]. In fact, the Hebrew word for “rain” (גֶּשֶׁם, pronounced geshem) is the root of the word meaning “materiality” (גַּשְׁמִיּוֹת, pronounced: gashmiyut).

[2]. Notice the shift from referring to God in the first person in the earlier verses, “My commandments,” to referring to Him in the third person, “God’s anger,” suggesting that God turns His back on us.

[3] The prayer we say—“who brings dew down” (מוֹרִיד הַטַּל)—describes the formation of dew as a descent. We can understand this, not as a descent from the heavens to the earth, but a “descent” in physical state, namely the condensation of water from its vapor/gaseous state to a liquid state.

[4]. Ecclesiastes 7:14.

[5]. Genesis 2:15.

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