FEAR FOR LIFE

PARSHA
VAYISHLAH 08


”Yaakov was greatly afraid and distressed” (Gen.32.8)

He was greatly afraid… of losing his life, and distressed… about taking a life. (Bereshit Rabba)

The economy of the world has displayed inflationary tendencies for over 60 years. Rapid inflation means rapid loss of the sense of value of possessions.
Even life has lost its value; it has become dispensable.

With depression staring us in the face, we should not allow the recent economic down-turn to be depressive, for recession has a good side.
Inevitably, new standards will be set which should restore our sense of real values.

Let us hope that people will regain respect for life once more, and that its preservation will become more meaningful by fearing its loss.

Let us hope that man yet again will be imbued with a genuine sense of what is really important.

GIVING IN DIFFICULT ECONOMIC TIMES

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


By Simon Jacobson
Dear Rabbi,

I look forward to reading you essays every week. As one of those many that never received a relevant Jewish education, your words have provided, dare I say transformed me, with a new way to look at myself and the world. They have helped me with my family and with my work. No words would suffice to express my profound appreciation.

I have been blessed with the ability to assist others financially. I am sincerely reluctant to cut down on my giving due to the current economic crisis, which is hurting us all. I would like to get your take on this. Is it justified for me to give less? What should be my attitude? I am sure that many people have this question, and would appreciate your wise words on the matter.

Wishing you the strength to continue your holy and necessary work,


Dear,

Thank you for you very kind words. For the record, my writings are not my own creation; they come from my teachers and from books preceding us both. They are teachings that have transformed me as they have you, and hopefully I am doing some justice in conveying these ideas faithfully. May you and I – and us all – grow in learning and implementing these life-enhancing teachings, and share it with those that we come in contact with. Like a flame, each of us has the power to ignite another flame, and another, ad infinitum, and together – we all warm and illuminate each other in one glorious basking light.

The answer to your question is twofold: All blessings come from above, including the blessing of wealth. We humans surely have to create “containers” through our hard work, innovation and investments, but after all is said and done, our efforts are like seeds we plant in the field, which then require rain from above to water the earth and allow our seeds to sprout.

Thus, no matter what economic crisis may or may not exist, we cannot and ought not compromise our obligations and responsibilities to continue giving to the best of our abilities and beyond. Indeed, your ability to give is your greatest blessing and gift; you were blessed with extra wealth so that you have the opportunity to help others. Why would you want to close off this channel of blessings by weakening in any way your giving? On the contrary, the more committed you are, the greater container you build to receive the blessings of “rain” upon yourself.

As the great philanthropist George Rohr said in the name of his father, Sammy Rohr: “During good times, when things are going well, it's no kuntz (trick; feat) to be a Baal Tzedaka. When it gets hard, that's when it’s important. When everybody is in a pinch, trying to do everything to maintain the level they've been given before - if at all possible; that's where we really get tested.”

At the same time, we need to be prudent and practical in our giving. I cannot tell you how much you should be giving; that is dependent on many factors, including your income, your potential, your general disposition to giving. Not the least amongst these factors includes your own faith and commitment, especially in hard times.

We ought to also bear in mind that a big part of an economic turndown is psychological. Though it has directly affected many people’s bank accounts, for many it’s about fear in this type of climate. Many wealthy people remain quite prosperous, yet psychologically they are frightened. For some the present economic forecast may also provide an “excuse” not to give, bearing in mind that giving is not an easy thing to do for most people.

The key thing to remember is that one should never decrease any commitment to giving due to fear or psychological reasons. Your negative attitude may be the cause that will limit your “containers” from receiving blessings in abundance. Even psychologically speaking, a broad minded attitude and optimism encourages others to have confidence and invest in you. While the opposite discourages investment.

How you balance these two – faith and pragmatism – is a challenge of its own, and needs to be addressed case by case.

Above all, allow me to share with you the prescient words of the Zohar in this week’s Torah portion, in explaining the cryptic episode of Jacob’s lonely battle with the “stranger:”

Jacob remained alone and a stranger wrestled with him until the break of dawn. When he saw that he could not defeat him, he touched the upper joint of Jacob’s thigh. Jacob’s hip joint became dislocated as he wrestled with him. As a result Jacob was limping because of his thigh.

Explains the Zohar: Jacob refers to the Torah, and his hip symbolizes the financial supporters of Torah study and dissemination. Jacob being weakened by his hip dislocation represents a situation when the financial pillars (compared to legs) cease supporting Torah scholarship, which cause the Torah to be “forgotten from one generation to another and its strength weakened.”

As a result, the “negative forces” gain power with each day, and “much evil therefore results, since, as the upholders of the Torah become weaker, strength is thereby gained by him who has no legs to stand upon. When G-d said to the serpent, “upon your belly shall you crawl” (Genesis 3:14), the serpent had his supports and legs cut off so that he was left with nothing to stand on. But when Israel neglects to support the Torah, they thereby provide the “serpent” with supports and legs on which to stand firm and upright.

…Many were the stratagems and cunning devices to which the serpent-rider resorted on that night against Jacob, for he well knew that “the voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau” (Genesis 27:22), so that whenever the voice of Jacob is interrupted, the hands of Esau are reinforced. He therefore attempted in every possible way to interrupt Jacob’s voice, but he found him strong on all sides, his arms strong on both sides and firmly upheld between them, and the Torah firmly entrenched therein.

Seeing, therefore, that he could not prevail against him, he “touched his hip bone.” For he knew that when the supports of the Torah are broken, the Torah itself is shaken… His whole purpose in contending with Jacob was to break the force of the Torah, and when he saw that he could not strike at the Torah itself, he weakened the power of its upholders; for without upholders of the Torah there will be no “voice of Jacob”, and the hands of Esau will operate freely.

Upon seeing this, Jacob, seized hold of him, as soon as day broke, and did not let him go, so that he blessed him and confirmed to him those blessings, and said to him: “Your name shall be called no more Jacob (supplanter), but Israel (princehood and strength), so that no one can prevail against you.”

Now, from that serpent issue numerous hosts which disperse themselves on every side to prowl about the world. It is incumbent, therefore, upon us to preserve in a complete state the sinew of the thigh-vein, for although the serpent-rider touched it, it retained its vitality, and we require its strength to establish ourselves in the world and to make good the words: “For you have battled with G-d and with men, and have prevailed.” When the adversary sees that that part is not broken or consumed, his own strength and courage is broken and he can no more do any harm to the sons of Jacob (Zohar, I 171a).

The words of the Zohar speak for themselves. They tell us in no uncertain terms that we must stand form against any voice and challenge (including economic conditions) that argues against supporting (or weakening our support of) good causes. By succumbing to these challenges we actually feed the destructive forces that want to undermine the foundations that keep us standing. The “serpent” takes on many forms and issues many forces, including economic conditions, “which disperse themselves on every side to prowl about the world.” And when it cannot attack out source of life itself, it attacks its supporters.

Jacob’s teaches us and gives us the power to overcome these challenges, to battle and prevail over these forces, and actually transform them into blessings.

The Zohar this week is declaring loud and clear: Do not be deceived by the attempts of the “stranger” (in all his shapes and forms) to weaken your resolve and commitment to support your good causes. We must forge ahead with faith and trust.

Indeed, the mere fact that we take upon ourselves positive resolutions to continue giving and actually increase in giving despite these more difficult times, opens up the channels of blessings, including new channels, that will nourish our efforts and produce blessings in material abundance.

May you – and we all – be blessed to fight like Jacob and prevail over all doubts, anxieties and fears. And just as Jacob prevailed in his battle 3578 years ago, and we his children are here to tell about it, so too we are confident that we will prevail, and come out stronger than ever.

~~~~~

A Place of Prayer

We have already seen that the sages understand that the word “He arrived,” ויפגע , means “prayed.” When Jacob arrived at Mt. Moriah, the place where Isaac was bound to be offered as a sacrifice, he prayed and in doing so established and instituted the evening prayer, called aravit, for all generations to come. We also saw the Talmud passage where it is explained that Abraham instituted the morning prayer called shacharit; Isaac instituted the mid-day prayer, called minchah.

Now, let us see what the Midrash teaches us regarding the three daily prayers:
“He arrived at the place.” He prayed. The patriarchs instituted the [daily] prayers. Said Rabbi Shmu’el bar Nachmani: they [the daily prayers] correspond to the three times during which the day shifts. At night fall a person should say: “May it be Your will, Havayah my God that You shall take me out of darkness and into light.” At daybreak a person should say: “I give thanks before You, Havayah, my God, for taking me out of darkness and into light.” At mid-day a person should say: “May it be Your will, Havayah my God, and the God of my forefathers, that as You blessed me with seeing the sun rise, so shall You bless me with seeing it set.”

The order of the prayers described by Rabbi Shmu’el bar Nachmani is aravit, shacharit, and minchah. Meaning, that he follows the order of the verse in Psalms: “Evening, and morning, and midday, I will speak and be excited and He will hear my voice.”1 These are the three times in which the day shifts. Following this scheme for the prayers, the order of the patriarchs is Jacob, Abraham, and Isaac. The order in which Jacob precedes Abraham and Isaac is based on the verse: “Jacob who redeemed Abraham,” in order to give birth to Isaac. This means that Abraham who was all loving-kindness could not give birth to his complete opposite, Isaac, who was all might. So actually, in order to become fertile, Abraham had to receive a measure of might. Where did he get it? This verse indicates that Jacob, who symbolizes the sefirah of beauty, a composite of both loving-kindness and might, was the source. Jacob redeemed, that is freed Abraham so that he could have Isaac. As has been explained previously, in order to be the composite of two opposite sefirot like loving-kindness and might, beauty has to originate in a source that is higher than both.
It is important to note that Rabbi Shmu’el bar Nachmani does not dispute that it was the patriarchs who instituted the daily prayers. Rather his statement defines more clearly when these times were—at times that marks changes in the daylight.” Indeed, in our own parshah, the shift in the day is explicit. The verse says: “He arrived at the place, he slept there for the sun had set….”2 So the preferred time for the evening prayer, according to Rabbi Shmu’el, is immediately with the setting of the sun.
Let us look at the verse from Psalms quoted above: “Evening, and morning, and midday, I will speak and be excited and He will hear my voice.” Targum Yonatan translates this verse as: “In the evening, in the morning, and at midday, I will pray, I will feel [lit., gather myself] and He will hear my voice.”
There are three verbs in this verse: speak, excite, and hear. They correspond to the three patriarchs and the three daily prayers, as follows:

part of verse

patriarch

prayer

“I will speak”

Isaac

minchah

“and be excited”

Abraham

shacharit

“He will hear”

Jacob

arvit

Let us now see how.
The Hebrew verb for speak is אשיחה , which is the same verb that we saw regarding Isaac’s prayer “Isaac went out to speak in the field.”3 We already saw the passage in the Talmud that proves from our verse in Psalms that speaking intimates prayer. Indeed, the Targum Yonatan used the Aramaic word for “prayer,” which is צלי (tzali), which in Hebrew is related to the word for shadow, צל , alluding to the time after midday when objects begin to cast a longer and longer shadow.
The first emotion of the heart, its basic form of excitement, is love, the inner experience of loving-kindness. Just as Abraham is the first of the patriarchs, so the sefirah of loving-kindness is the first sefirah of the emotional realm. Thus, excitement is the verb describing the functioning of the heart and corresponds to Abraham. God notes that the reason that he changed Abraham's name from Abram was because he is destined to be the father of a multitude of nations, אב המון גוים . The word “multitude“ המון is related to the word for “excitement“ הומה . In fact, the Aramaic translation is even more explicit on this point because the word “feel” (ארגיש ) in Aramaic literally translates as “I will gather.”4 Thus, a multitude of nations is a gathering of nations. In Chassidut, the multitude of nations of which Abraham is the father is explained to symbolize the powers of the animal soul, whose focus is the sound and fury of physical life. But, the physical world awakens with the dawn. By waking up even earlier (as in the verse: “And Abraham woke early in the morning”), that is, by contemplating and meditating on God, Who is always the first (and the last), preceding everything else, Abraham is able to rectify the din of the animal soul and focus its strength on serving the Almighty. King David said: “I will wake the dawn,” which the sages interpret as meaning: “I wake the dawn; the dawn does not wake me.” The Chassidic interpretation of this verse is thus that a person should have the ability to see God as primary, as first, and as independent of everything that comes to pass. In that case, he wakes the dawn, which symbolizes physical reality and subjects it to the yoke of Heaven making its trials and tribulations manageable.
“He will hear my voice,” is related to Jacob about whom Isaac said “the voice is the voice of Jacob.” Hearing alludes to the Shema: “Hear O’ Israel.”5 The special affinity between the voice and the evening, which in Hebrew also means “pleasant” (ערב ), is revealed in the verse: “For your voice is pleasant.”
Continuing with Jacob’s correspondence to “He will hear my voice,” on the verse: “She will cry at night.”6 The words in Hebrew are בכו תבכה בלילה . The initials of the first two words בכו תבכה spell בת , “daughter.” The numerical value of the rest of the letters, כו בכה בלילה , is 130 = 5 · 26, or the word עין , which means either an “eye” or a “wellspring.” Thus, this verse is the secret of the בת עין , which literally means “the daughter of the eye,” but in Hebrew is an idiom for the eye’s pupil. The tears that come out at night are the secret of the third phrase of the verse: יסבבנהו יבוננהו יצרנהו כאישון עינו , “He [God] will encompass him [the Jewish people], build him, and guard him like the pupil of His eye,”7 which describes a three-fold process of meditation and cleansing of the blood from the influence of the animal soul.8 On the words “She will cry at night” Rashi comments: “A person who cries at night, He who hears his voice, cries with him.” The crying at night is a reference to what in Kabbalah is called raising feminine waters, while the words “He who hears his voice, cries with him” is a reference to the masculine waters, that is the affluence brought down from God in response. All this is the secret of aravit, the evening prayer, the prayer of Jacob. Specifically, in Jacob’s life, it was his wife Rachel who symbolized the feminine waters rising, as Rachel רחל is equal to 2 times “tear,” דמעה . Indeed, the gematria of Israel, ישראל , is exactly equal to the gematria of “evening,” רמשא , in Aramaic.
Thus, we have found that the order of the prayers in the verse “I will speak and be excited and He will hear my voice,” (minchah מנחה , shacharit שחרית , aravit ערבית ) is exactly opposite the order in the verse: “Evening, morning, and midday….” In Kabbalah, such a reversal is likened to an engraved stamp, or seal חותם המתהפך .9 Writing out the initials of the three prayers in the order they are found in the verse “I will speak…” we get: מ ש ע . These three letters, rearranged spell the first word of the Shema שמע . Each of the six possible permutations of these letters forms an acronym for a well-known verse or idiom in Torah. Beautifully, the acronym formed by the משע permutation is מקומו של עולם , “Space of the world,” God’s connotation that we discussed in length yesterday. As explained, this is the connotation that is first found in reference to our parshah: “’And he arrived at the place’—God is the space of the world, but the world is not His space.”

In the chapter 77 of Psalms, there are two verses that have similar idioms to the verse: “I will speak….” Let us look at them:
The first verse translated as literally as possible10 in order to retain the similarity in verbs is: “When I remember God and I will be excited, I will speak, and my spirit will be completely bundled.” Applying our earlier meditation on the correspondence of the verbs to the patriarchs, we find that in this verse the order of the patriarchs is Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; “I will be excited” alludes to Abraham, “I will speak” to Isaac, and “My spirit will be bundled” alludes to Jacob.” The order of the daily prayers in this verse is therefore shacharit שחרית , minchah מנחה , aravit ערבית , the initials of which spell “Shema,” שמע .
The second verse that is similar, again translated as literally as possible, is: “I will remember my song at night; I will speak with my heart and my spirit searches.” What is the order here? The first part of this verse refers to the second half of the night, after midnight, the time in which the sages relate that David’s harp, struck by the wind in his bedroom chamber, would begin to play music by itself, memories of the songs that the king had played on it earlier that day. This is the proper time to begin preparations for shacharit, the morning prayer, as explained in the Zohar. Music that plays by itself is the result of deep meditation on the greatness of God, which is the spiritual work of Abraham.11 Speaking with the heart is of course a reference to Isaac’s prayer, minchah. Finally, “my spirit searches” is a reference to Jacob. On deeper contemplation, one can see that this verse is describing not just the order of the daily prayers, but the relationship between them, how together they carry the singular thread of the soul through the day. The song remembered at midnight, is as noted, a memory of the song of the soul sung in the evening prayer, aravit. Speaking with the heart in the afternoon, in minchah, is formed from the excitement that the heart experienced as a result of the morning prayer, shacharit (the first rectified excitation of the heart alludes to Abraham’s love for God). And finally, the searching of the spirit at night is a residue of twilight, the hour of minchah according to Rabbeinu Tam, and the perfect time for searching, which is why this is the time of day that we search for leaven dough, chametz, before Passover.
Now let us perform a somewhat difficult exercise. Let us find the value of each of these verses:
“Evening, morning, and midday…” ערב ובקר וצהרים אשיחה ואהמה וישמע קולי = 1884
“When I remember God…” אזכרה אלהים ואהמיה אשיחה ותתעטף רוחי סלה = 1994
“I will remember my song at night…” אזכרה נגינתי בלילה עם לבבי אשיחה ויחפש רוחי = 1939

Now note that 1939 = ½ (1884 ┴ 1994). This means that the average of the first two verses is exactly the value of the third verse!

Based on the Daily Dvar Torah from Thursday, 5 Kislev 5768 – November 15, 2007

1. Psalms 55:18.

2. Genesis 28:11.

3. Ibid.

4. See also Psalms 2:1. Many times this verse is translated incorrectly using Modern Hebrew (see for instance the Jerusalem Bible). The exact meaning is “Why have the nations gathered…,” which is strengthened by the context of verse 2, where it is clear that their gathering is to do battle with the Mashiach.

5. In this case, since the verb is “hear,” which corresponds to the sefirah of understanding, the reference is to the partzuf of Yisra’el Saba, the sefirah of wisdom in the World of Creation.

6. Lamentations 1:2.

7. Deuteronomy 32:10.

8. Each stage of the three-fold process described in the verse corresponds to one of the three patriarchs.

9. When a stamp is pushed into wax for instance, whatever was on the bottom of the stamp comes out on the top of the reverse image in the wax, and vice versa.

10. From the context of chapter 77, it is clear that this is not a verse describing a person who is full of strong spirit and happiness. In a less literal, more figurative translation it is rendered: “I remember God and moan; I meditate, and my spirit faints completely.” See also Metzudat David, Radak, and Malbim on this verse.

11. גדולה , “greatness,” is a synonym in Kabbalah for the sefirah of loving-kindness.


courtesy Inner.org

Parshat Vayeitzei: Hamakom

Hamakom
Let us continue to focus on the word “in the place” במקום , but this time we will begin with a theological perspective. One of the connotations of God is “the Place,” which can be rendered more understandably as “the Space.” In Hebrew the word is: המקום . In the midrash1 we find the following teaching on our parshah:


Why is God’s Name connoted and he is referred to as the Space? Because He is the space of the world, and the world is not His space.


Said Rabbi Yosi ben Chalafta: We do not know whether God is the space of the world or whether the world is His space. From the verse: “Behold, there is space with Me”2 we conclude that He is the space of the world, but His world is not His space!


Said Rabbi Yitzchak: From the verse, “The abode of eternal God”3 we can not know [based on this verse] whether God is the abode of the world or whether the world is His abode. But, from the verse “God, you have been our abode,”4 from this verse we know that God is the abode of the world and that the world is not His abode.


This can be likened to a warrior who was riding on his horse and his weapons were hanging from both sides [of the saddle]. The horse is secondary to the warrior, not the warrior to the horse. This is the subject of the verse: “When you ride on your horses, your chariots bring deliverance.”5


Thus, from the sages, our verse is the first source in the Torah that reveals that God is the space of the world, but the world is not the space of God. To be more exact, from our verse, the Rabbi Yosi ben Chalafta says that one might still think that the world does give space to God. What does this mean? Let us look at the classical philosophical interpretation of this question and the inner Kabbalistic and Chassidic interpretation.

Philosophy vs. Kabbalah
From a philosophical point of view, every theology needs to address the question of the relationship between God and creation. This question can be asked from a number of different perspectives. It can be asked from a causal perspective, for instance one might ask, is God the underlying force acting behind everything. It can be asked from a time perspective: Is God free of time limitations? In other words, does He create time, or is He bound by it. In the Midrash quoted the question of God’s relationship with the world is asked from the perspective of space, meaning the container, if you will, of reality. The philosophical question is then: “Is God contained within space, or is He not?” The philosophical-theological question has to be answered with either a yes or a no. If you answer in the affirmative, the world is the space within which God exists, then you would be defined a pantheist—most nature oriented beliefs (like Wicca or Shinto) are pantheistic and experience God as imminent. If you would answer in the negative, God is not limited only to the space of the world, they you would be defined as a transcendentalist—the so-called monotheistic religions like Christianity and Islam understand God to transcend reality—there can be no direct experience of God, for God is not actually present in our reality.


But, from the Kabbalistic perspective, which reveals the depth of Jewish theology,6 this is not a yes-no question. It is a relative question. God is both contained within the world and at the same time not limited by the space of the world. Because God is Infinite, He exhibits both aspects. The aspect of God that is contained within space, in the world, is called the light that fills all worlds (אור ממלא כל עלמין ). The aspect of God that is not limited by space is called the light that surrounds all worlds (אור סובב כל עלמין ). Thus, the Kabbalistic mind does not interpret this midrash as asking whether or not God is so and so (contained or not contained in space), but rather which verse refers to his filling light aspect (contained) and which verse refers to his surrounding light aspect (transcendent, not limited).7 The question that is of interest is which verses reveal the imminent nature of God’s Presence, and which verses refer to His transcendent Presence.

Did Jacob Find Himself or His Wife?
Let us now return to the arguments found in the quoted midrash. Rabbi Yosi ben Chalafta says that from the verse in our parshah, “He arrived in the place,” we might have thought that God is contained within the world. Translated into Kabbalistic/Chassidic terminology, we might have thought that this verse refers to God’s filling light, the light that fills all worlds. This would seem to be an appropriate interpretation because in the Arizal’s conceptual scheme, the light that fills all worlds, the imminent nature of God is revealed by the ray of infinite light that permeates the void, a state alluded to in the verse: “Then your light shall burst forth like the dawn….”8 The word for “burst forth” in this verse is יבקע , which permutes to spell “Jacob” יעקב , indicating that Jacob himself is the personification of this aspect of God. How fitting it would be that Jacob would arrive at, that is experience the light that fills all worlds, the imminent experience of God, which is the essence of his own soul.


Nonetheless, Rabbi Yosi ben Chalafta says this is not clear from this verse, and that when another verse is taken into account: “Behold, there is space with Me,” a verse spoken to Moshe Rabbeinu who is considered to be an embodiment of the inner aspect of Jacob,9 it is clear that this was not the light that fills all worlds that Jacob experienced, but rather the revelation of the light that surrounds all worlds, the transcendental nature of God. In Kabbalistic language, the first revelation of the light that surrounds all worlds is called the great circle, or the kingdom of the Infinite. This aspect of God is alluded to in the verse: “The woman of valor is the crown of her husband.” Like the crown that is round, the great circle precedes, as it were, all imminent revelations. Since the surrounding light is associated with a woman of valor and the imminent revelations with her husband, it is clear that the masculine and feminine aspects of reality correspond to the imminent and transcendent revelations of God, respectively. Relative to the soul, the body is feminine. Thus, in the future, the woman of valor, the body, will be the crown of the soul, her husband; the body, which does not have an imminent experience of God, will be able to reveal to the soul a transcendent experience. By Jacob, clearly the feminine with which he is to unite as the soul unites with the body, is Rachel. Indeed, as we have pointed out earlier, “He arrived in the place” ויפגע במקום is equal to the value of Rachel רחל (238) plus one-half the value of “Rachel” 119: ויפגע במקום = 357 = 238 ┴ 119. As explained previously, according to Rabbi Avraham Abulafia, the consummate wholeness and root of anything is revealed when it is illustrated in the format of a whole and a half.

Mathematical Ruminations
Let us take a short mathematical detour to see what happens when we add our verse to the verse brought by Rabbi Yosi ben Chalafta. Our verse is “He arrived in the place” ויפגע במקום and Rabbi Yosi brings the verse: “Behold, there is space with me” הנה מקום אתי . Together they equal 1014 = 26 · 39, or “Havayah” י־הוה times “Havayah is One” י־הוה אחד . But, 1014 is also equal to three times the value of “He lay down” וישכב (338). It is also equal to 6 times “He arrived” ויפגע (169). Yesterday we saw (see note 9) that when a word possesses 4 letters, its value when written in “front and back” format will be 5 times the value of the word itself. Let us now extend this rule and say that for any word of n letters with value m, its value when written front and back is m(n ┴ 1). Since ויפגע has 5 letters, 1014, which is 6 times the value of ויפגע is also equal to ויפגע written front and back: ויפגע יפגע פגע גע ע ו וי ויפ ויפג ויפגע !

Submission, separation, and sweetening in the midrash
Now, let us return to the midrash. We see that the midrash brings altogether three different examples of places where one might think that the reference being made is to God’s imminent Presence, but actually His transcendence is being referred to. The first is our verse, with the word “place” (which we translated also as “space”). The second is a verse referring to “abode.” And, the third is a parable that uses the image of a warrior riding a horse, a rider.


In the first two examples, the midrash formulates its conclusion in the same format: “He is the x of the world but the world is not His x.” In the first example the formula yields: the space of the world, מקומו של עולם . In the second it yields: the abode of the world, מעונו של עולם . If we were to apply this formula to the third example we would get: the rider of the world. But, in Hebrew the correct way to say “the rider of the world,” and which, as we shall see, also alludes to a particular verse (implicitly the source for the parable) is “world rider,” רוכב עולם .


If we add these three together we get:


מקומו של עולם מעונו של עולם רוכב עולם = 1690 = 10 · ויפגע !


We saw in the first teaching on Vayeitzei that 1690 also equals the values of ויפגע its first, and its second fillings together!10


Now, from the Chassidic perspective, the question to be asked on the midrash quoted is why are three examples necessary? The answer is that each illustrates a different facet of the same idea. In our case, we will now see that these three examples together complete the model of submission-separation-sweetening taught by our master the Ba’al Shem Tov.


In our service of God, awareness that God’s transcendent aspect gives space, or a place, to the world (“He is the space of the world”) creates submission. The sages teach us that, “Who is wise? He who knows his place!” Wisdom is the experience of nullification or selflessness. Thus knowing that the space that one occupies is entirely within the transcendence of the Almighty is a nullifying experience11 that leaves one in a state of submission before God.


Awareness of God’s transcendence as the abode of our reality can be understood in context of the seven firmaments. “Abode” is the name of the fifth firmament, which is explained to be God’s private dwelling, as it were. That all my reality is contained within God’s abode thus elicits a feeling of being special and motivates me to disassociate myself from all of my negative inclinations. As explained elsewhere, this is the essence of separation in the Ba’al Shem Tov’s model.

Finally, that God is riding the world, exemplifies that everything is serving God, even me! With this parable we come to realize that everything has the potential (even me!) to be part of God’s chariot, a platform upon which and through which God’s Infinite goodness and holiness can be revealed. This is the experience of sweetening, where even the bitter reality of creation which seems to be disconnected from God can be transformed into an object of sweetness that reveals God and is one with Him. The verse brought to support this last example is explained by the sages to refer to the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai. In Chassidut, the horses are explained to symbolize the letters of the Ten Commandments whose purpose it is to reveal the very essence of the Almighty Himself in creation. As the midrash explains elsewhere, at Mt. Sinai, the border separating the revealed reality (the lower Worlds) from the essence of God (the higher Worlds) was nullified.

Based on the Daily Dvar Torah from Wednesday, 4 Kislev 5768 – November 14, 2007

1. We have brought the reading found in Yalkut Shimoni on the verse “He arrived….” See the alternate sages mentioned in Midrash Bereisheet Rabbah 68:9.

2. Exodus 33:21.

3. Deuteronomy 33:27.

4. Psalms 90:1.

5. Habakuk 3:8.

6. One of the greatest scholars of our generation has remarked on several occasions that Kabbalah is Judaism’s official theology.

7. Chassidut makes it clear that neither aspect of God is God Himself, both are just categories of the revelation of the Infinite Light of God which itself unites both aspects in a paradoxical consummate Oneness. See in length the discourse “Ha’omnam” in Sefer Hama’amarim 5643, pp. 94ff.

8. Isaiah 58:8.

9. In the language of the Zohar: “Moshe on the inside, Jacob on the outside,” or in the language of the sages: “One may not have mercy for someone who has no knowledge.”

10. Just מעונו של עולם רוכב עולם together equals 7 · “world” עולם , corresponding to the seven lifetimes (worlds) that a person experiences in his or her life, as enumerated in the beginning of Midrash Rabbah Kohelet.

11. As mentioned a number of times before, in Kabbalistic and Chassidic ontology, space and time correspond to the sefirot of understanding and wisdom, respectively. The joint experience of wisdom and understanding, as they are in the World of Emanation, resolves into selflessness and humility in the lower Worlds. Thus, more exactly, we would say that knowing that one’s place is entirely subsumed within the transcendent nature of God is a humbling experience.

courtesy inner.org