A New Beginning for B'reishit

Dedicated in memory of Jeannie Rittner ז”ל – see below for important and appropriate comments!

Those of us who are familiar with the English language, namely everyone who happens to be reading this blog, are certainly familiar with the opening line of the Torah: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Seems straightforward enough.

On the other hand, everyone who is familiar with the Hebrew text cannot assume understanding so blithely.

The first word of the Torah in Hebrew is בראשית b'reishit. The ב is a prefix (we'll come back to it later). The rest of the word, ראשית reishit comes from the word ראש rosh which literally means head and by implication means beginning or start as in ראש השנה rosh hashannah, the head or start of the year.

The word ראשית reshit appears nearly fifty times in Tanach. In nearly every case the context shows that the word ראשית attaches itself to the word following as if it said 'the beginning of.' That being the case, the word that follows reshit should be a noun so that it would read 'the beginning of something'. 

An example comes in Parshat Noach (ahem—this means I am now exempt from further comments on this week's parsha proper) when the Torah says about Nimrod:

בראשית פרק י (י) וַתְּהִי רֵאשִׁית מַמְלַכְתּוֹ בָּבֶל וְאֶרֶךְ וְאַכַּד וְכַלְנֵה בְּאֶרֶץ שִׁנְעָר:

B'reishit 10 (10) And the beginning of his kingdom was Bavel and Erech and Accad and Chalneh in the land of Shinar.

The problem we have here is that the word B'reishit is followed by a verb!

That is, if we read the first three words literally it would come out “In the beginning of created God.” Yuck. That is a terribly awkward start for what has come to be the most popular book in history. Surely the author could write better than that!

Or surely we could understand it better.

Another problem is that this first verse implies that God created the heavens and the earth from the get go, rendering the later verses which discuss the creation of the heavens and the earth rather perplexing.

The commentaries worked overtime to bring various plausible and grammatically acceptable explanations to answer all of the above. I will not even attempt to bring them all in here. Rather, I will focus on one of the seemingly more playful midrashim which comes to answer this contextual conundrum and at the same time reveals a deeper truth.

It is time to examine the prefix ב bet of בראשית b'reishit. The bet usually means 'in' but it can also mean 'with' and even 'for' in the sense of 'for the sake of.'

An example of this latter meaning is found later in Parshat Vayetze:

בראשית פרק כט (יח) וַיֶּאֱהַב יַעֲקֹב אֶת רָחֵל וַיֹּאמֶר אֶעֱבָדְךָ שֶׁבַע שָׁנִים בְּרָחֵל בִּתְּךָ הַקְּטַנָּה:

B'reishit Chapter 29 (18) And Yaakov loved Rachel. And he said, “I will work for you seven years for Rachel your younger daughter.”

An example of ב meaning 'with' is found in Parshat Vayishlach where we find Yaakov praying to God to save him from his brother Esav. He says:

בראשית פרק לב (יא) קָטֹנְתִּי מִכֹּל הַחֲסָדִים וּמִכָּל הָאֱמֶת אֲשֶׁר עָשִׂיתָ אֶת עַבְדֶּךָ כִּי בְמַקְלִי עָבַרְתִּי אֶת הַיַּרְדֵּן הַזֶּה וְעַתָּה הָיִיתִי לִשְׁנֵי מַחֲנוֹת:

B'reishit Chapter 32 (11) I am humbled from all the kindnesses and from all the truth that You did with your servant (i.e. Yaakov himself) for with my staff I crossed over this Jordan and now I have become two camps.

Let's take this second meaning and apply it to our word: B'reishit. It would now mean 'with the reishit.'

So what would 'reishit' mean in this context?

The Midrash Rabbah here looks at the word reishit in various contexts and comes up with different possible meanings. One of them is that reishit means the Torah itself.

Thus, the first word now means 'with the Torah.' And the first verse can now be understood to say:

God created the heavens and the earth with the Torah!

I will explain how the midrash came to this understanding tomorrow. But let's savor the moment. We now have a profoundly different way of looking at the origins of the universe. We started by thinking the word b'reishit was merely telling us when something happened (in the beginning). Now we understand that the Torah is telling us that the tool for creation is, in fact the Torah itself.

This raises other conceptual issues such as what exactly is this Torah which was used to create the heavens and the earth? Was it a literal sefer Torah (Torah scroll)? Or was it some essence of Torah which could have pre-existed creation? I hope to talk about this in later postings.

I had the privilege of getting to know Jeannie Rittner a bit during my extended stays in Dayton. As her daughter told me, she was a 'force to be reckoned with!' Everyone who knew Jeannie knew her to be vivacious, smiling, outgoing, deeply caring and engaging. She suffered through quite a bit of physical pain in recent years yet I never heard her complain; she was far more likely to make light of her situation or to explain how she was doing so much better than before.

However, it was only in my last months in Dayton that I came to understand Jeannie's close relationship with Torah. She was always trying to study and her studies were based on an education which included an intimate understanding of classical Hebrew texts. She was thirsty for learning and would engage me in my classes and, whenever she had the opportunity, outside of class, as well.

She showed me what it meant to begin everything with Torah and infuse that in one's very being. She was a great inspiration to me and to many and she will be sorely missed for many years to come. יהי זכרה ברוך May her memory be a blessing.

Zoharia Yam and the Final Redemption!

My title sounds like the makings of a pretty heavy children's book.

Little Zoharia Yam, my granddaughter, had a celebration, a Simchat Bat they call it, in her honor yesterday, 27 years to the day since her father's brit mila. I think she will remember the occasion just about as well as Ezra remembers his brit.

I'll relate a few things I mentioned while sitting in the Sukkah and holding her on my lap (until she voiced her opinion of my thoughts and was removed to other quarters for a pick me up from her mother, Dorin).

The noun zohar זהר appears only twice in Tanach. The word at its root means to 'shed light' or 'give off light' (thus we get the word l'hazhir להזהיר– literally to cause light to be shed meaning to warn). It is related to the word tzohar  צהר which is the name for the sky light which God told Noah to build into the top of the ark. You might think that this variant implies something which accepts light given its placement in the top of the ark. However, there are implications from midrash that it was there to give off light from within.

Zohar is also related to the Aramaic cognate sohar סוהר and sihara סיהרא which refers to moonlight and moon respectively.

So these variants cover three aspects: Zohar-radiation of light, Sohar-reflection of light and Tzohar-giving and/or receiving of light. 

Tonight and tomorrow we celebrate the day after Sukkot known from a passage in the Torah as Shmini Atzeret. The word Atzeret literally means 'a stopping.' It is a holiday which is separate from but comes immediately after Sukkot. Later tradition has it that we celebrate the end and beginning of the Torah reading cycle on this holiday. Thus it is also known as Simchat Torah. 

But what is the nature of this holiday? 

Let's look for a moment back at Pessach. The main mitzvah on that holiday is to eat matzah (and back in the Temple times to eat that with the paschal sacrifice). The holiday goes for one week but we count seven weeks from the second day to get to the next holiday, Shavuot. Shavuot is known in the parlance of the mishnah as Atzeret. 

So on Pessach we turn inward in some essential way. It matters little where we eat but what we eat is essential.  

Pessach represents our g'ula, redemption, as a nation. We need(ed) time to move from our initial redemption until we could handle the receiving of the Torah at Shavuot. But then Shavuot became a kind of Atzeret--a stopping, that is an end or a way station in this process of g'ulah. 

On Sukkot, by contrast, it matters little what we eat but it is all important where we eat. We sit in the Sukkah and are surrounded by the mitzvah. We are pushing outwards now. 

The Torah in Parshat Pinchas tells us of the karban mussaf, the additional offering, which was brought on Sukkot and Shmini Atzeret. Part of the offering was oxen. The first day 13 were brought and then each day one less so that by the seventh day there were altogether 70 oxen brought. But then on Shmini Atzeret it drops down to one. 

Chazal tell us that the oxen offering which diminishes each day corresponds to the 70 nations which in the future will also diminish. Some people mistakenly think this means that the other nations besides Israel will die out. Not so.

The idea is that ultimately that which separates nations will die out. We will come together as a single 'nation' recognizing the single Creator. That singleness is symbolized by the single ox brought on Shmini Atzeret. Here we don't need to go through the 7 week cycle we had between Pessach and Shavuot--we go directly into the final redemption when we no longer need the sukkah or the matzah -- we just come to a unity of humanity with the Divine. 

May we merit to see the final redemption, the Zohar, a time which Chazal called 'a day which is entirely made of light.'  

Yom Kippur, Tumah, Taharah, Downfall and Purification

ויקרא פרק טז (ל) כִּי בַיּוֹם הַזֶּה יְכַפֵּר עֲלֵיכֶם לְטַהֵר אֶתְכֶם מִכֹּל חַטֹּאתֵיכֶם לִפְנֵי יְקֹוָק תִּטְהָרוּ:

Leviticus Chapter 16 (30): For on this day He will atone for you to purify you from all your sins; purify yourselves before God.

It is erev Yom Hakippurim and I am thinking about tahara-purification. As the above verse implies, we are striving to reach this state of purification particularly on this day. 

The laws of purity/impurity are vast and complex. Mostly they are not studied today even in yeshivot. In practical halacha the last vestiges of these laws are found in hilchot Niddah and the laws of washing one's hands before eating bread. 

But I will point out something you may already know: The Torah gives us many laws dealing with purities and various types of animals are considered impure. However, only human beings can become ritually impure and impart ritual impurity while alive--all other animals which give off impurity do so only when they are dead. 

So there is a correlation between taharah/purity and life; conversely there is a relationship between tumah/impurity and death. 

The m'tzora, for example, imparts tumah in much the same way that a dead human body does--even under a roofing without touching. So the m'tzora is kind of like 'dead man walking.' 

The m'tzora got his/her tumah, according to Chazal, for speaking ill of others (lashon hara). 

Thus, while one may think the laws of purities is removed from human relations they are in fact intimately entwined. 

Tumah can come upon one without knowledge or, more often, through carelessness. However, the Torah gives various methods of taharah/purification so that one may regain their prior state. 

Tomorrow evening the people of Israel will experience a collective taharah/purification. It will not last--that is part of the human condition. We sin, we are careless and worse. 

But there is always a way back to our previous state. Yet it is not precisely the previous state we reach but a higher level, like the next level on a spiral, which we only can reach because we fell before. 

Wishing all a g'mar chatima tova :)

See--What's in a Name?

This past Shabbat minchah saw the naming of my first grandchild, a girl, who had been born almost precisely a week earlier around Shabbat minchah. My son Ezra and his wife Dorin decided to call her Zoharia Yam which could be translated as "Splendor of God--Sea." The Zohar part of Zoharia more literally refers to beams of light and, yes, is the name of that well known work of Kabbalah.

I dedicate this blog to Zoharia :)

This week's parsha is called R'eh in Hebrew which translates as 'look' or 'see.' In the sense it is used in the verse it means 'understand' or 'comprehend,' so closely linked is our sense of sight to our ability to comprehend.

However, I want to focus more closely on a later passage, to wit:

דברים פרק יב (ב) אַבֵּד תְּאַבְּדוּן אֶת כָּל הַמְּקֹמוֹת אֲשֶׁר עָבְדוּ שָׁם הַגּוֹיִם אֲשֶׁר אַתֶּם יֹרְשִׁים אֹתָם אֶת אֱלֹהֵיהֶם עַל הֶהָרִים הָרָמִים וְעַל הַגְּבָעוֹת וְתַחַת כָּל עֵץ רַעֲנָן:
(ג) וְנִתַּצְתֶּם אֶת מִזְבְּחֹתָם וְשִׁבַּרְתֶּם אֶת מַצֵּבֹתָם וַאֲשֵׁרֵיהֶם תִּשְׂרְפוּן בָּאֵשׁ וּפְסִילֵי אֱלֹהֵיהֶם תְּגַדֵּעוּן וְאִבַּדְתֶּם אֶת שְׁמָם מִן הַמָּקוֹם הַהוּא:
(ד) לֹא תַעֲשׂוּן כֵּן לַיקֹוָק אֱלֹהֵיכֶם:

Deuteronomy 12 2 Ye shall surely destroy all the places, wherein the nations that ye are to dispossess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every leafy tree. 3 And ye shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and burn their Asherim with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods; and ye shall destroy their name out of that place. 4 Ye shall not do so unto the LORD your God. 

 

Chazal learn out from verse four that it is forbidden to erase the written name of God. This is derived from the immediate context where in the end of verse 3 it says that ye shall destroy their name out of that place and right after it tells us not to do the same unto the Lord your God. 

 

Why should erasing God's name matter so much? 

 

 Consider this: What's in a name? Actually, if you've been paying attention from the beginning of the Torah, quite a lot! Adam's name is given for a reason, because he is derived from the earth (adamah). Adam is enjoined by God to give names to all the animals. This act is understood to mean that Adam took time to understand the nature of each animal and then to give it its appropriate name. 

Of course, we also have the renaming of Avram and Sarai to Avraham and Sarah, Yaakov to Yisrael, Hoshea to Yehoshua. Perhaps most significantly, God Him/Herself alludes to the nature of the Divine names at the beginning of parshat Va'era. From that passage we understand that the different names reflect different aspects of the Divine. 

My mother had asked me a few times during the week after her latest great-granddaughter's birth when they would name her. "She needs a name!" my mother declared. I laughed and said maybe it is we who need the name more than she does.

But, upon reflection, my mother was right. By naming their daughter, my son and daughter in law were revealing something about her true nature. 

So it is with any of the names of God. They each reflect something about the true nature of the Divine. While the Divine in its entirety is beyond comprehension, we are given to grasp various aspects in part through the different names. 

Since God is incorporeal, one of our main relationships to God is via language which is a reflection of our souls and our connection to the Divine. So we are told not to destroy God's name in this world, not even a graphic representation of that name, for that is, in the end, one of our very few direct connections with the Divine. 

Shabbat shalom!

 

Tisha B'av--A Kinot Thought

When I was living in Boston in the late 70s to the early 80s, I had the privilege of studying with and consulting Rav Mordechai Savitsky, z'l. At the time, Rav Savitsky was recognized as one of the great Talmud scholars and halachic authorities of his time. He studied in the Chofetz Chayim's yeshiva in Radun when he was young and while still in his teens published the first of his books,  Bicurei Mordechai which explicated difficult passages in the Yerushalmi. Also, while still in his teens, he carried on a lengthy correspondence with Rav Yosef Rosen (aka the Rogotchover) no mean feat for even scholars much older and more experienced than he was at the time. He would also come to publish that exchange in a book,Ner Avraham.Later in life he would strike up a close friendship with another great scholar of the Yerushalmi, Rav Shaul Lieberman. During his long career he suceeded in publishing ten books of Talmudic learning.

I used to attend minyan most weekday mornings at the shul in his basement. On Tisha B'Av morning we went through the entire book of Kinot, the lamentations traditionally recited on this day of mourning. 

One Tisha B'Av, I stayed after, as was my custom, to help straighten up and to ask Rav Savitsky a question or two. That year saw the publication of a rather grand edition of the Kinot by one of the US publishers. In addition to having a new translation with notes, it was printed on fine paper with a good hardback binding and a lovely dust cover. 

Rav Savitsky, after all the others had left, pointed to this volume and remarked that he could not understand how anyone would make such a nice edition of the Kinot. 

He continued, "Back in Europe, we had the custom every year of taking our Kinot and, after using them, putting them into genizah for burial (Books that are no longer to be used publicly are supposed to be put into genizah so that they are not used again). We all had faith that we would not need these lamentations for the next year, that by then the Mashiach would surely have come and the final G'ula (Redemption) with him. As such, our Kinot were printed simply, without adornment, as a kind of pamphlet.

"Bear in mind that most people were very poor and giving up the book of Kinot was a real sacrifice. But such was their faith that each time they used a Kinot, it would be the last time. 

"I simply cannot understand," he concluded, "why anyone would want to produce such a beautiful version of the Kinot that would last for years and years."

May we all merit to see the G'ula speedily in our time.

Pinchas, Eliyahu and Kinah For the KBH

The end of last week's parsha saw the rather dramatic story of Pinchas who seems to take the law into his own hands by publicly executing Cazbi and Zimri. You can check out that part of the story by looking in Bamidbar (Numbers) Chapter 25.

Now you might have heard somewhere along the way that Pinchas is identified with Eliyahu. Whether or not we should take that literally is not of interest to me right now. What is of interest is why one would think that they are one and the same person.

What is great for me is that I have been devoting the last few months to understanding Eliyahu better and I hope to bring some of what I learned to bear on the discussion. And it will be a bit lengthy so bear with me.

For the moment, though, I will point out what I believe to be the most salient point of commonality between them: Kinah קנאה. This word is usually translated as jealousy but we will discuss other possible meanings.

God declares in the second verse of this weeks parsha that Pinchas has assuaged His anger by "actively being jealous for me"  (בקנאו את קנאתי בתוכם).

With Eliyahu we see the word kinah used, as well. We will fill out more of the picture in a later post, but for the moment I will just say that Eliyahu has a kind of confrontation with God on Har Chorev (aka Sinai) after a dramatic showdown with the prophets of Baal in which he, Eliyahu, emerged victorious.

He declares to God:

מלכים א פרק יט(י) וַיֹּאמֶר קַנֹּא קִנֵּאתִי לַיקֹוָק אֱלֹהֵי צְבָאוֹת כִּי עָזְבוּ בְרִיתְךָ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶת מִזְבְּחֹתֶיךָ הָרָסוּ וְאֶת נְבִיאֶיךָ הָרְגוּ בֶחָרֶב וָאִוָּתֵר אֲנִי לְבַדִּי וַיְבַקְשׁוּ אֶת נַפְשִׁי לְקַחְתָּהּ:

Kings I Chapter 19 (10) And he (Eliyahu) said, "I have surely been jealous for God, the Lord of Hosts, for the Children of Israel left your covenant, they destroyed your altars and they killed your prophets and I alone remained and they wanted to take my soul."

So we have the jealous thing in both places. 

What does Kinah really mean? 

I will just leave you with this thought: Both Pinchas and Eliyahu take matters into their own hands. Pinchas' story is very plain and this is easy to see. Pinchas approaches Moshe and Moshe seems to hesitate about what to do but Pinchas goes ahead and acts. 

Where do we see Eliyahu taking such an initiative? From the moment that Eliyahu appears in the  narrative of Tanach he takes charge. Check out Chapter 17 in Kings I and we'll talk more about it on Sunday.

I promise.

B'li neder ;)

Shabbat shalom!

Bilam's Mouth and What It Had to Say

Last week's parsha, Balak, introduced us to the amazing character Bilam. Amazing because he is seen as a prophet, the only recognized prophet who was not of the Children of Israel. Bilam was hired by Balak, the king of Moav, to curse those Children of Israel but instead Bilam ends up blessing them, dammit!

Some quick points about all that (mainly for those who read that parsha):

Bilam emphasizes to Balak that he can say only what God puts into his mouth. From that we would assume that the wording Bilam uses for the various blessings he gives are all from God. However, that is not necessarily the case. In general, we understand that each prophet is given a vision by God and then he or she translates that vision into their own words. The only exception to that being Moshe Rabbeinu for at least most of the Torah (one can argue about D'varim—and maybe we will once we get there!).

Maimonides spells out this notion in the Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Y'sodei Hatorah Chapter 7:

רמב"ם הלכות יסודי התורה פרק ז הלכה ג הדברים שמודיעים לנביא במראה הנבואה דרך משל מודיעין לו ומיד יחקק בלבו פתרון המשל במראה הנבואה וידע מה הוא...

Maimonides Laws of the Foundations of the Torah, Chapter 7 Halacha 3
Those things which are made known to the prophet by way of prophetic vision are shown to him as an allegory (mashal) and immediately the understanding (of that allegory) is ingrained onto his heart through the prophetic vision and he knows what it is.

Now you may insist that Bilam's case was different, that he himself says explicitly that he can only say what God tells him to say—maybe so. But I will point out that another prophet, Michayahu ben Yimlah, makes essentially the same declaration and yet one could understand from his words that he was also given a vision and then chose to describe it in his own way.

The context there is when King Ahab of the northern kingdom of Israel and King Yehoshafat of the southern kingdom of Yehuda make a pact to fight together to take Ramot Gilad. Yehoshafat is unimpressed with the prophets recruited by Ahab to advise them about their chances in the pending battle. He wants to hear from a real prophet of God and asks if there's one available. Ahab reluctantly admits that there is one, Michayahu, but he doesn't like him as he always predicts bad stuff. Yehoshafat insists so a messenger is sent to find him.

When the messenger finds Michayahu, he tells him that all other prophets said that Ahab and Yehoshafat will do well in battle and that he should follow suit.  Michayahu replies:

מלכים א פרק כב (יד) וַיֹּאמֶר מִיכָיְהוּ חַי יְקֹוָק כִּי אֶת אֲשֶׁר יֹאמַר יְקֹוָק אֵלַי אֹתוֹ אֲדַבֵּר:

Kings I Chapter 22 (14) And Michayahu said, “As God lives, that which God says to me is what I will speak.”

He goes on to describe a vision of God asking his angels who would go and seduce Ahab so that he can be killed on the battlefield. One angel replies that he can do the job by becoming a false spirit in the mouths of the prophets who will convince Ahab that he will win.

Take a few minutes and read the whole story there—it makes for great entertainment in my book!

In any event, though, one would come away with the idea that Michayahu's vision is described in his own words despite his statement that he would speak that which God told him. So, too, we could understand that Bilam's words were actually his own. I think you can see other hints to that in the text, as well. Just something to consider.