Bereishit
Friday October 16, 2020
Translation and Commentary by Rabbi Gedalia Potash and William Schecter, MD
This draft has neither been edited nor approved by Rabbi Potash
The Elter Rebbe begins his discussion of Bereishit not by discussing the text itself but by quoting the Haftorah of “Shabat Mevorechet” the Haftorah read when Shabat coincides with the first day of the new month (Rosh Chodesh). The occurrence of Shabat Bereishit and Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan (the month following Sukkot) is frequent.
“The Heavens are My seat and the earth is My foot stool.” (Isaiah 66:1). The Elter Rebbe then asks a question. How can G-d say that “the Heavens are His seat ….” for He has no body and is limitless? To amplify this paradox, he quotes the Torah “See there is a place near Me. Station yourself on the rock and, as My Presence passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and shield you with My hand until I have passed by” (Exodus 33:21-22) Rabbi Potash interpreted this to mean than humans need a physical place, a supporting platform, to exist. Furthermore, the world needs G-d in order to exist (G-d created it) but G-d does not need the world. G-d is facilitating the world and we humans are the beneficiaries of it.
The Torah is derived from the Heavens, the Elter Rebbe says. To support this argument, he cites “From the Heavens I spoke…..” (Exodus 20:19). The Elter Rebbe then continues commenting on the theme of paradox by noting that the Heavens consist of water and fire(שמ[WS1] יים =אש and מיים). Is this really a paradox? Sure. Fire cannot exist where there is water and vice versa. We associate the source of Torah with Heaven. To support this, the Rebbe quotes the Torah where Moses refers to the Torah as a law (religion) of fire(religion, law=דת;fire=אש--אשדת) (Deuteronomy 33:2).
The Elter Rebbe then quotes the Shma “And you shall perform all my commandments”. The implication is that it is man who makes or completes the Torah for without implementation it is just a thought. How is it possible that G-d, who is unlimited, needs us, human beings, to make his Torah complete? Is this another example of the paradox? In other words, when we are performing Mitzvot, we are not only doing a commandment but we are making it complete. For example, a set of Tfillin sitting on the shelf has no meaning until it is used by a person and the person wrapping Tfillin contemplates the unity of G-d and His commandments.
The Elter Rebbe then refers to the Blessing preceding the reading of the Shma in any standard the Siddur “The love of the world, the love of our Lord our G-d, great compassion and mercy upon us…..” in which we request to “preserve, to perform and establish” all the words of the Torah in love. The first portion of the blessing involves doing the Mitzvot and thereafter establishing or perpetuating the Mitzvot. That is, “G-d grant mercy upon us and gives us understanding within our heart and through Divine mercy understanding and contemplation is drawn into the heart of man and through this contemplation the performance and establishment of the Torah.”
How will this contemplation be explained in the Shma? The word Shma means both listening and understanding (of that to which we are listening). For the word Shma can be broken down into two parts: שמ ע. The word Shem (HaShem) refers to G-d and the letter ע (Ayin) has the numerical value of 70. This numerical value refers to the 7 emotional attributes of G-d multiplied by the 10 Kabbalistic Sephirot. The seven emotional attributes of G-d are: Chesed (Kindness), Gevurah (Discipline), Tiferet (Beauty), Netzach (Victory), Hod (Splendour), Yesod (Foundation) and Malkut (Kingship). The ten Sephirot include the 7 emotional attributes described above plus Keter (Crown), Chokhmah (Wisdom) and Binah (Understanding). The etymology of the word Sephirah is varied and thus has complex connotations within Kabbalah. For example the Hebrew root ספר can refer to a text (ספר), a story (סיפור ), a number (מספר), or a brilliance or luminary (light) (ספיר), to name a few. A complete discussion of the emotional attributes and Sephirot is beyond both the scope of this summary and my ken, but for our purposes, the word Sephira Kabbalistically refers to emanations of light (energy) from the eternal light (אור אין סוף ברוך הוא).
The word Shma (שמע) when it is written in the Torah is usually written with a larger letter Ayin compared with the other two letters forming the word. This Ayin is called the Ayin Rabati (the big Ayin) and signifies the greatness of G-d. To illustrate this point the Elter Rebbe quotes Chronicles I 29:11 “ הגדלה ‘לך ה' והגבורה והתפארת והנצח וההוד “ (to You, Lord, the Greatness, the Discipline, the Beauty, the Victory, and the Splendour) a blessing articulated by King David before the assemblage of the People of Israel.
Shma is the language of understanding and this understanding is the attribute of listening to yourself (the rhythm of your soul). Thinking is a process which needs to happen daily. The Torah prescribes this process of contemplation (saying the Shma) twice a day. From our perspective, none of the spiritual growth will happen without contemplation. Rabbi Potash suggested that when we think of G-d’s Divine attributes, we can have a closer appreciation of the Infinite G-d because human beings share these attributes to a miniscule degree. For example, Kindness does not exist in the abstract because kindness is only demonstrated by action. So, G-d is not complete without a physical expression of Kindness (one of the 7 Divine attributes). At this point we ended our discussion.
