RELATIVE RIGHTEOUSNESS

BS"D


A version of the d'var Torah I gave over last Shabbes in St Paul:

Parshat No'ach

B'reyshit/Genesis 6:9 states:
אֵלֶּה, תּוֹלְדֹת נֹחַ--נֹחַ אִישׁ צַדִּיק תָּמִים הָיָה, בְּדֹרֹתָיו: אֶת-הָאֱלֹהִים, הִתְהַלֶּךְ-נֹחַ.
Eyleh tol'dot No'ach -- No'ach ish tzadiq tamim hayah, be-dorotav; et-ha-El@him, hit'halekh-No'ach
These are the generations of No'ach. No'ach was a man righteous and whole-hearted in his generation; No'ach walked with G@d.

& then B'reyshit/Genesis 7:1 goes on to say:
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה לְנֹחַ, בֹּא-אַתָּה וְכָל-בֵּיתְךָ אֶל-הַתֵּבָה: כִּי-אֹתְךָ רָאִיתִי צַדִּיק לְפָנַי, בַּדּוֹר הַזֶּה.
Va-yomer Y-H-V-H le-No'ach, bo-atah ve-khol beytekha el-ha-teyvah; ki otakh ra'iti tzadiq le-fanai ba-dor hazeh
& G@d said to No'ach: 'Come you & all your house into the ark; for you have I seen righteous before Me in this generation'.

Both times No'ach's righteousness is mentioned in the Torah, this quality is awarded him only in comparison to the common standard of times in which he lived. G@d judged No'ach's behaviour as higher than the staus quo. He was the best that G@d had to work with, & he "walked with G@d", but his righteousness was not absolute.

Lucky for the planet, No'ach was "good enough". G@d could say, "he'll do".

The name No'ach is spelled with 2 letters in Hebrew: Nun (נ) & Chet (ח). The word nach, from the same root, can mean "at rest", "to be settled", or..."quiescent". This may give us a clue as to why G@d considered No'ach not fully righteous, but relatively righteous. He did fulfill to the letter each comandment given by G@d; but no more. No'ach may have only performed the bare minimum of what was required of him.

Nun

The bent Nun, which begins his name, denotes reliability.

Sometimes our souls, our neshamahs, are withdrawn & resigned, in a state of contraction like the resting Nun, while at other times it is active and exuberant like the erect Nun. When someone is inactive and immobile, his/her soul lies fallow, but when this person feels vibrant and motivated, his/her neshamah draws itself up to its full height.

No'ach was truly the Nun at rest.

The name as well as the pictograph of the letter Nun means "fish". This is notable because of No'ach's survival of the deluge; &, like a tzadiq (righteous person), is associated with water. Our tradition tells us that when a righteous person dies without a perfectly clean slate & they still have a little bad karma - I'm paraphrasing here - to remedy, they are reincarnated as a fish. Why? Because fish are very quiet & lead calm lives in the most comfortable medium - water.

Comfortable. Settled. Like No'ach.

The letter Nun has a gematrial value of 50. A word which also has a value of 50 is spelled Alef-Tet-Mem Sofit (אטם). If pronounced atam, this letter combination means "seal" or "shut" - filled up. If pronounced iteym, the meanins shifts to "sealed" or "water-tight". Etem is a seal or gasket.

Chet


This is one of the words I wrote in a Sefer Torah. The middle letter is Chet, the way my sofer taught me to shape it.

The letter Chet's name reminds us of the word chatoteret, a hump or hunchback. Indeed, when Chet is written in an Ashkenazi/European Sefer Torah, it consists of two Zayins - or a Zayin (ז) & a Vav (ו), depending on the philosophical leanings of the scribe - joined by a peaked roof. This is where Chet gets its name, from chat - "distorted" or "curved". This is also where we get the words chatah & cheyt from - sin, transgression, miss, fail. When we don't shoot straight in our lives, we fall.

Our Sages draw a lesson from this construction; when one observes two people fighting, whether using verbal or actual weapons (Zayins) against each other, spare no effort to build a bridge and bring them together so they may join once again in friendship (Krias HaTorah).

Another flourish on this letter shows us the Zayin (bride) & her Vav (groom) held high on chairs in celebration of their wedding, the only bridge connecting them a hanky :)

The numerological value of the letter Chet is 8. Going beyond seven, the Shabbat, the number eight represents our ability to transcend our physical limitations. Eight symbolizes the metaphysical, the entrance of the Divine into our lives.

No'ach's name bears the gematria of 58 - which is the same as that of cheyn, grace. So much as this man may have helped save the inhabitants of the world from total destruction by doing as little as possible, he did, in the end, walk with G@d.




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HEY!

BS"D


The letter Hey (ה) has a gematrial/numerological value of 5. It's the 5th letter of the Hebrew alefbet.

Hey has the easiest voice. The sound of Hey is only your out-breath, the exhalation of prana. It needs no effort, no motion of lips, tongue or mouth (Tanchuma Bereishis 16).

Our spirit (ru'ach) lives in our breath (ru'ach), is our breath. The Kabbalah says that when two people are talking together and their faces are so close they inhale the other's breath, they are sharing souls. According to Hasidism, our souls are too vast to inhabit our bodies; they penetrate and surround them.

Hey is female. Her soft-sounding voice indicates the feminine form of a noun, as in yeled (boy) - yaldah (girl). The two Heys in The Four-Letter Name represent the Mother and the Daughter in the archetypal Family, Yud (י) representing the Father and Vav (ו) the Son.

G@D created two worlds; this one with the letter Hey:
בִּדְבַר יְהוָה, שָׁמַיִם נַעֲשׂוּ; וּבְרוּחַ פִּיו, כָּל-צְבָאָם. 6
Bid'var HaShem shamayim na'asu uv'ru'ach piv kol tzeva'am
By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.
- Psalms 33:6

Why? Our traditions tell us that this world is like the letter Hey, easy to fall out the bottom. Also like this world there is always a tiny space, which allows another entrance. This is t'shuvah, repentance (Menachos 29b). This teaches us to leave a small opening in our hearts to let others back in when they have hurt us and wish to be forgiven (Tomer Devorah 1:7).
It also serves us by making room for forgiving ourselves...

Hey is made up of two other letters. First there is a Dalet (ד), then there is a Yud (י) in the lower left hand corner of the Dalet's space. Yud, the hand (yad) has the power to open the Dalet, door (delet) to the path of returning to G@d, our Source. The point of the Yud must be separate from the roof, but not further than the thickness of the roof. This Yud leans inward to the space, so the Hey won't resemble a Taf (ת).

We just saw a miniature letter Hey yesterday in B'reyshit Parshat B'reyshit/Genesis 2:4 -
ד אֵלֶּה תוֹלְדוֹת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְהָאָרֶץ, בְּהִבָּרְאָם: בְּיוֹם, עֲשׂוֹת יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים--אֶרֶץ וְשָׁמָיִם. 4
Eyleh toldot ha'shamayim v'ha'aretz be-hibaram b'yom asot Y-H-V-H Eloqim eretz v'shamayim:
These are the generations/begettings of the Heavens and of the Earth when they were created, at the time of Y-H-V-H, G@D's making of earth and heaven:

The Hey is small in "be-hibaram" because the letter Hey is one of those which symbolizes G@D - an abbreviation of both the Four-letter Name "Y-H-V-H" and "HaShem". And according to midrash, before the creation G@D was...that's it. All there was was G@D and G@D was all there was. So in order to make room for us, The Holy One had to contract. The word our tradition uses here is "tzimtzum". Like a mother's body making room for a growing baby. The child, like us & all of Creation, is of its mother, but different. The mother contains & sustains her child, but must constantly be altering the status quo to achieve this. So the Hey in the word meaning "they were created" inspired this midrash which teaches us about G@D's process.

Shavu'ah Tov - a good week - & Chodesh Tov - a good new month to everyone.




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אוי גיב מיי אונד העיים וואו דער בופלוקסען געיים

BS"D


Oy gib me und heym voo der buffloxen gaym...
That would be Yiddish for "Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam..."

Buffloxen!!!

I'd like to talk about home in this post in relation to this week's Parsha, B'REYSHIT! Yes, this Shabbat we being the cycle of reading the Torah all over again. We got a preview on Simchat Torah, which was Sunday, when we read the very end of the scroll & the rolled it back to the beginning again & read some more!

We had a women's reading at Shaarey Tefilah. It was awesome. The men even let us use the newest Sefer, which is totally kosher & has beautiful writing :)

So Sefer B'reyshit parshat B'reyshit/the Book of Genesis 1:1 begins thus:
בְּרֵאשִׁית, בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים, אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם, וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ.

B'reyshit bara eloqim eyt hashamayim v'eyt ha'aretz:
"At the beginning of G@D's creating of the heavens and the earth:"

This is the Sefer I'm currently cleaning & restoring. It was written after 1800. You can tell this because the first letter, Bet (ב) sports 4 crowns, called taggin or ketarim.

As with many, but not all, s'farim/holy books, the first letter is often enlarged. However, here also is an example of an action taken from the next world, by G@D. The act of creation warrants a large Bet. According to Rabbi Chayim Dovid Halevy, z"l, a great Kabbalist & the former Chief Sefardi Rabbi of Tel Aviv, any time we see an enlarged letter anywhere in our canon (TaNaKH), we are to understand that G@d has disturbed the staus quo with great chesed, kindness, & ahavah, love.

Because the letter Bet carries the gematrial value of 2, it reveals to us the Divine creative mother-father energy within it, beginning the whole universe.

So, why was the world created with the letter Bet? Just as Bet is closed on three sides and open only in front, so you are not permitted to investigate what is above (the Heavens) and what is below (the deep), what is before (the six days of creation) and what is (to happen) after (the world’s existence) - you are permitted only from the time the world was created and thereafter (the world we live in) [Genesis Rabbah 1:10. This may refer either to space or to time, or to both space and time. See Tosafot on Talmud Bavli Hag 11b, s.v. yakhol].

Some say that the Torah begins with the letter Bet to make the statement that the force that G@d used to initiate Creation was Binah - with understanding the world was created. Binah is in the world of Yetzirah, the formative dimention of "just Being". IS-ness. The letter Bet also begins Briyah, the world of knowledge whose world is creative.

Reish Lakish taught that The Holy One made a deal with the rest of Creation, that if Israel accepts the Torah, you will continue to exist; if not, I will return you to nothingness (Shabbos 88a). How do we know this? Because the first word in the Torah is an acronym: "Barishonah Ra'ah Elohim Shey'qab'lu Yisra'el Torah" - "From the start, G@D saw that Israel would accept the Torah" (Baal HaTurim).

In Judaism, G@d has many names, allowing us to attempt to express all the holy qualities of the Creator. One of those names begins with a letter Bet. Bat Qol, which literally means "Daughter of a Voice", but can also mean "Voice from Heaven", "echo", "Divine inspiration" or even "prophesy".

Just as with a ketubah, the traditional Jewish wedding contract, we begin this with a letter Bet which is often enlarged (but not always - that depends on the calligrapher). But we may have a similar situation here that requires a large Bet in a ketubah for the same reasons as in a Torah. Many Jewish couples today enter their first marriage without their virginity. There have been intimate relationships & home-building exercises, most often with people who now dwell in the past. Assuming these experiences have been dealt with, grown from & their lessons integrated into wisdom, there is no need to revisit them after the marriage begins. All that came before, like lovers, homes, experiences, relationships...were only to bring each member of the wedding couple to this point & need only be included in the wedded relationship in their appropriate place. It's not that they get wiped away, or made to magically disappear. But from that large Bet which begins the building of this new, committed home, like the large Bet, the Bayit or "home" for all of Creation, we walk forward together & leave the rest behind.

...where seldom is heard a discouraging word...
:D

Focused kavanah, intention, & great care must be taken with the shape and the length of the Bet when you are writing it. If it appears more round than square, then it could be mistaken for a Khaf (כ). If it is narrower than it is tall it may look like a Nun (נ).

Happy writing!




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A SMALL YUD IN HA'AZINU

BS"D


The letter Yud has a numerical value of 10. Ten fingers, ten toes, ten commandments & with ten utterances Ha-Shem created the universe; ten emanations - "eser Sefirot" - of the Eitz Chayim, the Tree of Life in Kabbalah, from conception to completion...

Yud is the building block of the Alefbet, each letter in fact being made up of a series of Yuds. The seed, the sperm, the primordial force initiating the flow of life. The catalyst.

Yad, hand, indicates a means of action. Agency. The universe is set in motion by the movement of the Yad Chazaqah - the strong hand of G@D - being the symbol of creative and directive energy.

The Zohar (Vayikra 147) explains that Yud consists of three parts: a point rising upwards to the One above, a point directed downwards to earth and the middle part uniting both. The shape of the Yud is symbolic of a person in prayer. Our eyes are lowered in humility as we stand before the Holy One, while our hearts are turned upward, toward heaven (Yevamot 105b). All three parts of the Yud are of equal importance Halakhically. The Talmud notes that it is "obvious [peshita]" that a mezuzah klaf or Torah scroll is invalid if it lacks even a "qotzo shel Yud", the point of the Yud (Menachot 29a; Rashi).

& with all this in mind...

In this week's Parsha for Shabbat Tshuvah, Ha'azinu/Deuteronomy 32:18, there's a small Yud in in the word teshi - unmindful.

יח צוּר יְלָדְךָ, תֶּשִׁי; וַתִּשְׁכַּח, אֵל מְחֹלְלֶךָ.
"The Rock that birthed you, you neglected/were unmindful of, you forgot the G@D that produced-you-in-labour:"

This tiny Yud was listed in Midrash Rabbah Aqim as one of the letter oddities which must be written into a Sefer Torah for it to be considered kosher for ritual use.
R' Chayim David HaLevy, who is a Kabbalist rabbi I quote often, wrote that a letter written in miniscule indicates that a person or people in the narrative have somehow missed the mark; that they could have done better.

Among the many gifts that Ha-Shem has given us is the power of shikhah — forgetfulness. Moshe Rabeynu said this to us right before he died. This is the last sheet of parchment in the Torah, people. Our problem is that vatishkach Keil mecholelekha — we're using our power of forgetfulness to neglect Ha-Shem, Who gives us each breath straight from Divine compassion. Is that any way to act?

It's so hard to be human. & G@d knows just what a hard job we have. That's why we got Torah. But if we forget, then our agency, our yad, is diminished. So here we have a small Yud to remind us...not to forget :)

May we all be blessed with consciousness enough to become good humans this year.

Cross-posted at Radical Torah .




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