A thought on פרשת במדבר
"...v'nosata es ha"leviim l'Aharon...""...and you shall give over the Levites to Aharon..." (3:9)
The Kohanim were the priestly segment of the tribe of Levi. They served on the nation's behalf in the Holy Mikdash and as descendants of Aharon, they were charged with the task of facilitating shalom. The Levites assisted them, engaging in the peripheral and ancillary facets of the sacred avoda. A curious nuance of our verse is the lead word, v'nosata.
Now there is nothing unfamiliar about the word itself. Nesina always means giving or giving over. We know many of its conjugations - nosen, nosan, t'en - and their meaning is as clear as our verse's word, which simply translates as "and you shall give over." It is just a second-person future tense imperative form of nesina and it means "and you (plural) shall give over."
However, the word is written with the latter "hey" at the end. That adds nothing to the word in terms of sound. The letter is silent, much like the English letter "e" would be silent if added at the end of the word "potato." "Potato" and "potatoe" sound the same even with that extra silent letter at the end of the word (although we would quail from such misspelling.) In the Sacred Tongue, "v'nosata" sounds the same with or without the "hey" at the end. If so, what is that letter doing there? For that matter, the same verse refers to the Levites a bit later by the third-person plural pronoun "heyma" which means "them." The verse might have used the more familiar "heym" which would have been the more accurate term for referring to a group of men. That extra "hey" at the end almost makes the word sound "feminine" in grammatical form. For that matter, the extra "hey" at the end of v'nosata also gives the verb a feminine quality, grammatically.
Hey! Something is going on!
Perhaps it is in view of these questions that the Recanati reveals a depth to this verse. He writes that the giving of the Levites to the Kohanim is like the giving of a wife to a husband. Remember, in our tradition, the man "takes this woman to be his wife" and her father "gives her hand in marriage." Marriage is the gift that keeps on giving, or taking, or both. Moving from the real into the sublime, let's try to understand the Recanati's interpretation. When he uses various "mundane" terms, those terms are actually word-symbols for higher elements. Man and Woman, in the kabbalistic lexicon, are symbols for the Divine attributes which we term "rachamim" and "din" - compassion and justice, respectively. Some of this has been explained in earlier parsha e-mails. The Kohen is a mortal, living symbol of rachamim as well. In his work of facilitating peace and harmony between people through the means of serving HaShem in four-dimensional ways (the fourth being the celestial component) which avail the world of heaven-sent peace and harmony of the highest forms, he represents compassion on earth and attracts compassion from above. All of that rachamim is a this-worldly reflection of Divine Rachamim.
In contrast, the more servile, structured and three-dimensional labor of the Levi reflects his role as a symbol of din. His work is objective and precise, mirroring the Divine attribute which we experience as justice. When we think of Levi, the son of Yakov Avinu, we can also trace aspects of that precise, exacting judgment which seems to have marked his qualities. This is different than the qualities which we associate with Aharon the Kohen.
The world operates with midas ha'Rachamim yet the world also is run within the scope of midas ha'Din. Divine compassion was apparent from the beginning of creation and through the emergence of Adam. Din emerged into human consciousness, and experience, with the advent of Chava. Both attributes, as we have learned this year, are essential, yet both are facets of only One Reality. In the Holy Mikdash, the lower-world replica of all that we know about the Higher Realm, both rachamim and din needed symbolic representation. This is why there were Levites, on the one hand, and Kohanim on the other. They both had roles to serve, yet the primacy of compassion over justice was reflected in the more ascendant role of the Kohaim in contrast with the background subservience of the Levites.
In that sense, the Levites interacted with the Kohanim much like "woman" with "man." This is alluded within the lettering of our verse. The Recanati surprises us with his extension of this symbolism. Ever notice how when our prayers include "Duchening" that the Kohanim walk out, and the Levites also leave? The Kohanim need to wash their hands before chanting their blessing (which is a vestige of the Holy Mikdash avoda.) The Levites are the ones who do their hand washing for them. This is to symbolize that din is ideally part of life in order to serve and enhance rachamim. Furthermore, the Kohanim deal with fire. The Levites deal with water. Whatever aspect of harsh justice (fire) lurks within compassion is symbolically extinguished by the compassionate waters offered by the Just Levites. That means that the justice of the Levite is visibly converted into an act of giving, of compassion. In more lofty terms, rachamim she'b'din and din she'b'rachamim melt into fluidity, and the elixir that remains is purely refined rachamim.
Good Shabbos. D Fox
The Kohanim were the priestly segment of the tribe of Levi. They served on the nation's behalf in the Holy Mikdash and as descendants of Aharon, they were charged with the task of facilitating shalom. The Levites assisted them, engaging in the peripheral and ancillary facets of the sacred avoda. A curious nuance of our verse is the lead word, v'nosata.
Now there is nothing unfamiliar about the word itself. Nesina always means giving or giving over. We know many of its conjugations - nosen, nosan, t'en - and their meaning is as clear as our verse's word, which simply translates as "and you shall give over." It is just a second-person future tense imperative form of nesina and it means "and you (plural) shall give over."
However, the word is written with the latter "hey" at the end. That adds nothing to the word in terms of sound. The letter is silent, much like the English letter "e" would be silent if added at the end of the word "potato." "Potato" and "potatoe" sound the same even with that extra silent letter at the end of the word (although we would quail from such misspelling.) In the Sacred Tongue, "v'nosata" sounds the same with or without the "hey" at the end. If so, what is that letter doing there? For that matter, the same verse refers to the Levites a bit later by the third-person plural pronoun "heyma" which means "them." The verse might have used the more familiar "heym" which would have been the more accurate term for referring to a group of men. That extra "hey" at the end almost makes the word sound "feminine" in grammatical form. For that matter, the extra "hey" at the end of v'nosata also gives the verb a feminine quality, grammatically.
Hey! Something is going on!
Perhaps it is in view of these questions that the Recanati reveals a depth to this verse. He writes that the giving of the Levites to the Kohanim is like the giving of a wife to a husband. Remember, in our tradition, the man "takes this woman to be his wife" and her father "gives her hand in marriage." Marriage is the gift that keeps on giving, or taking, or both. Moving from the real into the sublime, let's try to understand the Recanati's interpretation. When he uses various "mundane" terms, those terms are actually word-symbols for higher elements. Man and Woman, in the kabbalistic lexicon, are symbols for the Divine attributes which we term "rachamim" and "din" - compassion and justice, respectively. Some of this has been explained in earlier parsha e-mails. The Kohen is a mortal, living symbol of rachamim as well. In his work of facilitating peace and harmony between people through the means of serving HaShem in four-dimensional ways (the fourth being the celestial component) which avail the world of heaven-sent peace and harmony of the highest forms, he represents compassion on earth and attracts compassion from above. All of that rachamim is a this-worldly reflection of Divine Rachamim.
In contrast, the more servile, structured and three-dimensional labor of the Levi reflects his role as a symbol of din. His work is objective and precise, mirroring the Divine attribute which we experience as justice. When we think of Levi, the son of Yakov Avinu, we can also trace aspects of that precise, exacting judgment which seems to have marked his qualities. This is different than the qualities which we associate with Aharon the Kohen.
The world operates with midas ha'Rachamim yet the world also is run within the scope of midas ha'Din. Divine compassion was apparent from the beginning of creation and through the emergence of Adam. Din emerged into human consciousness, and experience, with the advent of Chava. Both attributes, as we have learned this year, are essential, yet both are facets of only One Reality. In the Holy Mikdash, the lower-world replica of all that we know about the Higher Realm, both rachamim and din needed symbolic representation. This is why there were Levites, on the one hand, and Kohanim on the other. They both had roles to serve, yet the primacy of compassion over justice was reflected in the more ascendant role of the Kohaim in contrast with the background subservience of the Levites.
In that sense, the Levites interacted with the Kohanim much like "woman" with "man." This is alluded within the lettering of our verse. The Recanati surprises us with his extension of this symbolism. Ever notice how when our prayers include "Duchening" that the Kohanim walk out, and the Levites also leave? The Kohanim need to wash their hands before chanting their blessing (which is a vestige of the Holy Mikdash avoda.) The Levites are the ones who do their hand washing for them. This is to symbolize that din is ideally part of life in order to serve and enhance rachamim. Furthermore, the Kohanim deal with fire. The Levites deal with water. Whatever aspect of harsh justice (fire) lurks within compassion is symbolically extinguished by the compassionate waters offered by the Just Levites. That means that the justice of the Levite is visibly converted into an act of giving, of compassion. In more lofty terms, rachamim she'b'din and din she'b'rachamim melt into fluidity, and the elixir that remains is purely refined rachamim.
Good Shabbos. D Fox
posted by Rabbi Dr. Fox at 10:06 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home