A Thought On Parshas Be'ha'losecha
A Thought On Parshas Be'halo'secha
"...va'yehi binso'a ha'aron..."
"...and when the ark would travel..." (10:35)
This verse is quite familiar to us because it is said each time that we prepare to take the Torah out of the Ark in order to read from it. The section in which this verse appears is a short one, two verses totalling 85 letters. What is striking about the section is that the letter nun appears at the beginning and the end of the piece, and the nun is written backwards.
There are a number of Talmudic lessons pertaining to these verses yet there is little discussion in the classic commentaries about those two backward nun letters. As long as we are looking into less familiar points, we have another verse which is striking. Further on (11:15) when Moshe addresses HaShem about the Divine warning that the rebelling faction may be punished, Moshe seems to refer to HaShem by the feminine pronoun At rather than with the ubiquitous Atah. What is the meaning of that shift in gender references? Is there a link between that second section, which deals with the rebellious faction, and the earlier section which precedes it with the sandwiching nun-backwards?
Rabbeinu Chaim Paltiel takes this challenge. He finds symbolic meaning in the backward letters. He reminds us that the Jewish nation was set to enter the Promised Land. They could have walked in after no more than a three day trek. They would have crossed the Jordan River and claimed the land of their patriarchs. However, as we see from section two, they complained. They were noncompliant and forfeited the right to enter Israel at that point in time.
He cites a reference that the Jordan River was fifty cubits wide. Fifty is the letter nun. Our nation turned backwards symbolically, moving away from the sacred plan, and turned backward in reality, by not crossing the river. This is why the verses which preface the second episode of rebellion include two backward nun letters. They represent our opting out of a sacred opportunity and out of a sacred status.
How does this now link with the reference to the Divine as At? For this, Rabbeinu Chaim Paltiel needs to go underground, alluding to sod which is the mystical foundation of deeper Torah lessons. He hints at the kabbalistic work known as Yud Sefiros Bli Mah - the Ten Spheres of Nothingness. This work looks at the letters of creation, the alef bais or Hebrew alphabet, as comprising compacted yet infinite names of the Divine. Although the alef-bais begins with an alef and it ends with the letter tof, the secret of the mystical Ten Spheres of Nothingness is that there is no beginning or end to our fathoming the Divine. Hence, both the alef and the tof are merely mortal metaphors, since human beings require a sense of space and dimensionality, and therefore need to propose a concept of beginning and a concept of ending. That is how the alef bais came to have a first and a last letter.
However, in the cosmic reality, HaShem's names, all of which emanate from those letters, are found in alef-tof and tof-alef and there is no front or back or sequence for the Infinite. In a representation of the Infinite within a series of letters or symbols, there is no middle either. The Name of HaShem, from this view point, would be comprised by the symbols which represent nothingness, rather than substance, and hence the customary pronoun of Atah is just as accurately represented as At - namely, that an alef and a tof - beginning and ending - are not really relevant. Everything is actually no thing, and nothingness is portrayed as if it were every thing (alef - tof).
Rabbeinu Chaim Paltiel now goes back to our curious-looking nun. In addressing HaShem whose words had intimated imminent punishment, to reduce substance to nothingness, Moshe responds from the deepest places of his soul in a mystical expression that he "gets it." He submits to the Divine infiniteness by orienting to HaShem as Alef Tof - At. In this way, he also references the turning back of the nation which was the backwards nun. The nun is at the center of both nothingness and of something-ness and that which it appears reversed and backwards is only a limitation of mortal perception. From the place-less and space-less Spheres of Nothingness - which is the highest realization of our own nothingness in the Divine vastness - position, dimension and direction are virtually meaningless. Moshe Rabbeinu knows this, for he has seen as much as a mortal can see. In fact, Rabbeinu Chaim Paltiel notes, when the verse later tells us that HaShem declares "b'kol baisi ne'eman hu" - Moshe is trusted throughout My House (12:7), this means that despite all that had been revealed to him, Moshe did not tell it over to others in the way that Yechezkel did in Ma'aseh HaMerkava (which we will read Shavuous morning when we are too tired to notice.)
The mystical reversal of the nun hints at a deep process, and Moshe's subsequent plea springs from an awareness of the deepest processes of spiritual reality. This view of Rabbeinu Chaim Paltiel may be hard to follow, in that he introduces some unfamiliar concepts to us. I chose it in order to greet the forthcoming yom tov of Receiving the Torah, and in order to place this great commentary among the ranks of the Rishonim who were familiar with the Kabblastic tradition. Good Shabbos. Good Yom Tov. D Fox
"...va'yehi binso'a ha'aron..."
"...and when the ark would travel..." (10:35)
This verse is quite familiar to us because it is said each time that we prepare to take the Torah out of the Ark in order to read from it. The section in which this verse appears is a short one, two verses totalling 85 letters. What is striking about the section is that the letter nun appears at the beginning and the end of the piece, and the nun is written backwards.
There are a number of Talmudic lessons pertaining to these verses yet there is little discussion in the classic commentaries about those two backward nun letters. As long as we are looking into less familiar points, we have another verse which is striking. Further on (11:15) when Moshe addresses HaShem about the Divine warning that the rebelling faction may be punished, Moshe seems to refer to HaShem by the feminine pronoun At rather than with the ubiquitous Atah. What is the meaning of that shift in gender references? Is there a link between that second section, which deals with the rebellious faction, and the earlier section which precedes it with the sandwiching nun-backwards?
Rabbeinu Chaim Paltiel takes this challenge. He finds symbolic meaning in the backward letters. He reminds us that the Jewish nation was set to enter the Promised Land. They could have walked in after no more than a three day trek. They would have crossed the Jordan River and claimed the land of their patriarchs. However, as we see from section two, they complained. They were noncompliant and forfeited the right to enter Israel at that point in time.
He cites a reference that the Jordan River was fifty cubits wide. Fifty is the letter nun. Our nation turned backwards symbolically, moving away from the sacred plan, and turned backward in reality, by not crossing the river. This is why the verses which preface the second episode of rebellion include two backward nun letters. They represent our opting out of a sacred opportunity and out of a sacred status.
How does this now link with the reference to the Divine as At? For this, Rabbeinu Chaim Paltiel needs to go underground, alluding to sod which is the mystical foundation of deeper Torah lessons. He hints at the kabbalistic work known as Yud Sefiros Bli Mah - the Ten Spheres of Nothingness. This work looks at the letters of creation, the alef bais or Hebrew alphabet, as comprising compacted yet infinite names of the Divine. Although the alef-bais begins with an alef and it ends with the letter tof, the secret of the mystical Ten Spheres of Nothingness is that there is no beginning or end to our fathoming the Divine. Hence, both the alef and the tof are merely mortal metaphors, since human beings require a sense of space and dimensionality, and therefore need to propose a concept of beginning and a concept of ending. That is how the alef bais came to have a first and a last letter.
However, in the cosmic reality, HaShem's names, all of which emanate from those letters, are found in alef-tof and tof-alef and there is no front or back or sequence for the Infinite. In a representation of the Infinite within a series of letters or symbols, there is no middle either. The Name of HaShem, from this view point, would be comprised by the symbols which represent nothingness, rather than substance, and hence the customary pronoun of Atah is just as accurately represented as At - namely, that an alef and a tof - beginning and ending - are not really relevant. Everything is actually no thing, and nothingness is portrayed as if it were every thing (alef - tof).
Rabbeinu Chaim Paltiel now goes back to our curious-looking nun. In addressing HaShem whose words had intimated imminent punishment, to reduce substance to nothingness, Moshe responds from the deepest places of his soul in a mystical expression that he "gets it." He submits to the Divine infiniteness by orienting to HaShem as Alef Tof - At. In this way, he also references the turning back of the nation which was the backwards nun. The nun is at the center of both nothingness and of something-ness and that which it appears reversed and backwards is only a limitation of mortal perception. From the place-less and space-less Spheres of Nothingness - which is the highest realization of our own nothingness in the Divine vastness - position, dimension and direction are virtually meaningless. Moshe Rabbeinu knows this, for he has seen as much as a mortal can see. In fact, Rabbeinu Chaim Paltiel notes, when the verse later tells us that HaShem declares "b'kol baisi ne'eman hu" - Moshe is trusted throughout My House (12:7), this means that despite all that had been revealed to him, Moshe did not tell it over to others in the way that Yechezkel did in Ma'aseh HaMerkava (which we will read Shavuous morning when we are too tired to notice.)
The mystical reversal of the nun hints at a deep process, and Moshe's subsequent plea springs from an awareness of the deepest processes of spiritual reality. This view of Rabbeinu Chaim Paltiel may be hard to follow, in that he introduces some unfamiliar concepts to us. I chose it in order to greet the forthcoming yom tov of Receiving the Torah, and in order to place this great commentary among the ranks of the Rishonim who were familiar with the Kabblastic tradition. Good Shabbos. Good Yom Tov. D Fox
posted by Rabbi Dr. Fox at 8:09 AM
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