What is Torah? TORAH AND CREATION Bereshit Rabbah 1:1 - ‫מדרש רבה א׃א‬ ‫ התורה אומרת אני הייתי כלי‬,‫ אומן‬- ‫ד"א ]ואהיה אצלו אמון ואהיה שעשועים יום יום[ )משלי ח׃ל( אמון‬ ,‫ אינו בונה אותה מדעת עצמו אלא מדעת אומן‬,‫ בנוהג שבעולם מלך בשר ודם בונה פלטין‬,‫אומנתו של הקב"ה‬ ‫ היאך הוא‬,‫ לדעת היאך הוא עושה חדרים‬,‫ ופינקסאות יש לו‬,‫ אלא דיפתראות‬,‫והאומן אינו בונה אותה מדעת עצמו‬ ‫ ואין ראשית‬,‫ והתורה אמרה בראשית ברא אלהים‬,‫ ובורא את העולם‬,‫ כך היה הקב"ה מביט בתורה‬,‫עושה פשפשין‬ .‫ היאך מה דאת אמר )משלי ח׃כב( ה' קנני ראשית דרכו‬,‫אלא תורה‬ Another interpretation: "I was with Him as a confidant, a source of delight every day" (Prov. 8:30). Confidant (amon)? [Read it as] artisan (oman)! The Torah is saying, "I was a tool for the craft of the blessed holy One." It is the way of the world that when a king of flesh and blood builds a palace, he does not construct it from his own knowledge. Rather, he consults an artisan. But the artisan does not build it from his own wisdom either. He refers to his plans and notes, which tell him how to make rooms, gates, [etc.]. So did the blessed holy One gaze into the Torah and create the world. The Torah says, "In the beginning God created..." and "beginning" refers only to the Torah, as it is written, "Y-H-V-H acquired me at the beginning of His way" (Prov. 8:22). ZOHAR Rabbi Shim‘on said: “Woe to the human being who says that Torah presents mere stories and ordinary words!1 If so, we could compose a Torah right now with ordinary words and better than all of them! To present matters of the world? Even rulers of the world possess words more sublime. If so, let us follow them and make a Torah out of them! Ah, but all the words of Torah are sublime words, sublime secrets!2 Come and see: The world above and the world below are perfectly balanced: Israel below, the angels above. Of the angels it is written: ‘He makes His angels spirits’ (Ps 104:4). But when they descend, they put on the garment of this world. If they did not put on a garment beﬁtting this world, they could not endure in this world and the world could not endure them. If this is so with the angels, how much more so with Torah, who created them and all the worlds and for whose sake they all exist! In descending to this world, if she did not put on the garments of this world the world could not endure. So this story of Torah is the garment of Torah. Whoever thinks that the garment is the real Torah and not something else—may his spirit deﬂate! He will have no portion in the world that is coming. That is why David said: ‘Open my eyes so I can see wonders out of Your Torah!’ (Ps 119:18), what is under the garment of Torah! Come and see: There is a garment visible to all. When those fools see someone in a good-looking garment, they look no further. But the essence of the garment is the body; the essence of the body is the soul! So it is with Torah. She has a body: the commandments of Torah, called ‘the embodiment of Torah.’3 This body is clothed in garments: the stories of this world. Fools of the world look only at that garment, the story of Torah; they know nothing more. They do not 1. Aram. millin de-hedyotei. Millin has several meanings in this passage: words, things, matters. Hedyotei means “common, popular, ignoble.” The phrase may be translated: “everyday matters.” Cf. Zohar 3:149b, where the phrase refers to secular, ignoble stories of the Torah, in contrast to millin kaddishin, “holy words, holy matters.” 2. A basic exegetical principle of the Zohar; cf. 2:55b: “There is no word in the Torah that does not contain many secrets, many reasons, many roots, many branches”; cf. 3:79b, 174b. 3. Heb. gufei Torah, “bodies of Torah.” In the Mishnah this term denotes the essential teachings of Torah; See m. Hagigah 1:8: “Judgments and the laws of sacrifices, what is pure and impure, sexual immorality... these are gufei Torah”; cf. Tosefta Shabbat 2:10; m. Avot 3:23. Here the category is broadened to include all the commandments; cf. Zohar 2:85b. Ariel Mayse -‐ 1 -‐ [email protected] look at what is under that garment. Those who know more do not look at the garment, but rather at the body under that garment. The wise ones, servants of the King on high, those who stood at Mt. Sinai,4 look only at the soul, root of all, real Torah!5 In the time to come they are destined to look at the soul of the soul of Torah! WHY DOESN'T THE TORAH HAVE VOWELS? Rabbenu Bahyah , Be-Midbar 11:15 - ‫טו‬:‫רבינו בחיי במדבר פרשת בהעלותך פרק יא‬ ‫ כי האותיות כשאינן מנוקדות סובלות כמה כוונות ומתחלקות‬...‫ בספר תורה שאינו מנוקד יוכל האדם לקרוא‬... ‫ ומפני זה נצטוינו שלא לנקוד ספר תורה כי משמעות כל מלה ומלה לפי הנקוד ואין משמעותה עם‬,‫לכמה ניצוצות‬ ...‫ ובלתי נקוד יוכל האדם להבין בה כמה ענינים נפלאים רבים ונכבדים והבן זה‬,‫הנקוד כי אם ענין אחד‬ The scroll of the Torah is written without vowels, so you can read it variously. Without vowels, the consonants bear many meanings and splinter into sparks. That is why the Torah scroll must not be vowelized, for the meaning of each word accords with its vowels. Once vowelized, a word means just one thing. Without vowels, you can understand it in countless, wondrous ways. Understand this... [trans. Daniel Matt.] WRITTEN TORAH AND ORAL TORAH DEGEL MAHANEH EPHRAYIM (BERESHIT) - ‫דגל מחנה אפרים‬ ‫ ונקדים מה שאמרתי על הפסוק ואת שעיר החטאת דרוש דרש וגו' )ויקרא‬.(‫זה ספר תולדות אדם )בראשית ה׃א‬ ‫ וצריך להבין זה מה בא לרמז בזה‬,(‫ ואיתא במסורת דרוש דרש כאן חצי אותיות שבתורה )קידושין ל׃א‬.(‫י׃טז‬ .‫שכאן הן מנין חצי אותיות שבתורה‬ ,‫ כי אי אפשר לזה בלא זה‬,‫ויש לפרש כי ידוע תורה שבכתב ותורה שבעל פה הכל אחד ואין אחד נפרד מחבירו כלל‬ ‫ ותורה שבכתב בלא תורה שבעל פה אינו תורה‬,‫דהיינו התורה שבכתב מתגלה צפונותיה על ידי תורה שבעל פה‬ ‫ והוא רק כמו חצי ספר עד שבאו חז"ל ודרשו התורה וגילו דברים הסתומים ופעמים הם עוקרין דבר מן‬.‫שלימה‬ ‫ והיינו בענין מלקות שכתוב בתורה ארבעים ובאו רבנן ובצרו חדא )מכות כב׃ב( והכל על ידי הופעת רוח‬,‫התורה‬ ....‫ נמצא תלוי שלימות תורה שבכתב בתורה שבעל פה‬.‫קדשם שהופיע עליהם והיה כח בידם לעשות זה‬ ‫ היינו עד שדרשוה חז"ל אינה נקראת התורה‬,‫וזה יש לפרש שבא הרמז דרוש דרש הם חצי אותיות שבתורה‬ ‫ וכן בכל דור ודורשיו הם משלימין‬.‫שלימה רק חצי ובדרושי מאמרי חז"ל נשלם התורה להיות נקרא ספר שלם‬ ‫התורה כי התורה נדרשת בכל דור ודור לפי מה שצריך לאותו דור ולפי שורש נשמתן של אותו הדור כך ה' יתברך‬ ‫ וכן ראיתי בספר‬,‫מאיר עיני חכמי הדור ההוא בתורתו הקדושה והכופר בזה גם כן כאילו כופר בתורה חס ושלום‬ ‫הקדוש )עיין בפרשת וארא בשם ספר ברית מנוחה( ששם המפורש היו משתמשין בו בכל דור כל אחד לפי דורו‬ ...‫ולפי שורש נשמתו וכן כל התורה כולה שהוא שמותיו של הקב"ה‬ “This is the book of the descendants of man” (Gen. 5:1). Let us begin with what I have said about the verse “Moses diligently sought out the goat for the sin-offering” (Lev. 10:16). Tradition notes that these words, ‘diligently sought’ (darosh darash) are the midpoint in a letter count of the Torah (b. Kiddushin 30a). One needs to understand what is meant by this, what difference it makes. In my humble opinion, [it is as follows]: We know that the written and oral Torahs are all one, that neither can be separated from the other. Neither is indeed possible without the other, since the written Torah reveals its secrets through the oral interpretation. The written Torah without the oral Torah is incomplete. It was like half a book until the Sages came and interpreted Torah, lighting up our eyes and revealing its hidden secrets. Sometimes they would uproot something from the Torah, as is the case with regard to [punishment by] lashes. The Torah says: “He shall be stricken forty times” (Deut. 25:3), but the Sages reduced it by 4. According to the Midrash, the souls of all those not yet born were present at Sinai; see Shemot Rabbah 28:4; Tanhuma Yitro #11, Pirkei de-Rabbi Eli‘ezer Ch. 41; cf. Zohar 1:91a. Here the Zohar implies that only the souls of mystics were actually present; perhaps only mystics are aware that they were present at Sinai. 5. The mystics see through the outer, physical layers of Torah, both her garments of stories and her body of commandments, into her soul. Real Torah, orayta mammash, is their sole object of study and contemplation. What this soul is becomes clear below. Ariel Mayse -‐ 2 -‐ [email protected] one (b. Makkot 22b). They did all this by the light of their holy spirit, because the blessed Lord was manifest upon them. [This enabled them] to see the root of everything written in the Torah in its true state, empowering them to do this. The wholeness of the written Torah is thus dependent upon the oral… This is true of each generation and its interpreters. They make the Torah complete. Torah is interpreted in each generation according to what that generation needs. God enlightens the eyes of each generation’s sages [to interpret] His holy Torah in accord with the soul-root of that generation. One who denies this is like one who denies Torah, God forbid... for the entire Torah is composed of the blessed One's names. [trans. Arthur Green.] QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER PONDERING AND DISCUSSION WITH YOUR HEVRUTA: What is Torah? What is the Torah? What implications do these ideas hold for what it means to study Torah? How do they inform (or frame) our experience of learning the sacred text? Ariel Mayse -‐ 3 -‐ [email protected]