I noticed that parshanim explaining the chumash on the one hand, and shas and posqim showing how the pasuq is associated with halakhah on the other, often end up giving different explanations of pesuqim in parashas Qedoshim. Many of these mitzvos are contained in just parts of pesuqim. Peshat equires taking context into account, and therefore a parshan is going to look at the pasuq as a whole. Whereas halkakhah is derived from the pasuq on a Derashah level, which has other constraints but not that one.

(And it is possible that we stopped making new derashos as knowledge of those constraints was lost. I wrote about that as part of a general discussion in the post Osniel ben Kenaz,)

For example: In halakhah, Tokhacha is an obligation to talk someone out of sinning, assuming they can be. But the Chizquni, looking at the whole pasuq, adds another approach (while not denying the gemara’s):

לֹֽא־תִשְׂנָ֥א אֶת־אָחִ֖יךָ בִּלְבָבֶ֑ךָ
הוֹכֵ֤חַ תּוֹכִ֙יחַ֙ אֶת־עֲמִיתֶ֔ךָ
וְלֹא־תִשָּׂ֥א עָלָ֖יו חֵֽטְא׃
Do not hate your brother in your heart
you shall surely give tokhachah to your compatriot
and not carry as sin over him.

– VaYiqra 19:18

To the Chizquni, the duty is to approach someone you’re having an argument with. Don’t stay angry, clear the air by sharing your grievances, and then you won’t have the sin of needlessly hating someone.

The same appears to be true with the next pasuq:

לֹֽא־תִקֹּ֤ם וְלֹֽא־תִטֹּר֙ אֶת־בְּנֵ֣י עַמֶּ֔ךָ
וְאָֽהַבְתָּ֥ לְרֵעֲךָ֖ כָּמ֑וֹךָ
אֲנִ֖י הֽ’׃
Do not take revenge or bear a grudge against the people of your nation
and you shall love your neighbor as yourself;
I am Hashem.

– VaYiqra 19:18

The Yerushalmi has an interesting description of the foolishness of the sin in the first clause, not to take revenge or to even bear a grudge without acting on it:

כְּתִיב “לֹא תִקּוֹם וְלֹא תִטּוֹר אֶת בְּנֵי עַמֶּךָ.” הֵיךְ עֲבִידָה? הֲוָה מְקַטֵּעַ קוֹפָּד וּמְחַת סַכִּינָא לְיָדוֹי, תַּחֲזוֹר וְתִמְחֵי לְיָדֵיהּ?
It is written: “Do not take revenge or bear a grudge against the people of your nation”. How is that? He was cutting meat and the knife fell down on his hand. Should he go and hit his hand?

– Yersualmi Nedarim 9:4 (beginning)

Revenge is as nonsensical as your right hand punishing your left hand when you accidentally hurt yourself with it. Because you are all one whole.

I think what motivates the use of this mashal is how the pasuq continues: “love your neighbor as yourself”.

Rav Shimon Shkop, in his introduction, explains that this isn’t asking for the impossible — to love them and yourself equally. Further, he shows that to abandon self-love would rob us of the motivation to create, to contribute, and thus to help others. Rather, I am to love them “as myself”, in the realization that they and I are part of a single greater whole. And therefore, that self-love extends to include the other.

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This past week I learned a piece in Or haTzafun (Shemos #30 “ההשתתפות שבין אדם לחבירו”) which focuses on the insidious nature of bribery, and from there, negi’os in general.

The examples the Alter of Slabodka gives include that of amora’im refusing to hear a case after refusing a kindness from one of the litigants. Adn of not letting the king sit on the Beis Din that decides leap months because he may need earlier taxes and be biased toward not having a leap month, or may want to stall on making annual payments. And this is a man who took a Sefer Torah with him at all times! We are even including the author of Tehillim!

The Alter was highlighting the problem of negi’os, of ulterior motives we may have and not even be consciously aware of that shape our decisions. All while we convince ourselves we are being purely objective. And if this is true of the greats, how much more so do we need to be on the alert. It is indeed an insidious problem.

But I was thinking… It could be that tzadiqim are more vulnerable to bribery. Because bribery as a motivator has another element.

Think about the themes of Rav Shimon Shop’s introduction to Shaarei Yosher (and thus of my book based on that introduction, Widen Your Tent). The measure of a soul is the number of people with whom you have an emotional connection.

The entire “I” of a coarse and lowly person is restricted only to his substance and body. Above him is someone who feels that his “I” is a synthesis of body and soul. And above him is someone who can include in his “I” all of his household and family. Someone who walks according to the way of the Torah, his “I” includes the whole Jewish people, since in truth every Jewish person is only like a limb of the body of the nation of Israel. And there are more levels in this of a person who is whole, who can connect his soul to feel that all of the world and worlds are his “I”, and he himself is only one small limb in all of creation. Then, his self-love helps him love all of the Jewish people and all of creation.

A tzadiq is thus someone who developed a talent to establish feelings of empathy, connection and responsibility to others.

This means that a tzadiq is more likely to identify with another person with less cause.

So that even being offered a favor that they reject is already creating an identification that could tug an amora‘s heart. He will more readily have negi’os to help someone else who reached out to him than I would.

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Rav Dovid Lifshitz ^zt”l (whose 31^st yahrzeit is today) often spoke about the connection between shaleim as wholeness, and that of another conjugation, “shalom“, peace. Shalom is not simply a cessation of violence. That wouldn’t be an expression of sheleimus, wholeness. Rather, shalom is a time when all the nations “will come together in a single union to do Your will with a leivav shaleim, a whole heart.” 

.שָׁלוֹם רָב, לְאֹהֲבֵי תוֹרָתֶךָ;    וְאֵין-לָמוֹ מִכְשׁוֹל

Shalom rav is granted those who love Your Torah, and they have no obstacles.

– Tehillim 119:165

Shalom rav is the unity and wholeness of self that eliminates all obstacles from the path of the lover of Torah. Sheleimus within each heart being expressed as sheleimus within humanity as a whole.

And since learning this idea, I have had a warm spot for the version of the last berakhah of Shemoneh Esrei used by Ashkenazim for Minchah and Maariev, which begins Shalom Rav. More so than the other version of the barachah, Sim Shalom.

Until I noticed something. There are two lists of berakhos that we ask Hashem to bestow on us in Sim Shalom (tr. Metsudah linear siddur, by Rabbi Avrohom Davis, 1981):

The first list has six items. The second has seven. The first are all things that are about how we relate to the world and how the world relates to us. The second includes “Toras Chaim” and “Ahavas Chessed”, describing gifts that change us internally.

As the Maharal writes that the number six represents the six directions (two in each of three dimensions). The six faces of a cube. Surfaces. Things made on the Six Days of Creation. The seventh is the hidden unreachable center of the cube. Internality. Holiness.

The six blessings in the first list, it would therefore seem to me, are those of Shalom. Having peaceful and harmonious relationship with others. That we receive peace, good, berakhah, favor… The second list is internal. The wholeness that generates real peace: Torah, loving Chessed, being a source of Berakhah, etc…

This would explain why we ask that the first list, of six items, is “sim … aleinu ve’al kol Yisrael“, that Hashem “place” them “upon us and all of Israel”. Bestowed upon. Externally. Whereas the second lost, that of seven items, “nasatana lanu – You gave to us”, in a manner we can choose to internalize.

If so, Sim Shalom speaks of the concept of Shalom Rav, as my Rebbe developed it, no less than the berakhah that opens with the words “Shalom Rav”. The true peace that is an external expression of an internal wholeness and an internal wholeness that comes from living peaceably with others. In fact, Sim Shalom may be making that point even more explicitly.

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Parashas Behar is a list of mitzvos.

The first section is all about shemittah and yovel. A family’s ancestral land cannot be sold into perpetuity. Instead, if someone is forced to sell their holdings, their family should try to redeem it as soon as they are able. And at worst, its ability to produce is sold until the next yovel, and then the land returns to its owner.

Another law in tha parashah is the prohibition against ona’ah. There are two kinds of ona’ah — ona’as mamon, cheating someone in financially by overcharging or underpaying for a commodity, and ona’as devarim — making someone feel bad through cutting speech. The fact that the two are both ona’ah and discussed together in the same paragraph, implied that the main problem with ona’as mamon is also not financial. No one wants to feel like a sucker. And it is that robbing of human dignity that ties both themes together.

And thinking about it, the laws of yovel similarly are a guarantee not only of money, but of the dignity that comes from financial independence. But guaranteeing that people retain their ancestral land, everyone can farm. Sustenance is guaranteed, and not through a handout.

Shemittah opens the parashah reminding someone that financial success doesn’t inhere in one’s work, but in that work being in partnership with the Almighty. We work the land, but to keep the relationship holy, we take a sabbatical from it as well. A year to step back, study Torah, and reconnect that work to higher goals.

The expression “כִּֽי־יָמ֣וּךְ אָחִ֔יךָ” appears three times in the parashah. The root \מוכ\ refers to being made low or to become depressed. In contrast to other terms for poverty, “yamukh” refers to poverty from the angle of the resulting emotional toll.

The first appearance (25:25) is in a context already mentioned — the person forced to sell their land whose extended family should try to help them redeem it back.

The second (25:35) is in the context of lending money, introducing the prohibition against charging interest. But again, it doesn’t simply say “lend him”, the phrase is “וְהֶֽחֱזַ֣קְתָּ בּ֔וֹ — and you will strengthen him.” The person isn’t just pushed into poverty, and you don’t just lend him money; he also loses dignity by becoming dependent on you, and you support him in a way that restores that dignity. A loan, not a handout.

The third occurrence (25:39) brings us back to yovel. No matter how poor a fellow Jew gets, they aren’t sold into permanent slavery. An enslaved Jew only serves six years, unless they choose a longer service at the end of those years, or they — like the land — is released on yovel. “כִּֽי־עֲבָדַ֣י הֵ֔ם אֲשֶׁר־הוֹצֵ֥אתִי אֹתָ֖ם מֵאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרָ֑יִם לֹ֥א יִמָּכְר֖וּ מִמְכֶּ֥רֶת עָֽבֶד׃ — for they are My servants, whom I took out of the Land of Egypt, they should not be sold in a slave market.” (v. 42) Just as shemittah reminds the working man that they are really working with G-d, slavery of Jews is limited to ensure that they recall they work for G-d, and not “servants of servants”. Similarly, there are limits to how one treats them. Their work must be productive and meaningful.

One could say the entire parashah is about the relationship between money and personal dignity. Finding the balance between the loss of dignity pme cam feel being subject to poverty and dependency on others’ generosity and the loss of dignity of becoming enslaved to one’s work.

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This week I’d like to discuss three seemingly unrelated questions about the words of the tephillah:

1. The focus of Shabbos Mussaf davening is the paragraph that begins “Tiqanta Shabbos…” What most readily jumps to the eye about the tephilla is that the 22 words it opens with are an anagram of the Hebrew alphabet in reverse. (“Tiqanta” starts with a tav, “Shabbos” with a shin, “ratzisa” — a reish, and so on.) While many tephillos are written with an alphabetic motif, it is far more rare for the alphabet to be presented in the reverse. What concept were the authors trying to express with this sequence?
2. Yeshayah quotes Hashem, saying: “I am the first and I am the last; and besides me there is no god. And who is like Me…” (44:6) This same sentiment is found a number of times in tephillah. The pasuq is associated in the siddur with the similar declaration of G-d’s unity of the Shema. For example, in the paragraphs following the “short Shema” of Birkhos haShachar, as well as in the berakhah of ge’ulah [redemption] after the morning recitation of Shema “Emes Atah Hu rishon, ve’Atah Hu acharon — It is true that You are The First, and You are The Last…”The Kuzari makes a point of explaining that by “The First” and “The Last” we don’t mean that G‑d has a beginning or an end. But this begs the question. First and last are terms that refer to a sequence. Something can be the first of a list, or the last in a collection. What is the list here? Of what is Hashem first and last?
3. The Torah has two terms for “because”: “ki” (which also has 6 other translations, according to Rashi) and “lema’an“. These words also come up frequently in tephillah. Since Hebrew was designed by G‑d, we wouldn’t expect it to have superfluous words. Words that are prefectly synonymous. Which would imply that “ki” and “lema’an” differ at least by connotation. But what is that difference?

Cause and Purpose

Aristotle lists four kinds of causes (Physics II:3). For example, consider a coffee table:

• Material cause: What is it made out of? Wood, nails, glue, stain, varnish…
• Formal cause: What is the form and function, the essence? It provides a place to put things down near the couch that is easy to reach when sitting on it. It therefore has a top, legs raising it to the desired level, it’s strong enough to hold a mug (remember to use a coaster!) or reading material.

These first two categories correspond to Aristotilian notions of Substance and Form, chomer vetzurah. The nature of the object being caused. The next two relate more to time.

• Efficient cause: What produced it? This is what we usually think of when we speak of causality. The table exists because a carpenter converted the wood etc… into a coffee table.
• Final cause: For what purpose, telos? The carpenter needed an income. The homeowner needed something to break up the space in her living room, to hold those nice pictorial books to give the room just the right look.

He therefore has two separate studies of events — efficient causes (hereafter simply “cause”, matching common usage) and teleological (final) causes. i.e. the goal the action was intended to achieve. He believed that every event has a cause, an event that preceded it that forced it to happen, and a telos, a following event that was the purpose for this one.

The Holy and the Secular

Rav Yechiel Michel Epstein assumes this duality has halachic expression. There is a law in hilkhos Sefer Torah that the parchment it is written on must be prepared with the intent of being used for a Sefer Torah. What if there is only intent at all for part of the preparation process? In the Arukh haShulchan (Yoreh Dei’ah 271:11), he writes that if you have intent for the beginning of the tanning of the hides, that is sufficient. Even though when it comes to shechitah, it is the end of the slaughter requires intent. Which has its logic; it is the end of the slaughter that makes the animal kosher for eating, the stage that matters most.

Rav Yechiel Michel Epstein notes that for other mitzvos, the intent also needs primarily to be at the beginning. Such as preparing the wool and making strings to tie into tzitzis. Or the slaughter and preparation of an animal for a qorban. That once you do something for the sake of a mitzvah, the rest of the process would necessarily for the same purpose.

Rav Yechiel Michel Epstein suggests that this is a distinction between the secular and the holy. When it comes to the secular, we look at physics and causality. If an event has a point, it is in the future, the event it causes. And so, the whole process is determined by the meaning of the last event in the chain. If it was done meaningfully, then the steps that led to it similar have meaning.

When it comes to spirituality, we look at teleology, the goal for which a mind or “Mind” aimed at to make it happen. Spirituality gets meaning from the process, not the outcome. And therefore, it is the intent during the first event, when the chain of events is set in motion, that determines the quality of the whole process. Everything follows from the initial launching.

Ki vs. Lemaan

Teleology is in disfavor today. Particularly in the era of Darwin, when life was seen to be the product of accident, the concept of telos was attacked, called a “fallacy” of the classical mind. For the Jew, however, there is no question. G-d created the universe, He did it for a purpose, and He ensures that the purpose will be met. What we mean by the word “bitachon” is to live with that belief. People have free will, and therefore act in order to place our plans into effect.

Everything has two reasons for happening: its cause and its purpose.

This is provides us an answer to our last question. “Ki“, when used for because, introduces the cause. Therefor in the Levitic song for Tuesday, we find “Let us greet Him with thanksgiving, with song let us shout for joy with Him. Ki — because G-d is a great L-rd…”

“Lema’an” is associated with purpose. In the words of the Shema, “lema’an yirbu yemeichem, viymei bneichem — so that you will have many days, and your children have many days….”

Two Sequences
Aristotle was convinced the universe was infinitely old, and that it would last forever. Part of the reason for this belief is because of his concepts of “cause” and “telos”.

The cause of an event always happens before the event itself. For example, because the wind blew a leaf off the tree, it fell. First is the wind, then the falling. But every event has a cause. The wind too is an event, and it too has an earlier cause. We can keep on chasing earlier and earlier causes, and notice that the universe must have been older and older. This gives us a sequence of events, cause to effect, cause to effect…. In fact, Aristotle saw no end to this chain, and there for couldn’t believe the universe had a beginning.

The Rambam, in the Guide to The Perplexed (vol. 2, ch. 14), points out the flaw in this reasoning. He defines G-d as the First Cause.

We can now approach our second question. G-d is first of the sequence of causes. “Atah Hu rishon — You are The First [Cause].”

Aristotle has a similar argument that the universe could have no end. The purpose of an event, what the event should accomplish, comes after the event. The purpose for G-d providing wind to blow was that He wanted the rock to fall. Again, every purpose is also an event, and we have another sequence we can chase forever, in this case later and later in time.

This answers the second half of the question. G-d is The Last, The Culminating Purpose of all of creation. “All is called in My Name, and for My Glory I have Created it.” (Isa. 43:7)

The Day the is Completely Shabbos

In Birchas Hamazon, in the “harachaman” we add for Shabbos, the culmination of human history is called “Yom Shekulo Shabbos“, the day/time that is entirely Shabbos. Shabbos is called “mei’ein olam haba — the image of the World to Come”. This concept is also the subject of the Shemoneh Esrei for Shabbos Mincha.

Shabbos is not only testimony to creation, that Hashem is the First Cause. Shabbos is also intimately connected to, and preparation for, relating to G-d as the Culminating Purpose.

Rav Yaakov Emden connects the reverse alphabetical ordering of Tiqanta Shabbos with the concept of Mei’ein Olam Haba. We can suggest that this is the reason why. The sequence of letters in the alphabet are used to represent the sequence of events of history. The order of letters shows how we are viewing that sequence.

Normally, we can only see G-d’s hand in the world as First Cause. We look around and see “how great are your works, Hashem.” The alphabet of this world starts with alpha, the one-ness of G-d, and unfurls to the plurality of creation. Shabbos, however, we reverse the order — we start with the plurality of the universe, and end with the one-ness of G-d.

The zemirah says, “mei’ein olam haba, yom Shabbos menuchah — in the image of the World to Come, the day of Shabbos brings rest.” When we realize that everything that happens to us is for a purpose, everything is part of that pursuit of the Culminating Purpose, then we are at peace.

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Here’s my theory about the origin of this minhag. My point here is not really about advocating for the minhag. I just feel a need to push back when people belittle another community’s practices.

Those who try to say the practice was originally pagan raise Roman era practices or Irish customs involving a cross (not a key), neither of which would Chassidim in 18th century Easter Europe be influenced by. It’s fishing for an objection.

I can see problems with those who treat Schlissel Challah as a way to get Hashem to provide wealth, whether I deserve it or it is what is what is appropriate for my life story or not. But let’s assume the point of the minhag is really more like the manei milsa of Rosh haShanah. We dip an apple in honey on Rosh haShanah to aid our praying for a “good and sweet year”, so why not have a key challah as an aid to our praying for wealth?

So now, on to the theory…

The week after Pesach, it’s hard to obtain yeast. Sourdough was gotten rid of before the holiday. Fleischman didn’t invent a way to make dry active yeast yet. You had to get rid of all your starter dough.

Easiest thing to do is skim the yeast off of beer. (The term for this yeast layer is “barm”, for what it’s worth.) Problem is, the resulting yeast is way too active for normal textured bread. So, the usual thing to do was to put some metal into the dough, as metal slows down yeast. Likely a key — right size, handy. Putting a small piece of metal in order to use beer yeast to make bread was indeed done by other cultures, such as in Ireland. One doesn’t need to claim foreign influence, it’s simply the biochemistry that leads to the idea of baking a key into challah.

Now this goes on for years, maybe centuries, until women baking bread think that putting a key into the challah dough the week after Pesach is just something Jews do. (Like avoiding zugos by not boiling an even number of eggs.)

In the 18^th or early 19^th century the Apter Rav (the original R’ Avraham Yehoshua Heschel) thought about the practice. He invoked the Baal Shem Tov’s principle that no practice becomes a norm among Jews without Hashem intending us to inculcate Torah from it, he looks for a meaning.

The Apter Rav takes note of the fact that farming begins in all earnestness in the spring, and that after Pesach farmers can get caught up on their work. A perfect time to remember (as we learn in the beginning of Mesechtes Taanis) that the key of rainfall and of prosperity is always directly in the “Hand” of Hashem Himself.

And so a common practice gets promoted to a minhag, now that it has a Torah meaning. Or meanings:

1. Based on “Pischi li achosi, ra’ayasi…” …, on which the medrash quotes, “Pischu li pesach kechudo shel machat… – (roughly:) Open your hearts [in teshuvah] like the eye of the needle, and I [Hashem] will open the rest like the entry to a great hall.”
2. According to Qabbalah, Shaarei Shamayim are open on Pesach. The lower gates close after the holiday, so it is up to us to open them again.
3. In the Midbar, the Jewish people ate mon until after the first Pesach in Eretz Yisrael (with the bringing of the Qorban Omer; see Yehoshua 5:11). That’s when we transitioned to eating our own crops. The Schlissel Challah after Pesach is a request the God should open the Sha’arei Parnasah…
   Alternatively, the mon began to fall and we started to eat it in the month of Iyyar, and this Shabbat is always Shabbat Mevarchim Iyyar.

Challah baked in the shape of a key is a much more recent innovation. Apparently younger than I am. I don’t think the origin story has to account for a development that late.

So much for theory. Some thoughts about it:

Each point has significant evidence, but if you combine a number of things that each are only probably true, I would not swear the result is.

And there are other beloved minhagim I can point to that became practices first and only acquired meaning after the fact. Some of which — like Purim costumes or eating milchigs on Shavuos — appear to have non-Jewish origins.

So it would seem to me the claim that origin of schlissel challah is an imitation of another religion’s practice is still improbable, as I explained at the top of the post. But even if it is true, we have precedent for saying that once the connection to the other religion is lost to time, finding a religious message in a common Jewish practice can be enough to sanctify a former borrowing into a full minhag.

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והיה רגיל להוכיח אותי על שראה שאינני משתתף בצערא דאחרינא. וכה היה דברו אלי תמיד שזה כל האדם. לא לעצמו נברא רק להועיל לאחריני ככל אשר ימצא בכחו לעשות.

[My father, Rav Chaim Volozhiner,] regularly rebuked me, because he saw that I did not participate in the pain of others. And these were his constant words to me: This is the entire person. One is not created for himself, but to benefit others with the full extent of his powers.

Rav Yitzchaq Volozhiner redacted Nefesh haChaim from notes his father, Rav Chaim Volozhiner, left him. In the introduction, Rav Yitzchaq outlines his father’s approach to Avodas haShem. In it, he makes the above parenthetic comment.

In “Shemos: Vigilante to Lawgiver” I suggested that Moshe’s natural instinct to stand up for someone in need was a critical part of his being the right person to eventually become the Lawgiver, Hashem’s conduit in giving the Torah. There is a unity between Torah and Natural Morality inherent in Hillel’s summary to the prospective convert, “That which you loathe, do not do to another. That is the whole Torah. Now go study!” The Torah’s aims are the same as someone’s healthy moral sense of fairness. However, the Torah contains a more informed and effectively guideline than we could come up with on our own. (As well as giving us the tools for self-development that we can more often follow through when the decision to choose right is difficult.)

This is a reason why so much of Parashas Shemos is comprised of examples of Moshe’s compassion.

For that matter, at the end of his life, empathy comes to play as well. Moshe is not allowed to enter Eretz Yisrael. But there is one mitzvah that is tied to Israel that Hashem did permit him to start, even if it wasn’t completed until much later — Moshe set up the first three Arei Miqlat, the cities of refuge for someone who killed another by an accident caused by insufficient caution. The man who spend at least half his life (depending on which midrashim you use to date events) as a refugee from Egyptian “justice” was the ideal person to set up such cities. Who could better empathize with what the person who needs one is going through?

But coming back to this week’s parashah, we see the fundamental role of compassion and empathy at another critical junction — Moshe’s first prophecy, at the Burning Bush. Medrash Tanchuma (14:4; summarized by Rashi, Shemos 3:2):

… וְלָמָּה מִתּוֹךְ הַסְּנֶה, וְלֹא מִתּוֹךְ אִילָן גָּדוֹל, וְלֹא מִתּוֹךְ תְּמָרָה? אָמַר הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא: כָּתַבְתִּי בַּתּוֹרָה, “עִמּוֹ אָנֹכִי בְצָרָה” (תהלים צא:טו). הֵם נְתוּנִים בְּשִׁעְבּוּד, וְאַף אֲנִי בַּסְּנֶה מִמָּקוֹם צָר. לְפִיכָךְ מִתּוֹךְ הַסְּנֶה שֶׁכֻּלּוֹ קוֹצִים.

… And why did He appear in the midst of a bush of thorns rather than in a large tree or a date palm (perhaps: a column of smoke)? The Holy Blessed One said: I have stated in the Torah: “I will be with him in trouble.” (Tehillim 91:15) [Since] they were enslaved, even I appeared in a thorn bush, which is a place of trouble. Therefore, from witthin of a bush which is full of thorns, [I appeared to Moshe.]

Moshe starts with a natural compassion, and it is his perception of Divine Compassion that transforms him into the greatest navi of all time. Because, as Rav Chaim Volozhiner raised his son, it is compassion and our ability to act on that compassion that is the foundation of our entire existence, and the central purpose of the Torah.

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Micha’s note: The following was a post written to the Mesorah email list by Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel zt”l, a rebbe-chaver of mine (more: a rebbe who insisted on treating me like a chaver) who was a talmid of R Y.B. Solovetchik from his school days in Maimonides (Boston) through semichah, as well as having a PhD in Semitic Languages from Harvard.
I sorely miss him. We knew each other from when I was a teen davening at the Bachurei Minyan of KGH, and sat down next to the man with the precise Hebrew accent, until his passing in 5783.
Thank you to Michael Poppers for preserving the post and for bringing it to my attention.
I edited the original post, making formatting changes and as inserting the actual text of the example pesuqim. -mb

Since I had been meaning to introduce the topic anyway, I decided to write up a short introduction to “tropology.”

The trop are divided up into hierarchical classes. Although it is clear from some of their comments that they knew the rules of trop syntax, the rishonim do not discuss these classes, probably because the rules were taught to them with the “tune” of each trop. However, nowadays many ba’alei q’riah know the tune, but, from my experience, very few indeed know the syntax: how the trop connect or divide the words. Thus you get situations, all too common, where the balqoyre used the right tune, but paused in place where the trop is meant to connect the words.

The trop serve as a hierarchy. We do not have the Jewish names of these hierarchies, if indeed there were any, whereas we do have the ancient names of the individual trop (although in some cases different communities used slightly different names). Rather, we have just the general division into sarim or m’lakhim (disjunctive trop) versus m’shar’tim or m’habb’rim (conjunctive). The hierarchical categorization of the disjunctive trop in detail was done originally by Christian scholars. Caspar Ledebuhr in his Catena Scriptorae (1647) divided them into 5 classes: Rex, Dux, Comites, Dynastae, and Toparchae. Matthis Wasmuth in his Institutio methodica accentuationis Hebraeae (1664) used the names Imperatores, Reges, Duces, Comites, and Barones. R. Zalman Hanau in his Sha’arei Zimra (1718) followed these scholars, giving the classes the Hebrew names M’lakhim, Sarim, P’qidim, and M’shor’rim. Following him, R. Y’hudah Leib Ben-Ze’ev in his Talmud Lashon ‘Ivri (1796) used the names Qeisarim, M’lakhim, Mishnim, and Shalishim (reducing the classes to 4). His book was the most widely used in Eastern Europe, and his terms stuck.

(All these categories are for the trop which are mafsiqim; the m’shar’tim, whose purpose is to combine words together without any pause, have no levels, but just rules which m’shar’tim precede which mafsiqim in which situations; some of these rules are spoken about by the Rishonim, from Ben Asher himself in Sefer Diqduqei haT’amim, to Rabbeinu Tam [in a poem he wrote giving the rules in rhyme], to mention just the most famous.)

The hierarchy of trop is not a matter of dispute, nor did Jews need Christian scholars to explain it to them. But once the Bohur (Eliyahu Levitas) explained to the Christians the significance of trop, Christian scholars got interested in it and started writing books about it, just as they started writing books about Hebrew grammar.

The basic rule of trop is “continuous dichotomy,” as William Wickes terms it: a posuq is divided into two major units, then each unit subdivided into subunits, and so on until there are only 3 word-units left in the subunit, (Where words connected by a maqqef are one “word-unit.”) The hierarchical rules determine that when a division governed by a qeisar is divided, it is divided by a melekh; when one governed by a melekh is divided, it is divided by a mishneh, and so on.

I summarize the resulting system of trop syntax by two broad rules:

1. The Global Theory of Relativity, namely that the strength of division signified by a trop is relative to what other trop are present; and
2. when you have a series of trop which belong to the same hierarchical level, the first signifies a much stronger division than the following ones.

(The problem with the names is my rule 1: Melekh implies that this is a major mafsiq, whereas in fact the trop belonging to this group are just more major than the next lower level, and if no lower level is present, may be a minor break.)

Thus: a posuq is divided by an etnahta/atn’ha into two halfs. Both the first and second half of the posuq will be divided by m’lakhim. The last melekh before both the etnahta and the sof pasuq is always a tip’ha. A previous melekh is a zaqef (zaqef qatan or zaqef gadol or subtypes of zaqef). The very first zaqef in a pasuq may be replaced by a segol (which turns into a shalshelet if there are not enough words for a zarqa). The division governed by the melekh is divided by a mishneh. If the melekh is a tip’ha, it is divided by a t’vir; if the melekh is a zaqef qatan, it is divided by a pashta; if the melekh is a segol, it is divided by a zarqa.

If there are two or more mishneh trop, the first may be a r’via’.

A similar system applies to the shalishim.

This is a summary of all the rules which are mostly needed, other than recognizing which trop are m’shar’tim, so that one does not break or take a breath after a m’sharet.

A couple of examples:

B’reshit 1:13:

וַֽיְהִי־עֶ֥רֶב וַֽיְהִי־בֹ֖קֶר י֥וֹם שְׁלִישִֽׁי׃

There is only one division, a melekh, which must be a tip’ha. That divides the pasuq into two sections: one, vayhi ‘erev vayhi voqer, the second, yom sh’lishi.

B’reshit 1:18:

וְלִמְשֹׁל֙ בַּיּ֣וֹם וּבַלַּ֔יְלָה וּֽלְהַבְדִּ֔יל בֵּ֥ין הָא֖וֹר וּבֵ֣ין הַחֹ֑שֶׁךְ וַיַּ֥רְא אֱלֹהִ֖ים כִּי־טֽוֹב׃

The first half of the pasuq is divided by three m’lakhim: a zaqef qatan, a zaqef gadol, and a tip’ha. According to my second rule above, the first is the major division, the second is subordinate, and the tip’ha is a very minor division indeed.

Bamidbar 28:14 (read every rosh hodesh, and usually misread):

וְנִסְכֵּיהֶ֗ם חֲצִ֣י הַהִין֩ יִהְיֶ֨ה לַפָּ֜ר וּשְׁלִישִׁ֧ת הַהִ֣ין לָאַ֗יִל וּרְבִיעִ֥ת הַהִ֛ין לַכֶּ֖בֶשׂ יָ֑יִן זֹ֣את עֹלַ֥ת חֹ֙דֶשׁ֙ בְּחׇדְשׁ֔וֹ לְחׇדְשֵׁ֖י הַשָּׁנָֽה׃

The first half of the pasuq has only one melekh, a tip’ha. Therefore, that is the major division. The first subunit in the pasuq has three mishnehs: two r’via‘s and a t’vir. By rule 2, the first r’via’ signifies the major subdivision. Thus, the major division is on the word keves, since yayin refers to ALL the 3 kinds of n’sakhim, and the trop siginifies that the meaning is: “and their n’sakhim are: ½ hin for each par, ⅓ hin for the ayil, and ¼ hin for each keves, all of wine.” It should not be read with a breath after “ur’vi’it hahin” before “lakeves yayin“; the word lakeves goes with what comes before, and not with yayin.

In regard to B’reshit 25:3:

וְיׇקְשָׁ֣ן יָלַ֔ד אֶת־שְׁבָ֖א וְאֶת־דְּדָ֑ן וּבְנֵ֣י דְדָ֔ן הָי֛וּ אַשּׁוּרִ֥ם וּלְטוּשִׁ֖ם וּלְאֻמִּֽים׃

If the trop over D’dan is a zaqef, then there are two m’lakhim in the second half of the pasuq: a zaqef and a tip’ha. The zaqef is the major division, and so it reads: “uvnei D’dan: hayu” etc. If, however, the trop of D’dan is a r’via’, then there is only one melekh to form the major subdivision of the second half of the pasuq, namely the tip’ha. So it would read “uvnei D’dan hayu Asshurim uLtushim; and also L’ummim.” That would mean L’ummim is not part of the same list as Asshurim and L’tushim.

The drawback of the system of continuous dichotomy is that if you have a long list of lots of items, the trop have no way of signifying that all elements are equal. For instance, in Sh’mot 25:4 and 25:5. There cannot be a etnahta, or it would signify that there is a major division between the first and second parts. But the division has to be a tip’ha, but not because it signifies a bigger division than the t’vir that comes before. However, in 25:6, there is a major division in the pasuq, and that is designated by the etnahta.

So with a r’via’ the posuq about D’dan has the trop that would qualify it to be a list. The word “hayu” precludes it from being that, but were that word to be absent and a r’via’ over D’dan, the posuq would mean “and the sons of D’dan, and the Asshurim and the L’tushim, and the L’ummim.” With the zaqef, the meaning would be the same as it is with the word “hayu.”

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(I put these thoughts together for a reply for my daughter Gavi, who pointed me to a medrash that “everyone in her neighborhood” were talking about, but I then was moved to share it with a wider audience.)

When we were slaves in Egypt, we had a tradition from our grandfather Yaaqov that the person Hashem would send to redeem us would come with the words “paqod paqadti – I have surely Remember”. And I presume the cynics in the crowd wondered what kind of sign was that? After all, anyone who wanted to be the leeder could learn of the tradition and for that reason use the words “paqod paqadti“!

Then came Moshe. A man with burnt lips. So he couldn’t naturally make those phonemes we make with our lips – b, v, w, f and of course p. And when Moshe was able to say “paqod paqadti” the prophecy they had remembered took on a whole new and unforeseen meaning.

It is not easy to read a prophecy with anything but hindsight.

And so I wouldn’t look to cherry picked midrashim that do not take that much creativity to see as descriptions of current events. Because it isn’t “paqod paqadti” sure. (And besides, what about other opinions, other midrashim and quotes from the actual Talmuds?)

If I lived among people who pursued such things as passionately as the community Gavi lives in, my heart would be warmed by their emunah in Bi’as haMashiach, the way they were literally awaiting the Messiah, and I wouldn’t want to rain on their parade.

But as for me, where I get all messianic and hopeful is when I see pictures of Chareidim making tzitzis for soldiers.

One group deciding to shed their protective insularity because Jewish Unity is more important.

Another group, the allegedly “Chiloni” thinking about G-d as One Who intervenes in their lives.

We have taken a huge step forward towards the messianic ideal. I gave but one illustrative example of how much this disaster has prodded us forward. Maybe…

Is that a donkey’s hoofbeats I am hearing?

The post Looking to the Future appeared first on Aspaqlaria.

A comment by Ilana Elzafun* brought this Seforno to my attention.

This week’s parashah (Lekh Likha), Bereishis 16:13, describes Hagar’s prayer to Hashem after she was expelled from Avram’s home and was visited by a mal’akh who promised her she would have a son (Yishma’el):

וַתִּקְרָ֤א שֵׁם־ה֙׳ הַדֹּבֵ֣ר אֵלֶ֔יהָ אַתָּ֖ה קֵ֣ל רֳאִ֑י כִּ֣י אָֽמְרָ֗ה הֲגַ֥ם הֲלֹ֛ם רָאִ֖יתִי אַחֲרֵ֥י רֹאִֽי׃

And she called the name of Hashem who spoke to her, “You Are Kel-Ro’i [the G-d Who Sees me]” by which she meant, “Have I not gone on seeing after my being seen!”

Seforno explains the concept of “vatiqra sheim Hashem – and she called the name of Hashem”. He opens:

הנה קריאת שם ה’ היא התפלה אשר בה שבחו של הקב”ה במחשבת המתפלל או בדבריו. כאמרם ז”ל לעולם יסדר אדם שבחו של מקום ואחר כך יתפלל

For calling the name of Hashem is the tefillah through which the Holy One Who is Blessed is praised in the thought of the one praying or his words. As [the Sages] of blessed memory say, “A person should always organize the praise of the Omnipresent, and then daven.” …

To name something is to say what that thing means to you.

Before praying one has to think about how one is relating to Hashem in that moment.

In the “Ani Tefillah” program for teaching about tefillah, the watchwords are: Stop, Think, Feel. Stop, don’t just rush into praying. Spending two seconds to frame the moment – “I am about to talk to My Creator” – can make all the difference. Think about Who you are praying to and how you are relating to Him in that moment. And then one can truly feel and connect to Hashem through that tefillah.

From Hagar’s example, when she was exiled from her home, away from her righteous husband and a community of worshippers, she was taken in how Hashem was still watching her, still saw her in her distress. So. she didn’t simply pray to Hashem, she prayed to “Keil Ro’i — the G-d Who sees me”.

Before davening, we have to take a moment and assess our relationship with Hashem in that moment. Talk to the Creator in the natural terms for that particular encounter.

Prayer in a time of distress cannot be the same as prayer in a time of peace. But more than that, the particular emotions that specific distress causes have to be part of the prayer experience.

* Extra care being given to name my sources, because of Megillah 15a:

וְאָמַר רַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר אָמַר רַבִּי חֲנִינָא: כׇּל הָאוֹמֵר דָּבָר בְּשֵׁם אוֹמְרוֹ מֵבִיא גְּאוּלָּה לָעוֹלָם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״וַוַתֹּ֧אמֶר אֶסְתֵּ֛ר לַמֶּ֖לֶךְ בְּשֵׁ֥ם מׇרְדֳּכָֽי:״

And Rabbi Elazar said that Rabbi Chanina said: Whomever says something in the name of the one who said it [originally], brings ge’ulah to the world, as it says “And Esther told the king, in the name of Mordechai.” (Esther 2:22)

And we really could use some Ge’ulah right now.

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