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Shareאברא כדברא
Abra K'dabra
אברא כדברא
ברא - To Create
דבר - To Speak
"I will create as I speak" or "I create like the word"
בַּעֲשָׂרָה מַאֲמָרוֹת נִבְרָא הָעוֹלָם.
With ten utterances the world was created.
Rabbi Yehuda, quoting Rav, said: `When Moses ascended [to receive the Torah at Mt. Sinai], he found God sitting and tying crowns to the letters (adding crowns to the Torah's letters).
He asked, "Master of the Universe, for whom are You delaying the Torah's granting on Mount Sinai (for whom are you adding these crowns)?"
God replied: "A person who will appear a few generations from now and who will be called Akiva, son of Joseph. He will explain each and every thorn on these letters and will generate mountains of laws [halachot] from them."
Questions for Discussion:
1) Why do the letters of the Torah have "crowns"?
2) How do you think one might derive halacha (Jewish law) from interpreting these crowns?
...ר"פ בשם רשב"ל התורה שנתן לו הקב"ה למשה נתנה לו אש לבנה חרותה באש שחורה היא אש מובללת באש חצובה מאש ונתונה מאש דכתיב (דברים ל״ג:ב׳) מימינו אש דת למו:
Rabbi Pinchas taught in the name of Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish: "The Torah which the Holy Blessed One gave to Moshe was white fire [the parchment] engraved with black fire [the letters]; fire mixed with fire, hewn from fire, and given from fire, as it is written: "From His right hand, the fiery law to them." [Deut 33:2]
On the simplest level, black fire refers to the letters of Torah, the actual words, which are written in the scroll. The white refers to the spaces between the letters. Together the black letters and white spaces between them constitute the "whole" of the Torah.
On another level, the black fire represents the p'shat, the literal meaning of the text. The rabbis point to the importance of p'shat when stating "the text cannot be taken out of its literal meaning." The white fire, however, represents ideas that go beyond the p'shat. It refers to ideas that we bring into the text when we interact with it. This is called d'rash - interpretations, applications, and teachings that flow from the Torah. The d'rash are the messages we read between the lines.
On yet another level, the black letters represent thoughts which are intellectual in nature, whether p'shat or d'rash. The white spaces, on the other hand, represent that which goes beyond the world of the intellect. The black letters are limited, limiting and fixed. The white spaces catapult us into the realm of the limitless and the ever-changing, ever-growing. They are the story, the song, the silence. Sometimes I wonder which speaks more powerfully, the black, rationalistic letters or the white, mystical spaces between them.
-Excerpt from http://www.hir.org/a_weekly_gallery/8.16.02-weekly.html
Questions for Discussion:
1) What is the "white fire" and what is the "black fire" of Torah?
2) Why are both necessary?
https://www.mezuzahmore.com/single-post/2019/11/28/how-many-letters-are-in-a-sefer-torah
בְּנֹהַג שֶׁבָּעוֹלָם מֶלֶךְ בָּשָׂר וָדָם בּוֹנֶה פָּלָטִין, אֵינוֹ בּוֹנֶה אוֹתָהּ מִדַּעַת עַצְמוֹ אֶלָּא מִדַּעַת אֻמָּן, וְהָאֻמָּן אֵינוֹ בּוֹנֶה אוֹתָהּ מִדַּעַת עַצְמוֹ אֶלָּא דִּפְתְּרָאוֹת וּפִנְקְסָאוֹת יֵשׁ לוֹ, לָדַעַת הֵיאךְ הוּא עוֹשֶׂה חֲדָרִים, הֵיאךְ הוּא עוֹשֶׂה פִּשְׁפְּשִׁין. כָּךְ הָיָה הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא מַבִּיט בַּתּוֹרָה וּבוֹרֵא אֶת הָעוֹלָם...
(A human king who builds a castle does not do so from his own knowledge, but rather from the knowledge of an architect. The architect does not build it from her own knowledge, but rather she has scrolls and books in order to know how to make rooms and doorways. The same is true for God. So too, God looked into the Torah and created the world.
Similarly the Torah says (Genesis 1:1): "B'reishit - through the reishit - Hashem created [the heavens and the earth]," and reishit means Torah, as in "Hashem made me [the Torah] the beginning (reishit) of His way" (Proverbs 8:22).
"This one shall be called 'woman' because she was taken from man." From here we learn that the Torah was given in Hebrew.
Rabbi Pinchas and Rabbi Hilkiya in the name of Rabbi Simon said: "Just as the Torah was given in Hebrew, so too the world was created in Hebrew. You have heard it said: 'man' and 'woman' [in other languages as distinct words, unrelated to each other], so why ish [איש] and isha [אשה] [the words for 'man' and 'woman' in Hebrew, which are related to each other]? Because this word comes out of this word.
From the earliest metaphysical text known as the Sefer Yetzirah (“Book of Formation”), Jewish mystics have extolled the Hebrew alphabet as the manifestation of celestial patterns of energy. In a section that has long entranced kabbalistic (mystical) adepts, this ancient treatise vividly declares, “Twenty-two foundation letters: He ordained them, He hewed them, He combined them, He weighed them, He interchanged them. And He created with them the whole creation and everything to be created in the future.”
Based on this provocative notion, later Jewish visionaries stressed that mastery of the Hebrew alphabet in all its varied aspects allows the individual to gain supreme knowledge about the realm of matter...
The 13th-century Zohar (Book of Splendor) is filled with references to the importance of the Hebrew alphabet as a celestial code or blueprint for the cosmos. Interestingly, modern science can supply an analogy to clarify this evocative concept: Just as we now regard the DNA molecule as a carrier of incredibly condensed information concerning the development of life, so too have kabbalists viewed the Hebrew language of Scripture as a cipher describing the universe. The Zohar relates that, “God looked into [the letters] of the Torah and created the universe.”
Questions for Discussion:
1) What does it mean that the Torah "precedes" Creation?
2) What does it mean that Hebrew is the "spiritual DNA" of Creation?
We merit this through Torah study. This is because the Torah is the Name of God, and the name of a thing is its vessel; within this name is contained the life force of that thing. As it is written, “living soul that is its name” (Genesis 2:19)—contained in the name of each thing is its soul and life force. This is why when we call a person by his name, we gain his attention immediately, because his total soul and life force are contained within his name.
Kol Lev - כל לב (All Heart)
https://www.balashon.com/2020/03/karov-korban-and-kerev.html
The Hebrew word karov קרוב means "near." All the verbs that derive from the root of that word - קרב (kuf, reish, bet) - mean "to come near, approach".
The form hikriv has an additional meaning. Rabbi Amnon Bazak, in his book Nekudat Peticha (p. 219) points out that for the first two books of the Torah, hikriv means "to approach" (e.g. Bereshit 12:11, Shemot 14:10). However, in the beginning of the book of Vayikra, we find a new meaning:
דַּבֵּר אֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאָמַרְתָּ אֲלֵהֶם אָדָם כִּי־יַקְרִיב מִכֶּם קָרְבָּן לַיהוָה מִן־הַבְּהֵמָה מִן־הַבָּקָר וּמִן־הַצֹּאן תַּקְרִיבוּ אֶת־קָרְבַּנְכֶם׃
Speak to the Israelite people, and say to them: When any of you presents an offering of cattle to the LORD, he shall choose his offering from the herd or from the flock. (Vayikra 1:2)
Here hikriv means "bring an offering" and we also find the first mention of the nouns korban קרבן - "offering, sacrifice." Rabbi Amnon Bazak, in his book Nekudat Peticha (p. 219), points out that there were many sacrifices earlier in the Torah, but they always use other words like mincha מנחה (Bereshit 4:3), olah עולה (Bereshit 8:20) and zevach זבח (Bereshit 46:1). So why did the Torah start using the word korban only now?
He says that this is due to the meaning of the verb hikriv. Since previously it meant "to draw close to", he claims that only in Vayikra, when God established a permanent location in the Sanctuary, could these sacrifices be considered a way to become near to God. Previously, there might have been a spiritual closeness in sacrifices. Now, when one could actually approach the sanctuary, there was a physical dimension that expressed itself in this new word - korban.
§ Rabbi Akiva taught: If a man [ish] and woman [isha] merit reward through a faithful marriage, the Divine Presence rests between them. The words ish and isha are almost identical; the difference between them is the middle letter yod in ish, and the final letter heh in isha. These two letters can be joined to form the name of God spelled yod, heh. But if due to licentiousness they do not merit reward, the Divine Presence departs, leaving in each word only the letters alef and shin, which spell esh, fire. Therefore, fire consumes them.
איש - man
אשה - woman
יה - God
אש - Fire
