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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 who will be called Akiva, son of Joseph. He will explain each and every thorn [i.e. crown] on these letters and will generate mountains of laws [halachot] from them."
Questions for Discussion:
1) Why do you think some letters in 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]
http://www.hir.org/a_weekly_gallery/8.16.02-weekly.html
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.
Questions for Discussion:
1) What is the "white fire" and what is the "black fire" of Torah?
2) Why are both necessary?
I remember learning in elementary school that there are 600,000 letters in a Sefer Torah [i.e. Torah scroll] and that each represents one of the souls that left Egypt. There was also an added lesson: when one letter of the Torah is damaged or incomplete the entire Torah is Passul [not fit for ritual use] and must be corrected. Likewise, each and every Jew is essential to the Jewish people.
What is the basis for this number? ...(Rav Nosson Nota Shapiro, Krakow, 17th Century) records the number 600,000 and suggests that it reveals that every Jewish neshama [i.e. soul] has a corresponding letter in the Torah. He even adds that the word ישראל [Israel] can serve as an acrostic for יש ששים רבוא אותיות לתורה (There are 600,000 letters in the Torah).
But are there actually 600,000 letters in the Torah? If you sat down and counted, you would only get to 304,805...
I am not suggesting that if we add up all of the different parts and insides of letters we will get to exactly 600,000. I am merely pointing out that there are different ways of approaching a count of the numbers... The idea that letters are made up of other letters gives us an appreciation to the beauty and depth of our holy Torah. It also has interesting ramifications in halacha [Jewish law] which I hope to discuss in a future article.
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 [The first word of the Torah - often translated as "In the beginning"] - (can also be read as) with [the letter "b" as a prefix in Hebrew means in or with] the reishit - God created [the heavens and the earth]," and reishit means Torah, as in "God made me [i.e. the Torah] the beginning (reishit) of His way" (Proverbs 8:22).
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 [kabbalistic work called the] 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?
