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RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL:UNIVERSE WAS CREATED WITH LETTER HEH
Shavuah Tov:
It was the Talmudic sage Chanina ben Hama who said, "I have learned much from my teachers, from my colleagues even more, but from my students I have learned the most." (Talmud Bavli Tractate Ta'anit 7a).
In my posting on:
Rabbi Arthur Segal: RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:ALL BEGINNINGS ARE HARD:JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL: CHAIM POTOK a www.JewishSpiritualRenewal.org essay to help those going thru changes due to the economy, I received some interesting feedback from Talmidim v Chaverim. As with all Talmudic discussions we end up far off the track. That is what makes studying Talmud fun.
Dr. Chris B writes: Here's a little footnote for the discussion on whether or not the first steps of creation were hard for God.
Even though the common understanding today is that the letter "bet" was placed first in the creation of the world so that it would be a blessing (Zohar I 3a), an older story from Genesis Rabbah (Genesis Rabbah XII:10) states that the universe was created with the letter "heh."
"R. Abbahu said in R. Johanan's name: He created them with the letter heh. All letters demand an effort to pronounce them, whereas the heh demands no effort. Similarly, not with labor or wearying toil did the Holy One, blessed be He, create His world, but By the word of the Lord (Psalm 33:6), and The heavens were already made (ib.)." (Genesis Rabbah XII:10)
The proof text for this view is Genesis 2:4, "These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created." According to Genesis Rabbah, the word for "when they were created," BEHIBBARAM, can be rewritten
as BET-HEH BARAM, "with 'heh' they were created," and since "heh" is just the sound that is made by expelling the breath through the mouth, it requires no effort. This midrash also explains why on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life the first path from Keter to Chochmah has the letter "heh" assigned to it.
Whereas creation may be, for God, as effortless as aspiration is for us, I would also argue that this world is purposely set up so that beginnings are hard for people. For example, think of a dream. In a dream there are no physical laws to obey, and we can be it as soon as we dream it. However, in this world we have to operate under constraints that we commonly refer to as the laws of physics. In particular, Newton's First Law of Motion states that an object that is at rest will remain at rest until a force acts upon it. In other words, every change in this world requires effort on our part. Is this a punitive restriction? I don't think so because if there were no such constraints in our physical world, then our reality would be just as unstable as our dreams. Consequently, the world is a much more stable and enduring place simply because change and beginnings do require effort on our part.
Even though the common understanding today is that the letter "bet" was placed first in the creation of the world so that it would be a blessing (Zohar I 3a), an older story from Genesis Rabbah (Genesis Rabbah XII:10) states that the universe was created with the letter "heh."
"R. Abbahu said in R. Johanan's name: He created them with the letter heh. All letters demand an effort to pronounce them, whereas the heh demands no effort. Similarly, not with labor or wearying toil did the Holy One, blessed be He, create His world, but By the word of the Lord (Psalm 33:6), and The heavens were already made (ib.)." (Genesis Rabbah XII:10)
The proof text for this view is Genesis 2:4, "These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created." According to Genesis Rabbah, the word for "when they were created," BEHIBBARAM, can be rewritten
as BET-HEH BARAM, "with 'heh' they were created," and since "heh" is just the sound that is made by expelling the breath through the mouth, it requires no effort. This midrash also explains why on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life the first path from Keter to Chochmah has the letter "heh" assigned to it.
Whereas creation may be, for God, as effortless as aspiration is for us, I would also argue that this world is purposely set up so that beginnings are hard for people. For example, think of a dream. In a dream there are no physical laws to obey, and we can be it as soon as we dream it. However, in this world we have to operate under constraints that we commonly refer to as the laws of physics. In particular, Newton's First Law of Motion states that an object that is at rest will remain at rest until a force acts upon it. In other words, every change in this world requires effort on our part. Is this a punitive restriction? I don't think so because if there were no such constraints in our physical world, then our reality would be just as unstable as our dreams. Consequently, the world is a much more stable and enduring place simply because change and beginnings do require effort on our part.
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Now I love the midrash Dr Chris B. quoted. Of course YHWH or YHVH is all Breath, our last conscious act before sleeping, our first conscious act upon waking , which we thank YHWH for in Modeh Ani. YHVH Breath changes us from Adamah to Adam when we are born, and then when He withdraws our last breath, changes us from Adam to Adamah again, when our soul departs to Olam Ha Ba.
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Judy writes: Check out the first verse of Leviticus. Start with the first yud, count 7 letters, circle the next letter. Do this till you have four circles. Too fun for words.
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And then Marty wrote: (And this is fun as well):
Yes. We get YHVH from doing letter counting with Leviticus
But here is some more fun to do during boring rabbinic sermons. Lol.
Go to Genesis. Start with the first Tuv ( Ivrit T in Beresheit). Count 50 letters to the Vuv. (with a vowel this V can be silent and just be an 'O' sound). Count 50 more to the Reish. Count 50 more to the Heh. Heh, guess what, we spelled, TORAH.
Now let's say its Yom Kippur and the sermon is really long and boring.
So flip to the start of Exodus. Start with the first Tuv (T at the end of the second word, Shemot, Names, which is what Exodus is really called.)
Count 50 letters and you come to a Vuv. 50 more to Reish. 50 more to Heh. Heh, heh, heh.... more Torah.
Now the rabbi's sermon is really getting bogged down. He is talking about teshuvah on Yom Kippur and he drove his Porsche to Temple and his wife packed him lunch.
So, ok, we flip to Numbers. Now the rabbi has our heads all backwards. So that is what we do. We go to the third heh. we count 50, and come to a reish. Count 50 more and come to a vuv. Count 50 more and come to a tuv. We have Torah backwards which is what the Rabbi on the bimah seems to be preaching.
Ok. The rabbi is still going on and on. Now the cantor is on his knees asking the congregation for forgiveness and saying how humble he is before them. The rabbi is complaining that he is more humble than the cantor. The president of the temple has called an emergency board meeting during the lunch time break of Yom Kippur at Wong's House of Dim Sum.
So we flip to Deuteronomy.
We have been taught that Deuteronomy doesn't really begin until the 5th verse where it says "Moses expounded on the Torah,'' as that is what the book is about. So we start with the heh in the word ha-yordin (the Jordan), and count 50, and come to a reish, and continue as we did in Numbers, and we have Torah backwards again.
So what do we have going from the The Beginning to the end of Torah?: Torah > Torah > YHVH < haroT < haroT .
Could this be code to remind us to obey the 50 year Yovels and the 7 year Sabbaticals as well as the 7 day Sabbaths?
Or did God know that a day when we ex-Hebrews were casting a goat into the wilderness would turn into a rabbinic day to ram (no pun) everything a rabbi wanted to tell us at all those Shabbats that we missed, into one giant 5 hour sermon, and God, Who has abundant mercy on us, gave us a game to do with our Chumash?
____
Oy.
Well, Shavuah Tov!!
Rabbi Arthur Segal
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(001) The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal
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In The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal: A Path of Transformation for the Modern Jew, Rabbi Dr. Arthur Segal distills millennia of sage advice to reclaim your Judaism and your spirituality.
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(002) A Spiritual and Ethical Compendium to the Torah and Talmud
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A Spiritual and Ethical Compendium to the Torah and Talmud dissects each of the Torah's weekly sections (parashot) using the Talmud and other rabbinic texts to show the true Jewish take on what the Torah is trying to teach us.
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The Handbook to Jewish Spiritual Renewal and A Spiritual and Ethical Compendium to the Torah and Talmud. Purchase both books as a set, and I will donate a portion of the sales price in your name to the tzadakkah of your choice. -- Rabbi Segal
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