"Don't make with Me gods of silver and gods of gold …make Me an earthen altar...then every place that I mention My name I will come to you and bless you." The warning not to make "gods of silver," means that sometimes we become aroused with a love for Gd that is excessive; "gods of gold" is when our fear of Gd is too great for us. What Hashem wants is an altar of earth - the simplicity of a person's heart. When we turn to Hashem in this way then, the pasuk says, "I will mention My name," Hashem finds the beginning point in our heart that is for the sake of Heaven, and He immediately sends blessing… "and I will bless you." (Mei Shiloach on the parashah)
The first word of the ten sayings or commandments is "Anochi." This can be read as an acronym (Tractate Shabbat 105a): "Ana nafshi katvit yahavit." While the simple understanding is "I Myself have made this writing," the deeper reading is, "I have given you My soul within the words." The highest revelation of Hashem is within the letters of Torah, His "soul." The letters are vessels in which He rests His holy Presence. (Meor Einayim on the parashah).
Yitro
Reb Shlomo Minyan HarNof
(R. Raphael, email: [email protected])
This notion of tearing away the covering of the heart is related to the second day of creation when the lower waters were separated from the spiritual upper waters when Gd made the firmament. The word for firmament, "rakiyah," has the same letters as "to tear away," "koreyah." The rakiyah dividing the waters was torn open with the giving of the Torah. And this power of Torah is what can break through the klippah of Amalek. (See Shem MiShemuel, 243)
But, we could ask, at the time that Yisrael fought Amalek, the Torah had not yet been given. And a parallel question can be asked about the individual: How can a person receive the Torah if his heart is closed by the klippah called Amalek. The answer is that each of us has within him a great desire for holiness. And just as Klal Yisrael gained strength because they were travelling towards Sinai to meet Hashem, so too, the individual's desire to receive the depth of Torah from Hashem, gives him the strength to break through the barriers that hold him back.
If Torah must ultimately be given to us by Hashem only when we are fitting to receive it, we can, nevertheless, prepare ourselves through our learning. As it says in the Shema, "you should place My words on your heart." Why "on" the heart and not "in" the heart? The answer given is that, if you'll place them on your heart, then, when your heart opens in a time of great inspiration, they'll enter your heart and you'll glimpse them as if for the first time in clarity.
Three Cycles Of Renewal To Torah And Beyond
Receiving the Torah is the third cycle of spiritual renewal in the world. The first was Creation itself as it says, "The world was built with lovingkindness," which is parallel to the Patriarch Avraham, who represents the aspect of chesed. The second renewal was when B'nei Yisrael was taken out of Mitzrayim, which parallels Yitzchak, whose life exemplified din: there is a judge and there is reckoning. The third renewal is the receiving of the Torah, which is the aspect of Yaakov, who is the deepest internality of the world. These three levels of renewal also parallel the three indwelling levels of the soul: nefesh, ruach, neshamah.
Now just as the soul has different levels, so the world needs to have a spiritual foundation so that it can hold the highest revelation. The Torah, which connects man with his greatest potential was given at precisely the right moment when there was a vessel prepared to hold its light. Hashem, Who is the source of goodness and Whose whole relationship to the world is doing only good did not withhold the Torah unnecessarily. First of all we had to receive the level of nefesh and then ruach and finally the neshomah, each in its own period. This is related to the three festivals, Sukkot, Pesach, Shavuot. It is also paralleled to the Shabbat, which is divided into three by the meals. (Sefat Emet 93)
Shabbat And Torah - Sefat Emet Cont'd
The fifth commandment says, "Remember the day of Shabbat." This emphatic language of "Remember!" is used as well in parashat Bo, when Moshe commands the people, "Remember this day when you left Mitzrayim" (Sh. 13:3). The rabbis tell us that just as we were told to commemorate the day we left Egypt on the very day of leaving, so we are being told to remember the Shabbat on the Shabbat itself. Thus the pasuk "Remember the day of Shabbat" should be read "Remember this day of Shabbat." (See Torah Temimah on Sh. 20:8)
The Sefat Emet explains how Shabbat and Torah have the same spiritual root:
There is an aspect of spirituality that is called "standing." Before the soul enters this world it stands before Hashem and takes an oath to remember. At Sinai we also stood before Hashem when we received the Torah. Thus, even though we were still "in this world" we faced Hashem without any separations. This is how it will be in the future when our eyes will see clearly. And this is what it says about Sinai: they "saw the sounds." Complete clarity. And it says there that the souls of the B'nei Yisrael left their bodies when Hashem spoke to them because they truly became holy like the ministering angels.
Now the angels always have the aspect of "standing" in their service to Hashem: they are always complete, whereas man has the aspect of moving towards the holy, progressing. Because so long as our soul is in this world, enclothed in the body, we need to be continuously perfecting ourselves, going higher and higher in expressing holiness in our lives. But when the soul will put off the clothes of the body and once again stand before Hashem then it will have its tikkun (it will, Gd willing, achieve its proper state of fixing).
This is why it is so important to always remember when we "stood" at Sinai. Because this was the greatest level or clarity and comprehension - the soul at Sinai was complete. Our souls at Sinai were taken beyond anything that could mask our perception because our bodies were completely purified.
Now let's go back to the beginning. We said that receiving the Torah was the third renewal of the world. The first was the Creation when Hashem spoke the ten utterances and established the aspect of "nature." But the ten commandments, or sayings, are on a higher spiritual level. Thus, although man was created on the sixth day, within the natural order, in some sense there could have been a double creation of man on Shabbat which is connected to our essential spiritual being. We can see this from the fact that Hashem initially placed man in Gan Eden. If not for man's sin near the end of the sixth day his soul would have reached its fulfillment on the Shabbat, then and there. But because of the sin the final fixing comes only through the giving of the Torah and our opening to receive it. Thus, the aspect of completion that was waiting on the first Shabbat, was given through the Torah. This became the way for us to completely fix the neshamah, so that we can be totally connected to Hashem, making us worthy to be called Adam.
Now since the highest levels of soul would have been given on Shabbat Bereshit if not for the sin, we can now understand why it was fitting for us to receive the Torah on Shabbat which is the aspect of rest. On Shabbat the highest levels of soul rest in man and this is man's spiritual completion. The souls that were fixed at the time of the receiving of Torah are hidden in the Torah. By toiling in Torah we acquire our soul. As it says about the Torah (comparing it to the fifth day of creation) in the holy Zohar, "The waters (Torah) swarmed with every kind of living soul."
A Consuming Fire
"The mountain was on fire till the heart of the Heavens." This refers to the luchot, tablets, or new heart, that Moshe brought down to Yisrael. The revelation of Moshe's Torah gave us the "heart," (also called luach by the Torah) for our Father in Heaven. As it says, "Write it on the tablet of your heart." The two chambers the right and the left the good inclination and the bad, these are the two tablets.
And this is what it means that the mountain was aflame. As it says in Yirmiyahu 23:29 , "Are not My words of fire?" Yisrael grasped the light and inner essence of Torah that reaches to the heart of the heavens and Hashem May He Be Blessed is called Heaven. But after they made the calf, the burning "heart" that Moshe brought down to the people could not remain,and the measure of things became the second tablets that represent teshuvah, the need for us to toil towards the holiness of our hearts where the original revelation remains etched (Meor Einayim).
Palaces Of Light
The letters of Torah are palaces for the light of the Ein Sof (the Infinite) May He be Blessed. And the light of the Infinite shines within them because the letters are called the palaces of the king - Hashem dwells in them. When a person learns Torah with this sensitivity then all evil flees from him because the light of the Infinite shines in the letters and brings him into embrace with Hashem.
And this is why it says, "If the disgusting one (the yetzer hara) attacks you, drag yourself to the beit midrash (literally: house of seeking)." Because when we toil in Torah we are seeking Hashem's life that is there within the letters, the palaces of the Infinite. And then even if a person's heart is stony he can melt it back into flesh through the words of Torah (Meor Einayim on the parashah).
At A Glance