Torat HaTikvah

Bet: With Ten Words...

In our first foray into the worlds of Torah, I introduced the concept of the Pardes (PaRDeS) - the orchard of meanings, the four levels of understanding of the Torah.  As I hope you recall, the Peh - the first letter of the word Pardes - stands for P’shat- the simple meaning.  In our first shiur, we understood perhaps that the simple meaning is not simple at all…

Let’s move on now to examine the second level of Torah understanding.  Resh - the second letter - stands for Remez.  This word means “hinted meaning.”  It represents a deeper level of understanding of the Torah - where text speaks to text, each illuminating the other, each casting the other into relief, each calling forth meaning from the other.

This Shabbat in shul, we read the Aseret HaDibrot, usually translated as The Ten Commandments.  But these ten statements are not only commandments/Mitzvot.  According to our tradition, the Torah contains not ten commandments, but 613!   There are 365 negative commandments- teaching that we need to be vigilant of our thoughts, words and deeds every day - and 248 positive commandments, corresponding to the number of bones in the human body.  Perhaps this teaches that every human act can be made holy.

The Aseret HaDibrot, given by God in the hearing of all of Israel at Sinai, are the sign of the B’rit, the Covenant between Israel and God.  The B’rit is what defines us as a holy nation, and the Aseret HaDibrot express the society which we must create in order to be worthy of God’s presence.  Here are the Ten Utterances. When we read them from the Torah, it is traditional to stand:

I am HaShem your God who brought you out of Egypt, the House of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me.
 You shall make no graven image to worship
   You shall not take the name of HaShem in vain
     Honor the Shabbat and make it holy
       Honor your father and your mother
         Do not murder
           Do not steal
             Do not commit adultery
               Do not bear false witness against your neighbor
                 Do not covet anything belonging to your neighbor

These great principles are divided into those pertaining to our relationship with God and those pertaining to interpersonal relationships.  They span the entire range of experience, from the most mundane to the most sublime. They affirm human responsibility, family, reverence, humanity. The Aseret HaDibrot, the 10 Commandments are the essence of the God’s Word - the Torah.

But, of course, there is more. Much more. Let us use Remez, the next level of understanding, to analyze the hinted-at purpose of the Aseret HaDibrot.

The Mishna, a collection of Jewish law based on the Torah, compiled in the third century CE in Israel, says that “The world was created through 10 Utterances.”  In other words, in the Creation narrative, in the first chapter of Beresheet (Genesis), God speaks only 10 times.  From these ten statements, starting with, “Let there be light!” and ending with “Let us make humanity!” the heavens and the earth and all they contain are called into being.

The Zohar, a collections of mystical teachings, one of the source-texts of the Kabbalah, makes a daring comparison: The ten statements through which the world was made are the equivalent of the Ten Commandments!

This is the essence of Remez as an approach to study: One text is compared to another. One text explains another.

Now we must try to understand. How are the two Tens connected?  Many writers have tried to answer:

RABBI SHLOMO YITZCHAKI (RASHI, 10TH CENTURY FRANCE): This teaches that the world was created for the sake of Torah.

THE ZOHAR (KABBALAH SOURCEBOOK): This means that, for Israel, occupying yourself with the Torah is the meaning of all existence.

TANYA (RABBI SHNEUR ZALMAN OF LADI, 19TH CENTURY EASTERN EUROPE): This teaches not that the Torah explains the world, but that the world explains the Torah.  The Torah is primary, the world secondary. Everything that we experience in the world therefore leads us to a deeper insight in understanding God’s Word, in knowing God.

Can we synthesize all of these powerful, disparate ideas?  Perhaps something like…

Remez leads us to a startling teaching: The world is made of God’s words.  The world is made of Torah. The world can be a pathway to Torah, to wisdom, to a higher consciousness, to a world of wholeness, of Shalom.

The Gerer Rebbe, whose work, the S’fat Emet, the “Language of Truth” I have been studying for the past year, concludes his exploration with a beautiful thought:

When the world was created through the Ten Utterances, God’s presence was hidden within the world, within the words.  The world is made indeed of God’s words - and words contain something of the One who spoke them.  But God’s presence is concealed within the world, even though God is the source of  being.  Just as a spring of life-giving water bubbles from underground, the source of all life is hidden within each essence.

The Ten Commandments, Torah, were given to us as a means to reveal the Godliness hidden in everything. By studying Torah, by performing Mitzvot - acts of love and consciousness - we reveal the hiddeness of God in the world.   A Mitzvah reveals the hidden holy source in each human act, each aspect of the world. Each revealed source, each actualized potential, adds to the wholeness of the world, adds to Creation.

By engaging in Torah, we are continuing the work of Creation,  fulfilling our destiny as humanity, God’s image, creators of worlds of our own.

It has taken me a very long time to begin to understand the above paragraph, and even longer to be able to translate it to English.  It might be worth reading over several times…

In my profession as educator, there is a saying that keeps us going when it gets tough: “A teacher affects eternity; she never knows where her influence will end.” Perhaps a Mitzvah, an act of love, the performance of Jewish ritual, saying HaMotzi or lighting Shabbat candles is the same- they add to the sum total of faith in the world; they are stored in our hearts, or in the hearts of others, adding each in its own way to the growth of the world, to the slow but consistent evolution of humanity toward justice and compassion, toward oneness and consciousness of God.

May our exploration of Remez lead you to places of power and joy in your own heart…

And Yeshar Ko’ach- may you grow from strength to strength.

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