Tag Archives: Arizal

The Science & Kabbalah of Salt

Salt emerging from the Dead Sea

This week we begin reading the third book of the Torah, Vayikra, or “Leviticus”, which is primarily concerned with priestly laws and sacrificial rituals. We are commanded that “You shall season your offerings of grain with salt; you shall not omit from your grain offering the salt of your covenant with God; with all your offerings you must offer salt.” (Leviticus 2:13) As is well-known, the sprinkling of salt was an absolute necessity for the offerings brought in the Tabernacle and Temple. Incredibly, the Talmud (Menachot 20a-b) says that even if a person brought a wood offering, the wood had to be sprinkled with salt! The minimum wood offering was two blocks of wood, and some say a handful was chopped off and diced up to be burned upon the altar. Others taught that wood offerings do not require salting, just like wine libations didn’t require it, nor did incense offerings. That said, we know that melach sdomit, “Sodomite salt”, was added to the Ketoret incense as one of the additional ingredients. The big question is: why is salt so important?

In ancient times, salt was an incredibly valuable commodity. It had a wide range of uses, not only for flavouring food, but more importantly for preserving food (in an era without refrigeration), as a cleaning agent and an antimicrobial agent, as a weapon of war (to “salt” the earth of the enemy), and even as a form of payment. In fact, the root of the word salary is the Latin sal, meaning “salt”! Same is true for the root of soldier, from sal dare in Latin meaning to “give salt”, since soldiers were paid in salt. (Wrote a lot more about the fascinating history of salt, including Sodomite salt, in Secrets of the Last Waters.) Agreements and covenants were sealed with salt, which we find throughout the Tanakh. In commenting on the above verse in Leviticus, the Ramban (Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, 1194-1270) points out that Hashem even forged a “salt covenant”, brit melach, with King David* to establish his eternal dynasty (as it says in II Chronicles 13:5). Similarly, the Temple offerings all had to be brought with salt to affirm that we have a binding and eternal “salt covenant” with God. Continue reading →

Secrets of Reincarnation (Video)

Exploring some incredible reincarnations of great figures from the Torah, Talmud, and world history, including Noah and Moses, David and Batsheva, Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Meir, the Roman emperors Titus and Marcus Aurelius, and the Greek philosopher Aristotle. Plus, how many people are destined to ever live, and how might the Resurrection of the Dead at the End of Days come about? And who might Queen Isabella of Spain have been a reincarnation of?

For the previous three-part series on ‘Reincarnation in Judaism’, see here.

Eye-Opening Facts About Conversion

At the end of this week’s parasha, Vayishlach, the Torah mysteriously mentions that one of the Edomite chiefs, Lotan, had a sister named Timnah. The Sages famously ask why this detail is important to mention? Why does it matter that an Edomite chief had a sister named Timnah? The name “Timnah” appears two more times in the chapter (Genesis 36), once as the name of a clan descended from Esau, and once by telling us that Timnah was a concubine of Esau’s son Eliphaz, and gave birth to Amalek. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 99b) puts it all together for us and explains:

Timnah was a righteous woman who really wanted to convert and join the Abrahamic faith. She first approached Abraham about conversion, but he rejected her. She then approached Isaac and he, too, rejected her. Finally, she went to Jacob and got rejected a third time. At this point, she went to the “next best thing”, Eliphaz, and reasoned that this is the closest she can get to the family of Abraham. Tragically, the result was her son Amalek, eternal tormentor of Israel. The Sages conclude that our Patriarchs should not have rejected Timnah! Because they were too harsh with a potential convert, the evil Amalek came into the world, and has been torturing the people of Israel ever since. The message of our Sages is clear: converts should be welcomed, and we should not make it too difficult for a person to become a member of Israel. In fact, our Sages state that “Israel was exiled only to draw converts”! (Pesachim 87b)

Amazingly, the Talmud Yerushalmi (Kiddushin 4:1 or 65b) records Rav stating that all potential converts should be accepted, even those who converted with ulterior motives. Although their initial intentions were not pure, if we welcome them properly and inspire them, they will become genuine converts. After all, “The Torah of Hashem is pure, restoring the soul; the decrees of Hashem are enduring and make the simple wise; the precepts of Hashem are just, gladdening the heart; the mitzvah of Hashem is clear, illuminating the eyes.” (Psalms 19:8-9) If the prospective convert is taught properly, they will undoubtedly come to a true love of Hashem and His Torah. That was the approach of the great Hillel, who famously converted three people who initially had false intentions.

The Talmud (Shabbat 31a) records that the first Gentile came before Shammai and asked to be converted on condition that he only accept the Written Torah, and not the Oral Torah. Shammai rejected him, but Hillel accepted him, and soon educated him on why the Oral Torah is essential. The second Gentile came before Shammai and asked to be converted “on one foot”, quickly and without any Torah learning. Shammai rejected him, but Hillel accepted him and converted him on one foot! He simply told the convert: “That which is hateful to you, don’t do to others—this is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary. Go learn!” Finally, the third Gentile came before Shammai asking to be converted on condition that he become a kohen gadol, so Shammai naturally rejected him. Hillel converted him anyway, and then taught him why he cannot be a kohen. The passage ends by telling us that the three converts eventually met each other and declared: “Shammai’s strictness sought to drive us from the world; Hillel’s meekness brought us under the wings of the Divine Presence!”

Today, we no longer see such rapid conversions in the Orthodox world. On the contrary, the process has become long (typically around two years), and often expensive. A prospective convert is expected to study Jewish law in depth and pass a written test before conversion. The reality is that this is actually a fairly recent development, and was not the case for the vast majority of Jewish history. It is worth going through the halakhic sources to find out the facts about conversion. Continue reading →