This article is a follow-up to the previous one about the correct pronunciation of God’s name (יהוה), YHWH. Recall that our Sages teach that the nekudot vowels on God’s name are shva, cholam, and kamatz, meaning that the right way to pronounce the name would be “Yehowah”. A number of people reached out arguing that the letter vav is pronounced with a “v” sound, and therefore the name is “Yehovah”. Some referred to the work of Dr. Nehemiah Gordon, who makes the case for the vav being “v” partly based on words in Ezekiel (more on that below), and partly based on a poem by Elazar haKalir (c. 6th century CE) where he rhymes levi (לוי) with navi (נביא). The implication is that Jews as far back as the 6th century were pronouncing the vav as a “v” sound. Gordon himself notes that great rabbis like the Ibn Ezra were puzzled by this rhyme, because it was common knowledge then that the vav is really a “w” sound. Indeed, we find that the vav was a waw for most of Israelite and Jewish history. Below are ten big reasons for why the vav is a waw. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Ashkenazi and Sephardi
The Meaning of Minyan
This week’s parasha (in the diaspora) is Shlach, centered around the infamous incident of the Spies. While highly unfortunate, we do learn from it the rule of having a minyan, the quorum of ten men needed for various prayers and rituals. Recall that Moses sent twelve spies total, and two came back with a positive report (Joshua and Caleb), while the other ten convinced the nation not to proceed with entering the Holy Land. God then refers to these ten as the edah hara’ah, the “wicked congregation” (Numbers 14:27). Rashi comments here that we learn from this the minimum number of men to be considered a “congregation” is ten. He cites the Talmud in Megillah 23b which uses this Torah verse as proof that a proper minyan needs at least ten. The Mishnah there starts the discussion by listing various practices that require a minimum of ten, including public Torah and Haftarah readings, birkat kohanim, the repetition of the Amidah, weddings, and funerals. (The Gemara goes on to clarify that the groom at a wedding or the mourner at the funeral do count among the ten.) While Talmud here does not explain why it is exactly that ten men are needed, the Zohar does.
The Ten Sefirot
The Zohar (I, 24a) says, as one might expect, that the ten men of a minyan correspond to the Ten Sefirot. Each person takes on one of the Sefirot, and serves as a “conduit” for one of the Sefirot, allowing the prayers to properly ascend Heavenward. Moreover, it is only in the presence of ten that the Shekhinah can be manifest. Elsewhere, the Zohar (I, 67b) finds an even earlier source for a minyan, pointing out that Abraham had asked God to spare Sodom for the sake of ten righteous people (Genesis 18:32). God replied that He would not destroy Sodom if there even ten good people there. From this we learn that ten good people who recognize God and pray to Him can potentially avert even the most catastrophic decrees—another excellent reason to regularly pray with a minyan! The Zohar here also notes that had there been ten righteous people in the times of Noah, the Great Flood itself would have been averted. Unfortunately, there were only eight good people at the time, the eight-member family of Noah that merited to be saved in the Ark.
Later still, the Zohar (I, 201a) points out another important minyan in the Torah: the sons of Jacob initially came down to Egypt in a quorum of ten (having left Benjamin behind). The Zohar says they were strong and protected as long as they stayed together as ten. Once Joseph imprisoned Shimon, only nine of them were left, and they were now spiritually unprotected and subject to harsh din. The Zohar here says that Hashem gets upset when one member of the minyan leaves and only nine are left. Meanwhile, the Talmud in Sotah (33a) brings another important teaching involving the story of Joseph:
The Talmud says that a person should not pray in Aramaic because angels do not understand Aramaic. This is specifically referring to when a person prays alone, and needs the assistance of angels to carry his prayers up. When it comes to communal prayers with a minyan, however, this isn’t necessary, presumably because the Shekhinah is already there anyway, and the assistance of angels is not required. Thus, communal prayers can be said in Aramaic, which would explain why Kaddish is in Aramaic and needs a minyan to be recited. (Lots more on the meaning and power of Kaddish here.) The Talmud here notes an exception to the general rule of angels not speaking Aramaic, pointing out that the angel Gabriel does speak Aramaic, and knows seventy languages, which were all taught to Joseph on that fateful night when he was released from prison and came before Pharaoh for the first time.
Children and Women in Minyan
Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer (Ch. 19) comments on the asor, King David’s ten-stringed instrument, that “All faithful testimonies of Israel need ten.” It goes on to list that “the testimony for the dead is through ten. The testimony for the public benediction of God’s Name is through ten. The testimony of the covenant of circumcision is through ten. The testimony for chalitzah is through ten, as it is said, ‘And he took ten men of the elders of the city…’” (Ruth 4:2) Based on this same verse in Ruth, the Talmud (Ketubot 7b) derives that a wedding and a Sheva Berakhot needs ten as well, since Boaz went on to marry Ruth immediately after. All of these rituals need a quorum of ten to parallel the Ten Sefirot and make the ceremony complete; to serve as conduits for blessings to effectively come down, and for prayers to effectively go up.
And that’s why it’s so powerful to be among the first ten in a minyan. Every additional person that comes afterwards is important, too, and compounds the effect. But the first ten make it all happen. The Talmud adds that the first ten get a reward equivalent to all the others that show up later, combined, even if there were a hundred more people (Berakhot 47b). But what if there are not ten? What if one is missing? The same page of Talmud discusses this, too. First, it suggests that a slave can count as the tenth, or a newly-emancipated slave. Rav Huna proposes that a Torah scroll in the aron can count as the tenth. Rav Ami suggests that Shabbat can count as a tenth, or that two great Torah scholars can count as three people! Rabbi Yochanan says a minor who is old enough to know how to pray and recognizes to Whom he is praying can count as the tenth, or at least as the third for a zimun before birkat hamazon.
Later rabbinic texts discuss that last point at length. The Shulchan Arukh (Orach Chayim 55:4) concludes that while there were those who permitted including a minor (over the age of 6) in extenuating circumstances, it generally should not be done. Surprisingly, there is one source (the Mordechi on Berakhot, #158) that suggests a woman might count in extenuating circumstances as well. Halakhah never went with that opinion. The general position is that, since women are technically exempt from praying, they cannot count in a minyan for prayer. (This is aside from the modesty issue, since men and women need to be physically separated as well.)
Rav Yosef Messas, rabbi of Tlemcen (now Algeria), and later chief rabbi of Haifa, Israel.
But what about something like a Megillah reading, in which women generally are obligated? (Megillah 4a) At least one opinion held that a woman might count for this, as the Meiri wrote: “Some say that for all cases in which a minyan of ten is necessary, if a woman’s obligation is equivalent to that of men, they may join the minyan.” (More on that here.) Today, it is not uncommon in the Modern Orthodox world for women to hold their own women-only Megillah readings. A related issue is reading publicly from the Torah. The Talmud (Megillah 23a) suggests that a woman theoretically could be called up to the Torah and read from the Torah publicly, but it shouldn’t be done due to issues of respect and modesty. But what if it’s an all-women congregation? Might that be allowed? Amazingly, Rav Yosef Messas (1892-1974), one of the great Sephardic chakhamim of the 20th century and chief rabbi of Haifa, wrote in his Nahalat Avot that there were indeed Sephardic communities in the past where women formed their own minyanim, read from the Torah, and even donned tallit and tefillin!
When we look back at our prophecies, they do describe a future time when “a woman will encircle a man” (Jeremiah 31:22) and, when the light of the moon—understood to represent the female—will once again be restored to its former glory and be equal to the “male” sun (Isaiah 30:26). Intriguingly, in Exodus 15:20-21 it says that Miriam took the women to sing their own song after the Splitting of the Sea, and the word used in reference to the women is lahem, instead of the feminine lahen. The Kli Yakar (Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim of Luntschitz, 1550-1619) comments: “It should have said lahen but because at the Sea the women reached the same level as the men in attaining prophecy, it says lahem, as if speaking to males, and so too this will be in the future, as it is stated, ‘A woman will encircle a man.’”
So perhaps the recent rise of women’s minyanim, along with the proliferation of beit yaakov schools for girls, women’s prayer groups, women’s Torah classes, women’s Megillah readings, women’s siddurim, and so many sefarim custom-tailored for women; yoatzot halakhah and popular rabbanit speakers; Rosh Chodesh gatherings, communal challah bakes, and the like, is yet another sign that we are in the times of the Final Redemption.
Mysteries of Shemini Atzeret & Simchat Torah
Tonight we usher in Shemini Atzeret, the final “eighth” day following Sukkot, which is technically a distinct holiday of its own. In the diaspora—where we keep two days of yom tov—the second day of Shemini Atzeret is Simchat Torah, when we start a new Torah reading cycle with a big celebration. In Israel—where one yom tov is observed—Simchat Torah and Shemini Atzeret are on the same day. The Torah does not actually say what the purpose of Shemini Atzeret is, and why it is distinct from Sukkot. Simchat Torah is not mentioned in the Torah at all! What is the real meaning behind these mysterious festivals?
‘The Feast of the Rejoicing of the Law at the Synagogue in Livorno’ by Solomon Hart (1850)
The Torah itself only tells us that we should have one extra holiday after Sukkot, a yom tov in which we should not do any work and in which we should bring offerings to Hashem (Leviticus 23:36, 39). Commenting on this, Rashi famously cites our Sages and quotes God saying “‘I keep you back with Me [atzarti] one more day’—like a king who invited his children to a banquet for a certain number of days. When the time arrived for them to leave, he said, ‘Children, I beg you, please stay one more day with me; it is so hard for me to part from you!’” The Zohar adds to this a beautiful explanation:
As discussed in the recent class here, Sukkot is a holiday envisioning the future, not commemorating the past. The prophet Zechariah tells us (in chapter 14) that in the forthcoming Messianic age, all the nations of the world will come to Jerusalem to celebrate Sukkot with us. Sukkot will become an international festival! And so, the Zohar says, once all the nations of the world leave following seven days of Sukkot in Jerusalem, only the Jewish people will remain for one more day of celebration just for us—Shemini Atzeret. That’s why the Torah says atzeret tihyeh lakhem, “it shall be an atzeret for you” (Numbers 29:35), meaning specifically for the people of Israel and not the other nations of the world who will come to celebrate Sukkot! (See Zohar I, 64a)
But why is this particular date special? What happened in history on Shemini Atzeret to make it a holiday to begin with?
Secrets from Jubilees
The ancient (apocryphal) Book of Jubilees provides an incredible origin to Shemini Atzeret. Recall that Jubilees was excluded from the Tanakh by most Jewish communities (although it was included in the Ethiopian Tanakh and in the ancient Essene Tanakh, and many copies have been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls). Nonetheless, it was always studied and referenced throughout history, and many parallel passages are found in our Midrashim (for more on this, see here).
The setup for Shemini Atzeret begins in Chapter 31 of Jubilees, where we read how Jacob destroyed all the idols in his household (paralleling Genesis 35:2). Jubilees says that it was here that Rachel told her husband about the teraphim she took from Lavan, and handed them over to Jacob to be destroyed. Jacob then finally goes to visit his parents after decades away from them. Instead of taking his entire big family on the journey, he decides to bring only his sons Levi and Judah. Isaac and Rebecca give these two grandsons special blessings, and Isaac gives Levi a blessing to be priestly and Judah to be royal. This is Jubilees’ explanation for why later in history the tribe of Levi would become priests and the tribe of Judah would give rise to the line of kings. It also explains why these are the two tribes that survived throughout history, to this day, while the other tribal lineages have been lost.
In Chapter 32, Jacob fulfils his promise to tithe everything he has to Hashem—and that includes his children! So he lines them all up and counts from the youngest up, the tenth being Levi. Thus, Levi is chosen to be the “tithe”, and to dedicate his life to Hashem. Levi has a dream where God confirms that he will be the family priest. He then builds an altar and begins his work of sacrificial offerings. The family has a seven-day celebration, going out into the fields and dwelling in booths. According to Jubilees, this is the original Sukkot!
On the eighth day, after the seven-day Sukkot is over, Hashem appears to Jacob again. This is where He affirms that “You shall be called Jacob no more, but Israel shall be your name” (Genesis 35:10). The following verses in the Torah tell us that God blesses Jacob to be fruitful, and promises to Jacob the Holy Land, and tells him that nations and kings will emerge from him. This special day is Shemini Atzeret! Fittingly, Jubilees adds that God then reveals to Jacob all the things that will happen in the End of Days, engraved upon seven tablets. Again, we see the link between Sukkot-Shemini Atzeret and the End of Days, the holiday being more about envisioning the future then commemorating the past.
In this way, Jubilees shows how Jacob celebrated Sukkot and Shemini Atzeret long before Sinai, confirming our Sages statement that the Patriarchs observed the whole Torah and marked all the holidays—even though their lives pre-dated Sinai and they did not have a physical Torah in their hands.
What about Simchat Torah? There is no explicit mention of it in Tanakh, and not in Mishnah or Talmud (and not in Jubilees either). This is a much more recent holiday. Where did it come from, and why?
Celebrating the Torah
In olden times, the Torah was typically read over the course of not one year, but three years. (Earlier still, in Biblical times, it was read publicly over the course of seven years—more on that below.) It was in the Persian Empire that the Babylonian sages sped up the cycle to read the whole Torah once a year (see Megillah 29b). Even as late as the Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, 1138-1204), he writes in the Mishneh Torah that there were still some minority communities who followed a three-year cycle, although it had become nearly universal to follow a one-year cycle (Hilkhot Tefillah 13:1). The Rambam codifies that the Torah begins anew with parashat Beresheet on the Shabbat following Sukkot. He then states that it was Ezra the Scribe who instituted the yearly cycle. There is no contradiction here, because Ezra came to Israel from Babylon.
Why start with Beresheet in the fall? Why not in Nisan, which is the first month of the Jewish calendar? This goes back to the debate between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua on when Creation took place (Rosh Hashanah 10b-11a). The former said that Creation took place in Tishrei, while the latter argued it took place in Nisan. Rabbi Eliezer brings multiple proofs for his position, including the fact that the Torah states there had not yet been precipitation and then God “raised a mist” and made it rain before creating Adam (Genesis 2:5-6). So, the creation of Adam is clearly tied to the start of the rainy season, meaning Creation must have been in Tishrei!
Another proof is that the Torah says God created every species in its mature, adult form, including trees already containing fruits on their branches. When do find that trees are full of fruit and ready for harvest? In Tishrei! (Sukkot marks the final fruit harvest of the year.) Thus, it is fitting to read Beresheet in the fall, since the Torah begins with a description of a divine spirit “hovering over the waters”, the separation of upper and lower waters and establishment of the water cycle, the first rains, and trees full of fruit. And by the Rambam’s time, the yearly Torah-reading cycle had become essentially universal. However, the Rambam does not mention Simchat Torah.
Some four hundred years later, the Shulchan Arukh (in Orach Chaim 669) does mention Simchat Torah, but very briefly. The way Rav Yosef Karo (c. 1488-1575) phrases it makes it seem like it’s only outside of Israel—where people have to keep two yom tovs—that the second yom tov is called Simchat Torah. The Ashkenazi gloss of the Rama (Rabbi Moshe Isserles, 1530-1572) adds the details that we are familiar with: to remove all the Torah scrolls from the ark and have a big celebration, with hakafot, song and dance, and aliyot for all. The Rama’s language suggests this was the practice specifically in European lands. He cites the Arba’ah Turim of Rabbi Yakov ben Asher (“Ba’al haTurim”, c. 1269-1343) who explicitly says it was “the custom in Ashkenaz” to hold a big celebration and feast in honour of the completion of the Torah reading cycle and the start of a new one. The Ba’al haTurim was born in Ashkenaz but moved with his family to Spain around the year 1300, and became a rabbi among Sephardim. It could well be that his family of Ashkenazi rabbis introduced Simchat Torah to the Sephardic world. By the time of the great Abarbanel (1437-1508)—who was advisor to the Spanish crown and was given an exemption from the Spanish Expulsion, but famously chose to leave with his people—we see that Simchat Torah was observed in Spain, too, and Abarbanel explains (in his commentary on Deuteronomy 31:9):
It is written that each and every year, the high priest or the prophet or judge or gadol hador would read on Sukkot a portion of Torah, and would conclude reading the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers over the course of six years, and then in the seventh year (the Sabbatical), the king would read on Sukkot the book of Deuteronomy, and would complete the Torah. Thus, the custom has remained until our days, that on the eighth day festival, Shemini Atzeret, on the last day we have Simchat Torah, on which we complete the Torah…
Rav Yosef Karo himself was born in Spain, and ultimately settled in Tzfat where he was the chief rabbi. His contemporary was the great Arizal (Rabbi Isaac Luria, 1534-1572), who lived out his final years in Tzfat and revolutionized Judaism with his mystical teachings. The Arizal had an Ashkenazi father and a Mizrachi mother, and was raised in Egypt by his uncle, studying under great rabbis like the Radbaz (Rabbi David ben Solomon ibn Zimra, 1479-1573, also born in Spain). The Arizal played a big role in fusing together Sephardic, Mizrachi, and Ashkenazi practices. He revealed various mystical meditations on Simchat Torah, and particularly on the hakafot. And so, from Tzfat, Simchat Torah spread to the Mizrachi world as well, and it soon become universal to hold a big Simchat Torah celebration—with the additional details and practices mentioned by the Ba’al haTurim and Rama that first originated in Ashkenaz.
Celebrating the Tree of Life
We can now clearly piece together the evolution of Simchat Torah. It officially began in Central Europe. The first explicit mention of the term “Simchat Torah” appears to be in the 11th century Machzor Vitry, written by Rav Simcha of Vitry, France, a student of Rashi. Simchat Torah might trace back to an earlier custom among the Geonim to have a big celebration upon completion of the Torah-reading cycle. The Rambam, who came from a long line of Sephardic rabbis, does not mention Simchat Torah in the 12th century, but the Sephardi gadol Abarbanel does speak of it in the 15th century, meaning it was adopted among Sephardim at some point in those intervening three centuries. It may have been due to the Ba’al haTurim’s family who immigrated from Ashkenaz to Sepharad around the end of the 13th century.
At the same time, in 1290 CE, came the first publication of the Zohar, in Spain. The Zohar (III, 97a) does mention Simchat Torah, calling it by its Aramaic name Hedvata d’Oraita (which is likely what it would have originally been called among the Babylonian Geonim). The Zohar gives a beautiful explanation as to why we celebrate with the Torah specifically on Shemini Atzeret. As noted above, Shemini Atzeret is the festival that is only for Israel, once all the nations of the world leave after Sukkot, and once the seventy bulls offered on behalf of the seventy nations was complete. Now, only Israel remains, delighting with Hashem once last time before going off to start a new year. And what makes our relationship with Hashem special? What makes us unique compared to the other nations? The Torah! It is our covenant with Hashem, with Torah as contract, and our devotion to its laws and its study. So, Shemini Atzeret is the ideal time to celebrate the Torah, to dance with the Torah, renew our commitment to Torah, and start a new Torah-reading cycle.
We see how, between the Zohar and the Arba’ah Turim, Simchat Torah spread throughout Sepharad; and after the Spanish Expulsion, to North Africa and the Middle East and Mizrachi communities as well. Today it has become a beautiful, universal practice in all Jewish communities, a public display of faith and commitment to Hashem and His Torah. And this ties right back into what the Zohar says about Simchat Torah:
Intriguingly, the Zohar gives it another name, calling it Hedvata d’Ilana, a celebration of the Tree of Life. The simple meaning is that King Solomon called the Torah a “Tree of Life for those who grasp it” (Proverbs 3:18). On Simchat Torah we grasp the Torah quite literally! On a deeper level, connecting Simchat Torah to the Tree of Life is yet another allusion to Creation, and to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. At the start of the year, we have a new opportunity to “choose life” (Deuteronomy 30:19), to live a godly life of divine service, a life of blessing, righteousness, kindness, and goodness. It is the opportune time to set resolutions for the new year, so that it should be a fruitful, productive, happy, and blessed year for all.
Chag sameach!