Tag Archives: Ba’al HaTurim

The Number 501

A rough outline of the ancient tribal boundaries of Israel

As we continue to celebrate Chanukah this week, it is worth exploring one of the most important numbers in Judaism, and one that is closely associated with Chanukah as well: 501. The focus of Chanukah is the miracle of the oil—where did that oil come from? When Jacob blessed his sons on his deathbed, he said of Asher that “his bread shall be oily [shmenah], and he shall yield royal delicacies.” (Genesis 49:20) Similarly, when Moses blessed the tribes before his passing, he said of Asher that he shall “dip his foot in oil [shemen]”. (Deuteronomy 33:24) Both blessings invoke special oil, and our Sages teach that the land of Asher produced the finest olive trees and the best olive oil. (See, for instance, Menachot 85b which says that Temple oil came from the Asherite town of Tekoa, and which describes the oil riches of the Asherite town of Gush Halav.) A later tradition explains that the Chanukah miracle of oil lasted precisely eight days because that’s how long it took to produce fresh oil from the northern territory of Asher and deliver it to Jerusalem. In other words, by day nine following the reconsecration of the Temple, a fresh batch of pure oil had arrived. And the oil came specifically from Asher (אשר), the numerical value of which is 501.

What is the deeper significance of the name “Asher”? When Leah named him, she based it on the fact that his arrival made her “fortunate”, the literal meaning of the name. But there is much more to it. When Moses first encountered Hashem at the Burning Bush, and asked how he should introduce God to the Israelites, the answer was Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh (Exodus 3:14). This is the most unique name of God, used just once in the entire Tanakh, in the context of the First Redemption and Exodus. Thus, this name became forever associated with Geulah, redemption and salvation. Rashi here cites the Sages explaining that Hashem meant “He will be (Ehyeh)” with Israel through the suffering in Egypt just as “He will be (Ehyeh)” with Israel throughout all future exiles and persecutions. In other words, Hashem is there with Israel at the First Redemption just as He will be at the Final Redemption.

The Arizal taught (in Sha’ar haMitzvot on Ekev) that one should meditate on the name Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh when washing mayim achronim, and the customary recital of the phrase “mayim acharonim chova” is to remind one of this, since chova (חובה) has a value of 21, equal to Ehyeh (אהיה)! This hastens to bring about the Final Redemption, when “knowledge of God shall fill the Earth as water covers the sea.” (Isaiah 11:9) This is the deeper meaning of the “final waters”, ie. the waters of the Final Redemption (as explored in depth in Secrets of the Last Waters). Now, this unique redemptive name of God has three parts to it, and is structured in such a way that one’s focus naturally shifts to the middle word Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh. It’s that same name Asher, with a value of 501. The Zohar has a profound teaching on this.

Why is it, the Zohar asks, that the Tanakh so many times prohibits the Israelites from worshipping Asherah trees? In ancient times, these trees were seen as fertility goddesses or symbolic of “mother earth” and worshipped by various cultures. We find tree worship not only in the ancient Middle East, but all over the world. Remnants of this are still found in practices like bedecking Christmas trees. The Zohar (I, 49a) notes the unmissable connection between Asherah and Asher. In fact, it points out that both of these names are found in one Torah verse!

We read in Deuteronomy 16:21 that “You shall not set up an Asherah of any kind of tree beside the altar of your God YHWH that [Asher] you may make (לֹא תִטַּע לְךָ אֲשֵׁרָה כָּל עֵץ אֵצֶל מִזְבַּח יְיָ אֱלֹהֶיךָ אֲשֶׁר תַּעֲשֶׂה לָּךְ). The word asher here seems to simply mean “that”, but can also be read as the actual name of God Asher, as if reading Hashem Eloheikha Asher. The Zohar explains that “Asher is her husband”, alluding to the Canaanite idolatry in ancient Israel, where Ba’al was worshipped alongside his divine consort Asherah. Similarly, the nearby Assyrians (Ashurim) worshipped their chief god Ashur, which is where the name of their people and empire came from.

The truth is that these terms actually originate in a holy place. Asher is indeed an appellation for Hashem, and Asherah was originally a term for the “feminine” manifestation of God in this world, ie. the Shekhinah! However, the idolaters adopted these terms and turned them into full-blown idols, associated with statues and trees, and tied to all kinds of immoral rituals. Such adaptation and corruption of holy terms and concepts that originate in the Torah happens in many instances and in many places. For example, we find that the Romans worshipped the metal-working god Vulcan, derived from the Torah’s Tuval-Cain, the first metalworker (Genesis 4:22). The Greeks worshiped a divine ancestor named Iapetus, who is really the Torah’s Yefet, forefather of the Greeks. The Canaanites worshiped a god named Adon, and the Egyptians Aten, and the Greeks Adonis—all, of course, emanating from a corruption of the true divine name Adonai. And its precisely with the prohibition of idolatry where we next find the number 501.

In the Ten Commandments, we are instructed not to make any temunah, idolatrous image. The Ba’al haTurim (Rabbi Yakov ben Asher, c. 1269-1343) points out that the gematria of temunah (תמונה) is 501, which is exactly equal to the term partzuf adam (פרצוף אדם), “the image of man”. In other words, we are forbidden from making idolatrous statues or images with human-like depictions of gods or God. (For lots more on understanding this Second Commandment, see here.) The depictions that we are allowed to make involve letters of the divine Hebrew alphabet, and the only kind of divine “image” we can meditate on is the letters making up various names of God. In fact, one of the oldest known Kabbalistic texts is the ancient Sefer haTemunah, which goes into tremendous depth about the divine forms of the Hebrew letters.

On a Kabbalistic level, the 501 of Partzuf Adam has tremendous meaning as well. Recall that in the Kabbalah of the Arizal, the Ten Sefirot are rectified and rearranged as five partzufim, “faces”. The highest of the partzufim corresponds to the highest and most sublime of the olamot, “worlds” or “dimensions”—that of Adam Kadmon. The initial primordial lights from which Creation took place emerged from Adam Kadmon. A little bit of that special divine light of Creation, the ohr haganuz, was concealed under God’s Throne and preserved for the righteous at the End of Days and in the Messianic Age (see Yalkut Shimoni II, 499). And all of this ties right back into Chanukah, which celebrates that divine light.

Chanukah is not explicitly mentioned in the Torah because, of course, the events of Chanukah happened many centuries after the Torah. Nonetheless, there are countless places in the Torah that secretly allude to Chanukah. One of these is parashat Tetzave, which begins with the command for Moses to light the menorah in the Mishkan, alluding to the future Chanukiah. The numerical value of Tetzave (תצוה) is also 501! The Ba’al haTurim further notes that 501 is the value of the term nashim tziva (נשים צוה), that God “commanded the women” to light Shabbat candles, which tap into the same divine light. The unique thing about parashat Tetzave is that it is the only parasha in which Moses is not explicitly mentioned (from the time that he is introduced in the Torah). The deeper reason for this is that Tetzave is not about the generation of the Exodus or the First Redemption, but rather about the Final Redemption; not about Moses, but secretly about Mashiach. Which brings us right back to 501, the number of the Final Redemption:

As we see in the world around us today, the final “exile” and persecution comes by way of the Ishmaelites. Whether it’s Hamas or Hezbollah, the Houthis or Iran, Qatar or the PA or the Muslim Brotherhood, or their many terrorist sympathizers around the world, it is the Ishmaelim who are hell-bent on destroying Israel and harming Jews wherever they might be. And so, the value of Ishmaelim (ישמעאלים) is also 501, the final barrier to the Final Redemption. But they will soon be neutralized, obliterated by another 501, as explained by Rav Shimshon of Ostropoli in his Pesach discourse called Ma’amar Sod Eztba Elokim. At the Passover seder, we are instructed to spill a drop of wine for each of the Ten Plagues, and then to spill additional drops as we recite the acronym of the plagues: datzach adash b’achav (דצ”ך עד”ש באח”ב). What is the point of this acronym?

Rav Shimshon explains that the total value of this phrase is 501, and it alludes to the secret angel that brought about the Ten Plagues. The angel is referred to by the term Taka Beresheet, or just Taka (תק״א), the numerical value of which is 501. Hashem used this angel to punish the Egyptians, “So that you may recount in the hearing of your child and of your children’s children that [asher] I made a mockery of the Egyptians and how I displayed My signs among them—in order that [asher] you may know that I am YHWH” (Exodus 10:2) The term Asher appears twice in this verse, alluding to the 501 of Taka that was used by God to make a mockery of the Egyptian oppressors, as well as to the redemptive name Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh.

So, too, in our days, the Ishmaelim of 501 will be neutralized by Taka of 501, stemming from that divine name of God Asher of 501, from the name of Redemption, Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh. We will soon be “saved from the flames”, just as Yehoshua the Kohen Gadol was in the Haftarah that we read on Shabbat Chanukah, that he was mutzal m’esh (מצל מאש), another term that equals 501. And as we say at the Rosh Hashanah table, we will no longer be a “tail”, but only a “head”, rosh (ראש), whose value is also 501. We will return to our Promised Land (אדמתנו), also 501, with the true Davidic Kingdom (המלכות), 501, restored for good. May we merit to see it very soon!

Chodesh Tov v’Chag Sameach!  

For more on the number 501 and the connection to the divine light of Creation, Chanukah, and the Final Redemption, see the recent class on ‘Chanukah & 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!

Ten Rectifications for Judaism

As we prepare to usher in another new year, we pray fervently that it will be the one in which we finally see the completion of the Geulah, the great redemption of our people, followed by the transformation of the entire world into a more wholesome, peaceful, and divine place. As we listen to the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, we hope it will be the great shofar that will herald the coming of Mashiach (Isaiah 27:13). We hope that it will be the final Judgement Day, and that we will all be inscribed in the Book of Life for good. But as we yearn for these things, it is vital to ask: what are we doing practically to bring about that reality? There are so many issues and threats confronting us both externally and internally. And we know that, at the end of day, all of these things come not from various political opponents, or antisemites, or military powers, or terrorists, or propagandists—but straight from Hashem.

God tells us over and over again in the Torah that if we follow his mitzvot properly then we will be safe, blessed, and prosperous. It’s only when we don’t that all the suffering and travails come upon us. So, as a nation, we are obviously doing something wrong here. Yes, as we all know, we are lacking unity. There is a lot of disagreement and infighting, and many within the house of Israel remain secular and disconnected. But we rarely ask why this is the case, and what we can actually do to fix it. It’s like we’ve helplessly accepted the status quo, as if there’s nothing we can do about it. When our Sages list all the things wrong with the world before Mashiach comes (Sotah 49b), they conclude by saying “there is no one to rely on except our Father in Heaven”. Some of our rabbis understood this concluding statement as being part of the list of things wrong with the world, ie. that people have given up and say there is nothing we can do but wait for Hashem!

The truth is that God is waiting for us. This was precisely the case at the Splitting of the Sea, when Moses prayed fervently to Hashem and Hashem replied: ma titzak alai?! “Why are you calling out to Me?!” (Exodus 14:15) It was Nachshon who understood what had to be done, and when everyone else stood back passively; crying, stressing, waiting; he decided to dive into the water. Only then did the Sea split. Today we are, yet again, at another splitting of the sea moment, right at the finish line of Geulah, and we all need to be Nachshon right now. So, what can we do? How do we actually solve the lack of unity? How do we address the widespread secularism and materialism? How do we bring people back to Hashem, back to Torah and mitzvot, to a “Geulah mindset”? How do we shift away from passively waiting to actively doing? In short, how do we bring Mashiach? Continue reading →