Tag Archives: Betzalel

Tribes of Israel Today

A rough outline of the ancient tribal boundaries of Israel

One of the highlights of this week’s parasha, Ki Tavo, is the instruction for the Twelve Tribes of Israel to split up on two opposing mountains—Gerizim and Eival—to hear a series of curses and blessings. Six of the tribes (Shimon, Levi, Yehudah, Issachar, Yosef, and Binyamin) were on Mount Gerizim, the “mountain of blessing”, and the remaining six (Reuven, Gad, Asher, Zevulun, Dan, and Naphtali) on Mount Eival, the “mountain of curse”. The tribes would later cross the Jordan River and settle across the Holy Land in their allotted territories—with the exception of Reuven, Gad, and half of Menashe, who stayed on the east side of the Jordan.

Centuries later, the tribes split up into two kingdoms: the northern “Kingdom of Israel” or “Kingdom of Ephraim” with ten of the tribes (or more accurately, eleven), and the southern “Kingdom of Judah” that was dominated by the tribe of Yehudah (and its Davidic kings) but also contained a sizeable portion of Binyamin and Shimon. After falling to the Assyrians and Babylonians, the tribal boundaries were erased, and soon tribal affiliations and identities were lost, too. Everyone coalesced into the dominant tribe of Yehudah, and so everyone became a Yehudi. Even Mordechai, who came from the tribe of Benjamin, is identified as a Yehudi in the Purim story.

So, what will happen in the forthcoming Messianic Age when all of Israel will return to their Promised Land and presumably re-establish the ancient tribal borders? How will we see the “return” of all the tribes, when there are no clear tribal affiliations anymore? One possibility is that we actually won’t have tribal borders again, a case one can make based on Ezekiel 37 where God describes fusing together the branches of Yosef and Yehudah and making them one branch. Hashem declares: “I am going to take the children of Israel from among the nations they have gone to, and gather them from every quarter, and bring them to their own land. I will make them a single nation in the land, on the hills of Israel, and one king shall be king of them all. Never again shall they be two nations, and never again shall they be divided into two kingdoms.” (v. 21-22) The implication is that Israel will be a singular nation, with no internal divisions or boundaries, ruled by one king.

Another intriguing possibility is to apply the ancient tribal divisions to the various “tribes” within the house of Israel today. We might be able to associate each of the tribes with the modern-day communities that we find within the Jewish people. If we explore the history, culture, and symbolism of the various groups among us today, we find striking similarities to the ancient tribes. What I would like to suggest in the following is a modern-day recreation of the Twelve Tribes of Israel—not genealogical or biological, but spiritual and symbolic. This would be similar to the way we refer to other peoples of the world:

For example, we refer to all Christians as being part of “Edom”, even though the vast majority of them are not literal descendants of Esau. We refer to all Muslims as “Ishmael”, even though the vast majority of them are not direct descendants of Ishmael, and many are not even Arab at all, including major Muslim communities in Iran, Pakistan, and Indonesia (the world’s most populous Muslim nation). We find Amalek manifest in different peoples of the world who seek the destruction of Israel, even though they are not direct descendants of the ancient Amalek himself. We recognize that the physical aspect is secondary to the spiritual anyway, and entities of times past continue to exist today even without a clear genealogical or biological link. The same can be said for the Twelve Tribes. So, who might the Twelve Tribes be today?

[Warning: what follows is admittedly speculative, and mostly based on symbolic meaning. We live in a generation where identity is a very sensitive topic, so I hope no one is offended or feels “miscategorized”!] Continue reading →

The Heavenly Academies

This week’s parasha (in the diaspora) is Shlach, recounting the Sin of the Spies. When God subsequently punished the Israelites for their lack of faith, He said of that generation: “in this wilderness they will end, and there they will die.” (Numbers 14:35). The Zohar (III, 161b) explains that they died there in the wilderness, but not in the afterlife, meaning they did still merit to enter the supernal Garden of Eden. The Zohar further points out that the Torah specifically states their “corpses shall fall in this wilderness” (Numbers 14:32). The use of the word “corpses” serves to teach us that only their physical bodies—not their souls—would fall. God would destroy the evil inclination that ensnared their bodies into sin. The souls, however, would ultimately ascend to Heaven.

Following this, the Zohar takes us on a long journey exploring the Heavenly Academies. One such yeshiva is presided over by Betzalel, the craftsman who put together the Mishkan. There is an academy of the Sages of the Mishnah, and another academy for the “masters of Scripture” (מָארֵי מִקְרָא), a place devoted to the study of Tanakh. Higher than these is the academy for the study of Aggadah (ie. Midrash), and the Zohar makes sure to point out that these luminous Aggadists are the ones who truly understand the Torah properly. (Intriguingly, the Zohar does not seem to describe an academy for the study of Talmud!)

Higher still is the yeshiva of Aaron, called the Yeshiva of Love (מְתִיבְתָּא דִּרְחִימוּתָא). Aaron leads his students through the Heavens, and they fly around “like eagles”. Aaron visits an even more exclusive academy, the yeshiva of Moses, called the Yeshiva of Light (מְתִיבְתָּא דִּנְהוֹרָא). Aaron’s students have to wait outside since only Aaron is allowed to enter, as well as any individuals Moses calls by name. Just like he did on Earth, up in his academy Moses is still wearing his special veil, his face being too luminous to behold. Even higher than this academy is the Yeshiva of the Firmament (מְתִיבְתָּא דִּרְקִיעָא), presumably presided over by the angelic Metatron.

Several pages later, the Zohar (III, 167b) tells us about the academies (“palaces”) of women. First is the school of Batya, the daughter of Pharaoh who adopted Moses. There are thousands of righteous women there learning with her. They learn “what they did not merit to learn in this world” since, until recent history, women were not expected to learn Torah. Meanwhile, there are many more thousands of female souls learning with Serach, the daughter of Asher (for more on her, see ‘The Incredible Story of Serach bat Asher’ in Garments of Light, Volume One). Here they focus on learning the secrets of the Torah’s mitzvahs, and the deeper reasons for the commandments.

The third female academy is full of myriads of women, and they don’t seem to do much learning here but rather spend their time in meditation, song, and praising God, alongside many angels. The leader here is Yocheved, mother of Moses. Opposite her academy is a similar palace belonging to Deborah the Judge and Prophetess. She, too, leads the women in song and prayer. In addition to these, there are four palaces that are concealed, belonging to each of the four Matriarchs. These are called the “palaces of the trusting daughters” (הֵיכָלִין דְּבָנוֹת בּוֹטְחוֹת), but they are too lofty to be described.

The Zohar does divulge a deep secret here. While during the day the male and female souls are segregated in their various academies and palaces, the soulmates do reunite at night:

Every night they get together, since the time of coupling is at midnight, both in this world and that world. The coupling of that world is accomplished by the adherence of one soul to the other, light with light. The coupling in this world is body to body. Everything is as it should be: a kind with its kind, a match with its match, body to body; and in the other world, it is light with light… The union in that world produces more fruit than the coupling in this world. When they pair up in the pairing in that world, with their unified desire, and when the souls cling one to another, they produce fruit. And lights emerge and lamps are produced. These are the souls of those that convert…

The souls of Jewish converts are produced from the spiritual unions of the righteous souls above!

Going back to our parasha, the Zohar tells us that despite what we might read in the Torah, the generation of the Exodus and the Wilderness was indeed a very righteous one. The Zohar (III, 168b) says there will never be another generation as worthy as they until the coming of Mashiach. And at that time, the Wilderness generation will merit to be the first to rise in the Resurrection of the Dead. May we merit to see it soon.

The above essay is an excerpt from Garments of Light, Volume Three.
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