Tag Archives: Tzitzit

The Strings That Hold the World

This week’s parasha, Shlach, ends with God’s command to the Israelites to put tzitzit on the corners of their clothes. The purpose of these strings is so that we should see them and “remember all of God’s laws” (Numbers 15:39). The Torah instructs that tzitzit must have a string of tekhelet, dyed blue. The Sages state that this blue represents the sea, which reflects the sky, which is likened to God’s Throne, which is described as being sapphire-blue, like tekhelet (Sotah 17a). At times, tekhelet is described as sapphire-blue or sea-blue, while other times it is described as greenish-blue or turquoise. Whatever the case, tekhelet is associated with the sea and its range of hues. The association here is actually quite mystical and profound. In fact, tzitzit is meant to remind us not only of God’s laws, but of Creation itself, and the very structure of the cosmos.

The first time that we see a greenish-blue string is right at the beginning, on Day One of Creation. We are told that at first, the cosmos was tohu v’vohu. These mysterious words have been explained in a wide variety of ways. The Talmud states that tohu and vohu were not just adjectives for “chaotic and void”, as typically translated, but rather distinct entities that were actually created. Rav Yehuda brings a teaching in the name of Rav that “Ten things were created the First Day, and they are: Heaven and Earth, tohu, vohu, light and darkness, wind and water, the measure of day and the measure of night.” (Chagigah 12a)

The Talmud then brings in another teaching to explain what tohu and vohu are: “Tohu is a green line that surrounds the whole world, from which darkness emerges.” Meanwhile, “Vohu are the spongy stones of the abyss from which emerge the waters.” The proof for this is a verse in Isaiah, which says: “and He shall stretch upon it the line of tohu and the stones of bohu.” (Isaiah 34:11) Amazingly, scientists drilling down beneath the Earth’s core up at the Kola Super Borehole discovered that, indeed, there are spongy stones beneath the surface which are full of water. In fact, scientists estimate that there is three times more water in these spongy stones than in all of the Earth’s oceans!

Scientists at the Kola Superdeep Borehole dug further and further into the Earth for decades, reaching a maximum depth of 12.2 kilometres in 1989.

Here we want to focus on the “green line” of tohu. While the word yarok is typically translated as “green”, Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Itzchaki, 1040-1105) says that yarok is tekhelet! (See, for instance, his comments on Exodus 25:4.) Thus, when the Sages teach that tohu is a kav yarok, they are really saying that the world is surrounded by a line of tekhelet. Sefer Yetzirah speaks of this line, too, and in his notes on the ancient text, Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan points out that mystical sources understood this line to be the horizon, which seems to subtly glow with a greenish-blue tinge (pg. 382). It is the tekhelet line that sailors see over the ocean horizon. This horizon line is the interface between light and darkness, day and night, hence the Sages’ statement that tohu is the line from which darkness emerges.

An image taken from the International Space Station on August 28, 2021 shows Earth’s atmospheric glow – could this be the tohu line that our Sages spoke of?

A time lapse showing the movement of stars over the course of the night.

While the Zohar describes the Earth as being spherical “like a ball” (Zohar III, 10a), Sefer Yetzirah associates the Earth with a galgal, a disk or wheel of some sort. The former describes the ball as spinning, while the latter suggests that it is the heavenly “dome” above the Earth that is spinning. That something is spinning is obvious from the fact that the stars above our heads clearly shift in circular fashion over the course of the night. Although the Zohar’s description fits neatly with modern science (incredible that it had this knowledge so many centuries ago!), we should not be so quick to discard Sefer Yetzirah, which offers some profound spiritual secrets and metaphors. Generally speaking, we find ancient rabbinic texts sometimes speak of the Earth as spherical and other times as flat. In the Talmud itself there is a mix of opinions, with some places clearly describing Earth as a ball (such as Avodah Zarah 41a) while others suggest a flatter shape (Chagigah 12b or Pesachim 94a-b).

The sixth chapter of Yetzirah begins by telling us that cosmos is made up of various components of threes. There are the three aspects of time, space, and soul (olam, shanah, nefesh); three primordial elements of fire, water, and air; and three major components to the Earth and Heavens: teli, galgal, and lev. One way to understand it is that the galgal is the “disk” of the Earth. The disk is suspended by a “string” connected to teli. Since Yetzirah is speaking here of constellations in the sky, many believe that the teli is the constellation Draco (the “Dragon”), which was seen in ancient times as being the pole around which the Heavens rotate. Millennia ago, a star in Draco (called Thuban) was aligned with the north pole and served as the official “North Star”, lending a further reason for why ancient peoples believed the Earth was suspended from Draco.

Jewish texts, too, seem to mirror this notion. Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan points out that the etymology of teli might very well be talah, to “hang”, as if the Earth is hanging by a string attached to it. This is supported by various ancient sources cited by Rabbi Kaplan, including a Midrash that says Earth is suspended from a fin of the Leviathan. The teli was long-associated with the Leviathan (described as a dragon by our Sages), as well as the nachash bariah or “Pole Serpent” mentioned in Tanakh, as in Isaiah 27:1. (See “The Dragon, the Snake, and the Messiah” for lots more on the Leviathan and the Pole Serpent.)

The Ecliptic Line (גלגל המזלות) from a 1720 edition of ‘Tzurat haAretz’ by Rabbi Avraham bar Chiya (c. 1070-1145).

Another way to understand the galgal is that it refers not to the disk of the Earth, but rather to the galgal mazalot, the circle of Zodiacal constellations that appear to go around the Earth. This is called the “Ecliptic Line” and is related to the astronomical notion of a “Procession of the Equinoxes”. That this is the true galgal is supported by the subsequent verse in Sefer Yetzirah (6:2) which connects the galgal to the domain of time, not space. Thus, the galgal may be referring to the rotating “wheel” of constellations that seemingly goes around the Draco constellation teli which is above and centre. It would appear that the constellations “spin” around a stationary Earth over the course of time. (For more on the wheel of constellations and Procession of the Equinoxes, see the video series on ‘Astronomy & Astrology in Judaism‘.)

In olden days, maps were often drawn with Jerusalem at the centre of the world, like this one from 1581.

The third component presented by Sefer Yetzirah is the lev, literally “heart”. This might be the Earth itself, the “heart” and centre of the cosmos. More specifically, it’s the point at the centre of the Earth where the “string” from teli connects (and may refer to the actual “string” itself). Historically, that centrepoint was thought to be Israel, and specifically Jerusalem—and maybe that’s why it often seems like the whole world revolves around Israel and what’s happening over there. Fittingly, Ezekiel describes Israel as tabur ha’aretz, literally the “navel of the world” (Ezekiel 38:12), as if there is a cosmic umbilical cord attached to it.

So, we have a tekhelet string called tohu going all around the circular Earth, the horizon that separates light and dark. And we have the Earth suspended from an invisible “white” string tied to its centre, the lev. (One may interpret these verses to mean either the Heavens rotating around Earth, or the Earth itself spinning, as it “hangs” suspended from the Heavens.) These strings of Creation are reminiscent of the strings of tzitzit, and it is all the more interesting that the value of lev (לב) is 32, the total number of tzitzit strings hanging from the four corners. And although we generally speak of the four corners of tzitzit, the Torah’s language is a kanaf, literally a “wing”, and more accurately referring to the four compass points. The circular Earth has no corners, of course, but it does have the four cardinal directions. In these ways, the four “wings” of the tzitzit and their white and blue strings remind us of the spiritual makeup of the Earth and cosmos, of the tohu and the teli, the galgal and the lev.

Since tzitzit reminds us of Creation and of the unity of God, it is most fitting that our Sages included it within the Shema when we proclaim God’s unity. Better yet, the Mishnah that tells us when to recite the Shema in the morning says to do so from the moment one can “differentiate between tekhelet and white”, between the blue and white strings of the tzitzit (Berakhot 1:2). This is at dawn, when the tohu “string” around the horizon glows with tekhelet hues, as we move through another rotation of the galgal, hanging from the “string” tied to the teli of the Heavens. In reciting Shema, therefore, we connect to the spiritual foundations of Creation, and see the unity in all things, across the four compass directions, which our Sages teach are alluded to by the enlarged letter dalet of the word echad.

For more on the identity and meaning of tekhelet, see here.

Abraham and the State of Israel

This week’s parasha, Lech Lecha, begins in the year 2023—of the Hebrew calendar, that is. In traditional Jewish chronology, Abraham was born in the year 1948 AM (Anno Mundi, or “world year”). At the start of the parasha, we are told that Abraham was 75 years old when he settled in the Holy Land, meaning it was 2023 AM. Many have pointed out the intriguing “coincidence” that the forefather of the Jewish people and the first to settle in Israel was born in the same numerical year as was born the State of Israel and the Jewish people’s return to independence in the Holy Land in 1948 CE. More amazingly, we find that key dates in the life of Abraham align with key dates for the State of Israel, all the way up to the present situation that we find ourselves in today.

‘Abraham Journeying to the Land of Canaan’, by Gustav Doré

The Torah has very little to say about Abraham’s early life. In fact, all it tells us is that he was born, got married, and left Ur-Kasdim. The Torah then jumps ahead to his 75th birthday. What happened in the first half of Abraham’s life? Rabbinic tradition fills in a lot of the details, including that he was imprisoned for ten years! (Bava Batra 91a) At the end of that decade came the most notable event of Abraham’s early life: He was brought before the king and commanded to abandon monotheism and worship idols. Abraham refused, and was thrown into a fiery furnace. God miraculously saved him—marking the first time God openly revealed Himself to Abraham. Immediately after this, Abraham left Ur to settle in Haran. This event happened when Abraham was 52 years old, in the year 2000 AM. It launched what the Talmud calls “the Era of Torah”, lasting 2000 years until 4000 AM. (The first 2000 years of history, starting from Adam, were called “the Era of Chaos”.)

We find a similar monumental shift for the State of Israel in the year 2000 CE. A few key things happened then. In May of 2000, the IDF withdrew from southern Lebanon, where they had been stationed since 1982. This allowed for Hezbollah’s subsequent takeover of the region. (Just a few months later, Hezbollah terrorists launched a cross-border raid and abducted three Israeli soldiers.) In July of 2000, Prime Minister Ehud Barak headed to Washington for the Camp David Summit with Bill Clinton and Yasser Arafat. Barak offered Arafat just about everything he wanted, including all of Gaza and over 95% of the West Bank, with land transfers to make up for the other parts. Arafat notoriously walked away from the table without offering any explanation why, then launched the Second Intifada. A peaceful resolution to the conflict was not in the interest of the corrupt Palestinian leadership.

These events were the nail in the coffin for the Oslo Accords, and proved that the Palestinian leadership didn’t care for any two-state solution. Their goals were obvious: the destruction of the State of Israel and the takeover of the entire region “from the River to the Sea”. The peace process had always been a ruse. That year, 2000, officially marked the death of the peace process, and wiped away the possibility for a two-state solution. The majority of the Israeli population woke up to realize that peace had only been a dream. Since then, Israeli society has noticeably and understandably shifted right-ward. More broadly, the years that followed saw a religious revival in Israel and in Jewish communities around the world, with a large and global baal teshuva movement reminiscent of Abraham’s “Era of Torah”. Thus, just as the year 2000 AM marked a great shift in the life of Abraham, the year 2000 CE marked a great shift in the life of the State of Israel and Jews worldwide. The parallels don’t end there.

After 23 years living in Haran, God commanded Abraham to finally settle in the Promised Land. However, Abraham was confronted with a difficult reality upon arrival. There were hostile Canaanites in the land (Genesis 12:6), as well as rampant famine (12:10), forcing Abraham to head south to Egypt. There, his wife Sarah was abducted. After returning to the Holy Land, Abraham settled between Beit El and Ai. He finally found prosperity, but this led to quarrels within the family, particularly with his nephew Lot. And so, we find that in 2023 AM, Abraham experienced economic difficulties, hostile neighbours, abductions of family members, and internecine brotherly conflict, much like the people of Israel have experienced in 2023 CE.

Some years later, a war came to the Holy Land, with the Sodomite confederation of five cities falling to an alliance of four Mesopotamian kings. Many of the Sodomites were taken captive, including Lot. Abraham went to war and rescued them. When the Sodomite king offered Abraham riches as a reward, Abraham refused and said he wouldn’t take even a “thread or shoe strap”. The Talmud (Sotah 17a) states that in the merit of this, Abraham’s descendants were gifted the mitzvot of tzitzit (the threads) and tefillin (the leather straps). Both contain immense spiritual power, and are said to confer protection to Jewish warriors. It is therefore fitting that there has been an immense desire for IDF soldiers to get tzitzit, and volunteers have tied over 60,000 shirts so far. Meanwhile, Jews around the world are newly inspired to lay tefillin, and over 2300 have already signed up to receive a free pair.

Right after the War of the Kings, God appeared to Abraham and Abraham complained that he was still without a child (Genesis 14). God allayed his concerns and told him he will indeed have much progeny. Right after this comes the account of the birth of Ishmael, forefather of all Arabs and, by extension, all Muslims. Ishmael was born when Abraham was 86 years old, in the year 2034 AM. Ishmael would go on to cause a lot of trouble, but our Sages say that he did ultimately repent and died a righteous man (see Rashi on Genesis 25:17).

What does all of this mean for us, as we look ahead to the next decade? Will things get worse before they get better? Will there be a larger, long-lasting regional war as in the days of Abraham? And will, at the end of it, the House of Ishmael experience a “rebirth” and find righteousness like their ancestor? Perhaps then we can finally have peace.

In the Torah’s chronology, the long-awaited Isaac would be born when Abraham was 100, in the year 2048 AM. And our Sages teach that Itzchak (יצחק) is ketz chai (קץ חי), symbolic of life at the End of Days. Isaac is the only forefather who dwelled securely in the Holy Land and never had to leave. He enjoyed me’ah she’arim, hundred-fold prosperity. The Zohar (I, 137a, Midrash haNe’elam) compares his “return” following the Akedah at age 40 to a “resurrection” of sorts, and sees this as a sign of the final Resurrection of the Dead, to come forty years into the Messianic Age. Based on the Abraham-Israel connection and the pattern outlined above, the Torah years of 2034 AM, 2048 AM, and 2088 AM might offer us hope to expect events of great significance to come in 2034 CE, 2048 CE, and 2088 CE.

As for the present, the Zohar (I, 83b) says that when Abraham entered the Holy Land at age 75, in the year 2023 AM, he received a brand new nefesh. It was like he became a totally new person. Then, when he went south (before going to Egypt) he received a new ruach, the second and higher soul. It was only years later, after returning from Egypt, parting from Lot, and becoming even more prominent—right before the onset of the War of the Kings—that Abraham received the lofty neshamah, at the moment when “he built an altar to God” (Genesis 13:18). For the State of Israel, too, 2023 CE will undoubtedly be the year that it received a brand new nefesh. In light of what has happened in recent weeks, the country will never be the same again, nor will its people. And following the model set by Abraham, the next decade will surely transform the country as it receives a new ruach, too, and eventually its true divine neshamah. We hope it will then become the proper holy kingdom of God that the State of Israel was always meant to be.

Is There a Jewish Way to Dress?

In this week’s parasha, Bo, the Israelites are finally freed from their subjugation in Egypt. We read that in their haste to leave, they bound up their unleavened dough in their garments (Exodus 12:34). Intriguingly, the very next verse says that the Israelites took from the Egyptians “silver items, gold items, and garments”. This is significant in light of the famous Midrash that the Israelites merited to be saved because they preserved three things throughout their long enslavement: their cuisine, their language, and their clothing (see Pesikta Zutrata on Ki Tavo, 46a).* In other words, the Israelites preserved their unique Hebrew foods (included in which is observing the mitzvah of not consuming the gid hanashe, which began with Jacob), their divine Hebrew language, and also their unique mode of dress. What was this dress, and how was it different from the garments of the Egyptians?

Egyptian tomb paintings at the Beni Hassan archaeological site depicting Semites migrating to Egypt.

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