Shavuot (Hasidism)

“God spoke one word, we heard two” (Psalm 62:12)

The first verse of the poem Lekha Dodi, recited at Kabbalat Shabbat, begins, “Shamor & zakhor were spoken in one word.” This poetic rendition of a midrashic theme seems to me to provide a key to an entire perception of the Torah. On the simplest level, this phrase is an attempt to explain the fact that the version of the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy, which we would have expected to be a verbatim repetition of Exodus 20, in fact includes some unexplained and significant differences from it. Thus, the Sabbath commandment in Exod 20:8 begins with the word zakhor (“Remember the Shabbat day…”), while that in Deut 5:12 reads shamor (“observe” or “guard the Sabbath day”). Our tradition explains that the one refers to the commemorative, cognitive aspect of Shabbat, embodied most succinctly in the Kiddush, while the other refers to the practical act of abstaining from labor. The Talmud in Shavuot 20b states that the two were spoken by God in one word, “in a manner that the human mouth cannot speak, and the ear cannot hear.”

The same principle is invoked in a whole series of cases in which there are internal contradictions in the Torah law: e.g., the ban on marrying one’s brother’s wife (which ranks with other incest prohibitions!) and the law of levirate marriage, which requires a man to do so if his brother dies childless; the prohibition of wearing garments with sha’atnez (linsey-woolsey) and the commandment of wearing tzitzit (tassels) on the corner of one’s garments, which ideally (if the special blue dye is available) are made specifically from that forbidden mixture of fibers; the prohibition of all labor on Shabbat, and the commandment to slaughter animals in the course of Temple sacrifices; etc. These contradictions are all resolved in practice by homiletic reasoning that determines which rule takes precedent in any given case.

But there remains the question, on the spiritual level: from whence do such contradictions derive? The answer offered is that the Divine word possesses qualities that transcend human comprehension, even so to speak in its manner of delivery. On a deeper level, it both encompasses and transcends contradiction and paradox. A whole series of midrashim sees this idea alluded to in the verse, “God spoke one word, I heard two” (Ps 62:12) and in, “Is not my word like fire, saith the Lord, and like a hammer that smashes the rock” (Jer 23:29). In the latter verse, the sparks sent off by the hammer are seen as a metaphor for the numerous interpretations for every verse of the Torah.

Torah Temimah, Rav Baruch Halevi Epstein’s wonderful compendium of Rabbinic dicta on the Torah, compiled at the very beginning of the twentieth century, makes some interesting comments about the specific case of Shabbat. Shamor and zakhor do not in fact contradict one another, but in their usual interpretation are complementary. He suggests that the contradictory aspect is found in the Mekhilta’s statement that “remember” refers to the period prior to or at the onset of Shabbat, while “observes” refers to its conclusion. From this, the Rabbis inferred that “one adds from the holy to the mundane.” That is, one observes all the stringencies of Shabbat during the twilight hours of both Friday and Saturday, even though this involves a logical contradiction: if 7:50 pm on this Friday is in fact Shabbat, then 7:50 pm on Saturday ought to be weekday, and vice versa. The fact that we observe Shabbat for somewhat more than 24 hours stretches the common-sense definition of a “day.” (Actually, the two versions of the Shabbat commandment differ even more dramatically in their closing verses: one gives a purely theological reason for the Shabbat, “because in six days God created the heavens and the earth and the sea,” while the other gives a social, perhaps humanistic reason, “and remember that you were slaves in Egypt.” We will return to this discussion, God willing, on Shabbat Vaethanan.)

These ideas express a profound insight: that the message of the Torah is not a simple, one-dimensional one, but that each word simultaneously embodies many layers and nuances and over- and undertones. Rabbi Mordecai Breuer, Israeli teacher and Bible exegete, uses this concept to understand the internal contradictions within the biblical text. Rather than reflecting different authors and documentary strata, these indicate the complexity and multi-facetedness of the Divine message.

To continue: yet another midrash based on this verse speaks of how all ten commandments were somehow spoken all at once, and then deciphered by Moses, who transmitted them to the Jewish people (Bamidbar Rabbah 11.7). Even more daringly, it is suggested that the entire Torah was somehow spoken in a single burst of Divine speech—a kind of verbal counterpart to the Big Bang, if you will. This idea—that the 613 commandments were all somehow contained and encapsulated within the Ten uttered at Sinai—underlies the Azharot, a genre of liturgical poem or piyyut for Shavuot that used to be recited in most Jewish communities, in which the 613 mitzvot are all seen as alluded to within the rubric of the Ten Commandments. Or even more than that: the entirety of the Oral Law—the vast literature of the Jewish tradition: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Halakhot, Kabbalah, poskim, responsa, etc.— is seen as somehow implicit, inherent in the Torah revealed at Sinai. Indeed, in Jewish mystical writings the Torah is seen as a Divine Name; as an organic entity—Cosmic Man (Adam Kadmon) or the Tree of Life; as a kind of map or blueprint from which the Universe itself was created; as the embodiment of Divine Wisdom, which somehow starts from the single point symbolized by the letter yod of the Divine Name; or even, most daringly, as a kind of apotheosis of God Himself (see the passage brought from the Me’or Einayim last week). Gershom Scholem discusses and gives sources for many of these ideas in his important essay, “The Meaning of the Torah in Jewish Mysticism.”

Implicit here is a central theological concept: that the process of revelation involved an inherent difficulty, which was only partly overcome—namely, the infinite gap between the Creator and His creatures. The revelation at Sinai, was more than an act of law-giving, a juridical, constitutional act; it was an epiphany of the Divine, a self-revelation of the Infinite. In some ways it may be seen as a second creation (the ten words of Genesis 1, “and God said,” parallel the Ten Commandments; both parallel the ten sefirot, which are the building blocks of the universe), or as a revelation of the inner meaning of Creation (thus Sefat Emet). This bridging of the gap between God and man is symbolized by the very figure of the mountain: a place in between heaven and earth. Indeed, some midrashim stress that this gap remained unclosed, and that God hovered ten hand-breadths above Moses; even the “father of all the prophets,” the human being who attained the highest degree of apprehension of the Divine, in the end experienced this distance.

On the simplest, literal level: our comprehension of Torah is in some sense a translation, an interpretation, a “reading” or “unpacking” or “deconstruction” (to use fashionable jargon), a “contraction” into human terms, of the Infinite. Even on the rational, juridical level, we cannot really understand the internal contradictions in Torah law, but simply accept their presence there with faith; all the more so the mystical “unity of opposites” present in the World/Torah/Divine Name. This idea has far -reaching implications for our understanding of Torah min ha-shamayim: namely, that what we know of Torah is only that part of the primordial Torah which our minds can comprehend, the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The halakhah, the directives of the Torah, are obligatory; but they are in some sense still one remove from the Divine voice.

Or, to give this a mystical reading: the great unitive vision, which is how God sees the world, and how properly speaking human beings should perceive God, is beyond human powers. “I heard two”—human beings, even at their most sublime, hear a multiplicity of things, and see reality in differentiated terms. In any event, the human perception of what happened is severely bound by the inherent limitations of human being, of human perception and its ability to comprehend. “God spoke one word, we heard two things.”

"The Great Voice That Did not Cease"

Hag ha-Shavuot—the holiest, most mysterious night of the Jewish year. The end of seven weeks of quiet, inner preparation. Of counting, of expectancy, of waiting upon the word that sounds from Sinai—the voice heard long ago, and the voice that echoes down through time, renewed in every age, and received anew by each person on Hag ha-Shavuot.

There are two ways of hearing this voice. There is the “standing at the foot of the mountain”—the path of the tradition, of the halakhah. Where receiving the Torah means to receive the entire tradition: the great body of law, of imperatives, of traditions, of texts—the 613 mitzvot; the 63 tractates of the Mishnah and Talmud; the thousand-plus sections of the Shulhan Arukh, with its tens of thousands of sub-sections and details and rules; and the books of commentary and novellae and responsa—not to mention the works of Kabbalah and Midrash and Musar and thought and apologetics—without number. “Turn it over and turn over, and do not move from it; delve deeply into it, for everything is in it.” The Torah is a broad and deep sea, in which one can immerse oneself one’s whole life, and which no one—not even the wisest and oldest and most learned “gadol”—can ever know completely.

The novice can easily feel daunted and overwhelmed by its very size and depth and complexity. Here, a midrash gives sage advice: study one chapter today and another tomorrow and a third one the day after—and slowly, imperceptibly, so gradually that you don’t even notice it happening, you begin to understand and know more and more, and if one is dedicated, and persistent, and applies oneself, one may even, with help from Above, become one of the wise.

The other mode is what might be called “ascending the mountain of the Lord.” Here the goal is not only practical knowledge of the Law—“to study and to teach, to observe and to do”—but “knowledge of the Lord”—or, in contemporary language, “religious consciousness.” Of the life of Torah as one of constantly growing and deepening insight and understanding, of the study of Torah making one into a different person.

On one level, this is thought of as esoteric teaching for the few; but on another level, there are hints throughout the tradition that this is the ultimate goal of Torah and mitzvot for all. And the essence of the path is not one of arcane, obscure symbols, but one of the utmost simplicity. Of opening one’s heart to God; of a changed consciousness. But this altered consciousness is not like the sense of disconnectedness and the unreal “high” one gets from a drug, but more like turning a corner in your mind. To know that there is a God. It is this that Hasidim speak about when they say that leit atar panuy mineh, that there is no place empty of Him. That the main thing is avodah—to serve God in all one’s ways, through all one’s life.

There are those who would say that these two paths are mutually exclusive. That authentic Judaism is halakhah, halakhah, and more halakhah. That the true love of God is expressed through dikduk hamitzvot, through punctiliousness in the practical mitzvot. That all this talk of the spirit is a foreign planting, an intrusion from the Gentile world. Since the Enlightenment and the emergence of reform movements in Judaism, many Orthodox Jews have redoubled their adherence to the old ways, to halakhah as the be-all and end-all, and have been loath to speak of this other dimension, except in closed circles of an elite few. Add to that the revival of “spirituality” in our world today, with its at-times bizarre mixture of precious gold and dross, of wise and deep teachers (of all backgrounds and paths) alongside charlatans and manipulators and sybarites— and one can well understand the attitude “he who treasures his soul will stay far away from them.”

There are others who say that, if God is truly one, and omnipresent, dwelling within the soul of every son and daughter of Adam, then the path to the holy transcends any organized religion, and we do not need the particular Torah of Israel. That we live in an age of enlightenment, of spiritual insight, and that soon all mankind will join shoulders in a new, higher level of consciousness, heretofore unknown in the history of mankind. (To which one can only say: Halvai! Would that it were so! But that, like the Hasidic rebbe in the famous story [the Kotzker? Avraham of Strelisk?], the world I live in, even here in the Holy City, in the “back garden of the Shekhinah,” doesn’t smell of Redemption.)

But in truth, properly understood, these paths in their root are not mutually exclusive, but intertwined and even complementary. The voice heard at Sinai is referred to by Deut 5:19 as kol gadol ve-lo yasaf—an ambiguous phrase, that may be translated as “a great voice that did not continue” or “A great voice that did not cease.” A singular, unique event, never repeated, unchanging, a fixed paradigm for all eternity; or a continuous, ongoing process, echoing down throughout all time, waiting to be heard in its unique way within the soul of every person. Somehow, it is both.