Spheres and Laps – Yitro
וְהִזְהַרְתָּה אֶתְהֶם אֶת הַחֻקִּים וְאֶת הַתּוֹרֹת וְהוֹדַעְתָּ לָהֶם אֶת הַדֶּרֶךְ יֵלְכוּ בָהּ וְאֶת הַמַּעֲשֶׂה אֲשֶׁר יַעֲשׂוּן (שמות יח, כ).
Parshat Yitro deals mainly with the subject of Matan Torah on Har Sinai. Chazal ask why Yitro, a convert, merited a parsha in his name and not just any parsha, but davka the parsha of Matan Torah? They say that the “miracle” of Yitro was even greater than the Ten Plagues and Kri’at Yam Suf, it made a much greater impact on the rest of the world. Yitro was like a combination of the Pope, the Grand Mufti and the Dalai Lama - all rolled into one. He was the international authority on every type of avodah zarah that existed, not just a scholar, but a priest who physically served. When Yitro rejected it all and instead placed his faith in HKB”H and the Torah, it was like an international “apocalypse” for all the other faiths. Imagine hearing on the 8pm news “In a surprising turn of events, the Pope just issued this statement – Shma Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad! I will no longer continue serving as the Pope and starting from tomorrow morning, my breakfast will be kichel and herring!”
That explains meriting a parsha in his name, but why davka the parsha of Matan Torah? The Mefarshim say that when Yitro rejected avodah zarah, the entire world put him in חרם. Nobody wanted to associate with him. That is why he had to send his daughters to tend the flocks because nobody wanted to work for him. In accepting the Torah and enduring all the accompanying hardships, Yitro sacrificed himself on the altar of the Torah and was a true גר צדק, not converting simply because he saw that Am Yisrael had gained the upper hand.
In this week’s parsha which deals with Matan Torah I would like to devote the shiur to the subject of לימוד תורה, from a slightly different angle and bring an enormous chiddush, derived from my own personal experience.
Before that, however, a short introduction is necessary - from תורת הקבלה. I will not delve too deeply into these concepts, just enough to understand the structure on a general level.
A Mishna in Pirkei Avot (5, 1) says –
בעשרה מאמרות נברא העולם וכו'.
When HKB”H created the world, He used ten “utterances”, מאמרות. There is a dispute exactly which ten they were, but basically it is all the psukkim that contain the word “ויאמר”, in the first perek of Breishit.
These ten מאמרות correspond to the Ten Sfirot, first mentioned in ספר היצירה that is attributed to Avraham Avinu. Each of these Sfirot (“spheres” for want of a better word) reflect a different aspect of HKB”H’s essence in this world.
Perhaps the easiest way to understand the Ten Sfirot is as a set of “filters”. When HKB”H created the world and said “Let there be light!” this first light created was the purest, most brilliant light that exists. “Light” does not only literally mean “light”, the kind you see from the sun or a light bulb, it is also a metaphor for a spiritual level of “light”. This is the light that shone in Gan Eden. After Adam Harishon sinned and following him, the generations of Enosh, the Mabul and Hapalaga, HKB”H decided that mankind was no longer capable/worthy of meriting this “intensity” of light, so He decided to “hide” this light (האור הגנוז) behind a series of “filters”, each one in turn reducing the “intensity” of the light and reflecting only a limited “aspect/frequency” of it. Only a few people in history merited the אור הגנוז, like Adam Harishon, Moshe Rabbeinu and David Hamelech, etc. Another way to conceptualize the Sfirot is like a “prism” that splits white light into its different component frequencies.
The structure of the Ten Sfirot is as follows –
כתר
חכמה בינה
חסד גבורה
תפארת
נצח הוד
יסוד
מלכות
You have probably seen this “diagram” in some siddurim (especially Sefardi siddurim). Keter (at the top) indicates the light of Creation, the highest intensity, while all the levels below indicate the different, less intense “shades” of that light.
Each of the Sfirot is an “aspect” of the essence of HKB”H, for example Chessed is the Sfira that encompasses spiritual concepts of מידת הרחמים, צדקה, גמילות חסדים, נקבה etc. Gevurah is the Sfira that encompasses the concepts מידת הדין, the Torah, זכר, etc. To fully encapsulate and describe the extent of each of the Sfirot, would require an entire book, no - a library of books and is not the purpose of this shiur.
Another vital characteristic is that this structure is multileveled/nested. In other words, within each one of the Sfirot is a sub-structure of a further Ten Sfirot, and within each of those, a further Ten Sfirot, etc. stretching to infinity.
For example, the Sfira of Chessed consists of ten “sub” components which reflect the different sub-aspects of the “mother” component Chessed. Think of Sfirat Ha’omer and the “labeling” for each day חסד שבחסד, גבורה שבחסד, תפארת שבחסד, etc.
The bottom line is that the Ten Sfirot are a kind of “blueprint”, which describe the Creation. Everything in Creation is designed according to this blueprint - the earth, a leaf on a tree, sound, the chemical element Carbon, the Torah, the Beit Hamikdash, the human body – everything!
That is the introduction, now we can begin the shiur.
When Yitro saw Moshe “judging” Am Yisrael on his own, he was appalled and gave Moshe advice to improve the system. Yitro suggested a hierarchial system of judges, depending on the complexity of the case, with Moshe at the top. Moshe’s job would be to -
וְהִזְהַרְתָּה אֶתְהֶם אֶת הַחֻקִּים וְאֶת הַתּוֹרֹת וְהוֹדַעְתָּ לָהֶם אֶת הַדֶּרֶךְ יֵלְכוּ בָהּ וְאֶת הַמַּעֲשֶׂה אֲשֶׁר יַעֲשׂוּן.
The Gemara (Bava Metzia 30b) gives a very interesting interpretation of what Yitro meant when he said וְהוֹדַעְתָּ לָהֶם, it means - בית חייהם. Rashi on that Gemara explains what it means בית חייהם -
“ללמוד להם אומנות להתפרנס בו”
In other words, according to the Gemara (and Rashi), what Yitro was advising Moshe (amongst other things), was to teach Am Yisrael a profession so that they could make a living. Obviously this does not mean that Moshe trained each person to be a dentist, a lawyer, a fighter pilot, etc. but rather that Moshe revealed to each person what their intended profession was.
People would come to Moshe for all sorts of questions, to answer questions regarding halacha, to find objects that were lost and also to get “career guidance”. Moshe would look at the person standing in front of him and immediately (through נבואה) tell them what their intended profession was, what their purpose was in life.
How many of us (me included) bumble from one career to another until we finally “land” on our “true self”? Imagine today if we had a נביא, that at age 18 after school (or earlier), we could go to him/her (there were also women prophets – we read about Devorah in last week’s parsha) and they would straight-off tell you what to do with your life. How much wasted energy and ogmat nefesh that would save!
In this week’s parsha we read about Matan Torah. Chazal say that HKB”H descended on Har Sinai accompanied by 600,000 angels (Shabbat 88a), each bearing a “flag”. Am Yisrael saw the “flags” of the angels and said “We also want flags!” as it says in Tehilim (20, 6) נְרַנְּנָה בִּישׁוּעָתֶךָ וּבְשֵׁם אֱ-לֹקֵינוּ נִדְגֹּל . Obviously they did not mean “flags” - a piece of cloth with a picture on, they meant that each angel had a “flag” – a purpose. Each angel had a unique purpose and task to perform, Refael to heal, Gavriel to perform acts of Gevurah like overturning Sdom, etc. Am Yisrael said – we each want to know our purpose. HKB”H replied יְמַלֵּא ה' כָּל מִשְׁאֲלוֹתֶיךָ – “You’ve got it!” and He gave each Tribe their own flag. Yissachar were to be students of the Torah, Zevulun merchants, Gad soldiers, etc. That was their purpose on the “tribal” level. To discover their individual purpose – they asked Moshe.
But it was not only their intended profession that Moshe revealed to each one, but also their חלק בתורה, as it says - וְהִזְהַרְתָּה אֶתְהֶם אֶת הַחֻקִּים וְאֶת הַתּוֹרֹת. Just as Moshe said to one – “You are meant to be an accountant and study Mishna Brura”, to another he would say “You will be a farmer and study קבלה”. As we say each day in the Tefila ותן חלקנו בתורתך, we ask HKB”H to give each of us our חלק in the Torah, not everyone is destined to study Torah the same way.
Today we no longer have נבואה. We cannot always skip straight to the punchline. For most of us it is a process, a “learning curve”, a journey we need to travel to get to the destination. Each of us have hints in our neshama that “nudge” us in the general direction, instincts. If we trust and follow them, we generally reach the destination quicker. If we ignore them it takes a little longer, but we eventually end up in the same place.
Just like not all people are meant to be doctors, lawyers, brain surgeons, artists, etc., not all of us are destined to study Torah the same way. Some are attracted instinctively to Halacha, some to Mussar, some to Kabbalah, some to Daf Yomi, some to בעיון, some to Kodshim, some to Nezikin, etc. Our neshama naturally draws us to where we are meant to be. Everyone is different.
When I was in school (a Yeshiva high school, Yeshiva College in Johannesburg), mornings were devoted to limudei kodesh and afternoons to the secular curriculum. I was a terrible Gemara student, the Gemara did not have any pull for me. I am ashamed to admit that I routinely “bunked” (played hooky) from the Gemara classes and instead donned my running shoes and went running laps around the sports field (when I was young and foolish I dreamed of becoming a Roger Bannister).
Looking back on that now, I realize that the reason was because Gemara was not the “gateway” that my neshama intended for me - to lead me into the world of Torah. Ironically, the same Gemara teacher z”l, whose classes I purposely missed, eventually caused me to embrace the Torah via another aspect of his personality – he introduced me to baking bread. As it turns out, my “gateway” into the world of Torah, which was imprinted in my neshama, was connected to bread.
I often wonder what would have happened if I had discovered the Lechem Hapanim in my teens, where I would be now? Probably not far off from where I am! You see, from my decades of “bumbling” around – studying physics/optics, computer programming, I acquired skills that I would later need to fulfill my true purpose in life. They were not wasted years, but essential years, all part of the journey to arrive at the destination.
All that is not the chiddush, it is just a nice story, probably very similar to many other peoples’ stories. The revelation and the chiddush is when I began studying and researching the Lechem Hapanim, I discovered that the Korban Lechem Hapanim is associated with the Sfira of Gevurah. However, within that – all the different components of the Korban Lechem Hapanim, the Shulchan, the bread, the bowls of Levonah, etc. – each was associated with a different sub-Sfira (Levonah with חכמה/בינה, the bread with חג"ת נה"י –חסד, גבורה, תפארת, נצח, הוד, יסוד, the Shulchan with מלכות) within the “mother”-Sfira of Gevurah. Layers within layers!
But that is not all. The Lechem Hapanim was just the “gateway”, the “mother” Sfira. In trying to understand it, it was necessary to study the sub-Sfirot, the Psukkim, Mishna, Gemara, Halacha, Mussar, Kabbalah, etc. – ALL the disciplines and components of the Torah. It first needed that “gateway” to lead me to all of them and truly understand their value and worth. Also, without the skillset I had acquired along the way, physics, the analytical and logic skills of computer programming, I would never have been able to reach the results I have.
Some people (even Gedolim, even some who gave haskamot to sefer Meir Panim) think that devoting all one’s time to studying a specific subject like the Lechem Hapanim, is not the way to go and that it is preferable to first be fluent in all the other masechtot of the Gemara and know halacha backwards before approaching Kodshim. The chiddush is that by studying the Lechem Hapanim I AM covering all the other masechtot and Mishna Brura – in a different order – but all of them nonetheless. By understanding my “flag”, my חלק בתורה – I eventually will get to cover the entire Torah b"H, not perhaps in the order that other people do, but the order is not important.
This is the essence of Matan Torah. When each person in Am Yisrael said נעשה ונשמע, an angel put a “crown” on their heads, but it was not the same crown for everyone, because it was not all from the same angel, it was from 600,000 different angels, each carrying their own flag.
This is what we ask for when we say ותן חלקנו בתורתך, that we should each be zocheh to find our unique חלק in the Torah, because for everyone it is different. Everyone has a different gateway that is necessary to lead them into the world of Torah, but through that gateway they eventually all end up studying the entire Torah, just in a different order.
So if Mishna Brura makes your head spin, if you cannot fathom Rashi and Tosfot, if the Zohar Hakadosh sounds like Greek to you, etc. DO NOT listen to those who tell you that you have to study Torah in a specific way and order – that that is the “only” way …….. remember Matan Torah and the 600,000 angels, remember Yitro’s advice to Moshe. Trust and follow your instincts, follow your neshama and discover your own “gateway” into the Torah and once you are in it, never stop studying it. You will discover treasures there beyond measure, I know I have.
I hope that my Gemara teacher HaRav Shlomo Warshawsky z”l is looking down on me now and getting naches from his “wayward” pupil who, although he did not score well in his Gemara tests at school, scored well in life and ended up falling in love with the Gemara after all, as he originally intended – albeit not via the route he perhaps originally intended. It required a few more laps first. That was the way it was for Yitro and probably for all of us!
