Illuminating the Black Light – Vayechi
כָּל אֵלֶּה שִׁבְטֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל שְׁנֵים עָשָׂר וְזֹאת אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לָהֶם אֲבִיהֶם וַיְבָרֶךְ אוֹתָם אִישׁ אֲשֶׁר כְּבִרְכָתוֹ בֵּרַךְ אֹתָם (בראשית מט, כח).
This week was the 10th of Tevet, a paradox among fast days. As is well known, we fast on the 10th of Tevet because of the translation of the Torah into Greek, because of the yahrzeit of Ezra Hasofer and most notably - because of the start of the siege on Jerusalem in the time of Bayit Rishon. Why is it a paradox?
Firstly, because the translation of the Torah into Greek by king Ptolemy took place on the 8th of Tevet, not on the 10th. Chazal say that the earth was in (spiritual) darkness for three days as a result (that did overlap with the 10th of Tevet, but why not fast on the 8th, the actual day?). Also, what was so terrible about translating the Torah into Greek? Moshe himself instructed Am Yisrael, when they entered Eretz Yisrael, to inscribe the Torah on stones in 70 languages (Devarim 27, 8). On the contrary, when Ptolemy II (2nd century BCE) took 72 chachamim to translate the Torah, he isolated each of them in different rooms and miraculously the translation of all 72 was identical! That surely is cause for celebration?
Secondly, Ezra Hasofer died on the 9th of Tevet, not the 10th and we don’t fast for a Tzaddik’s yahrtzeit - on the contrary, we have a הילולא, a celebration (except for Tzom Gedaliya, - because Gedaliya was murdered, he did not die of natural causes).
Thirdly, why do we fast in memory of the start of the siege on Jerusalem in the time of Bayit Rishon? We don’t fast in memory of the day the siege started in the time of Bayit Sheini. Most people don’t even know when that was, כב ניסן (the day the Moroccan Jews celebrate Mimouna!) In addition, the beginning of the siege during Bayit Rishon was not so catastrophic for Am Yisrael. Life went on as normal, smachot, avodah in the Beit Hamikdash. The Babylonian Casdim could not make inroads at the beginning of the siege, it fitfully started and stopped. Eicha Rabba tells of a hero, Avika ben Gevarti, a kind of enhanced “Kippat Barzel”, who caught all the boulders the Babylonians hurled at Jerusalem with their stone throwers and lobbed them back at them.
With all the inconsistencies in the dates and the circumstances, perhaps the greatest paradox of all is that the 10th of Tevet is considered a major fast (on a par with Yom Kippur), even more major than Tisha Be’Av. If the 10th Tevet fell out on Shabbat we would fast on Shabbat (the chachamim programmed the calendar that it never does actually fall out on Shabbat – but it does on erev Shabbat, and unlike all other fasts, including Tish'a Be’Av, the fast of the 10th of Tevet is not נדחה. The question is why? (we will ב"ה get to the answer at the end of the shiur).
Prior to that however, I would like to explore the concept of the Twelve Tribes.
In this week’s parsha we read about Yaakov’s last will and testament to his twelve sons. Usually when a person leaves a will, the focus is on the division of estate – who gets what! Yaakov was tremendously wealthy. Chazal debate (בראשית רבה עג, יא) how many sheep dogs guarded his flocks, 600,000 or 1,200,000? If, according Chazal, a flock was at least 30 sheep - that makes (at least) 18 million sheep! In Yaakov’s blessings to his sons, no mention is made of estate. There are no “expected” blessings that a father gives to his children – “you should be healthy”, “you should live long and prosper”, etc. Yaakov’s last will and testament is not of that type. Instead it is a mixture of rebuke and role definition. The blessings provide a rare insight into the parts that make up Am Yisrael, their role and destiny.
What is this magic number twelve and why is Am Yisrael comprised of Twelve Tribes? Why not two tribes, Democrats and Conservatives, like most other “advanced” democratic nations? Why is the “parliament” of Israel divided into so many factions?
This is not by accident, it is by design! When Adam and Chava were created, Chazal (בראשית רבה כד, ה) tell us it was ordained that they would give birth to the Twelve Tribes (זה ספר תולדת אדם – בראשית ה, א). The word זה in gematriya is 12. Since they sinned with the etz hada’at, the task was passed on to Noach (זה ינחמנו ממעשנו – שם ה, כט). When Noach failed to save his generation, the task was passed to Avraham and Sarah. Sarah laughed however (למה זה צחקה שרה – שם יח, יג) and forfeited the right which was passed to Yitzchak and Rivka. When Rivka complained (למה זה אנכי – שם כה, כב) the task passed to Yaakov, who finally fulfilled it.
Unlike the offspring of the previous generations, which was a mixture of good and evil, all twelve of Yaakov’s sons were Tzaddikim. According to the Zohar Hakadosh (פקודי, קפ) none of the names of the tribes have the letter ח or ט. After the reunion with Yosef and doing tshuva for selling him to Egypt and when Yaakov died and they all declared שמע ישראל ה' א-לקנו, ה' אחד - they were all Tzaddikim, devoid of חטא (see also שבת קמו, א).
Why specifically the number twelve though? The Zohar Hakadosh (ויצא קסא) explains how the number twelve is intrinsically connected to the Kabbalistic concept of the עשר ספירות (which is beyond the scope of this shiur), but for our purposes in this shiur – it is to repair the Supreme “black light” (אור העליון השחור).
To understand this concept, we need to “scratch the surface” and briefly explain two of the ten sfirot – gvura and chessed. We have touched on these in a previous shiur that the midda of gvura is associated with the male and the midda of chessed with the female. The Sifrei Kabbalah also separate these into left/right and associate them with parts of the body – gvura is the left arm and chessed is the right arm. I explore this concept in more detail in my sefer (מאיר פנים, פרק יג) as it has a direct bearing on the connection between the Lechem Hapanim and parnasa.
The מצווה of studying Torah is given to the male, gvura and hence the light of wisdom, חכמה, emanates from the midda of gvura – on the left. Unless that wisdom is “tempered” however with kindness, the midda of chessed – on the right - that light is referred to as a “black light” which does not illuminate the worlds. For the light to illuminate, a mingling of gvura and chessed is required.
The Zohar Hakadosh goes on to explain how the Twelve Tribes are distributed evenly on the left and right sides of the עשר ספירות, including the links between them, which I will not elaborate on here as they are beyond the scope of the shiur. Suffice it for us to understand that the number twelve has deep spiritual meaning in the עולם העליון and is also reflected and manifested physically in the עולם התחתון. The number twelve is not random or incidental, it is by Divine design and it is paralleled in other constructs of the universe, the twelve מזלות, etc. the constructs of time, 12 hours in a day, twelve months in a year, etc..
Yaakov’s last will and testament - his blessings to the Twelve Tribes -combine rebuke and purpose. Yaakov highlights the unique challenges of each son, together with their unique gifts. The Twelve Tribes, by nature, were never intended to be equivalent. Each had a different role to play that was vital to the whole – Am Yisrael.
In very few cases this role was inherited by virtue of birth. For example Binyamin was to have the future Beit Hamikdash in his territory, by virtue of the fact that he was the only son of the twelve - born in Eretz Yisrael. Primarily however, the roles of the tribes were determined by their deeds. For example Reuven, the firstborn, was originally intended to inherit the role of the king and the kohen gadol, but because of his sin with the duda’im, he forfeited those rights. Yehuda, by assuming responsibility for his actions with Tamar was awarded the monarchy. Levi, by virtue of their דביקות to the Torah were awarded the kehunah.
The Mefarshim analyze the brachot of each tribe and try to decipher their roles and challenges - it is the subject of many volumes. Here are a few, brief, examples. Zevulun are merchants. Yissachar are לומדי תורה. Dan are judges. Gad are warriors. Shimon are sofrim and מלמדי תינוקות. Yehuda are the monarchy. Levi are the kehunah, etc.
Yosef was unique among the tribes in that his two sons Menashe and Efraim were considered equivalent to generation above them. How does that correlate with the number twelve? If Yosef was split into two tribes, then there were thirteen in the end, not twelve!
Menashe and Efraim received individual dispensation in the קרבנות הנשיאים, the דגלים and the נחלאות. However in the חושן, the אבני שוהם and the מטות (the staffs, of which Aharon’s flowered) they were grouped under Yosef.
Whenever the “unity aspect” of Am Yisrael was the focus, Menashe and Efraim were grouped together under Yosef. In fact Menashe and Ephraim (who were twins, according to some Mefarshim) were the only siblings in four generations who were perfectly united and totally lacking animosity for each other, from birth, and this is why we bless our sons on Shabbat in their names.
As the tribes were distributed between the left and right halves of the עשר ספירות (as explained above), Menashe (chessed) and Efraim (gvura) were similarly associated.
In מאיר פנים I bring the perush of Torat Levi Yitzchak who says that the Lechem Hapanim was symbolized by Efraim, as it represents the wisdom of the Torah, gvura. The Levonah on the other hand was symbolized by Menashe, representing chessed. This is why Abba Shaul, in his proof for the position of the Levonah on the Shulchan (Menachot 96a) uses מטה מנשה (and not the staffs of any of the other tribes).
The קטורת had eleven ingredients, and its primary purpose was in the avoda of the Kohen Gadol on Yom Kippur. The Kohen Gadol would enter the Kodesh Hakodashim with a מחתה filled with קטורת. The smoke would rise up to the ceiling and then cascade back down resembling a bunch of grapes, פורת יוסף, symbolizing the unity of the eleven brothers with Yosef, the Twelve Tribes in perfect unison, on the holiest day of the year, in the holiest place on earth. The ingredients had different fragrances - some smelt better than others, some belonged to the midda of chessed, some were overpowering and belonged to the midda of gvura. Combined however into one unit of Twelve, they perfumed the entire region of Jerusalem until Jericho and graced Am Yisrael with a Divine fragrance that eliminated bad influences and harmful plagues.
The Lechem Hapanim also symbolized this perfect unity between the Twelve. No loaf ever complained to its neighbor that it was on top, at the bottom, closer to the Shulchan, closer to the Parochet. One stack of six loaves was on the left, representing gvura, the other stack on the right, representing chessed. All twelve loaves rested in perfect unity on the Shulchan and were switched on the holiest day of the week – Shabbat, with kohanim from the two shifts standing on opposite sides of the Shulchan, representing an intermingling of left and right. Thus Am Yisrael merited the Divine שפע עליון and an unprecedented degree of prosperity.
In this world chessed and gvura can exist independently of each other. Unbridled chessed, without the tempering wisdom of the Torah, is an abomination. In the קריאת התורה on Mincha of Yom Kippur we read about the עריות, the forbidden familial relations. In reference to that between a brother and a sister, the Torah says חסד הוא. This is unbridled chessed, it has its roots in “kindness”, but is forbidden. Similarly, unbridled gvura is an abomination. Wisdom without the tempering of chessed is a “black light”.
The Twelve Tribes, Am Yisrael represent the perfect unity between chessed and gvura, between the left and the right, in perfect balance, each with their own unique skill set, purpose and shortcomings.
This lesson is the cornerstone of every peer relationship, spouses, siblings, communities, work teams and our nation as a whole. It is a lesson for leaders to carry on their shoulders and chest the אבני שוהם and the חושן as a constant reminder who they represent. It is a blueprint and reflection of an identical (spiritual) construct in Heaven.
This is why it was permissible for Yehoshua to inscribe the Torah in seventy languages (including Greek) in stone, when he entered Eretz Yisrael, because that Torah was wisdom tempered with chessed, the Torah of Am Yisrael, by Am Yisrael, for Am Yisrael. However, Ptolemy, who millennia later ordered 72 chachamim to translate the Torah to Greek, had a different intention. He wanted to sever the wisdom from the chessed. The entire Greek philosophy was that of “wisdom for its own sake” - the power of knowledge. Such wisdom, knowledge - untempered by chessed and morals – is “black light”, it does not illuminate the world. According to Chazal it plunged the world into spiritual darkness. In the best case such knowledge is benign and in the worst case it is malignant and wreaks destruction. Either way it is not a knowledge that brings growth and benefit to the world.
The truth is that we do not fast on the yahrzeit of Tzaddikim, like Ezra Hasofer. The mention of that event on the 9th of Tevet is just a “cover” for the censors. The 9th of Tevet is a day of mourning for another reason. This was the day אותו האיש was born, bringing untold black light to the world and suffering to Am Yisrael.
Those are good reasons to fast on the 8th or 9th of Tevet, but the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem, which for the most part was no siege at all? So why do we fast on the 10th of Tevet?
The Chatam Sofer brings the true reason. According to the Chatam Sofer, every year on the 10th of Tevet, HKB”H sits with his פמליא of angels and decides whether Am Yisrael is worthy or not of the Mashiach coming and the Beit Hamikdash being rebuilt that year. A fast day for something that happened in the past is not דוחה שבת, but a fast day that has bearing on the present and the future, like Yom Kippur is. It is on the 10th of Tevet that we all sit in judgment to merit the גאולה or חו"ח not.
It is not for nothing that the 10th of Tevet usually coincides with the blessings of the Twelve Tribes, because if there is any obstacle to the geulah that supersedes the rest, it is not internalizing the above lesson, of the segula of Am Yisrael and illuminating the black light.
