Parshat Naso: The Conduit for Divine Overflow: The Malbim’s Kabbalistic Interpretation of Birkat Kohanim

BY: Jina Davidovich

Some of the most significant elements of the Hebrew Bible are the rules regarding the building of the Holy Temple and the services that were presided there by the priests, kohanim, the sons of Aaron. While the kohanim performed daily animal sacrifices, ritual purifications, and other duties, one of the most esoteric and mystical traditions that they were instructed to enact within this sanctuary was the Priestly Blessing, Birkat Kohanim. This commandment can be found in the sixth chapter of Numbers, in Parashat Naso, and consists of three verses: “[May] the Lord bless you and keep you. [May] the Lord make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you. [May] the Lord lift his countenance upon you, and give you peace.[1]” The kohanim were told to perform this blessing in public and in person to the Jewish people. Although it is not elucidated in the text, our oral tradition informs us that the kohanim lift their arms upward while reciting the blessing, and arrange their fingers in a special way such that a triangle was formed between the two hands.

Although today, many of the practices of the Holy Temple are not performed due to the lack of facility, Birkat Kohanim is a tradition that has continued to exist and is practiced either each week on Shabbat, every day, or only on holidays, depending on the regulations of various denominations. During the amidah, the silent prayer, the kohanim go up to the bima, alter, and face the congregation with their tallitot, prayer shawls, covering their faces. They then say the blessing that comes before the Birkat Kohanim, and proceed to chant the verses after the shaliach tzibur, the individual who leads the prayers. Although this practice is familiar to many regular temple-goers, its mystical meaning is often lost on those who have not explored the depth of the biblical verses.

 Rabbi Meir Leibush ben Yechiel Michel (Malbim), a nineteenth-century biblical commentator, explores the meaning of these mystical words and their implications in his biblical commentary. Malbim, who resided in Eastern Europe during the Haskalah, Jewish Enlightenment, has many dimensions to his text. He is simultaneously linguist and polemicist, kabbalist and scientist.

In Malbim’s exploration of Birkat Kohanim, his reader sees how significantly his understanding of kabbalah enhances his view of biblical literature and how he utilizes his belief in the importance of the syntactical structure of verses to gain deeper meaning[2]. The foundation that Malbim provides for his explanation of the actual text is essential in that it gives us insight in his kabbalistic ideas, but furthermore, it develops the paradigm for how we view the individual who is the conduit for blessing. As in evidenced by the Malbim’s portrayal of the kohen as the individual who recites the blessing using the name of God that is symbolic of the sefirot (see footnote 2)  and lifts his ten fingers to represent the sefirot, the kohen is nothing more than a funnel for divine energy - the human who allows the overflow to come down from keter to malchut (from the heavenly realm to the human realm), so it can be accessible to the nation. The kohen does not possess the power to bless the people, rather, he is the man appointed by God to receive and share this divine energy. The kohen as an intermediary does not mitigate the level of connectivity that the nation has with God, but rather, allows them to “ingest” more of the divine overflow for which his words and actions are the catalyst.

This point is illustrated in biblical commentator Tim Hegg’s article, “The Priestly Blessing.” Hegg expounds upon the juxtaposition of the Nazarite laws with the Priestly Blessing, “Indeed, the Nazarite attains the level of priestly sanctity…as one who draws near to the very Presence of God. Thus, the Priestly Blessing, which evokes the Name of the living God upon the people, follows the Nazarites laws naturally, for the ultimate blessing which God bestows upon His people is to dwell with them as both the Giver and Sustainer of life.” The Nazarite, by taking additional commandments upon himself, wishes to come closer to God. Similarly, Birkat Kohanim and the bestowal of God’s name upon the people - indicating that His Presence will rest among them - represent a similar desire to become closer to God. While Malbim differs slightly from Hegg, he ultimately concludes that the similarity between the Nazarite laws and Birkat Kohanim is the ability of both to allow an individual to remove himself from the pleasures and desires of this world, and overcome the evil inclination, thus becoming closer to God. In Birkat Kohanim, it is the nation who achieves this closeness to God, not merely the kohen. Malbim explains that connection occurs through the divine overflow that is conducted by the kohen and transmitted, as though by electric current, to the nation.

 

---

[1] Bamidbar 6:22-26

[2] In his discussion of why one must have an intermediary between him/herself and God when receiving blessing, Malbim explains that the kohanim raised their ten fingers during the blessing as a symbolic representation of the ten luminous emanations, or asara sefirot: “למעלה אשר ומקורות צנורות עשרה אל העשרה עצבותיכם ישאו שהם,” “They should lift their ten fingers for the ten spouts and sources that are above.” These “ten spouts and sources” are the ten sefirot. Sixteenth century kabbalist, Isaac Luria, or the Arizal, as he is more commonly known, developed a terminology to encapsulate the way in which energy, or as the Malbim puts it, “אלוקית שפע,” “divine overflow,” descends from the realm of God to the human realm of Earth[2]. In order from the first to tenth, the sefirot are as follows: keter (crown), chochmah (knowledge), binah (wisdom), chesed (kindness), gevurah (strength), tiferet (harmony), netzach (eternity), hod (glory), yesod (foundation), and malchut (kingdom). The upper realm, composed of keter, chochmah, and binah, is the portion of the sefirot that compromises the divine realm, from where divine energy flows. Our realm, malchut, is at the bottom of the sefirot, and is the ultimate receptor of this divine energy.

Interestingly, the sefirot are actually represented in the tetragrammaton name of God, yud-hey-vav-hey. The “crown” on the top of the “yud” represents keter, the remainder of the yud represents chochmah, the following “hey” represents binah, the “vav,” the letter that resembles a pipe and indicates connectivity is represented by the six sefirot in the middle (the numerical value of “vav” is six): chesed, gevurah, tiferet, hod, and yesod, and the final “hey” is representative of the human world, malchut. Thus, one can see that by using this name in Birkat Kohanim, the kohen and the congregation joins in order to bring down the divine overflow of spiritual energy into our world.

Parshat Bamidbar: Every Person Counts

BY: Annie Peck

In English, Sefer Bamidbar is called Numbers, and Parshat Bamidbar tells us why. A census is taken, which is an incredibly powerful and important event in the history of Bnei Yisrael. We know that this census is important due to the fact that we are given a date for it. God tells Moses to take this census on the first day of the second month following the Exodus from Egypt. 

In the census that we encounter in Parshat Bamidbar, only the men are counted. Moses is commanded to “take a census of the whole Israelite community by the clans of its ancestral houses, listing the names, every male, head by head” (Bamidbar 1:2). Why were only the males counted here? After all, the women had an extremely vital role in the exodus as well. If it weren’t for them, the Jewish lineage wouldn’t have been preserved. Women were part of the “Israelite community,” so why were they left out? Further, Jewish identity is passed through the woman! No matter how many children the Jewish men produced, if it was not with a Jewish mother, the children would not be Jewish. So why here does it seem as if the women didn’t count in this crucial enumeration of the Jewish people? This census, God tells Moses, is of “all those in Israel who are able to bear arms” (Bamidbar 1:3). So because only men could serve in the military, they were the only ones to be counted? Were theirs the only identity Hashem wished to count?

Taking a deeper look at the Jewish view of gender differences we can see how men and women play such different roles for the Jewish people. According to Rabbi Barukh Halevi Epstein (Tosefet Berakhah to Num. 1:2), the Hebrew word for son, ben, comes from the word boneh, or build. Bat, the word for daughter, is a contracted form of bayit, or home. We can infer from this that men are builders of community, while women are builders of homes. Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks applied this view to our patriarchs and matriarchs. Both Rivka and Rachel had the insight to know which son would continue the covenant. Rabbi Sacks continues to describe the other powerful women throughout the Jewish historical narrative. He writes,

The story of the “six women” of the Exodus who played key roles in the story of redemption: Yocheved, Miriam, Shifra, Puah, Pharaoh’s daughter and Zipporah…there are many other female heroes in the pages of Tanakh: Hannah, Deborah, Ruth and Esther …. What characterizes these women is their emotional-spiritual intelligence and the moral courage that comes from it.[i]

The fact that only the men were counted in the census is because of the inherent masculine quality of being more likely to be in the public and constructive domain, as is necessary for their status as military fighters.  While the strength of a military, on one hand, might come from the males, the strength of the nation, the ummah (from the same root as eim- mother), comes from the women.

Thus, the Torah, despite your view on gender equality or feminism or civil rights, can only truly grow to fulfill its potential through intense study and conversation by both men and women. Studying at Drisha for the month of June introduced me to Rabbi Silber’s idea of Torah growing through the study and learning of women. Not only do women benefit from Torah study, but Torah study can benefit from the unique approach a woman brings to learning. 

Strength of an army may have come from the men, as in Sefer Bamidbar . However, the strength of a nation comes from the women. Torah takes physical strength and emotional compassion. Torah needs as many different outlooks as possible. The Hebrew title of this sefer, Bamidbar, means in the desert. Just like a desert is open to all, Torah is open to all. To maximize Torah’s potential, all must have access to it, and all must contribute. If we keep Torah as the sole responsibility of half of the Jewish population, we are stripping Torah of the other half of her potential. Torah needs women just as much as women need Torah.

Shabbat Shalom!

---

[i]“Weekly Dvar Torah: Bamidbar,” Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/9493. 

Parshat Behar: Yovel And The Free Market

BY: Zachary Cohen

            Parshat Behar explains the complex and redemptive systems of shmita and of the yovel. Every fifty years, land is returned to its original owners, slaves are set free, and debts are annulled. The system functions as an idyllic economic and spiritual reset, restoring the economy and the land by reinforcing the Jewish people’s connection with Hashem. The Torah explains the theological premise on which this system is based: “v’ha’aretz lo timacheir litzmitut ki li ha’aretz; ki geirim toshavim imadi.” The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, because the land is Mine—you are strangers who reside with Me.[1] Regardless of our economic concerns, the “bottom line” is clear—La’Hashem ha’aretz umlo’ah[2]— The world and everything in it belong to God.

            Radical as it might seem, the complete overturn of the free economy was not without parallel in the Ancient Near East. As Raymond Westbrook, a scholar of Near Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins, explains in his book Property and the Family in Biblical Law, ancient Babylonian kings would issue misharum acts, likewise mandating the cancellation of debts, the liberation of slaves, and the restoration of land to its original owners.[3] Westbrook explains that such ordinances often emerged out of desperation. Thus the Babylonian kings attempted to "curb the worst effects of an economic condition without approaching the underlying causes."[4] The yovel, though similar in form to the Babylonian misharum, insists on an underlying moral framework: our responsibility to be fair stewards of Hashem’s land and to the economic systems we derive from it. Misharum, Westbrook insists, has no structure and no cyclical date for this economic ‘release.’ It is an “unpredictable and irregular event… entirely dependent on the will of the king.” [5] Far from the desperate despots who enacted misharum, the yovel calls for a return to an ideal, insisting on the ultimate order of the universe and our mandate to maintain justice through our economic pursuits. 

            In explaining the significance of this system, the Sefat Emet teaches that through shmita, and by extension yovel, the land is re-gifted to Israel.[6] This system explains Yitzchak’s blessing to Yaakov in Bereshit 27:28. The Sefat Emet explains that the words “Vayiten l’cha Elohim,” (And God will give to you) are written in the future tense to include not only Yaakov Avinu, but also to foreshadow the renewal, re-gifting, and restoration described in our parsha.[7] Rather than a periodic aberration, the yovel restores ideal economic and spiritual equilibrium to Eretz Yisrael.  Comparing the yovel to misharum allows us to better understand its timeless meaning: by undermining the normal functions of the free market economy, the yovel annuls human debts as a timely reminder of humanity’s indebtedness to Hashem.

---

[1] Leviticus 25:23.

[2] Psalms 24:1.

[3] Raymond Westbrook, "Jubilee Laws," in Property and the Family in Biblical Law (Sheffield, Eng.: JSOT Press, 1991), 49.

[4] ibid, 47.

[5] ibid, 48.

[6] "Be-Har," in The Language of Truth: The Torah Commentary of the Sefat Emet, Rabbi Yehudah Leib Alter of Ger, trans. Arthur Green (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1998), 204.

[7] ibid.

Parshat Bechukotai: On Reward And Punishment

BY: Rebecca Eis

Parshat Bechukotai is a troubling parsha filled with bracha(blessing) and tochecha (rebuke). While reading the parsha, a few questions bothered me. What is the logic behind these exact punishments listed for not following G-d’s commandments? How “bad” does one have to be for this to happen? Has it ever happened in the history of the Jewish people? What’s the connection between the first half of the parsha and the end? Finally, the question that I hope to focus on here is about the first few pesukim of Parshat Bechukotai: Why are all the rewards and punishments listed in the parsha physical rewards?

            The parsha opens,
אִם בְּחֻקֹּתַי תֵּלֵכוּ וְאֶת מִצְוֹתַי תִּשְׁמְרוּ וַעֲשִׂיתֶם אֹתָם:”
“וְנָתַתִּי גִשְׁמֵיכֶם בְּעִתָּם וְנָתְנָה הָאָרֶץ יְבוּלָהּ וְעֵץ הַשָּׂדֶה יִתֵּן פִּרְיוֹ
“If you follow My decrees and observe My commandments and perform them; then I will provide your rains in their time, and the land will give its produce and the tree of the field will give its fruit.”[1] The Torah goes on to enumerate more rewards for good actions such as safety in our land from enemies and wild animals alike, as well as many offspring. This is perplexing as one might expect that for believing in G-d and following His “chukim” and observing His “mitzvoth,” you would be rewarded with Olam Habah or other spiritual manifestations of G-d’s generosity rather than sustenance and safety and the other rewards listed in the parsha.
            The Abarbanel also asks this question and he posits that the specified rewards are not the real rewards bestowed upon someone for good deeds. Rather, G-d would not want to list those because man should fear, respect, and honor G-d’s commandments out of love for Him and not in pursuit of a reward. Therefore, the Abarbanel goes on to explain that these are simply rewards that help one in the short term to remove all barriers to achieving complete love of Hashem and consequently worshiping Him as well. However, if one does not follow the mitzvoth, G-d will take him even further from achieving the ultimate rewards.
            Rambam develops this idea further in chapter 9 of his Hilchot Teshuva. There he writes, שבזמן שאדם טרוד בעולם הזה בחולי ורעבון ובמלחמה אינו מתעסק לא במצות  ולא בחכמה שבהן זוכין לחיי העולם הבא," “For when a man is preoccupied with the matters of this world, dogged by illness, hunger and war, he cannot busy himself neither with wisdom nor with good deeds, through which we merit eternal life.”[2] Rambam explains that the rewards in Parshat Bechukotai are all listed to help one be able to serve G-d better. As Rambam explains further, if one does not have to worry about enemies attacking or lacking food, health or shelter, they will have much more time, energy and willpower to follow G-d’s mitzvoth.
            These suggestions imply that when the nation does not serve G-d and observe His mitzvoth they are entering a steep downward spiral. It is not that they simply get the punishments listed in the Torah but rather they seem to have been removed further from G-d, making it even more of a challenge to return to His protection.
            The Netivot Shalom, a Chassidic commentary on the Torah, answers our original question in a very simple and straightforward manner that is more comforting to the mind of those who stray. He says that Parshat Bechukotai is simply a prime example of “middah k’neged middah.” The world is created with rules, “chukim,” such as the placement and roles of the sun and the moon or the sand by the sea. If we don’t observe the chukim that G-d placed before us then all rules of the world will be thrown off until we begin following those “chukim” again.
            In his book, To Heal a Fractured World, Rabbi Jonathon Sacks takes an even more direct approach to the question at hand. He writes, “The whole tenor of the Torah is based on the idea that God is to be found in the physical world and its blessings. We are commanded to serve God in joy out of abundance of good things, not through self-denial.”[3] Asceticism, he explains is “an implicit disavowal of this world which God created and pronounced good.” This would imply that these physical rewards enumerated in parshat Bechukotai are quite literally rewards to help us serve G-d better, be it in this world as Rabbi Sacks suggests or to achieve in the next world as the Abarbanel and Rambam suggest.

Shabbat Shalom!

---

1]Leviticus 26:3-4.  All English translations of verses from the Torah are from the Artscroll Stone Edition Tanakh.
[2]Translation of Rambam from Nechama Leibowitz on Parshat Bechukotai, “Reward and Punishment.”
[3] To Heal a Fractured World, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Schocken Books, New York, Page 35.