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The classical Hebrew text is comprised of consonants alone, as is well known. While some passages include points over individual letters, words, or parts of words, there are no other marks added to the text of Tanach. But we’re taught yesh em lamasoret (Sanhedrin 4) — that there has long been a tradition as to the pronunciation of the printed text — and that implies the existence of a sort of titular vowel-system.

In fact we find the following stated in Macḥzor Vitry (120), “We’ve never heard it said that the Torah was pointed when it was given to Moshe. The punctuation-system itself wasn’t given on Sinai; the sages introduced it as a sign (i.e., as an aid to reading) afterwards. After all, we would be transgressing the prohibition against adding anything to the Torah (Deuteronomy. 8: 1) if we were to add the punctuation marks to the Biblical text. So, while the division of verses and the trope … have been transmitted (to us) from Sinai to this day, this tradition is, nevertheless, an oral one, and was not given to us by means of punctuation marks” [1].

Nonetheless it’s thought that somewhere between the 8^th and 10^th centuries of the Common Era scribes termed “Masorets” developed the system of marks above, in the middle of, or below the consonants that we term the nekuddot.

Note:

[1]       Also see Kuzari 3:31.

(c) 2011 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

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AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here at a discount.

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here at a discount as well.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”.

Ramchal indicates in Petach 21 that the full functioning of the letters depends on (the additional roles played by the following elements:) the trope (musical notations placed above and below the letters), vowels (points placed within, over or under the letters), and the “crowns” (configurations that are joined to the letters at the top) that are attached to the letters (themselves). Each completes an action appropriate to it. But the essential acts come about through the letters (themselves), he underscores, which is obvious given that “the written letters alone are sufficient to allow us to understand” the point being made, as he adds in his comments there.

Let’s examine the makeup of trope, vowels, and crowns.

Trope (also known as “Cantillation Notes”) are special signs and marks used to help in the reading of Tanach in the course of public services. As a rule of thumb, each word of text has a trope mark at its primary accent which is associated with a musical phrase to be used when reciting it, but in point of fact some words have two or no marks, and the musical meaning of some of them depend on context. The trope marks provide insight into the syntactical makeup of the text and often serve as a clue to its meaning. There are two systems of trope: the one used in the great preponderance of the books, and the one that’s used in the Books of Psalms, Proverbs, and Job.

There’s clearly an ancient tradition about the trope, as we see in the Talmud which speaks of a system and masters of it (Berachot 62a, Nedarim 37a).

(c) 2011 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

———————————————————-

AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here at a discount.

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here at a discount as well.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”.

Ramchal’s principal concern at this point in Klach Pitchei Chochma, though, isn’t letters and words themselves so much as names — Divine Names and their various permutations, as we’ll see. He does make one final point about the Aleph–Bet here, though, which is very important and touches on a lot of his perspective on God’s governance of the universe.

He says in Petach 20 that the mystical import of these orders (of twenty-two letters) lies in and derives from the mystical concepts of Chessed (“kindness”), Din (“judgment”), and Rachamim (“compassion”), (which represent the) “right”, “left” and “center” (columns).

In other words, each letter is comprised of a left, right, and center component. Its right side speaks to its degree of Chessed (“kindness”), its left to its degree of Din (“judgment”), while its center speaks to its degree of Rachamim (“compassion”) which is actually a variegated blend of Chessed and Din. And each component expresses the mystical import of the Aleph–Bet.

This principle often illustrated by the makeup of the letter Aleph, א, which is comprised of a Yod, ‘, (actually an inverted Yod) on its left side, another (not inverted) Yod on its right side, and a diagonal Vav, ו, at its center. Aleph is thus pretty balanced — not as perfectly balanced as the letter H is or a Samech (ס) is, but more balanced than a Bet (ב) for example or (an oversized) Lamed (ל).

And as he points out in his comments to Petach 20, “every action (that eventuates in the physical world) comes about as a result of the force produced by a particular combination of the three qualities of Chessed, Din, and Rachamim”. That’s to say that everything that is either kindly, harsh, or some combination of the two, is actuated by an element of one letter or another or a combination of them.

And they form different (different) combinations (and appear in formations represented as being) “closed” and “compressed” (in shape), or “open” and “expanded” (in shape) which is to say as a “line” or a “point” or otherwise, Ramchal points out in Petach 20.

This phenomenon bears a lot on what happens here in the world, Ramchal maintains elsewhere, given that “the world is governed … by the mystical principle of (the combination of) Chessed, Din, and Rachamim” (Adir Bamarom p. 188). “Each one has its function” in the world: “Chessed emits a lot of (beneficent) light and a lot of (similar) light emanates from it, while Din also emits a lot of light of the opposite sort (i.e., benevolent light), and the lights blend with each other in keeping with the mystical notion of Rachamim (i.e., to form one blend or another or “recipe” of both benevolent and malevolent elements). This combination of one or another is the basis of the Torah’s system of “pure” versus “impure” (i.e., “kosher” and “un-kosher”; “right” and “wrong”; etc.) elements, he goes on to say there, for specific reasons.

But that’s only relevant to the lower realms, he points out. “That’s not the intention in (the loftier realms of) Erich Anpin, where utter Chessed reigns” and where right, left, and center emanate pure Chessed alone. “The (graded and variegated) emanations that come into play in the lower realms, which is the site of (moral and ethical) war against The Other Side” are different from the ones in the higher realms where none of that comes into play.

Thus we see that while the letters and words certainly play a major part in the makeup of the world as we know it, the sort of letters and words that will be found in the higher worlds will be of a whole other order and far purer.

The upper and lower realms, as well as the roles they play in the governance of the universe, will all be discussed at great length later on in this work.

(c) 2011 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

———————————————————-

AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here at a discount.

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here at a discount as well.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”.

Rebbe Nachman agrees with RSZ’s idea but adds a certain tantalizing element to it (see Likutei Moharan 1:64-3-4). He cites the verse, “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made” (Psalms 33:6) as a proof of this phenomenon (which Ramchal himself cited in Petach 18), and he likens speech there to Chochma (both literally as wisdom and as the Sephira by that name as we’ll see) since it’s also written, “How great are Your works, O Lord! You have made them all with Chochma” (Psalms 104:24).

But he points out that there’s a stage higher yet than Chochma, which is silence, as when God counseled Moses to be silent rather than delve into the wisdom of His governance of the world (see Menachot 29). That’s to say that sometimes it’s better to not question or speak, but rather to acquiesce to higher, even more arcane, unintelligible Divine wisdom.

He thus asserts that while the letters do play a pivotal role in creation, they are certainly not primary: the Sephirot, which are epitomized by Keter which is utterly unfathomable, are.

But notice, also, this point by R’ Chaim of Volozhin (see Nephesh HaChaim 3:10). Also agreeing with RSZ’s assertion, he nonetheless adds (without offering a specific source) that the Zohar equates God’s speech with His very Self. Then he adds this element to the mix: “It’s written about the World to Come that ‘the glory of the Lord will be revealed (then), and all flesh together will see that the mouth of the Lord spoke’ (Isaiah 40:5). That’s to say that our understandings will be so purified then that we’ll merit to physically catch sight of God’s words as they appear throughout the world”.

Not only that, he adds, but we’ll actually “catch sight” of God’s presence itself then, when the verse “your Teacher will no longer be concealed from you, for your eyes will see your Teacher” (Isaiah 30:20) will come true, given that we’ll see God’s words all over. This last point fits very nicely of course into Ramchal’s whole theme of the ultimate revelation of God’s Yichud [1].

Note:

[1] See Ramchal’s reference to God’s words playing a role in creation in Da’at Tevunot 158, and also see Ramban’s comments to Genesis 1:4 and 2:17.

(c) 2011 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

———————————————————-

AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here at a discount.

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here at a discount as well.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”.

(For the record: Ramchal discusses the Aleph-Bet on a very esoteric level in Kinat Hashem Tziva’ot “Tseirufei haotiot” and in Pitchei Chochma v’Da’at 30.)

We go now from letters to words, which is to say to intelligible combinations of letters. Now, many early Kabbalistic texts refer to non-intelligible combinations of letters in conjunction with what’s termed “practical Kabbalah” or taken to be “white magic”, but Ramchal and many others steered clear of all that (except when it concerned composing komayot for “medicinal” purposes). And both early and later Kabbalists made reference to non-intelligible terms as illustrations of concepts or as instances of acronyms, gematria, notrikon, atbash, or the like rather than as letter-combination that affect reality. But we won’t discuss any of that.

Understand of course that words can simply be the nouns, verbs, etc. that refer to this and that in heaven and on earth, or they can refer to various Divine names. While the former matter very much, as we’ll soon see, it’s the latter that factor most especially into the Kabbalistic system as we’ll see later.

Chassidic literature focused quite a bit on words as nouns and verbs, most especially the works of R’ Schneur Zalman of Liady and R’ Nachman of Breslov who based their statements on the teachings of the Ba’al Shem Tov.

We’re taught that God’s “word is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens” (Psalms 119:89). Basing himself on a statement made about this verse in Midrash Tanchuma the Ba’al Shem Tov remarks that the words themselves that comprised God’s remark “let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters” (Genesis 1:6) remain firmly fixed in the heavens to this very day (just as the words God used to create everything else remain in place).

R’ Schneur Zalman expanded upon that and actually said that were those words to depart from the heavens (or anything else they were a part of the creation of), then those things would cease to exist, as their very being is bolstered and fixed by the role that the words that went into their creation play from moment to moment (Sha’ar HaYichud v’Haemunah Ch. 1) [1]. He goes on to make the point there that that’s not only true of things created by the Ten Utterances that went into creation in general; it’s also true of everything, in that the (Hebrew) letters that comprise their names maintain them.

This then is an understanding of letters and words as not mere helpmeets of the Sephirot but as the very power-sources that they use in this world.

Notes:

[1]       See RSZ’s Likkutei Torah, Parshat Achrei Mot; also see Ari’s Eitz Chaim 50:2. 

(c) 2011 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

———————————————————-

AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here at a discount.

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here at a discount as well.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”.

I had had a quote from Ramchal’s comments to Brit Menucha that spoke to his understanding of the Aleph-Bet in a unique way but I can’t find it. Please send me a copy of his (short) work on Brit Menucha if you can, folks, … or forgive me. We’ll go on with this section tomorrow, please G-d.

Ramchal’s initial idea is that the supernal Lights must enter into the mystical realm of letters before they can actually bring about physical actions, as letters are a particular order of phenomena that exist to bring things about in the physical realm (Petach 18).

As he explains it in his comments there, “The Lights … (perform) on the mystical level of ‘thought’” which he equates there with Adam Kadmon [1]. “But it’s another matter actually bringing things into existence,” he goes on to say there, “as just ‘thinking’ about something doesn’t necessarily make it come about”. That’s to say that while physicality is rooted in the highest realms, it only comes to fruition by means of lower phenomena — the letters, which are a particular order of phenomena (i.e., a specific system [2]) that exist (i.e., that’s suited and designed) to bring physical things about.

Then he offers in Petach 19 that the letters are (i.e., function as) twenty-two different orders (of phenomena) — no less and no more. And he adds in his comments there that “the reason why there are twenty-two letters (explicitly) is rooted in the first principles which we’re not to inquire into, as we’d determined earlier” in Petach 15.

That’s to say that just as there are specific reasons why there are ten Sephirot specifically which we’re not privy to (and why we have two arms, one head, and the like), there are likewise specific reasons why there are exactly 22 letters to the Aleph–Bet (27 counting the end-letters as we pointed out). For as we indicated in 4:4 above, God works from a “recipe” if you will in His interactions with this world which needs to be “exact, with neither too much nor too little of anything”. Twenty-two is apparently just the right number of letters and we haven’t the right to question why that’s so.

We’ll see what Ramchal adds about the Aleph–Bet in his other writings.

Notes:

[1] See note 12 to Section 2 above as well as 3:1-2.

[2] We derived our idea that the letters are a “system” from the statement Ramchal made in his comments to Petach 19 that “each letter is one of various orders of interconnected groups of lights necessary to bring about action”.

(c) 2011 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

———————————————————-

AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here at a discount.

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here at a discount as well.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”.

Ari introduces one other illuminating factor about the Aleph-Bet that we’d need to explore before going on to Ramchal’s treatment of it. He says in Sha’ar HaHakdamut (1) that as is well known, “there’s no ‘body’ or any ‘bodily function’ up above, God forbid” and that all the imagery and symbolism used to seemingly express the details of a body or a function of it don’t signify that they exist there, but they’re only meant to “assuage the ear” — i.e., to sound right and to make sense in context — “so that one might understand supernal and spiritual phenomena” as best as possible. As such, “permission has been granted to speak in metaphor and symbolism (that suggest bodily phenomena)… throughout the Zohar and the Torah itself”. After all, he goes on, isn’t reference made to God’s “seeing”, “hearing”, “smelling”, “speaking”, in the Torah? And aren’t we taught that we were created “in God’s image” which would all have us believe that there are physical phenomena and functions above? The truth of the matter, though, is that there are only “fine and utterly spiritual (i.e., abstract) Lights up above”, and that goes to explain the depiction of the Sephirot.

Then he offers the following there which goes to explain the use of the Aleph–Bet in Kabbalistic symbolism. “There’s another way to explain what lies up above metaphorically and symbolically, which is by means of the makeup and shape of the (Hebrew) letters”, as “each and every letter alludes to a supernal Light as does its form”. We’re never to forget, though, that there “aren’t any actual ‘letters’, ‘points’ (etc.) up above” and that they’re also only used to “assuage the ear”.

The point of the matter is that nothing in the upper realm is physical and thus it’s all largely inexplicable to us. But there are a couple of things that we can fall back upon to understand it: our own situation, given that we were somehow or another created in God’s image, and can thus understand something about Him and His realm in light of that; and the Aleph–Bet, given that “the heavens were made through the word of God” (Psalms 33:6), and so we can understand this world and the forces that went into its creation and maintenance by examining the elements of God’s “word”, the letters.

(c) 2011 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

———————————————————-

AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here at a discount.

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here at a discount as well.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”.

We’ll be taking a break here until after Shavuos. Chag Samaiyach!

Ari discusses various aspects of the Aleph–Bet in a number of sections of Eitz Chaim and in various contexts, but he hardly addresses the notion of their overall role in the universe. But he does say this: “(while) all the worlds were created by means of the twenty-two letters in Malchut … The letters Mem, Nun, Tzaddi, Pei and Chof  derived from Zeir Anpin which hovers over it” (Eitz Chaim 5:3), which calls for explanation.

The discerning reader should have raised this objection right away. “Aren’t there twenty-seven letters in the Aleph–Bet, if you include the end-forms?” In explanation, the “end-forms” are those letters that are formed one way when they’re at the beginning or in the middle of a Hebrew word, but are formed another way when they end a word. And, yes, there are in fact twenty-seven letters when those five end-forms are included. And the five of them are the very ones Ari cited at the end of his remark — Mem (which ordinarily appears thusly, מ, but appears thusly ם when an end-form), Nun (נ versus ן), Tzaddi (צ versus ץ), Pei (פ versus ף) and Chof (כ versus ך).

Ari acknowledges that fact and thus offers that “the letters Mem, Nun, Tzaddi, Pei and Chof derived from Zeir Anpin (a Partzuf that is a combination of Chessed, Gevurah, Tipheret, Netzach, Hod and Yesod which all sit over Malchut as we’ll see later on) hovers over” the ordinary “twenty-two letters in Malchut” which sit beneath it, and that the latter are the ones by means of which “all the worlds were created”. Thus we see that the five end-forms are the sources of the twenty-two regular forms. Accordingly, the statement in the Talmud that the five end-forms were instituted by the prophets (Shabbat 104a) should be understood to mean that while their shapes were instituted by the prophets, they existed from the first, even before the rest of the universe.

Ari also offers that while the letters played a role in creation, “the combination of them maintains the world” (Ibid. 5:3), and that the letters are in fact “the essences of the Sephirot” (Ibid. 5:7), i.e., their building-blocks if you will.

We’ll now explore what Ramchal offers here in this section about the letters as well as in his other works.

(c) 2011 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

———————————————————-

AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here at a discount.

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here at a discount as well.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”.