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to Inner Dimension Audio Audio-Aid Summaries, Charts, Translations and aids for recorded lectures by Rabbi Ginsburgh |
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The
Secret of the Altar of Joy The Weekly Torah Portion of: Ki Tavoh Mount
Eval is the mountain of curse. Concealed in the deep significance of the
altar built there, though, we understand that Mount Eval is a source of joy.
What is it about Mount Eval that transforms it from a barren mountain to the
concealed potential of the Tree of Life? In this audio meditation on the
Torah portion of Ki Tavo, Rabbi Ginsburgh delves into the deep significance
of the miraculous altar on Mount Eval and how this image reflects the
epitome of our service of God and its resulting joy. The Miraculous Altar
on Mt. Eval In
the Torah portion of Re'eh, we learned about the blessings and curse
that the Jewish People received on the mountains of Gerizim and Eval. This
week's Torah portion focuses on Mount Eval with the commandment to build an
altar of massive, uncut stones on the mountain. This altar is unique in that
God commanded us to write all the words of the Torah on its stones of the
altar. Thus, the altar on Mount Eval serves a two-fold purpose: Sacrifices,
representing our service of God, are brought upon it, while it is also a
physical symbol conveying God's teachings for the Jewish People and all
humanity.
The
last two words of the commandment to write the words of the Torah on the
stones are "ba'er hetev," ("totally explain"). Rashi, the famous Biblical
commentator, explains that this phrase is God's directive to write the
entire Torah on the stones of this altar in 71 languages -- Hebrew and the
70 languages of all the peoples on earth. This teaches
us that the words of the Torah are for
all mankind, and should reach all peoples of the earth. The fact that
the entire Torah could be engraved on this altar 71 times is miraculous.
The Iron Stones that
Cannot be Touched by Iron The
stones for the altar on Mount Eval were taken from the bed of the Jordan
River. God specified that these stones must be large and complete, with no
iron tool having been wielded over them. The prohibition against cutting
stones for an altar with iron tools applies to the altar of the holy Temple
in Jerusalem as well. Our Sages explain that iron tools such as knives and
swords are used to shorten life. They are thus antithetical
to the altar, whose purpose is to lengthen life, both quantitatively and
qualitatively. However, in seeming contrast to this concept, the Torah
portion of Ekev (Deuteronomy
8:9) describes the stones of the Land of Israel as being
made of iron.
There
are seven metals mentioned in the Torah, corresponding to the seven
attributes of the heart. Iron is the last metal, and corresponds to the
attribute of malchut, "kingdom."
Kingdom
is the attribute of the heart most vulnerable to negativity. Kingdom
can be positive, but more often we experience negative kingdom, as the drive
to rule derives from egocentricity in the soul. This results in the negative
kingdom using iron to shorten life.
The Ten Commandments The first time that the words of the Torah
were hewed in stone was on the two tablets of the Ten Commandments. There
were five commandments written on each tablet. In the unit of verses
commanding us to engrave the words of the Torah on the stones of the altar
on Mount Eval, the word for "stones," avanim, is written five times,
each time in the plural form. In the Talmud we
learn that every time something is mentioned in the plural form, it refers
to two, which is the minimal plurality. In
two of the five instances that "stones" is written, it appears as "the
stones," ha'avanim. Our
Sages teach that this means an additional one. Thus, there are ten stones
alluded to by the five references to avanim, plus an additional two
stones alluded to by the two times that the word is written as ha'avanim.
In all, this makes 12
stones, one for each tribe of Israel. The fact that avanim appears twice as ha'avanim alludes to the division of the ten stones into two sections of five and five, identical to the division of the Ten Commandments. Thus we see that the stones of the altar on Mount Eval are a more complete manifestation of the Ten Commandments.
The Hebrew words for "altar of stones" in our
verse are mizbach avanim, whose numerical value is 160, the same
value as eitz, "tree." Although Mount Eval is barren, the altar to be
built specifically upon this mountain equals and alludes to "tree."
The
altar upon which the Torah is engraved for all the peoples of the earth
gives spiritual sustenance to the entire world. The tree of this
barren mountain is the Tree of Life. After the Torah refers to this altar as an "altar
of stones," it also calls it an "altar of God, your God," mizbach Hashem
Elokecha. The numerical value of this phrase is 149. When 149 is added
to the value of mizbach avanim (160
-- eitz), we receive 309, the numerical value of sadeh, "field." Thus, the two phrases describing the
altar point to the tree of the field, discussed in the Torah portion of Shoftim.
Plastered Stones Uniquely, God commands that the stones
of the altar on Mount Eval be covered with sid, "plaster." The
letters of sid (shin, yud,
dalet) are a permutation of the
letters of God's Name, Shakai (shin, dalet, yud).
The numerical value of sid is 314, the same as hasadeh, "the
field." Hence, we see that the plastered altar of stones on Mount Eval
alludes to the tree of the field. As we learned in our meditation on the
Torah portion of Shoftim, the tree of the field represents man. The
phrase "tree of the field" equals the "pleasure and serenity of the
Almighty," noam Shakai. In
our context, the word noam means the pleasure of the Torah itself,
whose "ways are ways of pleasantness." This pleasantness now manifests on
the mountain of the curse in this miraculous altar. Transforming the Curse to
Joy The image of the altar of stones on Mount
Eval is the culmination of our meditations on the Torah portions of
Ekev, Re'eh and Shoftim. This one image represents the
epitome of our Divine service -- our sacrifices to God -- and the joy of
entering the Land of Israel to serve Him, as described at the beginning of
this Torah portion. Joy is the inner dimension of binah ("understanding").
Mount Eval represents binah. Even
though it appears to be a source of curse, it is actually a source of joy.
This joy reaches out through the words of Torah engraved on the altar on
Mount Eval's summit to encompass all the nations of the earth.
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