12.2.07

see the voices of the light in the letters of the world

Here's something that I've visited from a number of different sources, recently so let's touch on it a little. I always pay attention to Torah about the hebrew letters, so there've been some really nice mentions lately that I'll try and keep short and simple.

The Maor Eynayim explains (parashath Mishpatim) that HaShem created everything in the world through permutations of the hebrew letters. (Something that's mentioned in a number of places including the Sefer Yetzirah and the Tanya, and, I think, the Zohar) Anyways, the way these words were originally spun, woven, or organised by HaShem, they were meant to bring down blessing to everything in existence. That means that in its natural state, everything was designed for our wellbeing.

Because we are given the power of Godly speech, we have the ability to recombine and permute the letters of creation. When we sin, we do so (recombine the normally beneficial and healthy permutations) to our own detriment. (It's like how in a chess game, even though all your pieces are (in theory) at your disposal and meant to further your own goals, if you don't know what you are doing, you can actually trip yourself up; having your own pieces be in the way of the moves you might want to make.)

The Tzaddikim are the ones who take these tangled damaging permutations and return them to their natural (ordered) state of blessing. We too have such a potential, especially through our teshuvah we untangle the harmful letter combinations that our sins created. This the Maor Eynayim explains is what the Talmidei Hachamim are doing when they organize the mitzwoth and halachoth in an easily digestible manner, they are reorganizing the divine permutations back to beneficial springs.

The Noam Elimelech (parashath Vayera) takes this deeper still, by quoting his teacher (The R' Dov Baer, the Maggid of Mesritch, chief disciple of the Baal Shem Tov) that when God created the world, he had to (so to speak) remove himself. Where did HaShem remove himself to? The hebrew letters. He clothed himself in the hebrew letters. He brings the statement from Chazal that through the Hebrew letters God actually can enter into and be in this world. He goes on to explain that when a Tzaddik learns Torah and prays, with holiness and desire, then God enters into his very words and he experiences God through the words of his Torah.

In the past I've mentioned how we can put ourselves into our words and travel in them. Now we learn from the Noam Elimelech that we can also bring God into our words.

Lastly, we can see from the Sfat Emet (over at the Sfas Emes blog) that the sound of God's voice in his words is even more desirable than his words themselves. (His voice being his will and intent, the meaning, whereas the words are solely the vessel.) In short, he says that the idea of נעשה ונשמע - we will do and we will hear - means we keep the mitzwoth, His words, first, in order that afterwords we will be able reach the level of being able to hear His voice. (Which actually connects with our last posts about Rebbe Nachman and purifying the body through mitzwoth in order to receive our soul-transmissions)

To wrap up, the Sefer Yetzirah describes the hebrew letters as stones that are combined to build houses. So be sure to lay those stones straight, be careful with each of them, for waiting within them is blessing direct from the source. Even more than that, within them, if you look carefully, you can find HaShem Himself, manifest in this world, you don't have to stop at hearing the voice, you can even see the voices, as we did at Har Sinai, when we received the Torah.

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