The Torah, our sages tell us, has seventy facets
(Bemidbar Rabbah 13:15), while a later
tradition suggests that there are four levels of interpretation (for
example, Zohar III, 110a (Ra'ya Meheimna) & 202a; and Rabbenu Bachya,
Perush 'Al HaTorah (Blum, 1988), p.xiv.).
In the Ethics of the Fathers, Ben Bag Bag suggests that we 'turn it, turn it, for everything is in it' (Pirke ’Avot 5:22), while another rabbinic source informs us that the Torah is, in fact, infinite:
Everything has a limit. Heaven and earth have limits. But there is one thing that has no limits. What is it? The Torah! (Bereshit Rabbah 10:1)
Or as a Hasidic writer put it:
...In truth the Torah is eternal and exists in all times.
(Ze’ev Wolf of Zhitomir (d.1800), ’Or HaMe’ir (‘The Illuminating Light’) (Warsaw, 1883), pt.2, p.34.)
Judaism's most sacred book, therefore, is meant to contain within it a wealth of wisdom about all aspects of our lives. The product of the Infinite God, it must be open to an infinite number of interpretations, to fit the exigencies of any time, place or person. To many people, these may seem fanciful, even dangerous, notions, but they are of the very essence of Jewish biblical interpretation since the dawn of Rabbinic Judaism, more than two millennia ago. Without such freedom of interpretation, at least in matters of aggadah, non-legal issues, the wealth of Jewish bible commentary and sermonic literature would never have been created, nor would Jewish thought have been able, again and again, to assimilate the best of what the outside world had to offer, in addition to its own creative endeavours, in order to insure that Judaism remained relevant to all but the most assimilated Jew, thus guaranteeing Jewish survival and renewal.
And yet, all but the most basic levels of interpretation are closed to the majority of our people today, partly because works that explore these more esoteric levels are often highly complex, if not untranslatable, and partly because modern students of the Bible find it hard to divorce themselves, even temporarily, from the plain meaning of the text, the stories and laws at their simplest level, or peshat. Thanks to the work of archeologists and historians, we have become much more aware of the Biblical text in its ancient Near Eastern context, but the secret of Jewish survival has historically been rooted in the flexibility of the text and the ingenuity of its students, rather than knowledge of the social and cultural milieu in which it originated. 'Even what an expert student will teach in the future in the presence of his teacher was already said to Moses at Mount Sinai' (Talmud Yerushalmi, Pe'ah 2:6; cf. Talmud, Megillah 19b.) In the traditional view, each generation of teachers is merely making explicit what had previously been implicit in the text.
Another issue we moderns must face in examining material from this great treasury of Torah exegesis is that of the divine origins of the text. The doctrine of the infinity of interpretations is clearly based on the notion that the Torah comes to us directly from God. This idea is a difficult one for us to accept, given what we know about the history and transmission of the text as taught to us by modern biblical scholars. If the Torah was composed in a given period, arising from a distinct set of historical circumstances, how can we see its origins as divine, and its possible interpretations as infinite? Rather than argue the point, I would ask that sceptical readers suspend their critical judgment, and instead enjoy the ingenuity and spiritual insight that our teachers exhibit. If we allow ourselves to do this we may find ourselves led into realms of Judaism that we never knew existed, and in the process learn some important lessons about ourselves.
The work that follows is a modest attempt to redress the imbalance I described by offering a wide variety of interpretations of texts of the Five Books of Moses, interpretations rooted in the mystical side of Jewish tradition. Authors quoted span many centuries and speak from within many schools of thought. There are kabbalists, who write from within the tradition of the Zohar and other works of a similar, gnostic type, making use of 'sefirotic' images and terminology. There are Hasidic teachers, from the modern movement founded by the Ba'al Shem Tov in the eighteenth century in Ukraine. But other groups are represented as well: notably the German pietists or Hasidei Ashkenaz and the Egyptian pietists associated with the son of the great Maimonides. If the Ukrainian & Polish Hasidim dominate the selections, it is because their books are the most numerous and easy to obtain, and because they often address issues of concern to anyone who takes their own spiritual development seriously.
The choice of texts has been a personal one. No claim is made that the texts chosen are representative of their authors, of the movements from which they stem, nor of Jewish mystical bible commentary in general. Instead, I have chosen texts that have spoken to me and addressed what I consider to be important spiritual and moral issues (though admittedly I have sometimes gone beyond the immediate intention of the authors in my interpretations). In fact, nearly all the passages below have served as the basis of sermons I have delivered in some of the congregations in which it has been my privilege to serve over the last few years. My heartfelt thanks go, therefore, to the members of those communities for their patience and forbearance.
It is of the nature of the more esoteric levels of interpretation that they often make use of abstruse concepts, word-plays, numerical values (gematriot) and other methods of extracting meaning from (or reading meaning into) the Torah text. It is hoped that in its final form this work will have a glossary explaining technical terms, as well as a list of authors and works cited with brief biographical and bibliographical information.
In addition, many texts are 'multi-levelled', that is, they comment on earlier expositions and midrashim at least as much as on the Biblical text itself. All of this makes approaching the comments that follow often very difficult for the inexperienced reader. Although I have tried, wherever feasible, to explain things of this nature directly in the texts themselves, I also offer a brief commentary on each passage, drawing attention to required background knowledge, as well as the lesson(s) I felt the text had to teach. Complex and convoluted though many texts undoubtedly are, I believe that they will repay close study.
Most of our authors wrote for (or spoke to) Jewishly well-educated readerships (or audiences), and therefore assume that we will recognise incomplete Biblical or rabbinic quotations. Wherever possible, I have completed the quotations and given references, even where our authors (or printers) have not done so.
The translations have been rendered in non-gender specific language, so that modern women, as well as men, may find something in them without feeling that they are being excluded by the choice of wording. For this and other sound theological reasons, I have avoided translating the four-letter divine name YHVH as Lord, preferring the more neutral GOD, in upper case letters. I have similarly avoided using masculine pronouns for God, except in kabbalistic settings where the differentiation between masculine and feminine aspects is crucial to the understanding of the text.
All quotations from each parashah are presented in small caps, as this style is called, and Hebrew terms in italics, with some letters written in upper case in order to make any word-plays explicit. Additional words to bring out the sense of the original text are presented in square brackets, and my comments are shown in an italicised form of a different font at the end of each translated text.
Finally, I would like to acknowledge the help of numerous individuals who have encouraged and assisted me in the work of producing this anthology. In fact, there are just too many to mention, but I would like to single out the late Rabbi Dr. Louis Jacobs (zecher tzaddik livrachah - may the memory of a righteous man be a blessing), my teacher at the Leo Baeck College who taught me the basic skills of how to read and decipher kabbalistic and Hasidic texts, and Rabbi Lionel Blue whose lectures and writings, and personal chats, have inspired me and helped me to keep the important spiritual goals before me.
As I mentioned above, I have many congregants to thank, most especially those of the Leicester Progressive Jewish Congregation and Shir Hayim, the Hampstead Reform Jewish Community, who have had the kindness not to complain about the constant diet of mysticism I invariably serve up each Shabbat. And at the risk of offending many others, I would like to make mention of Ms Lois George, of Shir Hayim, who first gave me the idea of making a book of these study passages. Thanks are also due to those faithful members of the class I taught at the West London Synagogue over two years during which we explored in some detail many of the texts included here. Miss Elizabeth Arbuthnot was particularly instrumental in checking Biblical quotations.
Despite all the many people to whom I owe a debt of gratitude for having made this book possible, it remains that case that all errors within it are to be laid at my door.
Patience has also been the hallmark of the person to whom I owe the most, my wife, Rabbi Jacqueline Tabick, without whose encouragement this work would never have been written. Many thanks also go to my children, Mikki, Roni and Jeremy, for their understanding.
Thanks and praise are also due to the One, who has given me the strength and the wit to proceed as far as I have done.
L.T.
16 July 2003
16 Tammuz 5763