Who knows two? Not everything! TY Shekalim 16

 Today’s daf TY Shekalim 16 discusses different aspects of the two Tablets containing the 10 Commandments Moses brought down from upon Mount Sinai.  [1]

Rabbi Haninah said that the first five commandments were inscribed on one Tablet and the last five commandments were inscribed on the second Tablet. But the rabbis taught that the 10 Commandments were inscribed on each Tablet. Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai gave a third opinion that there were 20 commandments inscribed on both Tablets. “That is, the 10 Commandments were written twice on the front of each Tablet. Alternately, they appeared once on the front of the Tablet and once on the back. According to Radbaz, they were actually written on only one side, but they penetrated the Tablet, and-miraculously-could be read in the normal way even from the opposite side. (Art Scroll commentary, note 23) Rabbi Simai ups the ante by saying that there were 40 Commandments inscribed, 10 on each side and 10 on each edge!

 The sugiyah ends with a great mystical understanding of the Torah. Rabbi Pinkhas said in the name of Rabbi Shimon b. Lakish: The Torah that the Holy One, blessed be He, gave to Moses was given to him from white fire inscribed by black fire. It (the Torah) is fire mixed with fire, hewn from fire and given by fire, as is written, “From His right a fiery law to them.” Deuteronomy 32:2) (Art Scroll translation)

In the Zohar (Naso 132b) we find a statement that the Torah was written with "black fire upon white fire." One explanation of "black fire and white fire" is that black fire denotes Divine Mercy while white fire is Divine Justice. The Maharsha explains that to appreciate G-d one must recognize the fact that both mercy and judgment are Divine attributes.

I found this teaching by the great early 20^th century mystic Rabbi Kook, who became the first chief Rabbi of Israel. I thought I would share with you

 

When we think about a Torah scroll, we usually only consider the letters themselves, written in black ink. Yet, the Talmud (Menachot 29a) rules that every letter in a Torah scroll must be completely surrounded by parchment. This requirement is called mukaf gevil. In other words, the white parchment around the letters is an integral part of the Torah; without it, the Torah scroll is disqualified. In fact, the white space is a higher form of Torah. It is analogous to the white fire of Sinai — a sublime, hidden Torah that cannot be read in the usual manner.

There is a delicate balance between black and white in the Torah. The shirot, the poetic portions in the Torah, are written in a special fashion, like a wall constructed from layers of black and white bricks. These poetic sections are the loftiest parts of the Torah. Consequently, they have more white space, as they contain a greater measure of the esoteric white fire. If a scribe were to write other sections of the Torah in this special layout, the Torah scroll would be rendered invalid. After the Torah was revealed and restricted to our limited world, it must be written with the appropriate ratio of black to white.

What about the four-pronged shin on tefillin? The mitzvah of tefillin is closely connected to the manifestation of Torah after its revelation into the finite world. “All of the peoples of the land shall see that the name of God is called upon you, and they shall be in awe of you” (Deut. 28:10; see Menachot 35b). Thus, tefillin correspond to the lower realm of black fire, and are marked with a shin bearing an extra measure of black.

We can deepen our understanding of the white and black fires by considering another example of white space in the Torah. Extra space is left blank to separate sections of the Torah. The Sages explained that these separations allowed Moses to reflect upon and absorb the previous lesson. In other words, the white fire corresponds to the loftier realm of thought and contemplation. The black fire of the letters, on the other hand, is the revelation of intellect into the realm of language — a contraction and limitation of abstract thought into the more concrete level of speech. http://www.ravkooktorah.org/VAYIK64.htm

We would do well to reflect upon the white spaces of the Torah as much as we do the black letters so that we can absorb all the lessons contained therein.

 

 

 

 

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[1] How can you study the 10 Commandments without watching Mel Brook’s reenactment in his movie the history of the world part two!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w556vrpsy4w