January 12, 2010

• The Soul at Birth

  Kabbalistically speaking, the Talmud (tractate Niddah 30b)  says that the best moments of one’s life are those spent as a fetus in the womb.  Then, there is benefit without loss, the developing child ingests food but does not expel excrement.  The embryo gains insight, a personal angel sits with him or her and a glowing candle atop allows them to see from one end of the world to the other.   The seraph also teaches this nascent human all of the Torah and during its exit from the womb leads the young soul in a final oath:

  I will be a Tzadik. A righteous individual.  I will never take pride for virtue even if the whole world calls me a saint. In my eyes I will (always) remain like a Rasha, a wicked person, (who must still grow and improve).”   

  Upon entry to this world, the child is touched by his celestial mentor and the candle, angel, Torah, and oath  vanish from memory.

              From this Talmudic passage three questions arise: Since we as adults have no memory of this prenatal oath why were we led to accept it?  And if, according to Jewish law, only the oaths of adults can create legal and binding obligations, then what was the point of having an unborn child swear?  Lastly, considering that an oath usually serves as a guarantor to the truth of one’s words, why is the pure soul of the child not accepted as trustworthy without the oath?

            The questions may be answered as follows: an oath is not merely a verbal guarantee it is a process that imbues an individual with added strength.  This definition of the oath-taking process emerges from two sources, the usage of such verbal commitments in the Bible and the etymology of shevua, the Hebrew word for oath.

  Oaths in the Torah

  In the book of Genesis, after the death of Sarah, Abraham sends his trusted servant Eliezer to find a wife for Yitzchok, Abraham’s son.  Abraham saw the rampant corruption among the indigenous Canaanites, and he sought a suitable daughter-in-law from a different society.   Not satisfied merely to request that Eliezer not engage a Canaanite, Abraham led him in an oath: 

   I will make you swear by God, the God of heaven and earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from among the daughters of the Canaanites in whose midst I dwell.  But you should go into my country and to my relatives and take a wife for my son for Yitzchok.Genesis, 24:3-4

  Abraham’s insistence on this oath is troubling. Did he not trust Eliezer’s solemn commitment?  Eliezer had been Abraham’s most loyal student.  Genesis 15:2 and the commentary of Rashi s.v. “uven meshek beisi” and “DamsekThe two had fought together and depended on each other in battle.Genesis 14:14 and Rashi’s commentary on that verse Abraham had trusted Eliezer’s loyalty to defend his life. Did he not trust Eliezer’s word?  One might argue that Eliezer was not trustworthy absent an oath since he was not a member of Abraham’s family.  But then how can we explain the case of Jacob and Joseph? 

   According to Jewish mystics, Joseph was the paradigm of virtue and righteousness, the personification of Tzadik Yesod Olam, i.e. a man of such holiness that his merit sustains the entire world.  Joseph was also Jacob’s favorite son and they shared a special relationship. Genesis 30:25 and Rashi’s comment on that verse; Genesis 37:2 and the respective Rashi; also Genesis 37:11, 37:35, 45:27-28 When Jacob lay dying he called Joseph and requested burial in the Land of Israel.  Although Joseph promised that he would ensure his father’s internment in Israel, Genesis 47:30 Jacob was not satisfied and demanded that an oath be sworn in God’s name:

  And he (Jacob) said “Swear to me” and he (Joseph) swore to him, and Yisrael (another name for Jacob) bowed back toward the head of the bed. Genesis 47:31

   

  Did Jacob really suspect that Joseph would not fulfill his final request?  It is a mitzvah to fulfill the last wishes of a dying man.Tractate Gittin 15a  Did Jacob fear that the paradigmatic Tzadik would not fulfill a moral charge?  Did he think that his most beloved son’s word could not be trusted?

   Evidently, oaths function in the Bible as more than  mere guaranties of truth-telling. They give the oath-taker added strength to attain what might otherwise be too difficult to accomplish.  Abraham trusted Eliezer, and Jacob trusted Joseph, yet the goals that Joseph and Eliezer were charged to achieve were seemingly unattainable.  To find a suitable spouse for his master’s son, Eliezer had to overcome his personal interests, having a daughter of marriageable age, and the opposition of the boorish Bethuel and Lavan, relatives of Abraham who rejected Abaham’s mission. Furthermore, Eliezer had to leave Avraham’s house and in the home of Bethuel convince Bethuel and Lavan to allow Rivkah to marry Yitzchok.  The home of Avraham was suffused with a spirit of sanctity, the home of Bethuel was a den of iniquity.  Avraham feared that the atmosphere of Bethuel’s home would affect Eliezer; in Aram Eliezer would not be able to overcome his own biases and he would falter and leave the task unfulfilled.(Rav Wolfson)   To bury Jacob in Israel, Joseph had to overcome the opposition of Pharoh, a tyrant who believed that Jacob’s physical presence in Egypt brought blessings to the land and prevented the recurrence of famine.  Absent their oaths, Eliezer and Joseph might have tried their best but given up had their initial efforts proved unsuccessful.  Perhaps they would have invoked the Talmud’s rule that “the coerced are not liable.”  Their oaths called forth added strength from the core of their souls.  The extra determination and fortitude enabled them to successfully complete their missions.

  The Words Shevua and Sheva:

  Hebrew words are developments and variations of three letter roots.  The root of the word shevua (oath) is also the root of the word sheva (seven).  The verbal confluence reflects a connection between an oath and the symbolic message of the number seven.  

   The number seven recalls the days of the week and also God’s creation of the world during which, on each of the seven successive days, He formed a different elemental spiritual force.  These spiritual forces devolved into the material world. The number seven symbolizes these spiritual forces and the totality of the natural world.See the Collected Writings of Rabbi Samson Rapheal Hirsch (1808-1888), volume 3, pg. 96-111.  Rabbi Hirsch develops the theory that the number seven represents completeness, as in the verse (prov.9:1) “Wisdom has hewed out its seven pillars.”  The seven pillars of wisdom represent all the knowledge in the world.    Rabbi Hirsch then symbolically interprets details of many laws such as the seven sprinklings of blood of animals offered as offerings, and the seven branches of the menorah as representing a totality.

   How is an oath related to seven? Oath-taking invokes all of the natural forces within man. 

  In critical situations people may discover the enormous potential strength latent within them.  An ordinary housewife might manage to dash through flames that engulf her apartment to rescue a child trapped in the inferno.  Caring relatives might spend weeks with inadequate nourishment and sleep to take care of a sick family member.  During moments of trial the adrenaline in our bloodstream increases to give us added vigor and enables us to perform at seemingly superhuman levels.  Usually, in daily living, we utilize only a fraction of our physical strength, mental concentration, and spiritual capacity - that is unless we swear. 

  Oath taking calls forth and dedicates every ounce of willpower and strength.  If one swears in God’s name that a statement is true, that person is committing his or her entire being to the fulfillment of these words.  This passionate commitment proves the integrity of their pledge. 

  According to the sages, when God declared in the Ten Commandments, “Do not take my name (through swearing) in vain” the entire universe shook. Tractate Shavuot page 38b. Why did this command frighten the entirety of creation? Perhaps because a shevua summons all sheva, i.e. all the seven spiritual roots of creation, and invests them in the cause.  Nachmonides in his commentary to Numbers 30:3 writes, “The secret is that the word shevuah is from the word sheva.” C.f. Emunath Ethecha parshas Chaya Sarah page 70 s.v. Vichen Matzinu A human is a miniature universe.  Since I parallel the world, whatever I do with my soul causes a corresponding effect on the soul of the world. When I swear I arouse all the parts of my heart, the physical world then finds all the sources of its existence aroused as well.  A false oath weakens every root of mine and that causes all the channels through which God pours life down to the world to shake with instability.  

  Hebrew has a variety of letter sounds that are similar and therefore interchangeable.  Commentators sometimes replace letters in a word with similar sounding letters in order to obtain an additional layer of meaning. The name for this concept is Otiyot Mitchalfot- letters which interchange. An example is the letters, ayin, chet, heh, and alef; all of which are interchangeable with each other. Otiyot mitchalphot is the guiding principle of Rabbi Samson Rapheal Hirsch’s analysis of the Hebrew language, see the Introduction to the Etymological Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew by Matityahu Clark.  See also Rashi on Leviticus 19:16 who explains that the letters bet and peh interchange as well as the letters gimmel, chaf, kuf; nun, lamed; resh, zayin and tzadi. One such interchangeable pair is the letters bet and peh.In the ktav ashury form of the Hebrew script, within the black ink of the letter peh, is a white letter bet.  Through their interchange sheva acquires a relationship to the word shefa, an overflow of energy. Every shevua, is really an awakening of a Divine emanation of spiritual energy and the source for renewed strength and commitment.

  The meaning of the unborn child’s oath

    The oath of the yet to be born child is a charge of strength that gives each human added energies and determination to succeed in this life.  This world can be a house of horrors that is filled with trials and doubts that undermine faith.  The wicked often seem to prosper and the righteous to suffer.  Maintaining the inner faith that is harbored within our souls and following the faint voice of conscience despite the deafening protestations of lust and self - interest are most difficult feats.  To resist the seductions of the profane and fully devote our energies to God’s work we need a commitment of the entirety of the spiritual forces within man.  Before birth, we did not lift our hands onto a Torah scroll and swear, but every fiber of our being was charged with passion for our mission.  We may have forgotten the encounter with the angel but the invigoration from that parting persists.  Each individual is primed, with every fiber of his or her heart, to become a Tzadik.

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