First Reading: The Space Between the Letters
In a Torah scroll, the letters are handwritten with black ink. The scroll itself is white. Therefore, the letters are described as “black on white.” There is a secret in Kabbalah regarding the white space in between the black letters. This space is known as “the air between the letters.” The meaning of this space and how to read it is one of the secrets that the Mashiach will reveal.
We are required to make sure that the black ink of every letter in the Torah scroll is surrounded by parchment on all four sides. No letter should touch its neighbors. A space that is at least a hair’s breadth must separate them. Therefore, if two letters are slightly touching in a Torah scroll or on a mezuzah or in tefillin, the entire scroll, mezuzah, or tefillin are rendered invalid. How should we understand the white space separating the letters in the Torah scroll?
The sages say that before the creation of the world—before there were physical parchment and ink—the Torah was written as “black fire on white fire” (יֵּבַּל גַה עָרֹחוְׁשׁשֵא הָנָבְ לׁשֵא). Chasidic thought explains that the “black fire” represents God’s “light that fills all worlds” (יןִמְלָל עָא כֵּּלַמְּמַר הֹאו). This is the light that was revealed by the contraction of God’s infinite light and now serves as the primary mode of God’s revelation. The infinite light that was contracted is represented by the “white fire.” It is also known as God’s “light that surrounds all worlds” (יןִמְלָל עָב כֵּבֹוּסַר הֹאו). When we think of the Torah as it existed (and continues to exist) prior to creation, clearly the infinite light, the white fire, contains infinite meaning.
The space separating the letters is known as the “air” (ירִוֲא) between the letters. It is the white fire that preceded creation and is referred to in Kabbalah as the “primordial air” (ןֹמוְדַיר קִוֲא). A synonym for “air” is “spirit” (ַחּרו), which also means “side.” Indeed, the air surrounds each letter on all four sides. The same word, “spirit” (ַחּרו) can also be pronounced as “separation” (חַוֶר), as in the verse, “Place a space [or separation] between the flocks” (רֶדֵין עֵבּר וֶדֵין עֵּ בּימוִׂשָּח תַוֶרְו).
The space separating Jacob’s flocks is like the air/whitespace between the Torah’s letters.
Let us apply the notion of “separation” between the Torah’s letters mathematically. As an example, we will consider the Torah’s first word, “In the beginning” (יתִׁאשֵרְּב). A little thought will convince us that to “read” the air between the letters, we will need to consider the ordinal values of the letters.
The ordinal value of the first letter, bet (ב) is 2. The ordinal value of the second letter, reish (ר), is 20. The white-space, separation, or difference between them is 18, which is the ordinal value of tzaddik (צ). Thus, between the Torah’s first and second letters, there is a hidden, airy tzaddik.
The next letter is an alef (א), whose ordinal value is 1. The difference between the reish, 20, and the alef, 1, is 19, which is the ordinal value of kuf (ק).
Thus, the first two hidden or primordial air letters in the Torah are tzaddik and kuf, which in reverse order spell the word for “end” (ץֵק), as in the “end of days” (ץֵקיןִמָּיָה). The reverse order follows the very appropriate saying, “the end is enwedged into the beginning.”
So, the Torah begins and immediately conceals between its letters the secret of the “end of days,” the Messianic era, when God’s infinite light will again be revealed. It is appropriate that the first secret revealed by the air between the letters will be related to Mashiach. The first time the word for “air” or “spirit” appears in the Torah is a verse later, “And the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters” (םִיָּמַי הֵנְּל פַת עֶפֶחַרְים מִהֹלֱ אַחּרוְו), which according to the sages alludes to the “spirit of Mashiach” (ַיחִׁשָל מֶׁשֹחוּרו). The Mashiach has a special affinity to spirit, and thus to the air between the letters, as found in the verse, “And a shoot shall spring forth from the stump of Jesse, and a twig from his roots shall bear fruit. And the spirit of God shall rest upon him, a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and might, a spirit of knowledge and fear of God. And he shall be inspired with fear of the Lord, and he shall not judge with the sight of his eyes nor reprove with the hearing of his ears.”
As noted, this is the separation between the flocks—the air, or white fire, which serves as the background on which the black fire of the Torah’s letters is written.
Gematria Short
Traditional Torah literature presents a few different answers to the question that asks why God created the world. In the midrash, we find the explanation, “The Holy, Blessed One, craved to make Himself a dwelling place below” (ה הקב"הָּוַאְתִניםִנֹוּתְחַתְּה בָירִּ דֹת לוֹיוְהִל). Of the different reasons given for creation, we have explained elsewhere, that this one is considered the deepest.
Considering the operative verbs in this phrase, “craved” (הָּוַאְתִנ) and “to make” (תֹיוְהִל), we find that their numerical sum is 913, the value of the Torah’s first word, “In the beginning” (יתִׁאשֵרְּב). Amazingly, the value of the entire phrase is 3 times 913, 3 times the gematria of the Torah’s first word.
Second Reading: The Tree of Life and the Seven Species of the Land of Israel
The second reading of parashat Bereishit describes the Garden of Eden and particularly the two special trees in it—the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge.
Much later in the Pentateuch, we learn of the Seven Species plants with which the Land of Israel is blessed: “A land of wheat and barley, and vines, and figs, and pomegranates, a land of olive trees, and honey.” The sages identified the Tree of Knowledge—which brought death into the world—with a number of these blessed species. There is an opinion that the Tree of Knowledge was the vine, an opinion that it was the fig, and an opinion that it was wheat. This leaves us with something of a negative feeling regarding these species, which are otherwise blessed.
However, the true source of all Seven Species is to be found in the Tree of Life. The fruit of the Land of Israel, which is described as “the Land of life” all comes from the Tree of Life. In fact, there is a beautiful phenomenon in the Torah regarding the Seven Species: the words, “Tree of Life” (יםִּיַחַץ הֵע) appears exactly 7 times in the Tanach thus corresponding to the 7 Species of the Land of Israel.
The first 3 instances are in parashat Bereishit. The other 4 appearances are all in the book of Proverbs where it appears as “Tree of Life” (יםִּיַץ חֵע), without the additional declarative hei.
(excerpted)
