HESE ARE THE LAWS WHICH YOU SHOULD SET BEFORE THEM
What is meant by ‘set before them’? We might have expected the text to read ‘which you should teach them’, or similar. Further, the text continues: ‘when you [singular ‘you’, as in old English ‘thou’] acquire a Hebrew servant, he should work for six years, and in the seventh he should go free..’ Why is ‘you’ in the singular? G-d’s words to Moses speak of the Jewish people in the plural: ‘which you (Moses) should set before them’. One would expect it to continue ‘when they acquire a Hebrew servant...’ Later the discourse will explain that these words are addressed to Moses himself: when you yourself acquire a Hebrew servant. This is about the relationship of Moses with each Jew, in that Moses is transmitting the Laws to him. The discourse will explain why he is called ‘a Hebrew servant..’
Further, this relationship pertained not only in the time of Moses, but also to the chain of leaders who are called ‘the spreading out of Moses through the generations’, the spiritual leadership of the Jewish people. This passage addresses them as well, and is explaining how they should transmit inspiration to their followers.
The Talmud states that when a teacher is communicating with a disciple, he has to ‘show panim’, quoting our verse as a proof. The word פנים panim can be translated as ‘aspects’ and also as ‘face’. Rashi explains that the teacher should explain the reasons for the ideas he is teaching.
But there is a further aspect of this use of the word ‘face’. This is expressed in the verse ‘the wisdom of a person illuminates his face’. This suggests more than providing reasonable understanding of the topic, looking at the reasons and differing perspectives. This phrase expresses inspiration, that the supernal aspect of ‘hidden Wisdom’ illuminates the person’s face.
The discourse explains that the word ‘face’, in Hebrew, panim, implies penimiyut, פנימיות, inwardness. Because generally one can discern something of the inwardness of a person by looking at their face, unlike the back of their neck. The Talmud tells the story of Rabbi Abahu who discovered a hitherto lost teaching of the Sages before him and this so excited him that his face was radiant.
The normal way that knowledge flows through a person is by a process of successive Tzimtzum, veiling, and then spreading downwards. There is the lightning flash of Wisdom, then broader exploration in the ‘river’ of Understanding, leading to Knowledge which includes Love and Awe. But the supernal source of this flow remains intact above. This is compared to the ‘contracted’ flow of energy which flows from the beard of the scholar, expressing his teachings extending downwards in the task of communication of wisdom.
But on a much higher level is the communication of the hitherto concealed source of that wisdom, the Hidden Wisdom, which does not go through the veiled channel of the beard but instead illuminates the cheeks and other parts of the face with a bright radiance.
This is the higher aspect of Torah which the teacher should try to communicate: the aspect of inspiration. Torah can be seen as flowing down from the worlds Creation, Formation and Action. This is the ‘veiled’ Torah (which is nonetheless infinitely exalted, being the Will and Wisdom of G-d). But even higher is the Torah as it comes unveiled from the World of Atzilut, Emanation.
This is what is meant by our verse, that Moses is told to present the Torah to the Jewish people in such a way that it enters their true inwardness. This means that it comes from the Essence of the Torah, and the Essence of the Divine, and it enters and illuminates the Essence of the Jew to whom it is taught.
In this sense all Torah teaching is a genuine continuation of the experience described in last week’s Sedra Yitro, with the amazing intensity of the revelation of the Divine at the Giving of the Torah and the Ten Commandments. Chassidus explains that this is repeated each time a person studies Torah, of whatever kind; but especially when the Torah has the inspirational effect described here.
Through this we can understand why G-d then speaks to Moses about ‘when you [Moses] acquire a Hebrew servant’. Each Jew is a Hebrew, עברי ivry, literaly meaning from beyond the river. This is an exalted spiritual river and the Jewish people come from that Beyond. The servant then serves six years in this world, meaning the six millennia of purifying the world in preparation for Moshiach. Then in the seventh, the seventh millennium, the servant goes free, because the work of Tikkun, repair, has been fully achieved, and then instead of ‘work’ there will be the day which is fully Shabbat peace.
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