Sixth Reading: The Source of Kabbalistic Doubt
Five Verses that Have No Distinctive Interpretation
Our verse is one of the five verses that have no decisive interpretation. It reads, “And on [the body of] the Menorah, four cups made like almond blossoms, its knobs and its flowers.” Let's explain: It is evident that the Menorah explicitly includes ornaments that that are shaped like almond-blossoms and like flowers.
Now, even though under the word “cups” there is an etnachta—the cantillation mark indicating a pause—Isi ben Yehudah says that this is one of the five verses that have no decisive interpretation. He is quoted saying, “I do not know if [it should be read as] ‘cups made like almond blossoms’ or ‘almond blossoms [on both] its knobs and its flowers’.” Why say that the almond blossoms are related to the cups despite the etnachta? Because in all other places the wording is “cups made like almond blossoms.”
The Unknowable Head
We said that there are five verses that have no decisive interpretation. The doubt they raise indicate that the root of these verses is in the highest of the three “heads” of the crown, the so-called “head that is not known,” abbreviated as Radla. How do we know it's a doubt related to Radla? Because in the Radla, the Arizal writes that there are five doubts regarding how it was constructed from the shattered vessels of the World of Chaos. This is so significant that it can be said that the source for the Arizal's teaching that there are five doubts in Radla, is in these five verses.
This verse is the principal among the five. It is the only one that Rashi in his commentary on the Pentateuch explicitly notes as a verse without a distinctive interpretation.
Now, the value of the verse, “And on the Menorah four cups made like almond blossoms, its knobs and its flowers” divides into one of the words of the verse—a very important phenomenon for us, called self- reference, where one word in the verse is the common denominator of the entire verse. That word is “four.” The novelty of this verse is that despite each side branch of the Menorah having three cups, the central branch has four. This also alludes to the verse, “Three are too wonderous for me and four I do not know them” which apparently is saying that the “four” is not known, because it is a doubt rooted in the Radla—the Unknowable Head.
Moreover “four” has the same value as “the sequestered light.” The entire verse equals 8 times “four,” or 8 times 278. Amazingly, the numerical value of the Talmud’s statement that, “This is one of the five verses without a decisive interpretation” is 7 times “four,” or 7 times 278, or the value of the entire verse without the word “four.”
(from a class given on 28 Sivan 5783)
