As first discussed in our Rosh HaShanah 5786 issue, the main phrase describing the current year, ו"תשפ, is “May this be a year to be fruitful and multiply” (בוּרוּ פּוּרוּ). Just before Rosh HaShanah, Rav Ginsburgh posted an in-depth tweet analyzing this quote from the Torah and taking a deep dive into its significance.
The family is a manifestation of Godliness and the Divine Presence in the mundane. By starting a family and having children, we are not only creating a lasting bond with our spouse, but we are also bringing peace and love into the world, both to our own personal and individual lives and homes and to others that we meet. Having a family is foundational to the brotherly love between humans that is the great principle of Torah, according to Rabbi Akiva. It is also the vehicle through which we can come to rectify our egos, learning how to curb our sense of self and tempering it into a source of creativity and nurturing.
This piece originally appeared as a post on HaRav Ginsburgh’s Hebrew Twitter account (@RavGinsburgh) and was subsequently edited and published in the Rosh HaShanah 5786 issue of Nifla’ot.
Marrying and having children is the first mitzvah in the Torah. As the Torah relates, “God blessed them [Adam and Eve] and He said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and rule it; rule over the fish of the seas and the birds of the heavens and over every animal that crawls on the earth.’” As we will see, the blessing and commandment to marry and have offspring is at the very core of the purpose of all of Creation. When we perform this commandment or help others by either facilitating their finding their match, or by supporting them as they have more children, we are increasing the Presence of God in the world. Since this is the special phrase alluded to clearly in the number of this year, we find it appropriate to designate this year, 5786, as the year of the family.
The Family Manifests God’s Essential Name
Though we might think that Adam and Eve were the first and only ones to be blessed and commanded with this phrase, the words “be fruitful and multiply” appear four times in the Torah. The first time, God says it to the fish on the fifth day of creation. The second time, He addresses Adam and Eve on the sixth day. The third and fourth times are directed to Noah and his descendants as they emerge from the ark: “God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth’” and “Be fruitful and multiply, abound on the earth and multiply on it.”
The value of the words, “be fruitful and multiply” (בוּרוּ פּוּרוּ) is 500. Four times these words equal therefore 2000, alluding to the secret of the major letter beit with which the Torah begins. The four times as well as the major beit are indicative of the basic structure of the human family: a father, a mother, a son, and a daughter, which correspond to the four letters in the Tetragrammaton, God’s essential Name, Havayah. As the Torah testifies, without this mitzvah—to be fruitful and multiply by striving to have a normative family consisting of a father, mother, and two children—God’s Name is fragmented, “Hand upon the throne of Kah [י-ה], Havayah is at war with Amalek from generation to generation.”
One of the central meanings of this verse is that Amalek sow’s doubt in the hearts of the Jewish people, preventing them from passing the word of God from generation to generation, thereby fragmenting the first two letters of God’s essential Name—the yud and the hei [Kah], representing the father and mother—from the final two letters—vav and hei—representing the children.
The Family Tree
There is an opinion among the commentaries that the power of the father is to be fruitful, and the power of the mother is to multiply. This explains why the main responsibility of the commandment, which is to be fruitful, is placed upon the man. Thus, “be fruitful” corresponds to the sefirah of wisdom, the father principle, while “and multiply” corresponds to the sefirah of understanding, the mother principle.
However, there is another option. Before reviewing and explaining this second option, we need to recall that one of the most common ways to depict a family is the tree metaphor. It is so common that we are all familiar with the concept of a family “tree.” The branches of the tree usually indicate a connection between individuals, whether through marriage or through birth and the fruit are the individuals themselves. The English translation “be fruitful and multiply,” already captures the fruit part of the family tree metaphor. However, it is less commonly known that the word for “multiply” (בוּרוּ) is the Aramaic word for “beauty” (tiferet). However, interestingly, the first word usually translated as “be fruitful” (פּוּרוּ) actually is related to both the fruits and to the branches, as in the phrase, “and sent out branches.”
Following these observations, the second option is to correspond “be fruitful” with the sefirah of knowledge (da’at), since the Zohar states that “one who lacks knowledge [i.e., da’at or consciousness] cannot bear fruit [i.e., have viable offspring]” and “multiply” with the sefirah of beauty (tiferet). Then the relationship between them is like that between Moses and Jacob: “Moses on the interior [the sefirah of knowledge acting as the soul to] Jacob on the exterior [the sefirah of beauty acting as the body].” Indeed the Hebrew word for “beauty,” tiferet (תפארת) is cognate with the word for “branch” (פאר). The relationship between being fruitful and multiplying is like that of multiple branches of a tree carrying its many fruits.
Following this second correspondence, we can understand why the Torah’s first commandment is to be fruitful and multiply. The Torah’s goal is to increase our “consciousness,” specifically of course consciousness of God. Knowledge becomes the soul of beauty just as, “And Adam knew Eve, his wife, she conceived and gave birth” and then “she gave birth again.”
Family, Love, and Peace
Perhaps more than anything, the year of the family suggests the love between husband and wife when joined with the Divine Presence in their intimate privacy. It is then that their souls burn with love for one another, which when spontaneously aroused, brings the Divine Presence and its effect of peace to the entire household.
We find this beautifully suggested in that, “Be fruitful and multiply” (בוּרוּ פּוּרוּ) also equals twice the value of “candle” (נר). A candle symbolizes the soul, and the two candles are the souls of the husband and the wife. When uniting, both husband and wife should strive to rekindle and increase the flame of their respective love for one another. The flame of the soul’s love should be kindled in the manner described by the sages as, “until the flame rises of its own accord.” The letters of the word for “of its own accord” (מאלהיה) permute to spell Elokim (אלהים), indicating that this love, when it rises spontaneously and naturally, is Godly and is the sign that the Divine Presence dwells between them. This type of love includes and envelops the first three levels of the soul known as nefesh, ru’ach, and neshamah. Indeed, the word for flame (להבה) has the same value as the phrase that describes our love for God, “with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your might” (בכל לבבך ובכל נפשך ובכל מאדך); each of these aspects of love corresponds to one of the three lower levels of the soul. Flame is also the value of the three “lights” found within a candle and known as “chashmal,” “fire,” and “glow” (שלשה נגה). The light that radiates from the candles and fills the home is the light of “peace in the home” (שלום בית) created by the candle. This radiance (known in Hebrew as זהר) corresponds to the two highest levels of the soul.
In practice, this higher radiance shines through the house when the wife lights (at least) two Shabbat candles.
Family and Brotherly Love
In the previous section, we saw that there are four levels of light in the flame of love between husband and wife that radiate outwards to fill the home with peace and serenity. As we shall now see, strong family values also affect the way we interact with others outside our home. In other words, the strength of the family has a direct impact on how we are able to act with love for our fellows—the mitzvah of “love your fellow as yourself.” This is hinted to in the sum of the values of the four levels of light— “chashmal, fire, glow, radiance” (שלשה נגה זהר)—949, which is also the value of “love your fellow as yourself ” (ואהבת לרעך כמוך).
Amazingly, this is also the value of “the love of a man for a woman” (אהבת גבר לאשה) as well as, of course, “the love of a woman for a man” (אהבת אשה לגבר)!
Family and the Rectification of the Self
The connection between the strength of the family and the love of others outside the home leads us to one other effect that the family has, this time upon each of us as individuals, and specifically, on the well-being of our sense of self—our ego. The famous words, “Love your fellow as yourself ” are followed by the signature phrase, “I am Havayah [God]” (אני הוי'). The plain meaning of this signature is that God Himself is guaranteeing the reward for whomever keeps this commandment. The deeper meaning is that by keeping this commandment, one merits to resemble God’s very essence.
The first thing to notice is that the letters of “I” (אני), the Hebrew pronoun designating the “self,” when multiplied by one another in order—i.e., alef (א) times nun (נ) times yud (י)—equal 500, the value of “be fruitful and multiply” (בוּרוּ פּוּרוּ). This reveals a reciprocal connection between love and care for others and the strength of one’s family. Now, if we do the same for God’s essential Name, Havayah (the second word in the phrase)—yud (י) times hei (ה) times vav (ו) times hei (ה)—the product is 1500, which is another 3 times “be fruitful and multiply” (בוּרוּ פּוּרוּ). Thus, the two words together equal 2000, once again, the value of the major beit, the Torah’s first letter, as explained earlier.
The rectification of the self, the ego, requires self-nullification (coupled with lowliness, a topic we discuss in length elsewhere). The famous allusion to this is that when the letters of “I” (אני) are permuted, they spell the word for “non-being” or “nothingness” (אין). The way in which we learn to temper and control our ego is through self-nullification before God, dedicating ourselves to His will as revealed in the Torah’s commandments. This principle has a very powerful textual allusion: the very first time this word—“non-being” (אין)—appears in the Torah, it is the 500th word in the Torah. Even the context points to the necessary task of nullifying oneself since the phrase is, “And there was no man...” (ואין אדם).
The direct connection between building a family through being fruitful and multiplying and the self brings us full circle to our first observation—that the phrase, “be fruitful and multiply” was said twice to Noah and his offspring, twice. The first time the word “I” (אני) appears in the Torah is when God addresses Noah and his offspring to make the covenant of the rainbow with them, ensuring that there will never be another flood, “God said, ‘This is the sign of the covenant that I am giving between Myself and you’” (ויאמר אלהים זאת אות הברית אשר אני נתן ביני וביניכם). The rainbow covenant is specifically related to the rectification of the sefirah of foundation (yesod) and the procreative organs. Of course, once again, multiplying the letters of “I” produces 500, the value of “be fruitful and multiply.” Amazingly, the word after “I” is “am giving” (נתן), whose value is also 500!
The context of this first “I” in the Torah suggests that in order to truly unite and conceive a family, the husband and wife must both give their “I,” their self, to one another, just as God gave the sign of His covenant to Noah and his offspring, thereby revealing that He would never again bring a flood to destroy the world. As explained earlier, to give one’s “I,” each needs to be willing to nullify it for the greater good of the other and of their coming together to create a family.
