Chasidut for Psalms 125:2
יְֽרוּשָׁלִַ֗ם הָרִים֮ סָבִ֪יב לָ֥הּ וַ֭יהוָה סָבִ֣יב לְעַמּ֑וֹ מֵ֝עַתָּ֗ה וְעַד־עוֹלָֽם׃
As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, So the LORD is round about His people, From this time forth and for ever.
Kedushat Levi
Exodus 19,1. “In the third month after the Israelites having departed from the land of Egypt, (on the first of the month), on this day, they came to the desert of Sinai.” You may be familiar with the “nickname” given by his contemporaries to Rav Yoseph, who called him סיני, Sinai. (B’rachot 64) The reason why this Rabbi was given this title, was that he had a photographic memory concerning halachot, and could recall them at will at any time. A closer look at the word סיני reveals that it is a term used for expressing the entire range of the Torah in all its ramifications. According to our author we are all aware that קול, “sound,” is a composite of several components, i.e. fire, water and wind, (air). When speaking of דבור אלוקים, “G’d’s speech,” or utterance, this is something beyond man’s ability to define and analyze. The terms קול, דבור, “sound” and “speech” respectively, are indistinguishable when applied to G’d. The two commandments at Mount Sinai, אנכי and לא יהיה לך, which the entire Jewish people heard with their ears directly from G’d’s ‘mouth,’ actually combined within them the entire Torah, something that the mouth of a mortal person is certainly unable to express simultaneously. Our limited powers of perception do not even enable us to express two different subjects simultaneously, how much less so the entire Torah. Studying the written Torah handed down to us by Moses, shows us [according to the popular expression:שבעים פנים לתורה , “the written Torah comprises 70 facets.” Ed.] that something similar is true of the sayings of our sages in the Talmud, i.e. every saying has more than one meaning, the reason being that the root of all these sayings is based on the Torah.
We read in psalms 125,2: ירושלים הרים סביב לה וה' סביב לעמו, “Jerusalem is enfolded by hills, and the Lord enfolds it.” The word ירושלים there is a simile for the collective soul of the Jewish people, known also as כנסת ישראל. The words: וה' סביב לעמו, mean that seeing that everything in the universe revolves around the Jewish people, Hashem, naturally, is intimately involved in the fortunes of this people. The הרים, hills, mentioned in that verse refer to the three patriarchs, who personify the roots of holiness in the celestial regions. These patriarchs “surround” the collective soul of the Jewish people. It is therefore incumbent upon every individual Israelite to attach himself to this “root” of holiness. The function of this “root” is to illuminate the path of the “branch,” (the descendants) without any screen being interposed, or intervention by any spiritually negative, sinful forces. Man’s function in this world, vis a vis his fellow man, is to dispense loving kindness; however, the most important aspect of this “doing good,” is that it be based on the spiritual values of the “root,” the patriarchs who have shown us the way.
While it is clear that doing kind deeds is morally positive, the definition of what is a good deed is not up to man, but up to G’d and His Torah. Unfortunately many people, including leaders of the Jewish people, have failed in this regard, performing what they thought were “good” deeds, expressions of pity and mercy, but wasted on unworthy individuals. Our sages on Kohelet Rabbah 7,16 אל תהי צדיק הרבה, ואל תתחכם יותר, “do not be overly righteous, and do not try to be too smart,” have said in explaining this: כל הנעשה רחמן על האכזרים, ”showing mercy to the cruel people,” suggest that what Solomon had in mind was King Sha-ul who, when asked to wipe out Amalek including children and livestock, questioned G’d’s instructions (through the prophet Samuel) by asking what the children had done wrong and how the livestock had sinned. As a result of his misguided sense of when to practice mercy and when to be steadfast, he allowed the king of the Amalekites Agog to survive with historically terrible consequences for the Jewish people, whereas he killed a city of Jewish priests, Nov, merely on suspicion and the accusation by a single prejudiced general. He, personally, paid for it with not only his own life, but the lives of three of his sons. Leading the kind of life the Torah has taught us, requires among other virtues, that one does not allow one’s personal prejudices to influence one’s decisions. When one reaches such a level one is surrounded in all three dimensions by the protective emanations of the patriarchs, first and foremost among their virtues being the virtue of אמת, truth. Making truthfulness, also versus one’s own self, the focus of one’s virtues, enables a person to distance himself from nearly all evil influences.
When the Torah stresses the fact that the month when the Children of Israel entered the desert of Sinai was the “third” month after they had left Egypt, the number “three” symbolizes “truth”, as it does in the letter ש which has three “lines” symbolizing the emanations חסד, גבורה, and תפארת, harmony.
When a person has attained the domain, environment, of אמת, truth, and made it his permanent spiritual abode, he has truly left behind יצא, all aspects of evil, רע, as well as the seducers luring him into committing evil. The Israelites in the desert at this point had finally graduated from their slave-mentality, and all the temptations that are part of the daily lives of slaves. The Torah emphasizes this aspect by repeating: ביום הזה באו, on this day they “had arrived.” The Torah’s choosing to refer to this day as יום הזה, “this day”, rather than יום ההוא, “that day,” proves how completely clear the experiences about to be accumulated by the people were to them. Coming back to the word סיני also being a word describing someone’s perfect memory, (page 413), the arrival in the desert called [afterwards, I presume, Ed.] “Sinai,” was given this name as the Israelites’ memory absorbed all the lessons they were going to learn (revelation, Moses’ ascending the Mountain and returning with the Tablets, etc.) while around that area and around Mount Chorev which dominates that area. Everything experienced by the Israelites during their stay in that area for over eleven months, had to be internalized and to be imprinted on their memory. The vast majority of their experiences in that region were connected to the spoken word, words which had to be committed to memory.
We read in psalms 125,2: ירושלים הרים סביב לה וה' סביב לעמו, “Jerusalem is enfolded by hills, and the Lord enfolds it.” The word ירושלים there is a simile for the collective soul of the Jewish people, known also as כנסת ישראל. The words: וה' סביב לעמו, mean that seeing that everything in the universe revolves around the Jewish people, Hashem, naturally, is intimately involved in the fortunes of this people. The הרים, hills, mentioned in that verse refer to the three patriarchs, who personify the roots of holiness in the celestial regions. These patriarchs “surround” the collective soul of the Jewish people. It is therefore incumbent upon every individual Israelite to attach himself to this “root” of holiness. The function of this “root” is to illuminate the path of the “branch,” (the descendants) without any screen being interposed, or intervention by any spiritually negative, sinful forces. Man’s function in this world, vis a vis his fellow man, is to dispense loving kindness; however, the most important aspect of this “doing good,” is that it be based on the spiritual values of the “root,” the patriarchs who have shown us the way.
While it is clear that doing kind deeds is morally positive, the definition of what is a good deed is not up to man, but up to G’d and His Torah. Unfortunately many people, including leaders of the Jewish people, have failed in this regard, performing what they thought were “good” deeds, expressions of pity and mercy, but wasted on unworthy individuals. Our sages on Kohelet Rabbah 7,16 אל תהי צדיק הרבה, ואל תתחכם יותר, “do not be overly righteous, and do not try to be too smart,” have said in explaining this: כל הנעשה רחמן על האכזרים, ”showing mercy to the cruel people,” suggest that what Solomon had in mind was King Sha-ul who, when asked to wipe out Amalek including children and livestock, questioned G’d’s instructions (through the prophet Samuel) by asking what the children had done wrong and how the livestock had sinned. As a result of his misguided sense of when to practice mercy and when to be steadfast, he allowed the king of the Amalekites Agog to survive with historically terrible consequences for the Jewish people, whereas he killed a city of Jewish priests, Nov, merely on suspicion and the accusation by a single prejudiced general. He, personally, paid for it with not only his own life, but the lives of three of his sons. Leading the kind of life the Torah has taught us, requires among other virtues, that one does not allow one’s personal prejudices to influence one’s decisions. When one reaches such a level one is surrounded in all three dimensions by the protective emanations of the patriarchs, first and foremost among their virtues being the virtue of אמת, truth. Making truthfulness, also versus one’s own self, the focus of one’s virtues, enables a person to distance himself from nearly all evil influences.
When the Torah stresses the fact that the month when the Children of Israel entered the desert of Sinai was the “third” month after they had left Egypt, the number “three” symbolizes “truth”, as it does in the letter ש which has three “lines” symbolizing the emanations חסד, גבורה, and תפארת, harmony.
When a person has attained the domain, environment, of אמת, truth, and made it his permanent spiritual abode, he has truly left behind יצא, all aspects of evil, רע, as well as the seducers luring him into committing evil. The Israelites in the desert at this point had finally graduated from their slave-mentality, and all the temptations that are part of the daily lives of slaves. The Torah emphasizes this aspect by repeating: ביום הזה באו, on this day they “had arrived.” The Torah’s choosing to refer to this day as יום הזה, “this day”, rather than יום ההוא, “that day,” proves how completely clear the experiences about to be accumulated by the people were to them. Coming back to the word סיני also being a word describing someone’s perfect memory, (page 413), the arrival in the desert called [afterwards, I presume, Ed.] “Sinai,” was given this name as the Israelites’ memory absorbed all the lessons they were going to learn (revelation, Moses’ ascending the Mountain and returning with the Tablets, etc.) while around that area and around Mount Chorev which dominates that area. Everything experienced by the Israelites during their stay in that area for over eleven months, had to be internalized and to be imprinted on their memory. The vast majority of their experiences in that region were connected to the spoken word, words which had to be committed to memory.
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