Comentario citado sobre Deuteronómio 33:26

דגל מחנה ראובן, “the banner of the camp of Reuven, etc.,” this camp was situated at the South of the Tabernacle. Reuven was a repentant sinner. The acceptance of repentance by G‘d is an outstanding act of love and kindness on G’d’s part vis-a-vis His creatures. Seeing that Reuven was the first person to demonstrate repentance he opened the gate for other repentant sinners. The Torah credited Reuven with having intended to save Joseph and even attributed Joseph’s life being saved to his suggestion to throw him into a pit instead of killing him (Genesis 37,21). His camp was accompanied by that of Shimon who was born right after him by his mother Leah. He was joined by the soldiers of the tribe of Gad, the firstborn of Leah’s maidservant Zilpah. The Torah writes that this camp was second in the procession of the Israelites traveling. The expression ושניים יסעו, “they are to travel in second position,” is a hint at the emanation בינה which is second to the emanation חכמה, which had been represented by the camp of Yehudah. The camp of Reuven may be perceived as a counterpart to the celestial camp headed by the archangel Michael whose camp also included the angels Kuchbiel and Pediel who are positioned to the right of the Shechinah. All three are known as the camp of Michael, seeing he represents the attribute of Love and Mercy. It was this camp which Moses alluded to when he said in the song after crossing the sea of reeds מי כמוך, and he concluded the Torah with the verse commencing אין כאל ישורון. When you combine the word מי in the Shirah, with the word כאל in Deut. 33,26 you get the word מיכאל, a reference to that angel who represents the attribute of Mercy. Following this we encounter the camp of the Levites as traveling בתוך המחנות, “amidst the other camp.” You are aware already that the camp of the Levites consisted of 22.000 men from the age of one month and up (3,39). This number corresponded to the number of angels who had accompanied the Shechinah at the revelation at Mount Sinai. This has been alluded to in Psalms 68,18 as we pointed out before. These 22.000 angels were the ones that are normally the angels closest to the Shechinah.

[Ps. 104:3]: “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters” [Gen. 1:6] parallels: “Who lays the beams of Your Upper chambers in the waters.”
“Let there be a firmament”: let the firmament expand into the midst of the waters, like the expansion of the soul into form. On the second day, God created the boundaries of space. For this reason, Scripture did not state “it was good” on the second day. For the work of the divine attribute of goodness remained incomplete. Such is the meaning of: “Let the firmament divide the waters from the waters.” The basic act of separation is this division into two: the upper waters and the lower waters. The upper waters are allegorically designated as male: the lower waters as female. This division works out in multifarious details. Consequently, Scripture states: “He builds His upper chambers in the heaven” [Amos 9:6]. For they are constructed as rungs upon rungs, as it is written: “For one higher above the higher, watches” [Eccles. 5:7]. All of these entities are traced, one within the other, each encompassing the other. Thus half of the waters are on high, half are below. So it is said: “Just as the shekhinah is above, is the shekhinah below.”¹⁶⁶This quotation is not found in the extant rabbinic sources.
Corresponding to this matter there are eighteen thousand worlds.¹⁶⁷b. Avodah Zarah 3b. As David the King states: “God’s chariots are myriads, even thousands upon thousands” [Ps. 68:18]. Having stipulated that God’s chariots are myriads, that is twenty thousand worlds, corresponding to ten sefirot above and ten below, he subtracts two thousand from their number, for they are the nought. All of the above is true. The worlds number twenty thousand. But two thousand are not included in the count, for they are Nought. Each and every world consists of a thousand generations. There are consequently eighteen thousand worlds. The primal essences originate in the mystery of Wisdom and its Cause. For this reason, it is fitting that the phrase “God said” appears but nine times in the narrative of Creation. The tenth is an allusion to the Nought. It appears in the phrase “In the beginning.” It is proper that it not be enunciated.
“Who makes the clouds His riding-mount”: The total of divisions wrought in the upper waters is seventy, excepting that at the center, which makes them seventy-one. Facing them are the lower waters, stamped in their image yet considered but one, leading to a total of seventy-two. This is the meaning of “clouds,”¹⁶⁸“Cloud [‘av] is numerically 72. as in “Behold the Lord rides upon a light cloud” [Isa. 19:1] or “Behold I come unto you in a dense cloud” [Exod. 19:9].
The seventy divisions are the five “voices” divided into seven directions, excepting the central one that gives stability to them all and is not one of them. Actually there are six directions, each of them multiplied by ten. That is why “it was good” is said six times in the chapter on creation. This too is why Scripture speaks of “sixty queens” [Cant. 6:1] and “sixty warriors surround it” [Cant. 3:7]. All of this refers to a single matter, as we are to explain. Counting the seventh [central] direction also as ten, they make up seventy. Adding the innermost spiritual direction they are seventy-one. This is the totality of distinctions made on the second day.
Each setting of limits is in fact a division of space. Thus it says of man’s creation that in the second hour He “limited” him. This is like a person who is building up a ruined place; he needs to trace out where he will put the upper stories and the chambers. The building is completed by means of these divisions. That is why division exists.
“He walks upon the wings of the winds”: The blessed Holy One is revealed in and is raised up through the world. His footsteps are known through those attributes, just as the soul’s action is revealed through the body. This is the meaning of “God called the firmament heaven” [Gen. 1:5]. All the names are included in the word “heaven.” Thus Scripture says: “And you hear, O heaven” [II Chron. 6:27], “the Lord, God of heaven” [Neh. 1:8], “He who rides in heaven” [Deut. 33:26].

AND G-D CALLED THE FIRMAMENT HEAVEN. On the second day He gave them this name when He clothed them with the form of the firmament for on the first day the heavens were still in the process of creation, but the name was not attached to them until they took on this form.
The meaning of this name [shamayim — heavens] is as if it had the sign of a segol under the letter shin [the prefix shin thus voweled means “that” or “for”] just as in Shalamah (For why) should I be as one that veileth herself?¹⁰⁶Song of Songs 1:7. The letter shin there stands for asher - asher lamah (for why). Similarly in Ibn Ezra, ibid. Likewise here, the word shamayim is as if it said asher mayim (that waters), as is explained further in the text. It is thus as if He said that they [the heavens] are waters which have congealed and stretched like a tent in the midst of the upper and lower waters. By this name shamayim He has made known the secret of their creation.
In the Gemara Tractate Chagigah,¹⁰⁷12a. the Rabbis have said, “What is the meaning of the word shamayim? It means shem mayim.”¹⁰⁸“It is a name for water.” So clearly explained further on by Ramban. If so, there is one mem missing here in the word shamayim on account of the adjoining of two similar letters, just as in the word yeruba’al [which stands for yareb bo ba’al — let Baal contend against him].¹⁰⁹Judges 6:32. The word shamayim is thus as if it said shem mayim, meaning that “heaven” is the name given the waters when they took on a new form. This is the plain meaning of the verses in accordance with the way of Rashi’s writing,¹¹⁰“The word shamayim [may be regarded as made up of either of these words]: sa mayim (carries water), etc.” Rashi. and it conforms with the opinion of Rav¹¹¹Mentioned above: that the heavens were in a fluid form on the first day, and on the second day they solidified. which we have mentioned. Thus the names “heaven” and “earth” mentioned in the first verse point to the names by which they would be called in the future, as it would be impossible to make them known in any other manner. It is, however, more correct in accordance with the meaning of the verses that we say that the heavens mentioned in the first verse are the upper heavens, which are not part of the lower spheres but are above the merkavah (the Divine Chariot), just as it is stated, And over the heads of the living creatures there was the likeness of a firmament, like the color of the transparent ice, stretched forth over their heads above.¹¹²Ezekiel 1:22. It is on account of these higher heavens that the Holy One, blessed be He, is called He Who rideth upon the heavens.¹¹³Deuteronomy 33:26. Scripture, however, did not relate anything concerning their creation, just as it did not mention the creation of the angels, the chayoth of the merkavah, and all Separate Intelligences which are incorporeal. Concerning the heavens, it mentioned only in a general way that they were created, meaning that they came forth from nought. On the second day He said that there should be a firmament in the midst of the waters, meaning that from the waters, the creation of which had already been mentioned, there should come forth an extended substance separating them [into two distinct waters]. These spherical bodies He also called “heavens” by the name of the first upper heavens. This is why they are called in this chapter “the firmament of the heaven” [rather than “heavens”] — And G-d set them in the firmament of the heaven¹¹⁴Verse 17. — in order to explain that they are not the heavens mentioned by that name in the first verse but merely the firmaments called “heavens.”
This likewise is the opinion of our Rabbis mentioned in Bereshith Rabbah,¹¹⁵4:1. who state, “All Rabbis say it in the name of Rabbi Chananyah the son of Rabbi Pinchas, and Rabbi Yaakov the son of Rabbi Avin says it in the name of Rabbi Shmuel the son of Rabbi Nachman: Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters — the middle drop of water congealed, and the lower heavens and the highest heaven of heavens were formed.” This saying of the Rabbis refers to the spherical bodies in which there are the lower heavens and the upper ones, called “the heavens of heavens,” as it is written: Praise ye Him, sun and moon; praise Him, all ye stars of light. Praise Him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that are above the heavens.¹¹⁶Psalms 148:3-4. The heavens mentioned here in the first verse, in which is the Throne of the Holy One, Blessed be He, as it is written, The heaven is My throne,¹¹⁷Isaiah 66:1. are the ones mentioned in the beginning of that Psalm: Praise ye the Eternal from the heavens; praise Him in the heights. Praise ye Him, all His angels.¹¹⁸Psalms 148:1-2.
This interpretation is correct as far as the simple meaning of the verses is concerned. But there is yet a sublime and hidden secret in the name “the heaven” and in the name “the throne” for there is a heaven to the heavens, and a throne to the throne. Based on this, the Sages use the expressions, “In order that a man may first take upon himself the yoke of the kingdom of Heaven,”¹¹⁹Berachoth 13a. and “the fear of Heaven.”¹²⁰Ibid., 7a. Scripture likewise says, That the heavens do rule.¹²¹Daniel 4:23. The Sages also have a remarkable Midrash on the verse, And Thou hear in heaven.¹²²I Kings 8:32. The Midrash referred to is in Sefer Habahir, 100, and found in Zohar 2, p. 271. See my Hebrew commentary, p. 19, note 58. The worthy one will see all this alluded to in the first verse.
Thus the verses have explained that the first created things were from nought, and the rest were derived from the first created substance.
See no objection to this explanation from the saying of Rabbi Eliezer the Great,¹²³Found in Pirke d’Rabbi Eliezer, 3. See also Moreh Nebuchim II, 26, where Rambam discusses this saying of Rabbi Eliezer and concludes that he is not able to explain it sufficiently. Ramban, however, explains it further on in the text in a way which makes it consistent with the theory of creation from absolute nought. who states, “Whence were the heavens created? From the light of the garment of the Holy One, blessed be He.” [This would apparently indicate that the heavens were not created from nought but from another preceding substance.] This opinion is also found in Bereshith Rabbah.¹²⁴12:1. Since the Sages wanted to elevate the first substance to the utmost and make it ethereal, they did not find it feasible that the heavens, which are moving corporeal bodies possessing matter and form, were created from nought. Instead, they said “the light of the garment” was created first, and from it came forth the real substance of the heavens. And to the earth He gave another substance,¹²⁵This is based on the concluding statement of Rabbi Eliezer the Great: “Whence was the earth created? From the snow under the Throne of Glory.” (See Note 123.) not as minute as the first [substance from which the heavens were formed], and that is “the snow under the Throne of Glory,” for the Throne of Glory was first created, and from it came forth “the snow” under it, and from it [the “snow”] was formed the substance of the earth, which was third¹²⁶The Throne of Glory, the snow, the earth. In the case of the heavens, however, creation was completed in the second stage: ‘the light of the garment’ and then the heavens. This accords with the theory explained above (see Note 35) that the substance of the heavens is unlike that of the earth. in the order of creation.