Chasidut su Proverbi 9:19

The number seven recalls the days of the week and also God’s creation of the world. On each of the seven days of creation, He formed a different elemental spiritual force. These spiritual forces devolved into the material world.³⁶See further later lessons where the further depths to the creation narrative are revealed. The number seven symbolizes these forces and the totality of the natural world’s origins.³⁷See the Collected Writings of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888), vol. 3, pgs. 96-111. Rabbi Hirsch develops the theory that the number seven represents completeness, as in the verse, “Wisdom has hewed out its seven pil-lars” (Prov. 9:1). The seven pillars of wisdom represent all the knowledge in the world. Rabbi Hirsch then symbolically interprets details of many laws such as the seven sprinklings of blood of animals offered as offerings, and the seven branches of the menorah as representing a totality.

Speak to Aharon your brother - we see to explain that [here] the Holy Torah is teaching people who rebuke others that they should not rebuke those who are clowns and empty-headed, into whom clearly the words [of rebuke] will not enter into their ears at all, as it is said "do not rebuke a scoffer" (Prov. 9:8); only people who pay attention to the voice of rebuke and mussar and who want to do teshuvah, to those one speak and directs to the ways of teshuvah.

And you will remember Ad-nai your God, who is the Giver of your strength to do valor. It is a main principle to remember the giver of anything. And as we find regarding the tithes (Deut. 26:13) "I did not transgress Your command and I did not forget" and in the Gemara we read "I did not transgress not blessing You and I did not forget to mention Your name over the produce" (Brachot 40b). And even regarding the words of Torah, if a person did not remember to say "Giver of the Torah" one's wisdom does not amount to anything. And therefore the Holy Blessed One set it so that the Human cannot exist without food, so the Human will lack something, and your creations will take great effort, and you will remember the One who brings about the Flow - and this is the level of Israel: they remember the One who brings about the Flow constantly. And through this they receive the inner energy of food, since in truth every thing has a specific quality, such as "wine that gladdens the heart of people" (Ps. 104:15) etc, and dates that make worry go away , as it is written in the Gemara (Ketubot 10b). And the opposite we also find in the Gemara, such as that the flour of barley is hard on the intestines (Brachot 36a), and so too the five grains there is a depth that precisely those five grains give strength and power to humans, and this is why the minimal amount is a olive-size. And regarding oil too, it indicates that "the beginning of wisdom is the awe of God" (Tzidkat HaTzadik 147:1) - and in this it is all the idea that a person must not say "my strength and my power brought me all this", one should constantly remember that "from all that comes from the mouth of God does a person live" (Deut. 8:3), that the essence of existence is what comes from the mouth of God, which is found in the essence of all things , and from this one should bless so that strength and force will flow from what one brought inside oneself, so that one will be able to serve God with that strength, as it is written [wisdom says] "for through me your days will increase, and years be added to your life. " (Proverbs 9:11)

Come and see! This is the way of the Torah. At first, when it begins to reveal itself to man, it signals to him with a hint. If he understands the hint, it is well. And if he doesn’t, he lets the Torah know that he does not understand, and the Torah calls him a simpleton. The Torah then says to the one who does not understand, “come close, and we will talk.” This is as it is written (Mishlei, 9:14), “(calling out to the passersby …) whoever is simple, let him turn here, and as for the one who lacks understanding …” The man comes close to her, and she starts to talk with him things according to his understanding from behind the curtain that conceals her, until he begins to understand a little more. This is called (the exegetic level of) “drush.”¹²⁰There are four levels of exegesis. “Pshat,” is the plain, simple meaning. “Remez,” is a hint of a deeper meaning. This is the signal or hint in the parable that the woman (the Torah) sends to the man. “Drush,” is a homily, a “fleshed out” exposition based on a series of hints. And the deepest level is “Sod,” or the mystery. The Zohar clearly implies that Aggadah as the body of writings that employs the exegetic method of Drush. Afterwards, the Torah speaks of enigmas from behind a thin dress.¹²¹The Zohar uses the word, “Shushifa,” which the Aruch translates as a dress. This is called, “aggadah.” After he becomes more accustomed to her, she reveals herself unto him face to face, revealing her deeper hidden mysteries and all of the hidden ways that have been concealed in her heart from ancient days. (This is the Kabbalah and the mysteries of the Torah.) A man who reaches such a level is indeed a complete man, expert in the Torah and the master of the house. For certainly all of the secrets of the Torah are revealed to him. Nothing is far from him or concealed from him. She says to him, “look at the hint I once gave you. See all of the mysteries that are contained in it!” In this way we see that not even a letter can be added or taken away from the Torah. In this way we see how a man needs to be so careful to run after the Torah and to be a lover of the Torah, as was said.

Genesis ‎18,5. “let me take a piece of bread so that you can refresh ‎yourselves,……he presented it to them and they ate.” The true ‎meaning of this verse has been best explained by the Or ‎Hachayim, according to whom even the highest ranking angel, ‎Michael is on occasion referred to as “High Priest,” whereas on ‎other occasions he is known by another name. [Not in my edition ‎of the ‎אור החיים‎. Ed.] The point of this is to alert us to the fact ‎that the standing, or even existence, of the angels in the celestial ‎spheres, is affected by the mitzvah performance of the ‎Israelites in the terrestrial part of the universe. When Israel is ‎meticulous in the performance of G’d’s Torah, then the most ‎senior of the angels in the celestial spheres assumes the title: ‎‎“High Priest.” When Avraham spoke about a ‎פת לחם‎, instead of ‎merely ‎פת‎, bread, he alludes to both the written and the oral ‎Torah. The word ‎פת‎ refers to the written Torah, whereas the word ‎לחם‎ refers to the oral Torah. The word ‎לחם‎ in psalms 78,25 i.e. ‎לחם אבירים‎, is an allusion to the Torah. According to the Talmud ‎‎Menachot 34, the word ‎פת‎ amongst the Africans means ‎‎“two.” [The latter half of the word: ‎טוטפת‎. Ed.] The word is used ‎as an allusion to Torah also in Proverbs 9,5, ‎לכו לחמו בלחמי‎, “come ‎and partake of My bread.” [Compare Alshich, pages 171-172, my ‎translation of Proverbs. Ed.] When Avraham is now described as ‎serving the angels, we may see in this the reward both for ‎Avraham‘s having performed the circumcision on himself, as well ‎as reward for the angels, their being hosted by a person of ‎Avraham’s standing. [Perhaps the mitzvah of hospitality ‎shown the angels by Lot in the following chapter was a factor in ‎his being saved, whereas his wife was not. Ed.] When Avraham, in ‎verse 8, is described as standing next to the angels while the latter ‎were seated while eating, the “tree” mentioned in that verse may ‎be a reference to the tree described as “tree of life” in Proverbs ‎‎3,18, i.e. an allusion to the Torah.

In the parsha of "bread of faces (lechem hapanim), on Shabbat he shall arrange them etc" - and it is written "Come, eat My food" (Prov. 9:5). This is the receiving of the Flow of heaven, that clings to the Upper Root and this is the internalness (penimiut) of the Flow. As it is written in the Holy Zohar regarding the day of Shabbat, that even though manna did not come down on that day, all blessings are dependent on the seventh day, see there (Zohar 2:184a:7). And this is why the bread is called lechem hapanim, it is the internalness of the Flow, as it is written "not on bread alone does a person live, etc, comes out from God's mouth" (Deut. 8:3) - this is Torah. And a hint of this is what is written there: "Face to face did Hashem speak with you on the mountain, from the midst of the fire" (Deut. 5:4) - and here "bread of faces". And the root of the bread from heaven is that it flows from the holy Shabbat to all the days of the week, with the force of the Torah, according to the readiness of the children of Israel that Torah gave to them. And just as there are 53 parshiot in the Torah and in each Shabbat we read a different parsha, this is also true in heaven, see Zohar on Vayakhel. And this is that the Torah, being all made of Divine Names, still has the parsha that changes every week, and every Shabbat has different combination of phrases. This too is hinted by the bread of faces, that on every Shabbat is was set. And according to the 12 loaves that the children of Israel set in order, so too the Flow of heaven continues. And it is written "as face answers to face in water" (Prov. 27:19) and this is an aspect of the Torah, that is Oral and Written. And in our parshe it is written "on the day of Shabbat". There is Shabbat that comes from Above to Below and there is Shabbat that comes from Below to Above, as explained in the Holy Zohar. And therefore the Text said "according to the arranging of the of the bread on the day of Shabbat in a Awakening from Below, so too in the day of Shabbat from Above to Below it will be this arranging, and as it is written in Chagigah 26b "as its arranging is its taking away." And the Torah is a gift to the children of Israel, and according to their level is the Torah's revealing itself to them, since there are seventy faces to the Torah, and "face to face". And on every Shabbat the Flow is renewed through the force of the Torah. ["The One who renews each day Creation with goodness", Bereshit is Torah, which is called good, and regarding Shabbat it is written "it is good to thank Hashem", a hint that every moment a new interpretation is invited] and so too on Shavuot when the Torah was given there are two loaves of bread. And "on every Shabbat" is a level below "twelve loaves", since the Torah is understood and interpreted and gives life and sustenance to every level until this world. And twelve limits and twelve requests that are in the Prayer they are the Lower Supports of the Upper Root, as it is written in different places.

I heard directly from the Admor (the Isbitzer Rebbe), that he noticed scholars of his own generation who had believed that they had devised an original Torah innovation, and were later disappointed to find that it had already been written down somewhere in the tradition. I myself will not let a word of Torah pass my lips until I have seen its source in writing. The Zohar states (Vayeitse, 163a): Rabbi Elazar opened and said (Mishlei 9:12), “If you are wise, you are wise for yourself, and if you have scorned, you alone shall bear your sin.” “If you are wise, you are wise for yourself,” woe is to the wicked of the world, who do not know and do not see the words of the Torah! And when they look into it, since they have no sense, it seems to them as if the words of Torah are empty and of no use. This is all because such people are devoid of consciousness and understanding … every word written in the Torah is mare precious than pearls, there is nothing in the world equal in value to a single word of the Torah! And when the closed-hearted fools see the words of the Torah, it is not enough that they do not know, but they say that the words are blemished and useless. Woe to them, when the time comes for the Holy One, blessed be He, to render judgment for the disgrace of the Torah, and meets out punishment for those who rebelled against their Master. We find that the Torah says, “it is not an empty thing for you,” and if it is empty, the emptiness comes from you. For the Torah is filled with all manner of precious gems and pearls … and how could one say that it is empty? King Shlomo said, “If you are wise, then you are wise for yourself,” because if one has been clever in the Torah, the fact remains that it is still impossible to add so much as one letter to the Torah. “And if you have scorned, you shall bear your sin,” because the honor and praise of the Torah has not been reduced whatsoever, the scorn is only upon the scoffer, and remains with him to cause him to disinherit this world and the next. It is clear from the Zohar that the two matters are one. One who boasts to himself and claims that he can add words of Torah that he did not receive as a tradition, is equated as one who derides the Torah, for he does not take the Torah seriously. [This does not include one who gives an insightful explanation into the words of the sages, if he received it from his Rav then it is accepted as being authentic. We assume that his Rav received an authentic tradition and trusted source. This is as we find in the Zohar (Vayeishev, 192a), “One who looks into that which he learned from his Rav, and looks at it with this wisdom, can then further add to it in the same spirit.” The point being, only when he looks into the words of his Rav. Similarly, the Zohar says of Eliyahu and Elisha (Vayeitse, 154a), “from here we learn that through the revealed, man arrives at the hidden.” This means, that if he understands the revealed matters deeply he will then see the hidden knowledge concealed within. And still it is improper to invent teachings that lack a trusted source and strong foundation.]

And the Shelah, may his memory be blessed, greatly enlightens us about our path regarding the education of our generation, when he says about the verse (Proverbs 9:8), "Do not rebuke a scoffer, lest he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you": When you come to rebuke someone else, do not disparage him and do not curse him and say to him, "You are a scoffer." For he will hate you for this and not listen to you. Rather rebuke the wise - say to him, "Is it not the case that you are a wise man? So why are you doing this?" And so he will love you and listen to you. To here are his holy words.