Musar su Salmi 8:78

It is also beneficial for a man to gaze at the Heavens in order to behold the works of Hashem, may He be blessed. It written in the holy Zohar (Introduction 1b): Rabbi Elazar the son of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai said, One day I was by the shore of the sea when Eliyahu came and said to me, “Rabbi, do you know the meaning of what is written, ‘Raise your eyes on high and see who created these’ (Yeshayahu 40:26)?” I said to him, “These are the Heavens and their hosts, the works of the Holy One Blessed is He. For it is incumbent upon human beings to gaze upon them and bless Him, as it is written, ‘When I see Your Heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars that You estab- lished’ (Tehillim 8:4). Following which it is written, ‘Hashem, our Master, how mighty is Your name in all the earth’ (ibid. 8:10).”

And this is the language of the holy Zohar in Parshath Terumah on Psalms 129:126): "It is a time to act for the L-rd," viz.: "So long as the Torah endures in the world and men occupy themselves with it, the Holy One Blessed be He rejoices in the work of His hands and rejoices in all of the worlds, and the heavens and the earth remain standing. What is more, the Holy One Blessed be He gathers all His tribunal and says to them: 'See the holy people that I have on the earth, by whom the Torah is adorned. See My handiwork, about which you have said: 'What is man that You remember him?'" And when they see the joy of their Master in His people, they immediately open [their mouths] and say (I Chronicles 17:21): 'Who is like Your people, Israel, one nation in the land?' But when Israel neglect Torah, His strength, as it were, weakens, wherefore "it is a time [for you] to act for the L-rd.' These are the tzaddikim who are left. They must gird their loins and perform good deeds, so that the Holy One Blessed be He will strengthen Himself to rejoice with the tzaddikim and with His camps and battalions. Why so? (Psalms, Ibid.): [For] 'they have violated Your Torah,' and the men of the world do not occupy themselves with it as is fitting."

וכרמך לא תעולל . The wording of the prohibition to pick your vineyard bare or to pick up fallen grapes (19,10) which is clearly designed to afford the poor a means of sustenance, carries a veiled warning not to chase away עוללים, people who spend all of their time studying Torah, when they come to the vineyard at harvest time to pick up their gleanings. In the final analysis it is Torah students such as these who ensure that the harvest of the vineyard will be successful, that G–d will direct His blessing onto our land.

Moses himself had attained the fiftieth level of moral and intellectual perfection, i.e. the fiftieth of the fifty שערי בינה before the sin of the golden calf. As soon as Israel committed that sin Moses was no longer able to access the fiftieth level of בינה. This is alluded to in G–d's words in Exodus 32,7, לך רד, i.e. descend from the לך=50. This is also what the sages had in mind when they said that the world was provided with fifty "gates" of insights, all of which were granted to Moses until he lacked one of them" (Rosh Hashanah 21). Moses had originally been granted all fifty שערי בינה. Moses suffered this spiritual setback due to his indirect involvement in the sin of the golden calf. This would also be the meaning of Psalms 8,6: ותחסרהו מעט מאל-הים, "You have made him a little less than divine." This is an allusion to the letter א being the only part of א-לוהים that Moses lacked. Normally we understand this verse in Psalms to mean that no one ever quite penetrated the "highest" gate of בינה. However, we may also understand the verse to mean that Moses was deprived of a great deal and retained only 49, as the Yalkut Shimoni suggests when he interprets that the word מעט in this verse in Psalms should now be read as מט,=49. This would mean that though Moses had attained 49 gates of insights, the one gate which had escaped him was of paramount importance.

When they approached Rabbi Yose, they discovered that the boy was asleep and seemed as if he had left this world. They remarked, “Fortunate is your lot, Rabbi Yose, and blessed is the Merciful One who has performed for you a miracle on account of your son’s words. For he pushed aside the gates of Heaven with his comely words and on account of his copious tears they extended your life by twenty-two years.” Then they took the boy and kissed him and cried with him tears of joy, carrying him to another room until his mind was settled and his soul returned to him as before. They rejoiced with Rabbi Yose for three days, propounding numerous novel Torah insights. Rabbi Yose said to them, “Companions, I do not have permission to reveal to you what I saw in the other world until twelve years have passed. But the holy King made a reckoning of the three hundred and seventy tears that my son shed. And I swear to you, my companions, that the moment my son began reciting the verse, ‘When you happen upon a bird’s nest,’ and the other words mentioned above, all the benches in the Heavenly academy shook and everyone stood before the holy King and sought mercy on my behalf. “Then the Holy One Blessed is He was filled with mercy for me because my son’s words and self-sacrifice on my behalf pleased him. One of the appointed angels argued, ‘Master of the Universe! Look, it is written, Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings You have founded strength because of Your tormentors, to silence the enemy and the avenger (Tehillim 8:3). May it be Your will that in the merit of the Torah and of this child, who offered his own life for his father’s, You will have pity on him and spare him.’ “Then the Holy One Blessed is He summoned the Angel of Death and gave him thirteen other individuals as a security for me for another twenty-two years.”

The righteous spies that Joshua sent out repaired the metaphysical damage caused by ten of the original spies whom Moses had sent out. The "hope" for the future of the Jewish people was summarized by the תקות חוט השני, whereas the damage caused by the original spies can be described as symbolizing the statement of our sages that תקות אנוש רימה, that the only thing humans have to look forward to is to become worms (man's body in the grave). All this because they abused their power of speech to libel G–d and the land of Israel. At the root of their corruption lay their desire to occupy positions of influence within the nation. All that the above teaches is to follow very carefully the advice of our sages in Avot 4,4, "be very very humble, seeing that man's prospects are only to decay!" The spies who had started out by being described as אנשים, i.e. men of stature, ended up by being considered "אנוש," the lowest appellation of humans.

Afterwards the prayer is elevated to the third firmament where it is brought before another appointed minister named GAVRY. This one also has at his command numerous bands of angels. In that firmament there is a certain hard rock. Upon this rock is a great light and under the rock are three hundred and seventy-five windows. The idea behind this is that at Mount Sinai these three hundred and seventy-five camps of angels joined together to protest against the bringing of the Torah down to earth. For this the Holy One Blessed is He punished them by placing them beneath that rock where they have remained since the Torah was given to Israel. Three times every day these angels are allowed out from under the rock. When a Jew utters a prayer with complete concentration it ascends to that place and it is displayed before those angels. Then the three hundred and seventy-five camps all come out to greet it with great honor, singing, “Hashem our Master, how mighty is Your name over all the earth, that You have set Your glory upon the heavens” (Tehillim 8:2).

This may be the reason why when Abraham is reported as "sitting" in 18,1 the word Yoshev sitting is spelled defective without the letter ו. [maybe the letter ו symbolizes upright posture. Ed.] This indicates that he tried to rise. At that point G–d told him that he would be a symbol for his descendants, for G–d Himself would rise as a member of a collegiate of judges. How does the subject of "judges" enter the picture here? The meaning is that at that point G–d revealed to Abraham that the attribute of Justice was extended over Sodom. The reason Abraham was informed of this, now that he was circumcised, is that justice is something that can only be administered by people who have been circumcised, as we know from Exodus 21,1: ואלה המשפטים אשר תשים לפניהם, "These are the judgments you are to place before them. "The words "before them" are to exclude Gentiles who have not been circumcised, as we learn from Gittin 88. Being uncircumcised is not only a matter of the foreskin, but the same concept also applies to one's thinking processes. This is why we have ערלי לב, people whose hearts have remained "uncircumcised" (Ezekiel 44,7). All the Gentiles fall into that category; they therefore cannot be entrusted to administer the laws of the Torah. The Torah calls the judges א-להים, the same letters as in מילה, (allowing for the addition of the letter א for G–d), and that is also the name of G–d which represents the מרכבה. This is the meaning of Genesis 17,22: ויעל א-להים מעל אברהם, "G–d "rose" from Abraham." Judges have to be סמוכים, i.e. close to G–d, a condition that cannot be attained until after circumcision. [Nowadays סמוכים means ordained. Ed.] The letter א that the word מילה falls short of being equal to the word א-להים alludes to the fact that man, even when at his spiritually highest plateau, still remains one little bit below the spiritual level of G–d, as we know from Psalms 8,6: ותחסרהו מעט מא-להים, "You have made him a little less than divine. The same is true of the 50 levels of intelligence and insight. The most any man, (Moses), was granted was 49 levels of such knowledge and insight. Our sages in Rosh Hashanah 21b have derived this from reading the word מעט in Psalms 8,6 as מט, i.e. 49.

כי בי-ה ה' צור עולמים . This means that the universe, i.e. the עולם הבא, was created with the letter י, whereas the עולם הזה, the material world, was created with the letter ה. The Mishnah in Avot 5,1 already told us that G–d created the universe with ten מאמרות, directives. The first of these was אחדות, Unity, as we will explain later. The term דביקות, attachment, refers to something that is ongoing, everlasting, as we know from Deut.4,4, ואתם הדבקים בה' אלוקיכם, חיים כולכם היום, "you who have been cleaving to the Lord your G–d are all alive this day." The material world was created by five מאמרות, i.e. the letter ה. Our sages in Rosh Hashanah 21b, say that 50 שערי בינה, "gates of understanding," were created, and that Moses was given all of them except one. We know this because it says of Moses "ותחסרהו מעט מאלוקים," that You have made him only a little less than divine" (Psalms 8,6). In the introduction on his commentary on the Torah Nachmanides (Chavell edition page 3) describes this statement as meaning that all parts of creation such as the minerals, the various categories of vegetation, animal life and even human life, each required a special שער בינה by means of which they were brought into existence. This process continued until possession of an advanced שער בינה would enable a person to understand the psyche of fellow human beings, enable him to divine if his counterpart was a thief, an adulterer, etc. and even enable him to know if someone else who was suspected of disobeying the laws of ritual impurity concerning sexual relations with a menstruant woman was in fact guilty of such misconduct. Beyond that, a still higher שער בינה would give such a person access to knowledge about the motions and functions of the stars and planets. The total number of such שערי בינה is fifty, the fiftieth being reserved for the Creator alone, who had not revealed that potential to any creature. The wording in the Talmud, נבראו, "they have been created," suggesting that they had not remained only in the realm of G–d Himself, need not be understood literally, as the Talmud was concerned with describing what happened to the majority of these שערי בינה. So far Nachmanides. I personally, feel that the 50th שער בינה, an all embracing potential called hiyuli, primordial is the creative potential which has been withheld from any human being. Nachmanides possibly has this in mind when he refers to the verse in Psalms 33,9: “הוא אמר ויהי,” He said and it came into being."

Midrash Kohelet adds that the ultimate purpose of Torah is that its teachings be performed in practice, as we know from the statements of our sages in Kidushin 9 that "study is great since it leads to performance." Similarly, at the time when the idea of creation was conceived the realization of its ultimate purpose was in G–d's mind. This purpose was the creation of man, not of the ministering angels. The Torah was not given to the latter, seeing that they are not physical creatures. Only someone who is an integral part of this earth is able to perform the commandments of the Torah. The angels themselves admitted this when they are quoted as saying in Psalms 8,2: "O Lord, our G–d, How majestic is Your name throughout the earth, You who have covered the heavens with Your splendor!" [according to the interpretation of the Talmud Shabbat 88 this was said by the ministering angels. Ed.] The same thought is expressed in Psalms 115,16: "The heavens belong to the Lord, but the earth He gave over to man." The "earth" referred to in that verse is the Earth of a higher world in which the כנסת ישראל is rooted, since the name of G–d א-ד-נ-י, is the root of Israel; I have explained elsewhere, that the emanation מלכות is the uppermost level of the physical world, beyond which there is only a world of thought. Before creating man G–d took "dust" [raw material Ed.] from all the various worlds including parts which to us are known as "heaven," i.e. Torah, and "earth" i.e. Israel.

I have found additional allusions to my claim that Abraham was the end-purpose of Creation and that Creation, i.e. בריאה, is under the aegis of the name אלוקים, in a number of places in the commentary of the Zohar, when he discusses the deeper meaning of the words מי and מה respectively when used in connection with Creation. Isaiah 40,26 says: שאו מרום עיניכם וראו מי ברא אלה, "Raise up your eyes high and behold who has created all these?" We also find in Psalms 8,4: כי אראה שמיך מעשה אצבעתיך … ה' אדונינו מה אדיר שמך בכל הארץ, "When I behold Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,…O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name throughout the earth!" The word מה also appears in connection with G–d's Creation in מה רבו מעשיך ה' כולם בחכמה עשית, "How many are the things You have made, O Lord, You have made them all with wisdom" (Psalms 104,24). In the Zohar a great deal more attention is paid to the deeper meaning of the word מי, than to that of the word מה.

In verse 10 David continues: "What is to be gained from my death, from my descent into the Pit?" Scripture is replete with similar statements as well as requests to G–d to avenge Jewish blood. What good are all these requests unless there was another future in store for us? This is why David stresses the reversal of lament, מספד, into מחול, dancing in verse 12. In verse 11 David appeals for the redemption, the gathering in of the exiles; this is similar to our prayer , והוא ישמיענו ברחמיו שנית לעיני כל חי "He will let us know a second time in His mercy in the presence of all things living" (Kedushah prayer of Mussaf).