The Golden Thread

Talmud Bavli Shabbat 118a defines a connection between the three Shabbat meals and three fundamental sources of pain and punishment. Somehow, eating three meals on Shabbat, each with bread, protects us from:

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The

birthpangs of Mashiach

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The judgments of Gehinnom

-

The war of Gog and Magog

Each of these three rather obscure elements expresses a different aspect of God's mercy in preventing harm to us

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A gezeirah shavah (roughly translated as argument by analogy) is a hermeneutical principle, in this case used to derive the connection between the Shabbat meals and the protection from the three fundamental sources of pain and punishment. Let's take a look at the gezeirah shavah more closely.

(25) Then Moses said, “Eat it today, for today is a sabbath of ה׳; you will not find it today on the plain.

Moshe is commanding Bnei Yisrael to eat the manna, a physical manifestation of the supernatural flow of sustenance in the desert. This verse serves as the one single endpoint of the gezeirah shavah, and contains three instances of the word יום, which is the connecting word. This single endpoint connects to three verses, each reflecting one of the three fundamental sources of pain and punishment. Each Shabbat meal, in contrast, is a source of spiritual energy, that is able to uniquely counter that source of pain and punishment.

(23) Lo, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before the coming of the awesome, fearful day of GOD.

This verse refers to the birthpangs of Mashiach, the first fundamental source of pain and punishment. Notice the appearance of the word יום, which provides one of the other three endpoints of the gezeirah shavah, thereby connecting the birthpangs of Mashiach to one of the Shabbat meals.

Rabbi Dov Baer, one of the students of the Baal Shem Tov, compares G-d’s 13 attributes of ‎mercy in their various nuances with the 13 categories of valid ‎Torah interpretations of Rabbi Yishmael. Each of the 13 attributes of ‎mercy corresponds to a Torah interpretation, as follows:

1. Attribute of אל corresponds to

קל וחומר

2. Attribute of רחום corresponds to גזירה שווה

... and so on

for all thirteen attributes of mercy and the associated category of Torah interpretation.

(6) ה׳ passed before him and proclaimed: “!ה׳! ה׳ a God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness.

Let's look at this example.

‎שלש עשרה מדות א-ל‎ “ As we pointed out above, the attribute of mercy אל corresponds to the Torah interpretation methodology

קל וחומר

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(17) ... This may become clearer when we recall a statement ‎by our sages in the Talmud Baba kamma 25. The Talmud ‎there deals with Moses’ prayer in Numbers 12,13 after his sister ‎Miriam had been struck with tzoraat, (a punitive skin ‎eczema). He said: ‎א-ל נא רפא נא לה‎, usually translated as: “Please O ‎G-d heal her!” G-d’s answer includes the reminder that if one has ‎behaved so badly that one’s own father has spat in one’s face, ‎does one not deserve at least a week during which one will be ‎ostracized from society? It follows that one deserves at least the ‎same level of punishment when one is guilty of such behaviour ‎against the Creator! G-d thereupon decrees seven days of ‎exclusion of Miriam from the main body of the people. This is a ‎classic example of the logic called ‎קל וחומר‎, and it was used by ‎G’d’s attribute ‎א-ל‎ to which Moses had appealed at that time.‎

Now the fun starts. The process of transformation that is Shabbat is described in multiple ways, all connected by means of letter-based devices: gematria, rashei teivot (acronyms), and others.

1. The gezeirah shavah is made up of the words יום יום, each of which has a value of 56, hence a total of 112.

2. The acronym יב"ק has the value of 112. We'll come back to this acronym shortly.

3. The three names of Hashem, Ehyeh, the Tetragrammaton, and Adokai, add up to 112.

4. The Arizal takes various פסוקים and points out that applying genatria and acronym analyses to these verses always produces either the value of 112 or the acronym יב"ק, which in turn has the gematria value of 112.

5. יב"ק, the Arizal also points out, stands for יחוד - ברכה - קדושה

a.

קדושה Se

paration from the week, the Friday night dinner.

b.

ברכה Blessing of Shabbat, the lunchtime meal

c. יחוד Unity with Hashem, the third meal

These three elements are actually

phases in a process of transformation.

Separation from the worries of the week at the Friday night meal (קדושה), leads to the sense of peace and tranquillity (ברכה) that

culminates in the lunchtime meal. The Shabbat climaxes with the sense of unity with Hashem (יחוד) that is achieved at the Seuda Shlishit.

So the process of transformation that is Shabbat is described in multiple ways, all connected by means of letter-based devices, gematria, rashei teivot, and others.

In Kabbalistic terms, each of these phases corresponds to a description of G-d drawn from the Kabbalistic sources:

1. חקל תפוחין - The Field of Holy Apples

, corresponding to G-d's creation of the universe.

2. עתיקא קדישא - The Ancient One

, corresponding to G-d's role in history, and his direct providence of the Jewish people.

3. זעיר אנפין - The Small Face, a revealed aspect of G-d in Kabbalah, comprising the emotional sephirot attributes: Chesed, Gevurah, Tiphereth, Netzach, Hod and Yesod

, corresponding to G-d's ultimate redemption.

We started this shiur with the three Shabbat meals, and the core element of these meals, the manna. The golden thread, the element corresponding to the manna in our times, is the bread, the lechem, which provides the flow of rachamim to this world and enables us to participate in the process of transformation that is Shabbat.

During treatment, especially painful treatment involving prolonged use of needles and drills, I usually recite the words of Ashrei over and over again. This past Friday I had a bone marrow biopsy involving a drill, and as the nurse tunnelled into my lower back, I reflected on the flow of bone marrow fluid from the body into the various specimen vessels, a life saving flow that enables the doctors to make decisions to help keep me walking around on this planet and, hopefully, doing more mitzvot.