בייה A Daily Bread Date: 17 Sivan 5781 (May 28, 2021) Torah Portion: Beha’alotcha Topic: Arise, O YHWH It is written (Num. 10:35), “Arise, O YHWH! And let Your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate You flee before You.” When the Yisraelites would set out to travel, Moshe would invoke His protection to defend them from their enemies. To do this, Moshe would “remind” Hashem that whoever attacks the Yisraelites does so because they are His people. Thus, the enemies of the Yisrael are in essence Hashem’s own enemies, and any attack against them is in fact directed toward Him. Also, since the Yisraelites are His chosen people, Hashem should protect them even if they do not deserve it. The attacking armies will knot know that they defeated the Yisraelites because they were spiritually weak. The enemies will only see that Hashem does not protect His chosen people. Thus, Moshe proclaimed that Hashem must protect His people simply because they are His, regardless of how well they are fulfilling their contractual agreement to obey His commandments. Moshe therefore prefaced His plea for Hashem’s protection with the words “Arise, O YHWH,” implying that Hashem should look at the higher, essential connection He has forged with His people, that transcends the contractual relationship He has with them through their observance of His commandments. This is the allegorical reason why this passage is in between the two accounts of the people’s failings immediately after setting out from Mount Sinai. On a deeper level, “Arise, O YHWH” are sandwiched between two verses (35 and 36) with inverted “nun”. See above red letters. The sages point out that these two letters divide the Sefer Bemidbar into three parts: (1) everything from the beginning of the book until the first nun, (2) the two verses between the two nun’s, and (3) everything from the second nun until the end of the book – effectively making the Torah into seven books, rather than the usual division into five. The number 7 signifies all seven emotions (chesed, gevurah, tiferet, netzach, hod, yesod, and malchut), while the number 5 signifies only the first five of these. The seven emotions are divided into five and two because the first five constitute the real “content” of the emotions, while the latter two are the emotions’ drives for actualization and expression. The first five are the emotions per se, while the latter are the emotions’ outward orientation toward others. As such, the latter two emotions represent an extension outside the self, a descent into a lower level of Divine consciousness in order to express the Divine emotions there. The five primary emotions signify self-refinement while the latter two emotions represent refining the world. Seeing the Torah as five books is thus seeing the whole Torah as Hashem’s will and wisdom; dividing it into seven books emphasizes how the Torah includes the lower states of consciousness – the rebellions that occur after the second nun and Moshe’s rebuke in the Sefer Devarim. www.kohebroots.com בייה The seven books of the Torah parallel the seven lamps of the Candelabrum that Aharon is commanded to kindle at the beginning of this week’s Torah portion. Seeing the Torah as including the less complimentary episodes of sixth and seventh “books” parallels Aharon’s charge to kindle all seven types of souls – even the lowest – with the light of the Torah and its commandments. The interface between the four initial “books” of intrinsic set-apartness and the two latter “books” of elevating lower consciousness is the fifth “book”; the two verses describing how the Ark of the Covenant led the way in the desert and neutralized the forces of evil. By allowing ourselves to be guided by the Torah, we gain the power to overcome the dangers inherent in elevating the realms of lower consciousness and can safely transform them into set-apartness. Shalom www.kohebroots.com .