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Orchard of Delights # Beshalach
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of the unusually large letter beit found in traditional Torah scrolls as
the Torah’s opening letter, particularly, how all creation is contained
within it. (See the letter beit in The Hebrew Letters by Rabbi Yitzchak
Ginsburgh for an in-depth understanding.)
Having traced the contraction process in the first day, verse,
letters, and letter of the creation story, we now turn our attention to
parallel contractive dynamics in the Ten Commandments. Firstly,
as already mentioned in “The Ten Divine Utterances of Creation,”
there are 620 letters in the Ten Commandments and there are 620
commandments in total (613 actually mandated by the Torah and
seven rabbinic mitzvot that the Rabbis endow with the status of
Torah mitzvot). Thus, the entire Torah, as it were, is contracted into
the Ten Commandments. For this reason we refer to the day the
Ten Commandments was given as the day on which the Torah was
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Secondly, since the Ten Commandments, like the rest of the
Torah, is comprised of both positive commandments and negative
prohibitions, tradition teaches that all the mitzvot in the Torah
are condensed into the first two of the Ten Commandments. All the
positive commandments are encapsulated in the belief in one God, the
first of the Ten Commandments, and all the prohibitions in the Torah
are rooted in the second of the commandments: “not [to] have any
other gods before Him” (Exodus 20:3). This tradition gains support
from another tradition that stresses the uniqueness of the first two
commandments: the people heard only the first two commandments
directly from God. The Midrash teaches that the people, petrified by
God’s awesome revelation, asked that the other eight be transmitted
to them by Moses (Mechilta).
Thirdly, the second commandment, prohibiting the worship of
any other gods, is obviously predicated on the first commandment
commanding belief in one God. Based on the second act of
condensation mentioned above, not only are all the positive
commandments encapsulated in the first one, in a certain sense so
are all the negative prohibitions. Since the prohibitions serve as
stepping-stones to building a positive relationship with God, other
human beings, and the world, from a certain perspective, they can
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entire people. Targum Yonatan, in commenting on the first verse of
King Solomon’s Song of Songs, enumerates them. Of the nine songs
only two of them were sung by the entire nation of Israel: the Song
of the Sea, sung at the beginning of the people’s sojourn in the desert,
and the Song of the Well, sung at the end of the sojourn. (See The
Mystical Power of Music, pp. 32-37, for more on the ten archetypal
songs.)
After the people of Israel sang their song, the Torah states: “And
Miriam, the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her
hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and
dances” (Exodus 15:20). Noting the fact that Miriam is referred to as
a prophetess in this text, the commentators explain that Miriam had
foreseen the miraculous salvation at the sea; this was why she had
brought timbrels to accompany the singing and dancing.
Another reason that prophecy is mentioned here is that throughout
Jewish history music has been deemed one of the ways to enter a
prophetic state. An important source for the intimate connection
between music and prophecy is the Mishnah’s description of Simchat
Beit Hasho’evah, the water drawing ceremony, which took place in
the Temple every Succot. The Mishnah relates how joyous music and
song filled the air as water was festively drawn each day from a spring in
Jerusalem and brought in a great procession to the Temple altar over
which it was poured the following morning. This libation symbolized
the people’s prayer for rain and sustenance. Throughout the evening,
the generation’s most illustrious sages would lead the people in joyous
singing and dancing — praising God to the accompaniment of the
Levites who played on instruments too numerous to count. Summing
up the incredible joy at this celebration, the Talmud states, “Anyone
who has not seen Simchat Beit Hasho’evah has never really seen
true joy” (Sukkah 5:1). Although on a peshat level, clearly only water
was drawn, the words “Simchat Beit Hasho’evah” mean, literally,
“The Joy of the House of Drawing.” What was actually drawn goes
unmentioned. Responding to their own rhetorical question – what
then were they drawing if not water? – the Sages explain that the
spirit of prophecy was being drawn and recount that Jonah first
received prophecy at one of these evenings.
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