צפויים or צופים? – Naso
צַו אֶת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וִישַׁלְּחוּ מִן הַמַּחֲנֶה כָּל צָרוּעַ וְכָל זָב וְכֹל טָמֵא לָנָפֶשׁ (במדבר ה, ב).
The topic of this week's shiur is very interesting and pertinent to the period we are living through, however, before embarking on the subject under discussion, a short introduction is necessary.
Many people ask me why sefer Meir Panim contains such a disproportionate amount of gematriyot. They say that the numerous gematriyot make the book difficult to read and "disturb" the flow of the text.
They are correct - if Meir Panim were a novel. In a novel it is important to maintain the dynamics and flow of the text, so that it does not become monotonous and maintains reader suspense and interest. However, Meir Panim is not a novel, it is a textbook, it is the definitive textbook on the Lechem HaPanim.
As such, its value is not in the easy "flow" of the text, but in the integrity of the principles it teaches. It follows the example of the Gemara. The Gemara is not an "easy read", where the text just flows and it is easy to understand. To comprehend the Gemara, you have to dwell on each word, slowly, try to understand it and then proceed.
Pirkei Avot (3, 18) says that gematriyot are פַּרְפְּרָאוֹת לַחָכְמָה, "decorations" for the wisdom of the Torah, but that core halachic issues are the essence. Halacha cannot be derived from gematriyot. To derive halacha, we have a set of 13 "midot" (Sifra), a specific methodology of 13 rules that when applied, can derive the halacha from the original psukkim of the Torah.
These include קַל וָחֹמֶר, גְּזֵרָה שָׁוָה, כְּלָל וּפְרָט etc. After Moshe Rabbeinu died, the Gemara (Temura 16a) tells us that 1700 halachot were forgotten, until Otniel ben Kenaz learned them anew (using these 13 midot).
Embedded in the actual psukkim of the Torah are all the halachot that make up the תּוֹרָה שֶׁבְּעַל פֶּה, if you look hard enough and dig deep enough, you will find them. Chazal (Eruvin 54a) say that in the first set of luchot, written by HKB"H, the entire Torah, including the תּוֹרָה שֶׁבְּעַל פֶּה, was present on the luchot.
However, this was not the case with the second luchot, which were written by Moshe. The purpose of this is to ensure that Am Yisrael would constantly be עֲמֵלִים בְּתוֹרָה, that the Torah would not be a "bedtime story", but a living entity that requires tremendous effort on our part to understand it. Through this effort, we receive immense merit, the rewards of which we will reap in Olam Habah.
If so, Meir Panim should abound with applications of the 13 midot. Instead, it abounds with gematriyot and the question is why?
Undoubtedly the only way to learn halacha from the psukkim is using the 13 midot. The question is "How do you know which psukkim to apply the rules on to derive the halacha?" There are 5,845 psukkim in the Torah, 79,980 words and 304,805 letters.
Applying all 13 rules on every passuk and every word, starting with בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא and ending with כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל, is what they call the "brute force" method. Lehavdil, this how the British tried to crack the Enigma code in WWII, trying every possible combination until you find something. In the end, they cracked it, but not using the "brute force" method alone. It was necessary to use a "hint".
The hint did not solve the code, but it narrowed the scope of the search. If any of you have enjoyed the interesting experience of visiting an "escape room", a leisure activity in which you have to search for clues to proceed from one room to another, until you finally reach the exit.
In each room there are tons of visual stimuli which can possibly harbor the clues needed to proceed, sometimes so many that it is not possible to traverse each one sequentially in the time you have at your disposal. In such a case, when one gets stuck, you ask the "moderator" of the escape room for a hint. Using this hint allows you to focus on a smaller area and more easily find the clue.
This is gematriya in a nutshell. Gematriyot are part of a methodology called "Remez". There are four methodologies to study the Torah, abbreviated by the letters פרדס - פְּשָׁט, רֶמֶז, דְּרוּשׁ, סוֹד. The purpose of Torat HaRemez is to give you a hint, to point you in the right direction, lehavdil, like in an escape room. Torat HaRemez includes a number of disciplines, of which gematriya is only one. Others include rashei teivot, sofei teivot, אתב"ש substitution, etc.
When you apply these methodologies on the psukkim and words in the Torah, sometimes you will find a hint to a related area of exploration that was not at first obvious and intuitive.
I like to compare it to a seismograph. This is a machine that records tremors in the earth's surface and is used to detect earthquakes. It consists of a needle connected to a sensor that records the intensity of movement in the earth's crust. If the needle is basically "flatline", with very little movement, you can sleep easy. However, if the needle is jumping up and down furiously, you know you are approaching 8 on the Richter scale.
Similarly, if you apply the methodology of Remez on a passuk/word and receive one or two hints pointing to a possible direction, it is a weak signal. However, if you receive many similar hints, it indicates that something is going on and it is worth exploring further. It is like a heat signature, the stronger the heat signature, the stronger the possibility that something is related.
This is what the סְנֶה is. When Moshe saw the burning bush, that was aflame but not consumed, it drew his attention, which led to further exploration and the rest is history.
The reason it was necessary to resort to Torat HaRemez specifically with the Lechem HaPanim, is because most of the Torah regarding this subject has been lost over the generations, since the destruction of the 2nd Beit HaMikdash. What remains is insufficient to fully understand the workings of and the meaning behind the Lechem HaPanim.
By applying Torat HaRemez, including gematriyot, we narrow the scope of the search, which allows us to focus on areas that likely provide the answers to the questions. In Meir Panim, many assertions are made that do not appear in any of the "official" sources remaining to us. To substantiate these assertions, it is essential to record the methodology by which they were derived.
That was the introduction. By now, I am sure you have gathered that this shiur is going to include a few gematriyot. The underlying theme for this shiur is based on a shiur I heard by HaRav Baruch Rosenblum שליט"א, that has been developed further here.
Parshat Naso, as you know, is the longest single parsha in the Torah. In most years Naso follows Shavuot, which is appropriate – once we receive the Torah, the next thing is to dive straight in and begin reading the longest parsha in the Torah.
There are a total of 176 psukkim in parshat Naso. An interesting thing is that if we compare the number 176 to other texts, we find that the longest masechet in the Gemara is Bava Batra, which has 176 pages. The longest perek in Tehilim (קיט) also has 176 psukkim.
This is hinted to by the word נשא. The letter "נ" is the first letter in parshat Naso, the letter "ש" is the first perek in Bava Batra שותפין, and the "א" is the first letter in the first passuk of Tehilim (קיט) - אַשְׁרֵי תְמִימֵי דָרֶךְ וכו'.
In other words, the number 176 is indicative of "the longest" of some specific thing.
The sefer קב הישר (קב) says that the purpose of the number 176 is to uproot something called קְלִיפַּת צְפוֹ.
In order to understand this, we need to backtrack to parshat Vayishlach (בראשית לו, טו-טז). At the end of the parsha, the Torah lists the descendants of Eisav's firstborn son Eliphaz –
אֵלֶּה אַלּוּפֵי בְנֵי עֵשָׂו בְּנֵי אֱלִיפַז בְּכוֹר עֵשָׂו אַלּוּף תֵּימָן אַלּוּף אוֹמָר אַלּוּף צְפוֹ אַלּוּף קְנַז. אַלּוּף קֹרַח אַלּוּף גַּעְתָּם אַלּוּף עֲמָלֵק אֵלֶּה אַלּוּפֵי אֱלִיפַז בְּאֶרֶץ אֱדוֹם אֵלֶּה בְּנֵי עָדָה.
In other words, צְפוֹ was one of the sons/kings descended from Eliphaz, the son of Eisav. We are more familiar with the fact that Eliphaz was the father of Amalek. Who was this צְפוֹ character?
The Ramban (בראשית מט, לא) fills us in with the details. The Ramban quotes sefer Yosifun, written by Yosef Ben Gurion (a few millenia before the other Ben Gurion). When Yosef came to bury Yaakov in Me'arat HaMachpeila, we know (Sota 13a) that Eisav objected, claiming that he was the bechor of Yitzchak and not Yaakov. Everyone knows the story how Chushim the son of Dan decapitated Eisav and Eisav's head rolled into Me'arat HaMachpeila and landed in Yitzchak's lap. The Ramban fills us in on a few more of the details. It did not end with the decapitation of Eisav.
Eliphaz's son צְפוֹ and his band of thugs then attacked the burial party and waged war on them in an attempt to prevent them from burying Yaakov. When Yosef left Egypt to bury Yaakov, the passuk (בראשית נ, ט) says that he took with him רֶכֶב גַּם פָּרָשִׁים. Why did Yosef need armed forces with him to bury Yaakov? Because he knew that he was going to have trouble from Eisav and his sons.
Yosef and his forces defeated and captured צְפוֹ and imprisoned him in Egypt. Many years later, when Yosef died, צְפוֹ escaped and fled to a country called כאנפנייא (which is now Poland) and later became the first king of Italy and Rome. In other words, the Roman Empire is descended from צְפוֹ.
Sefer Kav HaYashar (above) says that צְפוֹ was the most powerful of all the descendants of Eisav and the first of the kings of the seventy nations of the world. The word צְפוֹ in gematriya is פּוֹלִין and this is why the kingdom of Edom is known as מֶטְרוֹפּוֹלִין, a conglomeration of seventy nations.
We know that when Adam and Chava sinned with the עֵץ הַדַּעַת they created something called קְלִיפּוֹת – which can perhaps be translated as "shrapnel" – Adam Harishon's neshama was shattered into 288 (רפח) shards from the "explosion" of this cataclysmic sin. Before the Geulah can arrive, all these רפח klipot need to undergo tikkun, according to the sifrei Kabbalah.
The Ari z"l says that when Am Yisrael left Egypt, 202 of these klipot were repaired when the erev rav accompanied them. רב = 202. (see shiur Pesach 2024).
The most damaging and enduring of all these klipot is called צְפוֹ. It was a direct consequence of the sin of Chava and Adam when they ate חִטָּה from the עֵץ הַדַּעַת. The gematriya of חִטָּה is 22, which is also gematriya of צְפוֹ ( in nistar format, spelling out each letter צדי פא ואו and then dropping the first letter, i.e די א או). The gematriya of צְפוֹ (in milui format, spelling out each letter צדי פא ואו) is אֵיפָה וְאֵיפָה, referring to the two loaves of bread, each made from one eifah of solet, one eaten by Chava and the second by Adam (Meir Panim, פרק טו, עמ' קסד) and also the gematriya of הֵם יֹאכְלוּ בְלַחְמוֹ (ויקרא כב, יא).
The gematriya of צְפוֹ is four times the word דָּם, referring to the four galuyot, of which galut Edom is the longest.
צְפוֹ harbors some of the worst disasters to befall Am Yisrael. The gematriya of צְפוֹ is עֵץ גָּבוֹהַּ – referring to Haman. How high was the tree? 50 amah. The gematriya of צְפוֹ (176) + 50 = 226, which is the gematriya of בַּאֲבִי יָאר.
The gematriya of אַלּוּף צְפוֹ is בְּלַהַב הִיטְלֶר. The gematriya of צְפוֹ (in milui format צדי פא ואו) is יוֹזֶף גֶּבֵּלְס. Sefer Kav Hayashar also brings gematriya hints to the massacre of Khmelnytsky who slaughtered between 40,000-50,000 Jews in פּוֹלִין, (gematriya of צְפוֹ) during the years ת"ח – ת"ט (1648-1649).
And it has not yet ended.
As I described above, Torat HaRemez gives us hints to directions that are not obvious nor intuitive. Here is a perfect example.
The gematriya of צְפוֹ is אֶלֶף מֵאָה וְאֶחָד, hinting that there is some connection between צְפוֹ and the number 1101. So let us examine a few gematriyot that have the number 1101 –
שׁוֹאָה הַתשפ"ד
תְּקוּפָה מְבּוּלְבֶּלֶת
בָּאָה מִלְחָמָה עִם פְּלִשְׁתִּים
(וּבָאוּ עָלֶיךָ כָּל הַקְּלָלוֹת הָאֵלֶּה) ... כִּי לֹא שָׁמַעְתָּ בְּקוֹל ה' אֱ-לֹקֶיךָ (דברים כח, מה)
מַלְכוּת הַשֶּׁקֶר
חֲרֵדִים מִשְׁתַּמְּטִים
בִּנְיָמִין נְתַנְיָהוּ נִיצָּחוֹן מוּחְלָט בְּחָמָאס
תוֹם עִדַּן נְתַנְיָהוּ
שְׁנַת הָרָצוֹן
לְוַותֵּר עַל הַשְּׁלִיטָה
עַרְבוּת הֲדָדִית
מַתַּן תּוֹרָה
בְּשָׁלוֹם יַחְדָּו אֶשְׁכְּבָה וְאִישָׁן (תהילים ד, ט. רש"י - אם היו ישראל יחדו עמי)
כִּי הוּא אֱ-לֹקֵינוּ וַאֲנַחְנוּ עַם מַרְעִיתוֹ (תהילים צה, ז)
לִהְיֹתְךָ עַם קָדֹשׁ לַה' אֱ-לֹקֶיךָ (תהילים כו, יט)
יִשְׂרָאֵל בֶּן יִצְחָק בֶּן אַבְרָהָם
י"ג מִדּוֹת שֶׁל רַחֲמִים
עִתּוֹ שֶׁל קֵץ הַיָּמִים
תְּקוּמָה לְמַלְכוּת דָּוִיד
תִּשְׁלַח הַמָּשִׁיחַ
הַמָּשִׁיחַ יִצְמַח בְּמִלְחֶמֶת גּוֹג וּמָגוֹג
רֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה דִּין לְעוֹלָם
לְמַעַן טַהֵר אֶת הָאָרֶץ (יחזקאל לט, יא)
הַקְבָּלַת פְּנֵי מָשִׁיחַ בֶּן דָּוִד
תַּקִּיף יִבָּנֶה מִקְדָּשׁ
כָּל הָאָרֶץ פִּצְחוּ וְרַנְּנוּ וְזַמֵּרוּ (תהילים צח, ד)
ה' לְמֶלֶךְ עַל כָּל הָאָרֶץ בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא יִהְיֶה ה' אֶחָד וּשְׁמוֹ אֶחָד
Now, who in their wildest imagination would have ever have thought of the number 1101? This is the power of Torat HaRemez! Can you picture the seismograph needle jumping furiously?
So, parshat Naso with the magic number 176 harbors both the dread of the פֻּרְעָנוּת, but also the hope of the יְשׁוּעָה.
We, Am Yisrael, are currently in one of our worst crises ever in history. Most of the world is against us (as usual). We have one of the cruelest enemies toying and playing psychological mind games with us. Hundreds of thousands of people are displaced from their homes in the north and south.
Our brave sons and daughters at the front are being killed in action needlessly because we are pandering to the "morality" of the goyim instead of winning the war like we should. Despite our brave soldiers' sacrifice, Hamas are still firing rockets at us and the war seems far from over.
As fast as we kill them, they spring straight back up, because (duh!) there are no innocent civilians – they are all terrorists. Hezbollah is raining hell on our cities in the north, with inadequate response from our government.
The lack of unity amongst us has once again reared its ugly head and the prospect of civil war threatens, with greater intensity than that preceding October 7. Jews all over the world fear for their lives. They are afraid to walk out of their homes or go to classes on college campuses with any Jewish symbols.
It is not an encouraging scenario, to say the least. Just erev chag, one of my dear neighbors buried a grandson who fell bravely in battle in Gaza. Am Yisrael are depressed and reeling.
However, the darkness of the pit also conceals - the spark of hope.
זֶה לְעֻמַּת זֶה עָשָׂה הָאֱ-לֹקִים (קהלת ז, יד), just as HKB"H created צְפוֹ, 176, the longest parsha, the longest masechet in the Gemara, the longest perek Tehillim, the longest and most severe galut, … He also created its counterpart – צוּף.
צוּף is the birth and burial place of Shmuel HaNavi, the prophet who anointed the Mashiach ben David. Our prophets are also called צוֹפִים. They spread before us a roadmap - the way history is going to play out. They also pinpointed for us the turning point at which this will occur – when we reconnect with HKB"H. Have a look at the gematriyot for 1101 above, if that is not a roadmap, then what is?
The gematriya of צוּף (in milui format צדי ואו פא) is מִן הַמַּחֲנֶה, in the passuk quoted at the beginning of the shiur, from this week's parsha. We have to pull out all the stops and start making our מַחֲנֶה קָדוֹשׁ. We do this by beginning intense work on ourselves, improving our midot, expanding to those closest to us, our immediate family, our neighbors, our community, town, city.
As part of this we need to "remove" (marginalize) all elements that defile our camp - כָּל צָרוּעַ וְכָל זָב וְכֹל טָמֵא לָנָפֶשׁ, all those who spread lashon hara and hatred (צָרוּעַ), all those who are involved with גִּלּוּי עֲרָיוֹת and immoral behavior (זָב) and all those who are responsible for שְׁפִיכוּת דָּמִים – needless loss of life of our citizens and children, but also הַלְבָּנַת פְּנֵי חֲבֵרוֹ which is tantamount to murder (טָמֵא לָנָפֶשׁ) … I am referring to the media (both the left and right).
Until now we have been responding predictably, much to the satisfaction of the arch villain Sinwar, who is playing us like a violin. We need to become less צְפוּ-יִים and more צוֹפִים, focusing less on the immediate reality and more on the possibility. We need to break out of the endless cycle of וַתִּשְׁקֹט הָאָרֶץ [מִסְפָּר] שָׁנָה and get with the program hidden in this week's parsha (see 1101 above).
Our parsha ends with the inauguration of the Mishkan and the reestablishment of our direct link with HKB"H. This is the goal.
Shabbat Shalom
Eliezer Meir Saidel
Machon Lechem Hapanim
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