Yitro : Goodness and Kindess from Sinai

[muman613]

This weeks Torah portion is Yitro. It is always a favorite Parasha of mine because it always falls out around the time of my Birthday. This year my Secular birthday and my Hebrew birthday fall out in the same week. This is pretty rare {I cannot remember it happening since I started keeping the Hebrew calendar}.

I just listened to a talk by Rabbi Yitzak Ginsburg on some of the deeper understandings of this magnificent Torah Parasha. One of the major themes of the Parasha {besides Yitro himself} is what we call Matan Torah {The giving of the Torah} and the receiving of the Aseret HaDibrot {10 sayings/commandments}. Some Jews have a custom of standing during the reading of the Torah on Shabbat during the Aseret HaDibrot but there is controversy over whether we should or not.

What I learned this evening concerns secrets learned through gematria {numerology}. Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism learn a lot by taking the values of the letters of a word and adding them together. By comparing and looking for patterns we can learn deeper levels of the Torah.

Parasha Yitro is the 17th Parasha in the Torah from the beginning. The # 17 also is the value of the word 'טוֹב Tov' which means 'Good'. The masoretic notes for the Parasha explain that there are 72 pasuks in the portion. The # 72 also is the value for the word 'חֶסֶד Chesed' {   http://www.inner.org/sefirot/sefchesd.htm } .

What is the meaning of this? Look into the Tanakh and find that these two words only appear together in scripture once. According to Rabbi Ginsburg this occurs in Tehillim/Psalm 23 in the last line:

http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt2623.htm

ו  אַךְ, טוֹב וָחֶסֶד יִרְדְּפוּנִי--    כָּל-יְמֵי חַיָּי וְשַׁבְתִּי בְּבֵית-יְהוָה,    לְאֹרֶךְ יָמִים;

Surely goodness and kindness shall follow me all the days of my life;and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

What else is learned from this.... The letter Tet, the first letter of Tov, represents Goodness which is introverted { http://www.inner.org/hebleter/tet.htm }. The Hebrew letter Tet looks like this:



We know that Moses represented Goodness because when he was born it is said that a light shone from his face. When Hashem created the world he said 'Let there be light, and the light was good'. This light also was contained and kept for the righteous. Moses was the prototypical goodness through his introverted nature. Remember that Moses was not gifted with the power of good speech, he had a heavy mouth, or a lisp.

We know that Aaron, Moses brother, who is the father of the Cohenic line was a man of peace. He was well liked and considered an extrovert. Thus we apply the concept of Chesed, which is an extroverted goodness. Chesed is also called Ahavat-Chesed or 'loving kindness'. Aaron was reported to be able to make peace between a man and his wife, and even between a man and his brother.

The combination of the introverted goodness and the extroverted goodness will happen when Moshiach comes. It is said that all controversies will be resolved when the introverted and the extroverted traits are able to become one.

To learn more about this concept watch this 12 minute video of Rabbi Ginsburg explaining it..

http://koshertube.com/videos/index.php?option=com_seyret&Itemid=4&task=videodirectlink&id=6460


Other references:

http://www.torahtots.com/Parasha/shmos/yitro2.htm
http://www.sichosinenglish.org/books/chassidic-dimension-festivals-2/42.htm