Bostoner Torah Insights: Bostoner ‘Chassidus’ in Hebrew and English: Parshas Yisro – 17 Shevat 5785
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Bostoner Torah Insights
Bostoner ‘Chassidus’ in English
Parshas Yisro – 17 Shevat 5785
Bostoner Rebbe shlit”a – Yerushalayim
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The sacrosanct Aseret HaDibros begins with the words אנכי ה' אלקיך “I am Hashem your G-d…” (Shemos 20:2). Rebbe Yochanan teaches that the word אנכי, which on the surface is the formal way of saying “I” is in actuality an acronym, which means אנא נפשי כתיבת יהבית ‘I myself wrote it and gave it’. The Chachamim agree that the word Anochi is an acronym, however, they maintain it represents אמירה נעימה כתיבה יהיבה or ‘A pleasant utterance was written and given’. The Gemara concludes that Notrikon or the use of acronyms is a concept based in the Torah itself (Shabbos 88a).
My nephew, Rabbi Yisrael Aharon Horowitz from Manchester, brought to my attention that although Rashi brings seven names for Yisro, two of the names are Yeser and Yisro and we can presume that the letter 'Vav' was added at a later point to the original name of Yeser. If we look throughout the Chumash and combine all of the letters added to the names of Torah personalities we find: The letter 'Heh' added to the name of Avraham Avinu, the letter ‘Heh’ that replaced the letter 'Yud' in Sarah Imeinu’s name, the letter 'Yud' which was then added to the name of Yehoshua, and finally the letter 'Vav' which was added to the name of Yisro. In all, we have the four letters of the ineffable Divine Name of Hashem. It would also appear that Yisro was the final letter chronologically as Yehoshua’s name already appears last week in Parshas Beshalach even though the reference to his name change is only mentioned later in Parshas Shlach.
Rabbi Yisrael Aharon further added that since a Parsha was added to the Torah in honor of Yisro, referring to the advice he gave Moses regarding appointing judges, and since Yisro himself was the first person to Misgayer and convert from a non-Jew after they had received the Torah. Yisro embodies the concept found in the Zohar that HaKadosh Baruch Hu, Yisroel and the Torah are in essence one entity.
We find in the Gemara (Menachot 29b) as statement from Rav Yehuda Bar Ilai that This World and the Next World were created by Hashem. One was created with the letter ‘Heh’ and one was created with the letter ‘Yud’. Initially, it was unclear whether the World to Come is represented by the letter 'Yud' and This World by the letter ‘Heh’ or vice versa. The Gemara derives from the Pasuk, “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created' (Beraishis 2:4) that the phrase ‘they were created’ בהבראם should be read as בה' בראם or ‘with the letter Heh it was created’. The conclusion of the Gemara therefore is that This World was created with the letter 'Heh,' and the World to Come was created with the letter ‘Yud’.
Avraham and Sarah symbolize the first 'Heh' and the last 'Heh' respectively, while Yehoshua represents the letter 'yud' with which God created the World to Come. The letter 'vav' is a letter that forms conjunctions between words when added as a prefix to words and it itself is shaped like a connector. Yisro merited to realize that it is possible to join Yisroel and thereby allow himself as well as to demonstrate to others the possibility of connecting This World to the World to Come.
At the end of Ein Kelokaynu, the Piyut that we say before Alenu Leshabeach, we add an additional passage from the Gemara at the end of Meseches Brachos (64a) where we also see this idea that HaKadosh Baruch Hu, Yisroel, and the Torah are in essence one entity. The words למען אחי ורעי ‘For the sake of my brothers and my friends’ corresponds to Klal Yisroel, למען בית ה' אלקינו ‘for the sake of Beis Hashem Elokeinu’ corresponds to HaKadosh Baruch Hu and the ה' עוז לעמו יתן ‘Hashem will give strength to His people’ corresponds to the Torah.
Similarly, we find in the Piyut of כגוונא that we say before Borchu on Leil Shabbos the word ‘one’, either אחד in Hebrew or חד in Aramaic, written 13 times, which is the numerical Gematria of the word אחד or One. When we recite the אחד or One in the Kriyas Shema we are obligated to keep in mind that the Alef (1) indicates that Hashem is One and Unique and his uniqueness – as indicated by the letter Chet (8) – rules over the seven heavens and this world, while the letter Dalet (4) indicates that He rules over the four directions. All of this emphasizes the unity that the sanctity of Klal Yisroel and the sanctity of the Torah depend on its attachment to HaKadosh Baruch Hu himself.
When we proclaim the oneness of Hashem on Shabbos, we can reach an even greater level, as the sanctity of Shabbos has the ability to transform us and to allow the Shechina to rest in our midst as we await the coming of the Go’el Tzedek, speedily in our days.
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