Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh's blog
Posted in Questions in the Bible on Jun 6th, 2011
Questions come from doubt. Doubt comes from sin. Sin comes from illusion. The Torah was given to save us from false illusions. Illusion is in the mind. The primordial sin, a physical act, was perpetrated from hand to mouth (taking and eating the forbidden fruit). Doubt is in the heart. From the heart doubt enters [...]
Posted in Questions in the Bible on Jun 3rd, 2011
An angel asked Hagar, Sarai’s maid, “where are you coming from and where are you going?” She answered, “I’m fleeing from Sarai my mistress” (“אֵי מִזֶּה בָאת וְאָנָה תֵלֵכִי וַתֹּאמֶר מִפְּנֵי שָׂרַי גְּבִרְתִּי אָנֹכִי בֹּרַחַת”). This is the first appearance in the Torah of the question “where [are you going]?” (Note that the form of the [...]
Posted in Questions in the Bible on Jun 2nd, 2011
In English one may ask “where are you headed?” instead of “where are you going?” The parallel Hebrew idiom is, “where is your face set?” (לאן פניך מועדות) “Where are you headed?” suggests consciousness (vector-like consciousness; the “head” in the idiom is like the head of an arrow), that you have in mind the objective of [...]
Posted in Questions in the Bible on Jun 2nd, 2011
Our origin is in the Divine nothing. Our goal is to understand everything, as it says, “Those that seek God shall understand everything.” We come from wisdom, the father principle, and we go to understanding, the mother principle. Father, “the depth of the beginning,” is “nothing” (“wisdom appears from nothing”; the “nothing,” the source of [...]
Posted in Questions in the Bible on Jun 1st, 2011
In Hebrew, the question “where [am I/are you] from?” (מאין) contains the answer. “Where from?” literally reads “from nothing.” The first appearance in the Torah of the question “where from?” is in the story of Jacob on his way to Haran, about to meet and fall in love (at first sight) with Rachel. (He was [...]
Posted in Questions in the Bible on May 31st, 2011
There are three forms of the question “where?” in Biblical Hebrew. They first appear in the Torah in evolving order, both grammatically and numerically. The first form, ey (אי), comprises only two letters (perhaps the simplest syllable in the Hebrew language) and first appears in the question we contemplated above, “Where is Abel your brother” (אי [...]
Posted in Questions in the Bible on May 30th, 2011
After killing Abel God asked Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He answered, “I know not, am I my brother’s keeper?” God responded: “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries to Me from the ground….” The first question God posed Cain after his sin was “where…?” – the same question He [...]
Posted in Questions in the Bible on May 29th, 2011
After his sin God asked Adam, “Where are you?” Do you know to what depth you have fallen? Adam ate the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. He pursued knowledge (God wants us to be knowledgeable, doesn’t He?). And he got it – the knowledge of the depth to which [...]
Posted in Questions in the Bible on May 24th, 2011
The description of David, “reddish with beautiful eyes” (“אַדְמוֹנִי עִם יְפֵה עֵינַיִם”) equals “kingdom” (malchut, מלכות, 496). That’s what it takes to be a king and rule over a kingdom. The entire verse, “And he sent and brought him, and he was reddish with beautiful eyes and goodly appearance, and God said, Arise anoint him [...]
Posted in Questions in the Bible on May 24th, 2011
King David asked the question “Who am I?” The Bible describes him as “reddish with beautiful eyes and goodly appearance.” Each of us has a soul-root. Ultimately, we all descend from Adam, and as such we each are rooted in one of his (spiritual) limbs. The soul of Adam is the origin of the middle [...]