BH

613 Mitzvot

TheSixIdiomsoftheShema
from Harav Yitzchak Ginsburgh

The Shema isthe essentialstatementof Jewishfaith, Hear OIsrael,Havayahis our

God, Havayah is One. The first word of the Shema, hear ( ,shema), has 3 letters,

which can be permuted in six different ways. Each of these permutations alludes to eitherpartofaverseortoaRabbinicalidiom.Letuswritetheseout:
Raiseyoureyesupwards(,) aphrasefromIsaiah40:26. Aflamerisingonitsown( ,) aRabbinicidiomfromShabbat

21a(seealsoRashitoExodus27:20).
Whohasascendedtotheheavens?(,) aphrasefromProverbs30:4. ThePlaceoftheWorld(,) aRabbinicconnotationfortheCreator.

Seeinlengthinthearticleonourwebsite.
Above all You have placed Your abode ( ,) a phrase from

Psalms91:9.
The yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven ( ,) a Rabbinic idiom

specificallyrelatedtotheintentoftheShema,i.e.,takingontheyokeoftheKingdomof Heaven.SeeBerachot13a. Now,letusfurtherexplorethistopicbyintroducingKabbalisticpermutationtheory.

Kabbalistic Permutation Theory

Kabbalistic writings discuss the secrets of permutation,1 or, as we would call it in moremodernterms,permutationtheory.ThegoalofKabbalisticpermutationtheoryis tocorrectlycorrespondanythreeelements,letuscallthema,b,andc,tothesixemotive sefirot,fromlovingkindnesstofoundation. Given 3 distinct elements, a, b, and c, clearly, there are six possible permutations: abc,acb,bca,bac,cab,cba.Usingaverybasicmathematicaltransformationrule,2these sixpermutationscorrespondtothesixattributesoftheheartinthefollowingmanner:

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might

lovingkindness

bca
beauty

abc cab

acknowledgment

victory

bac
foundation

acb cba

This is the barebones correspondence and is very straightforward. However, now letusnotethatgivenanythreeterms,theiridentificationasa,b,andcisnotarbitrary. Rather, Kabbalistic permutation theory requires that the three terms correctly correspond to the three intellectual sefirot: wisdom (a), understanding (b), and knowledge(c). Correctly identifying which of the three terms corresponds to which of the intellectual sefirot is the crux of the issue and requires that one have a great deal of experiencewiththistopic(i.e.,havingstudiedhowthisisdoneformany3letterroots) andagreatdealofKabbalisticintuition(somethingthatobviouslycannotbetaught).3

The Idioms and the Sefirot

ReturningtothefirstwordoftheShema, ,ourfirststepistoidentifytowhichof thethreeintellectualsefiroteachletterofthewordcorresponds.Basedonourteachings elsewhere,thecorrespondenceis:
wisdom understanding knowledge

Whichgivesusthefollowingchart,

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might

lovingkindness

beauty

acknowledgment victory

foundation

1. SeeourHebrewvolumeSodHashemLeyereiav,pp.???foramoreindepthexplanationof thistopic. 2. It is left for the reader to find the rule for this transformation. Once the rule is found, noticethatitparallelsthelefthandandrighthandrulesinvectoralgebra.Morespecifically,the transformation used for lovingkindness, might, and beauty corresponds to the lefthand rule, resulting in a negative zaxis vector, indicating that these 3 sefirot are pointed inwards. The transformationforvictory,acknowledgment,andfoundationcorrespondstotherighthandrule, resultinginapositivezaxisvectorandindicatingthatthese3sefirotpointoutwards. 3.Now,letusrewritetheabovecorrespondenceusingmoretraditionalKabbalisticnotation. Fora,b,andcweusethethreeuniquelettersofGodsessentialName,Havayah, (yud), (hei), and ( vav), which themselves correspond to wisdom, understanding, and knowledge, respectively. In addition, we will now note the correspondence of the letters , ,and ,to the sefirotaswell,includingthethreeheadsofthesefirahofcrown.
theunknowablehead

theheadofnothingness

theheadofpatience

understanding

Wisdom

Knowledge

might

lovingkindness

Beauty

acknowledgment

Victory

Foundation

Kingdom

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