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Chumash And The Pattern Of Five

from The Official Podcast of Rabbi Dr Akiva Tatz

46m 48s

Chumash And The Pattern Of Five

The Torah is structured in five books not by accident, but as a reflection of a deeper, universal spiritual pattern of five. This pattern permeates all aspects of existence—from the five levels of the soul (desire, thought, form, speech, action) to the five Kabbalistic worlds and the structure of God’s name. Genesis begins with divine creation driven by boundless goodness (chessed), while the journey through the desert (Bemidbar) serves as a test of speech and moral integrity, highlighting the dangers of misuse in communication. The Mishkan represents a perfected, microcosmic re-creation of the world, mirroring the laws of creation and emphasizing the sacredness of stillness and order. Deuteronomy, the final book, embodies the feminine dimension, where teachings are repeated and internalized, allowing for personal growth and oral transmission. This structure reveals that Torah is not merely a record of history but a living, evolving process—where the journey through the desert mirrors the broader historical experience of the Jewish people. The number five symbolizes completion and balance, while the number ten (as in the commandments) reflects its division into two sets of five, representing divine and human realms. Ultimately, the five books form a unified spiritual journey from creation to the land of Israel, where the people achieve full spiritual and moral maturity through reflection, learning, and the re-emergence of divine principles in daily life.

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English
We are now approaching the discussion, we'll be reading the beginning of the Torah. So, let's try to look at a theme which really weaves its way through all of Torah. The more background you have, the more I hope you'll discover in this, but really we can't really do everything at once, so try to lay down the theme as clearly as we can, but you really need to discuss it from many more points of view. We can only scratch the surface really, but I hope you'll be able to use this as a framework and then as we go further on as you know, our own studies are unlearning well to see more in it. I just want to speak about one idea, and that is why Hommash is five. How much means five, right? Why the Torah, or Bible, is in five books, what does it mean? What's the meaning of a pattern of five, and what's the theme if you like the thematic development of the books of Torah? What are they reflecting the world, and why is it so important that they are five? I presume you're all know enough to know, I'm sure you've all accomplished scholars and Kabbalists. I'm sure you know that ten is really five, right? You know the ten commandments that we read about this week are given in two sets of five, each of which parallel, each is parallel to the other. And really the five expanded to ten, or the ten can be grouped in five sets, and we won't have, I think we'll have time this evening, to explain why the deep pattern of the world is based on ten elements, and yet we can group them into five sets, perhaps some other time we'll be able to do that. But there's no contradiction here, they are the same idea really, and the root pattern is five steps, so let's see if we can try to understand what lies behind it. You know the first book of Hommash is "Braces" that is Genesis, that's where the world is created, the world and the Jewish people really, that's where the four fathers of the Jewish people establish the Jewish people, the transition is Joseph, Yosef is the end of that, Yosef I'm sure you're aware, it's both a father and a son, and that's why it's transitional between the two books, the first two books. The first book is Hashem himself creating the world, the second book of Shmois, the book of names, where the Jewish people develop their names in Egypt, that means become individuals, and the transition between the book of the fathers as it's called, Genesis and the book of the children, the sons, which is Shmois, where they are named as it were, the transition obviously is Joseph, you doesn't take much to realize that Yosef is that figure who is transitional between father and son, he is a son, he's one of the twelve tribes, and yet he's a four father in that he has two tribes of Yosef, right, yes, a friend of Manaches, so he really stands at that interface, he's one of the four fathers in the sense that he's children on the tribes, two of the tribes on the other hand, he's also counted as one of the twelve tribes, so he's transitional, you then have the book of Shmois, which is the development of the Jewish people, you then have Ayikra which is the book of the Mishkan, the sanctuary, later becomes the temple, the point of meeting between these two worlds, where Shem meets us, that's the real theme of Ayikra, you then have the book of Bar Midbar in the desert, as the Jewish people make their way through the desert with all the faithful or deals that they face in the desert and the ten trials that they have that they fail, and then the book of Tvarym, which is the book of arriving at the verge of Israel, and that book, as you know, I'm sure, changes tone or style, instead of it being direct dictation from Hashemud, his Moshe Rebonus Moses' words, that he utters which Hashem ratifies, it has a different nature, and I'm sure you're aware that it repeats many of the things, for example, the Tenka Moments, that we read this week or repeated again with slight variations in that book as well, and that needs understanding, why is it repeated? The word they're using, English, I don't know, English Greek, whatever it is, Deuteronomy, right? Means the second version, that's what it means, right? I'm sure you all Greek scholars, well that's what it means, it means the second time, and the reason is obvious, and that is that it's a duplication in many ways, that needs to be understood. What lies behind these five, what is the pattern that's being expressed here? Torah is really an expression in the world of the higher world, that means the roots of reality have this pattern, and they express themselves in the expressed world, and therefore Torah has to be the most perfect description of the world, and we've shared together many times the idea that Torah is not a description of the world, it's a prescription, it is the cause and the reason that the world looks the way it does, and therefore if in the spiritual world there are five layers, then Torah obviously reflects that as five layers, and the world itself must manifest that pattern. So what lies behind this, what lies behind this? Let's begin maybe, and take a look at the five layers of reality, but this is not easy material, it reaches deep into the Kabbalistic world, but since everything is really built on this I think it pays to understand something about it, so let's try to define the pattern if we can and then work through it. What is this pattern of five? First of all you know, wherever you look in Torah you will see that all structures have five layers, you know for example that Hashem's name, the divine name, right? That has four letters, but any system of four obviously has a mystical root, the point of Genesis if you like, which is always mysterious, it's something that can't really be seen in itself, in other words the way our tradition puts it is that the four letters of Hashem's name, yeah first a huge, which is a minimal letter, right, the din of a huge is just a drop of ink, just a small speck, then you have a hay and then a verb and then a hay, those are the four letters of the divine name, right, the name we never say, because it's a word that's above the world, if you set it in the world you'd be lying, because it's not a name that manifests in the world that way, but obviously those four letters, the root of them is what's known as the Kutza Sholdyud, in other words it's a little fleck or speck or place where the Yud begins, technically speaking it's where the ink meets the parchment, that point can never be defined, you can never see that, you can never see where nothing becomes something, because if you look too soon you don't see anything, and if you look too late you see the thing itself, you can never see nothing becoming something else, you see a lot of very doubtful faces, you can't see where nothing becomes something, is it, is it, because if you look too soon you don't see anything, and if you look too late you see the thing, you can't see the flashing in of nothing becoming something, where does the musical not begin, you can never grasp the moment of its beginning, you can either hear silence, or you hear something, the silence becoming something, yes, no, is it not if it's too looking at that instant, I'm not here for a time break, oh well one second I, that's too deep for me, right now I'm having enough trouble with me, just hold on a second. The mystical point is what's called Yesh Mayayan, something from nothing, you can't represent that, if you try to make a picture of that it would be something, how do you, is this clear, if I try to put a letter into the name, a first letter, a first letter of five, that letter would be a letter, it wouldn't be a nothing becoming or something, it would be something, it's going to be a long night too, so therefore the way we depicted is, we say it's where the yud begins, it's that amazing place where the ink, yeah, where the blank space becomes the black letter, but neither of those, whether one becomes the other, right, and therefore it's not represented as a separate letter, and so really there are five elements to these four letters, there are four letters that are drawn, written, duke, vavke, but the root of them is the mystical, nothing becoming as always, that mysterious point, that cannot be depicted, so actually Ashem's name of four letters, it is a pattern of five, there's the gemesis of the thing which can never be understood, why did Ashem create the world? The beginning of creation always is something that can't be understood, right? That is called, in the technical world we use this chess, chess it means a kindness or a loving kindness, when something is done for no reason that's a kindness, if I do something for you for no reason, no reason that you, you can ever discern, it's only my love for you, that may not have to do this, again not Rahamim, don't make a mistake, Rahamim is where you do something for somebody because he needs it, that's a different story, when you give to somebody who's poor, that's not called chess it, that's called Rahamim, the difference between chess it and Rahamim is that chess it kindness is done with no reason at all, it's done because I want to do this for you, not because you need it, if you need it then the origin of this movement is your need, there was a sense in which I was obliged by your need, if I'm a sensitive person and you poor or you starving or you need help, So that evokes my heart. help. And we call that Rakhami, mercy. But Chessed is not there. Chessed is where I do it for you, not because there's a need, just because I want to. This is the desire of a parent to give birth. This is, in fact, it's very interesting, is that the very first word you can spell in Hebrew, you can't make any more basic word in Hebrew than Alif Bet. You just can't get more basic than that. Alif is not a word. As soon as you construct a word in Hebrew, you take the very first two letters of Alphabet, right? The word means father of, and also the male desire. The father's desire to marry him, to produce a family of Vaughan, he remains too long for and to desire, right? Not aim, the mother is a different word. She has an alif, which is the first letter, and then she has a man, which is a middle letter, because the woman is always the one who yeah, it depends on her. The Hebrew word aim, which means a mother, also means him, that means if, it's up to her, if yes, yes, if no, no, it's up to her, right? Okay, needs discussion. But the first two letters you can form are the letters for desire, and that describes at a very deep level our Shem's desire. He wants to create a world not because it needs him, it wasn't there, and not because he has any lack. He's not used to full lacking himself. He's doing simply because he wants to. That's called ultimate goodness, and that's called chesa. And therefore the safer brush is the book of Genesis is there. It describes the world coming into existence simply because he wants to. And that's called the book of the fathers, not the book of this desire, as it were, to bring something into existence simply because of his goodness. That is called chesa, that's why in English they call it loving kindness, it means goodness from goodness from goodness from goodness from goodness, it's a middle of yours because you good you want to give, right? That's what it means. I have, there's not problems with him, no problems with him. I'm not sure what you mean, hold on a second, stay stay tuned. So the first middle, the beginning of any process is called chesa, it means a thing done purely out of the goodness of the one who does it. That's the beginning. So you have five elements to the divine name. The soul, for example, has five parts. The human soul has five parts, right? The parts of the soul are, the first part is called rutson, which means desire. That means any ideation, any process of bringing a thing into the world begins with the desire for that thing, obviously, there's no motivation, no will, then nothing can ever move. The second level is called machava, which means a thought. After you have the desire, it's formulated as a thought. The third level is called hero, which means material thought, that means it has graphic content, plan, specifics. Then you have what's called dibu, dibu means loosely translated speech, but more deeply translated, dibu means a bringing down from theory and to practice. In Hebrew, the word dhabar means han haga, it means control, conduct, taking theory and putting it into practice, right? dhabar haga la dor means a leader of a generation, yad de bear amin takhtenu means to control nations, it means we translated in conventional Hebrew as speaking, but speaking really means taking an abstract theory and putting it into expression in the world, right? We spoke a week or two ago about the theory of speech and that is really a much deeper idea. Not simply speaking with a mouth, it is bringing an idea into manifestation in the world. That is called the fourth level, that's called dibu and the fifth level is called myse, which means action. Where the thing is not a translation of thought into action, it's the action itself, that's called myse. A siya means that which is done with the hands. So those are the five levels. So how do you think about it? Those are five natural levels. First, it must be the will for the thing, the desire. Then that desire, that's the, that's called yashmi ayin. Why do you have a desire for something? There's no reason. It wells up within you because it is there. There's no, you can't go back, you can't look for the source of an original source. That's not, that's not coherent. So first there is that desire, then it takes shape in the mind, that's called a makhshava thought. Then it takes graphic shape, here who always means with the thing, the word here who in Hebrew is two equal parts, here who. It means when the thing is actually the point of origin in thought and then the point of definition in picture. It's always graphic thoughts, very interesting, the sages when they talk about fantasies, thoughts of sin. Thoughts of sin, sinful thoughts, are called heuhurhe arveira, lustful thoughts. They're never called in the sages, never called in the makhshavas of arveira. They're never called in thoughts of sin. They always call because thoughts are too abstract, those don't bother anybody. It's heuhurim that bother people where there's graphic images, right? What bothers a person is where there's a tangible graphic element to the thing, right? An imaginary element that can be imaged, imaged. That's called heuhur, it's now got graphic content, but it's not yet in the world of expression, then Dibur, which is translation interaction, conventionally we call it speech. And then you have the final manifestation, those are the five levels of speech. There are five worlds, I'm sure you're familiar with that, five cabalistic worlds, right? We live in one of three lower worlds, this world we call, we live in is called Assyah, that's the final world, there's a world above this called Yitzira, which is the world of formation, there's a world above that called the world of Brea, the world of creation, they're coming into being of the worlds, the world above that is Assyah himself, that's above the world, and of course that name of Assyah, that name of Assyah is a manifestation of something very, very deep that in the cabalistic works is known as whatever it's known as, it's got its own terminology, it's a higher human form in the upper world, that is represented in these in these in these layers, so you have four worlds and of course there's a root of that which is beyond all human understanding, there's a fifth one, so you have five layers to every to every structure in the world, incidentally that's why the world is made with Ahshem's hand and the hand has five fingers, the verse says, "I cost the world with my hand and the heavens with my right hand, but Yimini, Tip Hashemah means Yimini Yastah, Yaddi Yastah, it's my hand, makes hand in Hebrew, always means a left hand, the left hand is always the hand of control and limitation, the word Yaddi in Hebrew, which is a hand, spells die, the same letters which means enough to stop to limit, and Yimini and my right hand makes the heavens, which is the unlimited world, right, that's always right and left, the hand that begins and produces on the hand that limits, those are the two hands in each of them, each of those two layers of creation have five, five elements obviously, so that every process, every element in the world, every structure has these five layers, five layers to thought, five layers to the soul, the soul has five layers, ideation as we said as five, and the soul has five layers, the lowest level of the soul is called the nephish, the nephish is the part that actually engages the body, in technical terms it's called Shitufa de Gufe, it's where the soul meets the body, it's that part of the soul that is almost tangible, it has cravings and sensuous desires and hangars and passions and the things that an animal has, right, those things we share with the animal, they move the body, that part of the soul that animates, the word anima in Latin means the soul, the soul that animates, that moves the body, the soul moves the body, that's called the nephish, right, the nephish, the word nephish in Hebrew is three meanings, nephish means comes to rest, comes to rest by yin na fash we say, comes to rest, because that is where the soul meets the body and comes to rest, nephish also means desire, the desire of the body, not the higher desire, the desire of the body to have, and the third meaning is to give back and make more, nephish in Arabic means, nephish tova means to manufacture more, to make more, those are the three meanings of nephish, so nephish is the lowest part of the soul, in fact that part of the soul, cabalistically inhabits the liver, there's no accident that in English it's called the liver, that's where the life force connects with the body, in Hebrew it's called the cave, the heavy part, it's called heavy, right, and of course the liver is nothing other than blood, the blood is where the nephish is, right, so that's where, that's where it is, the next level of soul is called the ruhach, which already is very undeveloped in an animal, that's much more developed in humans, the ruhach is the inner process, once inner life, once thoughts and once, right, one intellectual world, not the cravings and animal drives, but the world of thought and concept, that's called ruhach means movement, wind movement of air, that's always a process, that's called ruhach, that according to the deeper wisdom is in the heart, which is always a process of movement, what's in the chest level, what's in the lower level is always connection to the world, right, connection to the material world keeps the body going, reproduction produces one in the next generation, engaging the world in that way, the middle of the body, the chest is where the heart and lungs are, that's always a movement, the lung is ruh, means breath, breath, wind, breath, movement, run of air, that is called the heart, that's where one experiences one's soul, the higher levels called the nashama, that really is in the brain, that's the third of the levels, which is already verging on sanctity, in fact the nashama is so high and so holy, we have very little contact with it, all of our inner experiences are already called ruhach, do we have any contact with nashama, maybe in very rare moments of inspiration, where you suddenly hit with an amazing idea that comes from nowhere, that experience of suddenly, or when you try to solve a problem, right, and you work on it for ages and ages, and you work on it and work on it suddenly, when you lose control or you relax or you wake up, Mae'n gweithio'r unrhyw i'n gweithio'r unrhyw i'n gweithio'r unrhyw i'n gweithio. Mae'n gweithio'r unrhyw i'n gweithio'r unrhyw i'n gweithio'r unrhyw i'n gweithio. Mae'n gweithio'r unrhyw i'n gweithio'r unrhyw i'n gweithio. Mae'n gweithio'r unrhyw i'n gweithio. Mae'n gweithio. Mae'n gweithio. Mae'n gweithio. Mae'n gweithio. Mae'n gweithio. Mae'n gweithio. Mae'n gweithio. Mae'n gweithio. Mae'n gweithio. Mae'n gweithio. The child's only nurse doesn't eat any extraneous food. The law is that if a child is soiled, a newborn child, you can save lessons in front of the child. Use Hashem's name. There's nothing offensive about it, but nothing smells as bad as a dead human body. When a thing separates from life, and the nose is always, that is the organ, when the sheriff comes and says, he will smell the ear of Hashem. He will not look at spiritual content. He'll be able to smell it. That means things that are connected to life are always, and that's what the incest is. It is that connection with life. And that's why, and the Mishkan has all these things. Who serves in the Mishkan? The priests, right? The Levine and the Kohani. The book in English is called Leviticus, right? It's called the Levine. By the way, Levy means to connect to a company. Le Vaya means to connect. They're the ones who connect. The Mishkan, the people who work there, the Kohani, are between us and Hashem. Now, the moral says an amazing thing. The word Kohane in Hebrew ends up to 75. Kohane, Kohane, Kohane, 75. The moral says it's a way of saying, how do you say in Hebrew seven and a half? How do you say between seven and eight, 75? Again, seven is the natural world always, right? Seven elements of the natural world, as we know. Eight is always the miraculous, the transcendent. Eight is always in the miraculous world, the higher world. Shmone in Hebrew means oil, floats above. Shmone in the word for eight in Hebrew, you rearrange the letters that spells in the shamah, the soul, which is above the body, right? You rearrange the letters again, it spells Mishnah. The Mishnah is where they're written and oral nor meet. So the letters of eight are always beyond. Brismina circumcision done on the eighth day, giving the body the ability to transcend. Hanukkah celebrates the miracle, it's eight days long. Eight is always beyond the natural world. So seven is natural, eight is transcendent. 75, that's halfway between seven and eight. The Kohane is halfway between this world and the next. The Talmud has a discussion, is he our agent to represent us to Hashem, or Hashem's agent to represent him to us? He's both of those. And therefore he wears no shoes, because he's above. Yeah, he's not connected to the world. And he serves in the Mishkan. So the Kohane are those agents who are fulfilling the function of the Mishkan, and they bond this world to the next. And it's always the point of, that's what, that's what, that's what, say, for Vayikra is the book that deals Teresh Kahane is dealing with all of these, of these points of connection. Why it's necessary is very important to understand also. The deep secret is that Genesis, the book of British, the world was created, but destroyed. World was created, but man's sin, man are women. Man are women, they broke it down. The world needs a new and perfect creation. The secret of Vayikra is that Hashem recreates the world again in the microcosm of the temple. You know, everyone should notice, is that the Mishkan, the sanctuary, is the source of the laws of Shabbat. How do you keep Shabbat? You don't do the 39 things that were done to build the Mishkan. Why? Because the Mishkan, that sanctuary, that little tent of meeting, was built and constructed in the desert using 39 creative activities. Capitalistically, those are the actions that Hashem used to create the world. So the Mishkan is the microcosm of the world. And just like on Shabbat, he stopped creating the world. On Shabbat, we stopped the 39 activities that are used to create the Mishkan. If you want to know what you may not do on Shabbat, you go back to the 39 things that were done to build the Mishkan. It's those 39 things that you have to stop. It's a very clear indication here, that the Mishkan is the second version, if you like, of the creation, but this time in terms of perfection, right? You notice the Torah says by the Mishkan, "Time and time again, Karshed Sivashem, "as Hashem commanded, as Hashem commanded." In Genesis, it wasn't as Hashem commanded. He commanded it not to eat the fruit and add the fruit. So he recreates a second version of the world, which we have a hand in. And this time, it's Karshed Sivashem, exactly the way it was meant to be, so it was built in perfection. And that is the secret of the book of, that is the book of Leviticus. And then we come to the fourth book of Bermidbar. Where does that place us in the hierarchy? Let's understand this, amazing, you to understand. What is the fifth level? We said the first level is Ratsom, Desire Hashem's desire to create the world. The second is Makhshava, the thought, right? The third is where it comes into specific graphic representation. The fourth is called Dibur, right? Speech, remember that? The fourth is called Dibur, the fourth book of whom is she's called Bermidbar. Dibur, again, we used to translate it as Bermidbar Mini in the desert. What's the called in English? Numbers, numbers here, numbers. Bermidbar means in the desert, right? Bermidbar, in the desert. But the Hebrew word Midbar is the same word as speaking. No, I accident that, right? The word is Bermidbar or Bermidbar in the speaking. What does this mean? And by the way, the whole book's about speaking. The whole book of Bermidbar is about speaking. It's all speech. The Jewish people are going through the desert. You know what happens in the book of Bermidbar? One breakdown after another of speech. All the faults of speech. The Jewish people are tested ten times. Each time is a breakdown of speech. Right? For example, misonini, they complain. The second one you have there is Miriam and Aaron speaking Lush and horror about worship. Using speech wrongly. The third one is the Miragli. They go in and they speak bad about the land of Israel. That's speech again. Then you have Kairah, right? Maklekas fighting, arguing. Using speech wrongly to cause dissension and arguments among the Jewish people. And then you have. Hitting the bullocks, cursing the Jewish people, using speech for a curse. And then you have a wish about hitting the rock instead of speaking to the rock. This is the withholding of speech improperly. All book is a book of the eras and the breakdown of speech. By the way, while we're on the subject, it's no accident that the fifth book is devaring. The spoken things. The words. Bermidbar is the place of speaking and speech. And devaring means the words that actually come out, right? But that's what Bermid. Why is it called Bermidbar? Because a desert, what does a desert have to do with speaking? Midbar is a desert. What does it have to do with speech? The secret is this. That in Hebrew, every word that starts with, yeah. Me means from, to exclude, right? Me can means some of you, not all of you. Exclude some of you. Me means to take it away from. Midbar means a place of no speaking. The Torah makes it clear that the desert is a place of chaos, right? Within no roads. Speech is an organized system. I take thoughts and I put them to logical sequence. Otherwise, you wouldn't have any idea what I'm speaking about, right? There's an organized process, a pathway. That's what speaking is. It tells a story. There's a road, a path. A desert is a place where there no roads. A desert is a place wherever you go is the road, right? And therefore, it's called a Midbar, a place where there's no speech. The Jewish people are given a road in the desert. That means the whole history of the Jewish people is our shun takes us through an impossible place. The whole process of the Jewish people in the desert is that it takes us through the two phases, of course. This is walking through the desert for all those years and then what's called Midbar Haramim. We then go through an exile throughout thousands of years in the desert of the nations where there's no place to be. Everybody try to kill us. Not everybody, man. It's no case you had noticed. Whatever we do is wrong. Israel gets attacked. They try to defend themselves. People say it's a disproportionate. You're not disproportionate means. Proportion means you only do as much as they did to you. So if there's some rockets, what do you need to do? Enough to stop it, right? So they did a certain amount. Obviously, it wasn't enough. They're right, it wasn't disproportionate. I mean, it's still rockets, so they didn't do enough. I mean, again, proportion, but I haven't seen it that way. Anyway, this is called the Midbar Haramim. You're walking through a desert where there is no place to go unless it's forged unmatchedly for us, right? That is, that's the process. By the way, you know that by Midbar, the fourth book is actually three books. You know that the book of by Midbar is actually three books. You know how much is five books, but it's actually seven. Oh, it must be, obviously. Why is it seven books? Because the fourth is actually three. So it adds two more. Why is it three books? Because it fits into-- yeah, by Midbar goes up to the miso in anywhere the Jewish people complained until that it was perfect. Until then, they were marching through the 42 stages in the desert. You know, 42 is an expansion of Hashem's name. They were going through the process of perfection on the way to Israel. And then they began the problem of mistaken speech and then the process broke down. And then the tunnel walls that offered two upside-down moons, amazing thing in the text. They're looking at the text of the Torah. They're two upside-down moons, none always means something to do with the 50th, the higher world. And in those two upside-down moons are two verses, 85 letters. By he being say, our own, that the RN was moved, was carried two verses of 85 letters. And then the book continues. So actually, there are three books here. There's the book up to that point where they began the complaint. There's this amazing book of 85 letters. The command says you have 85 letters together that has the holiness of a safe Torah. To say from a fire or for various other reasons, you have to bury it. You don't even turn it out. So actually, there are three books there. There's amazing comment of the Hidaw. Hidaw was a great cabalist who wrote a extensive work. And that work he reveals an amazing secret. He says, what are these two verses? What are these 85 letters? The secret he says of these two verses is that there is a number of cases that there is a number of cases that there is a number another whole book of Torah. There's five books that we are aware of. But there's another book of Torah which is only revealed to us two verses of that book. And he reveals the secret of what that book is. He says this is the book of the Jewish people's journey through the desert of history, which of course couldn't be written in the Torah, which is only happening now. Again, the Torah is only written as it happens, right? Moses, Masha'abena, brought down the Torah as it evolved during his lifetime, where he died, the Torah reached the point of his death. The rest of the Torah is also, the rest of history is also Torah. But obviously it can't be written until it happens. And therefore, as we move through history through the desert of our experience, that book is gradually being written. And one day when the Torah is finally revealed in its fullness, those two verses will be our whole book, what will the book be? The process of our moving through history with all its events and exigencies, with all the revealed meaning of all the things that we went through. And right now the Torah reveals it only as those two root verses. By the way, by he being so, the Aaron being carried, the Aaron was the ark, in which the Torah was contained. That always went before the Jewish people on its journey. That is what's happening. That's the journey. You know, the first three we didn't go into this. But the first three books are called Gadol, Gibbon Nora. Gadol, Gibbon Nora. Right? Akela Goglu, Akela Goglu, Hashem is the great. Gadol means giving. That's Genesis. Gibbon means pulling to limitation and specifics. That's the book of Shmiz. Nora always means, Nora means awesome, let's say. But that describes the Mishkan with the ark as the center of the Mishkan. There are re-points out that the word Nora, when you spell it backwards, spells are on. See, Akela Goglu, Gibbon Nora, the Nora, that aspect of Hashem, which manifests in the temple, Nora Hashem, that appears in the Mishkan, that is the Aaron, which is where the Torah is actually manifest. And then you move into the book of Ahmidbah, which is the journey through the desert and all the problems of speech. And finally you come to Dvarim, which is the book in which what is the meaning? What is the fifth always? The fifth is always the maximally female level where the thing actually reaches its, what does the woman do? She takes the whole process and gives it back as it was originally. What is a child? Is there a replica of the parents? The female is always a re-duplication, right? It's always a doubling of what you had before. Why is Dvarim a repetition of what came before? Why do the Tenka Moments need to be repeated? Because the first time they're given in source and then there's the woman's production as it were, the female to mention where the thing manifests. The first four books of Torah, Hashem speaks. The fifth one, Masha'a, Eilah, Dvarim, Masha'a, Masha'a, Masha'a. These are the words that Masha'a, Masha'a, Masha'a, Masha'a, Masha'a, Masha'a. They well up from the receiver. The first four come down. The fifth is where the vessel contains and echoes reflects what it's given, right? Where the child is born as it were. And therefore, the book of Dvarim is where we speak Torah. And of course, it's just sensitive ear here, we'll perceive. This is where the root of the oral law is, where we can create Torah of our own, right? We can work at it and understand it and generate it. That is, all has its origin in the book of Dvarim. It's also not an accident, of course, that the book of Dvarim takes place on the border of Israel. What does it mean? The Jewish people are about to move into the land. The land's ultimate feminine level. The commander says when a man gets married, the woman is his field. The woman is a man's field. That means we learn the acquisition of marriage from Stéaphron. By his buying of a field, we learn the laws of marriage. The burial field, of course, wasn't a field where we displeant it is where people are blunt. The mad way Abraham and Sarah Adam and Javadeh, is that sort of a field where people, as it were, are planted in terms of the resurrection. So there is the book of Dvarim, where you are on the border of Israel, which is the ultimate place of an earth. That is the source of life and resurrection. Absinction of falsehood points out a beautiful thing. You know many of the Torah's laws are repeated in Dvarim. The Ten Commandments and many other laws. Points out very beautifully. You know which laws are repeated in Dvarim? All the laws that are needed for living in Israel. Well, they are on the border of Israel. They are about to go in. So the laws that are repeated are the laws that we never needed in the desert but you will need in Israel, right? And then, of course, there is the ultimate feminine level. The land, women have a love for Israel, you know that? Women have a special love for Israel. Well, no, well, no. Where do we learn this from originally? The daughters of Slovkhan, do you remember? The daughters, five daughters of Slovkhan, they came to worship and they said, "We are women and we don't want to lose our inheritance in the land." So what happens if we each marry a man from another tribe, our ancestral land will be lost. And Hashem gave a special instruction. They should marry relatives from their own tribe. By the way, no accident that they were five of them. That's the female dimension. So they were five daughters of Slovkhan and they were the ones who expressed the special love for Israel. And that's always the feminine, the feminine image. Anyway, what we learned this evening is a thematic overview, if you like, or an introduction to the five levels why Khumash is phrased in terms of why did Hashem have to write it in five books? You could have written it as one long string of words. But Khumash means five, and it is always representing the five dimensions of the world, right? And that's the ten commandments. Nothing other than this, the five and five of the right hand, and the left hand, the first five laws between Hashem and Hashem, the second five laws between human beings. Wherever you look in Torah, you'll find that these are the five layers, the five elements of Hashem's name, the five mystical worlds, the five parts of the soul, the five parts of all thought, the five books of Khumash. We'll stop there. Is that also one of those in that category? They try to go into Israel. Sounds like a preempting of the final stage, not by speech, but just trying to rush in.

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. The five-book structure of the Torah reflects a fundamental spiritual pattern of five layers, present in creation, the soul, divine name, and the world’s structure.
  2. The five books represent a progression from divine creation (Genesis) to human fulfillment (Deuteronomy), with Joseph as a transitional figure between the books of fathers and children.
  3. The books of Torah mirror five levels of reality
  4. The Mishkan (Temple) symbolizes a perfected second creation, embodying the microcosm of the world and serving as the link between the physical and spiritual realms.
  5. The desert journey (Bemidbar) is a place of "no speech," representing chaos and the breakdown of proper communication, testing the people’s moral and spiritual conduct.
  6. Deuteronomy, the fifth book, is a "repetition" or reflection of earlier teachings, representing the feminine dimension and the transmission of Torah through human experience and interpretation.
  7. The structure of the Torah is rooted in Kabbalistic principles, where five is the foundational pattern and ten (like the commandments) is a division of this pattern into two sets of five.
  8. The five books together form a complete cycle, from creation to the return to the land of Israel, reflecting the spiritual journey of humanity and the divine plan.

Summary:

The Torah is structured in five books not by accident, but as a reflection of a deeper, universal spiritual pattern of five. This pattern permeates all aspects of existence—from the five levels of the soul (desire, thought, form, speech, action) to the five Kabbalistic worlds and the structure of God’s name. Genesis begins with divine creation driven by boundless goodness (chessed), while the journey through the desert (Bemidbar) serves as a test of speech and moral integrity, highlighting the dangers of misuse in communication.

The Mishkan represents a perfected, microcosmic re-creation of the world, mirroring the laws of creation and emphasizing the sacredness of stillness and order. Deuteronomy, the final book, embodies the feminine dimension, where teachings are repeated and internalized, allowing for personal growth and oral transmission. This structure reveals that Torah is not merely a record of history but a living, evolving process—where the journey through the desert mirrors the broader historical experience of the Jewish people.

The number five symbolizes completion and balance, while the number ten (as in the commandments) reflects its division into two sets of five, representing divine and human realms. Ultimately, the five books form a unified spiritual journey from creation to the land of Israel, where the people achieve full spiritual and moral maturity through reflection, learning, and the re-emergence of divine principles in daily life.

FAQs

The five-book structure reflects a fundamental pattern in creation and reality, representing five layers of existence that underlie all of Torah and the universe.

Five represents a foundational pattern in the universe, seen in the five parts of the soul, five mystical worlds, five levels of thought, and the structure of the divine name.

Genesis embodies the initial desire of God to create, representing the first level—desire—of the fivefold process of creation and spiritual development.

Leviticus represents the second creation, a perfected microcosm of the world, symbolizing the re-creation of divine law in the Mishkan, which connects the physical and spiritual realms.

The commandments reflect a dual structure: the first five relate to God and creation, and the second five relate to human interactions, showing the balance between divine and human law.

Deuteronomy represents the final, reflective stage where the people receive and re-echo the teachings, symbolizing the feminine dimension of return, repetition, and transmission of Torah.

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