The text I want to explore this Shavuot is from Proverbs 3:18 Eitz chayim hi l’machazikim [chazak] bah, v’tomcheicha meiushar –“It is a tree of life to those who hold fast to it, and whoever grasps her is happy-straight [by implication,]”. Ushar or yashar, a word literally means straight, and is usually translated as ‘happy’, as in ashrei. The word implies more than just happiness, and implies being connected directly and in relationship with God. To shed light on this verse, we’re going to take a journey through Jewish history, visiting five people along the way: Adam, Noah, Moses, and the Baal Shem Tov (the Besht).
Adam
So where does the first mention of an eitz chayim-tree of life occur? In Genesis 2:9 we read: “And from the ground God הוהי caused to grow every tree-eitz that was pleasing to the sight and good for food, with the tree of life-eitz chayim in the middle of the garden, and the tree of knowledge-da’at of good and bad.”[1] So we learn of four types of ‘tree’ that God plants. I see these as Divine gifts to Adam—i.e. humanity, all of us—from the four kabbalistic worlds: sustenance for our physical selves, pleasure for our emotional and aesthetic selves, sustenance for our souls—our spiritual selves, and an intimate familiarity (da’at) with ethics—which exercises our intellectual selves.
Noah
From Adam, we now travel forwards in time to Noah. In Genesis 6:14, we read aseih lach teivah eitz-gofer –“make yourself an ark of gopher wood”. Note that it is an eitz-tree, made into a teivah-ark. And what is this teivah-ark for? A few verses on, God tells Noah “And of all that lives, … take two of each [animal] into the teivah-ark to keep alive with you … … two of each shall come to you to stay alive. For your part, take of everything that is eaten and store it away, to serve as food for you and for them.”[2] So, Adam’s eitz chayim ‘tree of life’ from the Garden of Eden has been reshaped as a teivah-ark to carry us safely and keep us alive.
Moses
Let’s now sail in our time-travelling ark a few more centuries forward to the time of Moses. When the Pharoah of his era wanted to destroy the Israelites’ first-born sons, Moses’ mother “got herself an ark of papyrus [teivah gome]” and put Moses in it to keep him safe.[3] Adam’s eitz chayim was refashioned as a teivah for Noah, and now it’s been transformed again, to become a teivah for Moses. We’ve been told by the rabbis of the Talmud that “whoever saves a single life [and that could even be ourselves], it is considered as if they saved an entire world.”[4] Without Moses, there would have been no Exodus, nobody to receive the Ten Commandments, nobody to plead our case to God, and nobody to lead us in the wilderness. The chances are, but for saving of this one life, Moses’ life, in his little teivah, there would have been no future life for the Jewish people.
The Baal Shem Tov (the Besht)
Time brings change. Since the time of Moses, the word teivah has taken on an extra meaning. By the time of the Baal Shem Tov, teivah could also mean ‘word’, especially the written word. The Besht looked at the story of Noah, and found a new meaning for Genesis 6:16—tzohar ta’aseh lateivah.[5] Its p’shat-plain meaning is: “make an opening for daylight in the ark”. The Besht said that this verse could mean “make a light for the word”, or “a skylight i.e. a viewing window—into the word”. This is perhaps an echo of Psalm 119:130 “The words You inscribed [or the exposition of Your words] give light, and grant understanding to the simple.” The Besht suggested that by shining the light of our consciousness onto the prayer book and Torah, we can perceive “worlds, souls and divinity”.[6] So we now have a through-line from the eitz chayim-tree of life of Adam, to Noah taking the eitz-tree and making it into a teivah-life saving ark, to Moses’ mother saving him and the future of the Israelites by protecting Moses’ life in a teivah-coracle of papyrus, to the life-giving teivah-word of Torah for the Jewish people.
Rabbi Zalman Shachter-Shalomi
Shavuot is the festival of matan morah—the giving of the Torah. And we know from the blessing in the Torah service that God gives (present tense) Torah every day, every moment. But giving doesn’t guarantee receiving. So we need to receive the gift of Torah from God. Rabbi Zalman Shachter-Shalomi said: “I don’t know what happened in the Cultural Revolution in China, and the troubles that were there, but [Chairman] Mao’s ‘Little Red Book’ was responsible for China being now with us in the same century. That much credit
has to be given. ‘The Little Red Book’ was the Deuteronomy of China.”[7] Reb Zalman echoed the German poet Heinrich Heine, who wrote: “Within the boundaries of [the Torah], they [the Jewish people] live; here they can exercise an inalienable right of citizenship, here they cannot be expelled or despised, here they are strong and admirable.”[8] My understanding is that we need to live inside the words—the teivah— of our Torah. Made out of the eitz chayim-tree of life, the Torah is our teivah, our ark and coracle, that can keep us safe. But only as long as we stay inside it. We must never step out of the boat! How do we stay in the teivah? We must keep actively receiving the Torah, as a people, and personally, not just generally, but from one moment to the next moment, to the next moment, sustaining our eitz chayim, our Torah and teivah for future generations. And so too will the Torah-teivah sustain us.
Footnotes
[1] Vayatzmach הוהי Elohim min-hadamah kol-eitz nechmad l’mar’eh v’tov l’ma’achol, v’eitz hachayim b’toch hagan, v’eitz hada’at tov v’ra. (Gen. 2:9)
[2] Gen. 6:19-21
[3] Ex. 2:3
[4] V’chol ham’kayem nefesh achat – ma’aleh alav hakatuv k’ilu kiyem olam malei. (Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin 4:1)
[5] https://www.bethisrael.org/cbi-blogs?post_id=1256145
[6] https://www.rabbifinley.com/post/2016/11/16/pillar-of-prayer-thoughts-on-torah-portion-noah
[7] Densmore, Dana (2014) Reb Zalman Gathers Figs: A Study of Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi’s Reading of Biblical Text to Re-Vision Judaism for the Present Day, p.210
[8] Cited in Cohen, Richard J. ‘Urban Visibility and Biblical Visions: Jewish Culture in Western and Central Europe in the Modern Age’ in Biale, David (2002) Cultures of the Jews: a new history, p.772