Shavu’ot is the yahrzeit (the day of passing) of King David. David was succeeded by his son Solomon, who was only 12 years old when he ascended the throne of Israel, the throne of a still unified monarchy. Thus, Shavu’ot is also the day on which “the sun rose and the sun set” (Ecclesiastes 1:5), Solomon’s sun rose, while his father’s sun set. It marks the shift from David’s songs to Solomon’s proverbs of wisdom, which HaRav Ginsburgh contemplates in this article.
This article was delivered in English on the 12th of Sivan, 5785 as part (#6) of a series of teachings that are planned as an introduction to the Book of Proverbs. It is being published here for the first time.
The Sun Rose and the Sun Set
Before turning to the Book of Proverbs, let us first examine a verse towards the end of the Writings. There we find the final words of King David before his passing to his son, the heir to the throne, who is King Solomon. This is a transition between Psalms and Proverbs. And the verse reads as follows,
And you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father. Serve Him with a perfect heart and with a desirous soul.[1]
The verse continues, and there are several further verses that continue the last will and testimony of David to Solomon.
David was 70 years old at the time of his passing on Shavu’ot, and his son Solomon was 12 years old, not yet a Bar Mitzvah. Meaning that Solomon was born when King David was 58 years old. The number 58 is the value of “grace” (חֵן). Grace is one of the eight synonyms for beauty and refers specifically to symmetric beauty, or symmetry. Twelve years later, King David passed away at the age of 70. 70 is the value of the word that means “mystery” (סוֹד), or “secret.” We are taught in Psalms[2] that the average lifespan of an individual is 70 years, and the classic example of that is King David. So now, once more, King David is 70, his son is 12, and his last words to him are, “And you, my son Solomon, [know the Father], know the God of your father, and serve Him with a perfect heart and a desirous soul.”
Father and Son
The word that means “know” (דַּע) also means to connect or unite with.[3] So, in addition to the simple reading of what David is saying to Solomon—“Know the God of your father”—the fact that he refers to God as “the God of your father” means that he is asking Solomon to recognize and feel in his heart the same feeling towards God that his father, David, felt. Because it was in accordance with his innermost feeling and sense of the God’s Presence that David served God. “I want you to follow in my footsteps,” says David to Solomon. Since the entire Book of Proverbs can be described as a father teaching his son, this verse is very similar to Proverbs. In a sense it is like a general introduction to Proverbs stating that, “you shall serve God with a perfect heart and a desirous soul.” These two phrases, “a perfect heart” and “a desirous soul” correspond to David and Solomon.
The Perfect Heart and the Desirous Soul
The “perfect heart” represents David in his sincere heartfelt prayers to God as brought in the Book of Psalms. “Perfect,” in Hebrew means “complete,” or “total.” In Psalms, David is expressing his complete heart, his whole heart, all that he has in his heart; he is pouring his heart out to God.
“A desirous soul” means that a person has a deep desire, he has a deep desire to know God, to know the wisdom of God. The deepest desire to know God—to know God through Creation—is the innermost motivation of the soul of King Solomon.
Since this dual phrase, “a perfect heart and a desirous soul” itself refers to Kings David and Solomon, this verse from Chronicles serves as a transition between the first two books of the Writings: from Psalms to Proverbs.
This phrase also exhibits a most amazing numerical phenomenon. The gematria, the numerical value, of the words, “serve Him with a perfect heart and a desirous soul” (וְעׇבְדֵהוּ בְּלֵב שָׁלֵם וּבְנֶפֶשׁ חֲפֵצָה) is 1118, which is the identical value of the most central and essential verse in the whole Bible, which is, “Hear O’ Israel, Havayah is our God, Havayah is one”[4] (שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל י-הוה אֱ-לֹהֵינוּ י-הוה אֶחָד). This verse is known as the Shema (following its first word in Hebrew) and it is considered the essential statement of faith in God’s unity and oneness.
The Supernatural and the Natural are One
The mathematical and spiritual significance of this number, 1118, is that it is the lowest common denominator (i.e., the first number that is a multiple both of 26 and 86), specifically it is the product of 43 times 26 and 13 times 86. 26 is the value of God's essential Name, the Tetragrammaton (י-הוה) and 86 is the numerical value of the Name of God, Elokim (אֱ-לֹהִים).
Elokim is the only Name of God that is recorded in the initial account of Creation in the Book of Genesis.[5] In the account of the first six days of Creation, when all was created, the Name Elokim appears 32 times. In the Shema, this is the Name that we translated above as God in, “is our God, Havayah is one.” The concluding word of the verse, "one," means that both Names, Havayah and Elokim, are essentially one and the same.
In Kabbalah, the 32 instances of Elokim in the account of Creation correspond to the 32 Pathways of Wisdom with which God created the world. The Aramaic translation of the Torah’s first word, “In the beginning,” is “with wisdom” (בְּחוּכְמָא), meaning that the Torah’s first verse can be understood to mean, “With wisdom God created the heavens and the earth.” There is a principle of Torah study that what is stated implicitly in the Pentateuch can be found explicitly in the Prophets and the Writings, and so we find the idea that God created the world with wisdom in the verse, “You have created them all with wisdom.”[6]
86, the value of Elokim, is also the value of the word for “nature” (הַטֶּבַע). So, as explained, our declaration of faith in one God, and that the Name Havayah and the Name Elokim are in essence one and the same, means that the supernatural manifestation of God, His Name Havayah, and His natural manifestion are one and the same. That is the underlying meaning of the Shema: God is absolutely one, but He is known by different Names, each referring to a different form or manifestation of His revelation to man.
Unifying David and Solomon
As noted, the Tetragrammaton, Havayah, whose value is 26, refers to the supernatural revelation of God, while Elokim, whose value is 86, refers to the natural revelation of God. The Shema, which states that the Tetragrammaton and Elokim are one, is saying that the two Names are one and the same. The supernatural revelation and the natural revelation are all included within the absolute unity of the Tetragrammaton, Havayah, blessed be He.
In other words, nature itself contains the supernatural. The Ba’al Shem Tov, whose yahrzeit is also on Shavu’ot, spent his life teaching that nature itself is a Divine miracle, by openly demonstrating that God is continuously recreating nature, something from nothing, ex nihilo, at every moment. That is the deep meaning of the Shema, the Torah’s essential declaration of faith. This is the universal declaration of faith of all who are sons of Abraham—all who believe that God is one.
Again, the value of this verse, the Shema is 1118, and this is also the value of the phrase that is the transition from David to Solomon, “serve Him with a perfect heart and a desirous soul.” The principle that David is teaching his son Solomon is: the perfect heart is coming from me, your father, David, and “a desirous soul” is you, my son, Solomon.
This phrase is thus the unification of the two mindsets of David and Solomon—pouring out one's heart in prayer as described in Psalms and pursuing deep insights and moral teachings as revealed in Proverbs.
[1]. 1 Chronicles 28:9.
[2]. Psalms 90:10.
[3]. As in “Adam knew his wife, Eve” (Genesis 4:1), where “knew” refers to an act of marital union.
[4]. Deuteronomy 6:4.
[5]: 1:1 through and including 2:3.
[6]. Psalms 104:24.
