One of the customs passed down to us from the Chabad Rebbe’s is to learn the weekly parashah with a different commentary every year, in a repeating cycle. One of the commentaries included in this multi-year cycle is the Ibn Ezra. Following this custom, in 5784 (2024), HaRav Ginsburgh chose to focus on the Ibn Ezra and dedicated parts of his classes to reviewing one or more particular sections of his commentary on the weekly parashah.
In most cases, the Rav wrote his insights in personal notes, only a small fraction of which found their way into publicly taught classes.
In this note, the Rav delves into the Ibn Ezra’s question of what exactly did Moses do on Mount Sinai for forty days and forty nights. In what might seem like a surprising answer for many, the Ibn Ezra delves into the importance of incorporating love of God into the performance of the commandments.
The Rav’s original note from the 16th of 1 Adar 5784 was edited in Hebrew by R. Yosef Pelee. It was subsequently published in Hebrew in the Ki Tissa 5784 issue of Nifla’ot.
Moses on the Mountain
When He had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, He gave Moses the two Tablets of the Covenant, tablets of stone, written by the finger of God.[1]
On this verse, the Ibn Ezra wrote the following:
Empty-headed people might wonder what Moses was doing on the mountain for forty days and forty nights. They do not realize that even if he were to stand there with God for that amount of time, or even twice that many years, he could not know even one part in a thousand of God’s actions, His ways, and the secrets of all the commandments He commanded him. Such people erroneously believe that the physical performance [of the mitzvot] is all that matters. It does not. Rather, it is the heart with the action [that matters], and the heart and the tongue both are a means for habituating [this connection]. As it is written: “In your mouth and in your heart, to perform it.”
Our sages of old said: “God desires the heart.” The root of all the commandments is for a person to love God with all his soul and cleave to Him. This cannot be perfected unless one recognizes God’s actions in the supernal and the mundane worlds and knows His ways… and one cannot know God if he does not know his own soul, spirit, and body, for if one does not know the essence of his own soul, what wisdom does he possess?
Indeed, even Moses, who prophesied for forty years in the wilderness and was engaged with the many secrets that God revealed to him on Mount Sinai, said before his death, “You have begun to show Your servant Your greatness.” Even then, he had merely “begun” to see God’s greatness. This is indeed the case, for “His [God’s] greatness is unfathomable.”
The Ibn Ezra uses surprisingly harsh language—“empty-headed”—to describe those individuals who surmise that since the physical performance of a mitzvah is what matters, that is what God instructed Moses on during his 40 days and nights on the mountain. With that assumption in mind, they wonder why it took so long. To counter this assumption, the Ibn Ezra argues that physical performance must go together with the Torah’s inner dimension, which he described as knowing “God’s actions and His ways and the secret of all the commandments.” These are the secrets of Creation (Ma'aseh Bereishit) and the secrets of the Chariot (Ma'aseh Merkavah), the knowledge of God which is infinite, for “His greatness is unfathomable.”
One might counter that the sages state that Moses also learned the Oral Torah, which if we consider only the Talmud and the Midrashim would be no small feat to cover in just forty days and nights, even if your teacher is God Himself. However, the sages[2] clarify that this does not refer to every specific detail that would actually manifest throughout all generations (which would require much more than forty days). Rather, he learned the general principles (Klalim) from which all potential details can be derived. Thus, the Ibn Ezra’s thesis that Moses was learning the Torah’s inner dimension stands firm. He was engaging in the study of the secrets of creation and the knowledge of God—all of which are ultimately alluded to within the Torah text itself.
The Bride and the Law
On the word translated as “when He had finished” (כְּכַלֹּתוֹ), Rashi comments that, “it is written deficiently [missing the letter Vav], suggesting that the Torah was handed over to him as if it were a bride being handed over to a groom (כְּכַלָּתוֹ, i.e., as if it were his bride), for he could not have learned it all in such a short time.” It would seem that Rashi too is referring to the secrets alluded to in the Torah, which cannot be learned in a short time. Numerically, the value of the irregularly spelled word, “when He had finished” (כְּכַלֹּתוֹ) is 476, which is 2 times “Rachel” (רָחֵל). Two “Rachels” implies that there are two aspects of the Torah as a bride that was handed over to Moses.
We shall refer to them as the Small Bride and the Great Bride, following the sages’ statement that the Torah contains aspects, “A great thing is the Secrets of the Chariot [Ma'aseh Merkavah] and a small thing is the discussions of Abayei and Rava [i.e., the Talmudic dialogue, the Torah’s revealed dimension].”[3] The first aspect, the great thing can be described as the “Great Bride,” and the second aspect, the small thing, can be described as the “Small Bride.”
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- The Great Bride is the Torah’s hidden dimension, the secret of the Great Rachel, referring to the Supernal Mother (Imma Ila'ah) and the concealed reality (Alma deItkasia), the secrets of Creation and the Chariot.
- The Small Bride is the Torah’s revealed dimension (nigleh). In this vein, the word for “the bride” (הַכַּלָּה) can be permuted to spell “Halachah” (הֲלָכָה). The revealed dimension is directly referenced in the verse, “the name of the younger [literally, “the smaller”] was Rachel,” the secret of the sefirah of kingdom and the revealed reality (Alma deItgalia). Regarding this aspect, Moses was given the general principles from which the details can be derived. These details are described as “maidens without number,” the bride’s consorts that accompany her on her wedding day.
The Wholeness of the Torah
A second point we should stress is the Torah’s scope, as the Ibn Ezra describes it. He says that even Moses standing with God for forty days, could not know even one part in a thousand of the Torah, and that even after forty years of talking to God, Moses says, “You have [merely] begun to show Your servant.” Meaning, all that the greatest prophet, the father of all prophets, knew was comparable to “a drop in the great ocean.” This is the simile the Ba’al Shem Tov uses to interpret the verse, “The Torah of God is whole (temimah), it restores the soul.”[4] Says the Ba’al Shem Tov: Despite however much an individual studies the Torah, the Torah remains whole or pristine, i.e., the Torah is forever completely untouched; no one has yet touched it. Only when the individual, even the greatest, most knowledgeable scholar, views the Torah in this way, does it restore the soul.[5]
Describing the Torah as “whole” or “pristine” (temimah) also refers to the completeness of the Torah in all its parts, both revealed and hidden. As the Rebbe Rashab[6] explained regarding the choice of “Tomchei Temimim” (lit., Supporters of the Whole Ones) for the Lubavitch yeshivah he founded:
The goal of the yeshivah is for God’s Torah—the revealed Torah and the teachings of Chasidut—to be perfect or whole (temimah), and then it restores the soul.
These two interpretations are linked: It is through studying the Torah’s hidden dimension—Chasidut, the Torah’s soul (נִשְׁמָתָא דְּאוֹרָיְתָא)—that we come to recognize and feel that we have not yet even touched the Torah. Not only its concealed dimension, but even in its revealed dimension. If one does not seek the Torah’s inner dimension, one might come to the false conclusion that the Torah is not pristine, it is not whole and perfect, etc. with all the terrible consequences that this approach has led to in the past couple of centuries. The sense of the Torah’s pristine nature, its perfection, is described metaphorically as the feeling that a groom has towards his bride. When we seriously engage the Torah’s concealed dimension, we feel that the entire Torah is like a bride being handed to a groom.
The Merciful One Desires the Heart
In the Ibn Ezra’s view, the ultimate purpose of the commandments is to reach the heart, in accordance with the famous statement, “God desires the heart” (רַחֲמָנָא לִבָּא בָּעֵי).
God seeks the intention of the heart, that we come to love God and cleave to Him when performing the commandments. Actions, including speech, serve to habituate the heart, to normalize our love of God. Furthermore, love of God and cleaving to Him are achieved through knowing God—knowing the essence of Divinity through His works, His ways, and the secrets of His commandments.
In all, the Ibn Ezra counts three domains of knowledge. These three domains correspond to the division of the sefirot into 3 groups of three each, also known as the intellectual, the emotional, and the behavioral. Knowing God’s works or actions corresponds to the behavioral group of sefirot: victory, acknowledgement, and foundation (נֶצַח הוֹד יְסוֹד), also referred to as Nehi. Knowing God’s Ways corresponds to the emotional sefirot: loving-kindness, might, and beauty (חֶסֶד גְּבוּרָה תִּפְאֶרֶת), the primary attributes of the heart, also referred to as Chagat. Knowledge of the secrets of the mitzvot corresponds to the three intellectual sefirot: wisdom, understanding, and knowledge (חָכְמָה בִּינָה דַּעַת) and referred to as Chabad.
Knowing Yourself to Know God
The Ibn Ezra states that it is impossible to know God without knowing oneself. To fulfill King David’s dictum, “Know the God of your father”[7] and to recognize (i.e., understand) before Whom you stand, one must first know himself and then one can recognize “He who spoke and the world came into being.”[8] This self-knowledge that leads to knowing God includes three components: knowledge of the soul, the spirit, and the body. Thus, we have here a clear four level model of knowledge of self, leading to knowledge of God whose components correspond to the four letters of God’s essential Name, Havayah:
| yud (י) | Knowledge of God Himself, which requires self-nullification |
| hei (ה) | The soul is a source for knowing the secrets of the Torah |
| vav (ו) | The psyche or anima, which animates the body relates to knowledge of God’s ways or proclivities, as it were, whether through love, sternness, or compassion |
| hei (ה) | One’s body, which corresponds to the sefirah of kingdom and to knowledge of God’s actions |
The lower hei in Havayah also corresponds to the sefirah of kingdom and is considered the realm of the object, just as the body is the objective component in every self.
The notion that the psyche or anima—the nefesh, as it is known in Hebrew—corresponds to the six emotive attributes (from loving-kindness to foundation). The anima is identified by the Torah with the blood in one’s body, “And the blood is the anima.”[9] There are seven fluids that transfer impurity and blood corresponds to the sefirah of victory (netzach), one of the six emotive attributes included in the vav of Havayah.
The soul, which corresponds to the first hei of Havayah, is considered by the Ba’al Shem Tov an important source for knowing God, as per the verse, “the soul of God shall instruct them.”[10] The individual should strive to communicate with their soul, which is a more trusted source for knowing the Torah’s secrets than angels or other luminous beings.[11]
These four levels are not meant to be an end in themselves but are to act as a foundation for the fourth level which is knowledge of God, just as the three lower worlds—Creation, Formation, and Action—are transcended by the World of Emanation, where all of consciousness is permeated by God’s Presence alone. Knowledge of God as is the consciousness of the World of Emanation depends on wisdom, whose inner experience is one of self-nullification alluded to by the letter yud, which is a tiny point. The ascent through these three levels of self-knowledge is a ladder that leads to knowledge of God only when the ladder itself can be nullified; only when the knowledge of the self that has been gained does not lead to an self-centered view of reality.
Finally, returning to the great principle the Ibn Ezra quotes from the sages, that “God desires the heart” (רַחֲמָנָא לִבָּא בָּעֵי); its numerical value is 414, famously the value of “You shall love [Havayah your God]”[12] (וְאָהַבְתָּ). Everything leads us back to his main point: that Moses was on the mountain for forty days and nights not to learn the commandments alone, but to integrate the necessary knowledge so that he could instruct us on how to perform them with love of God!
[1]. Exodus 31:18.
[2]. Shemot Rabbah 41:6. Based on this midrash, the Tzemach Tzedek writes, “He did not teach him all the specific derivative laws, but rather principles through which one can derive the specific from the general” (Or HaTorah, Yitro, p. 893). See also Sefer HaChinuch, “Our sages received the explanation of the Torah from Moses our teacher… who received it from God… Although God could have taught it in less than forty days, He wanted to hint to us that we should learn slowly and deliberately” (Author’s Preface).
[3]. The sages said about Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai that he did not neglect… a great matter and a small matter: A great matter refers to the Workings of the Chariot, a small matter refers to the disputes of Abayei and Rava” (Sukkah 28a).
[4]. Psalms 19:8.
[5]. Sefer HaSichot 5703, p. 180.
[6]. Discourse from the Eve of Simchat Torah 5659 in Torat Shalom, addendums, p. 258.
[7]. 1 Chronicles 28:9.
[8]. A common connotation for God in the Midrash.
[9]. Deuteronomy 12:23 and Leviticus 17:11.
[10]. Job 32:8
[11]. See also Rabbi Chaim Vital’s Introduction to Sha’arei Kedushah, “there is one whose psyche itself, when it is greatly purified will reveal itself to him and will guide him in all his ways.”
[12]. Deuteronomy 6:5.
