With the completion of birkot ha’shachar in our SiddurAlive Instagram sessions, we moved on to the blessings for learning Torah. In honor of Shavuot, I’ve decided to copy the section about those blessings from my upcoming book: Siddur Alive: The Siddur as a Spiritual Journey. I pray that these insights enlighten your chag and add joy to your renewed receiving of Torah.
Chag Sameach!
Rav Daniel
Blessings Of Torah
When I call G-d’s Name, then you bring grandeur to our G-d.1
“From here we learn that we are to bless G-d before learning Torah.” (Berachot 21a)2
“For all of the Torah is G-d’s Names, revelations of His many-faceted identity.” (Maharsha)
The blessing made on the Torah consists of two parts: one describing our participation in the Torah, the other what we have been given:
• a blessing on the mitzvah of immersion in Torah, including a prayer that Torah will be delectable (ערב) in our mouths and in those of all; that we learn Torah for “its name”; and that G-d is our teacher (in the present tense);
• a blessing on our having been chosen from among all peoples to whom G-d gave the Torah.
The first describes a Torah in our mouths, meaning a Torah that we speak in our language, a Torah of our selves taught by G-d. This is the “spoken Torah” of ever-evolving generations of seekers3 and innovators who creatively play out heretofore hidden potentialities latent in the written law which have been awaiting the application of this creativity and perspective to be seen. This is a Torah of great intimacy which, the rabbis teach, is referred to in a verse that G-d speaks to us: “Kiss me with the kisses of your mouth,” 4 an intimacy born of a shared vision and a joining of passionate commitment that brings a new and higher vision.5 The second blessing describes a Torah placed before us, given once, and refers to the written Torah, the primary code of Creation and the description of its patterns and givens.6
The blessing for the Oral Torah comes first because the primary expression of our covenant is through a Torah given to us for our insight and self-creation. “G-d made His covenant with Yisrael for the spoken Torah”7 because it is the essence of covenant: walking together. The blessing on the two together is the height of the birkot ha’shachar because the Torah is the ultimate “go forth for yourself.”
Rav Sheshet would review all his Torah every 30 days. He leaned against the door and declared, “Rejoice, my soul, rejoice, my soul! It is for your sake I learn, for your sake I study!”8
Love of Torah derives from the celebration of self, for it is how true selfhood is achieved. True selfhood is independent in vision but faithful to the reality of the world and dedicated to the entirety of Creation.9
Clearly, the Torah is not a book of an absolute unchanging Truth, but rather a book of covenant,10 a mode for relationship between Man and G-d. The Torah provides Man with access to G-d’s dream and vision. Man is invited to add his own perspectives in an unending and evolving growing of the joined consciousness of both. Hence, “Torah must never be seen as something dated … but always as something fresh and new that everyone runs to receive.”11
No wonder this blessing is the blessing Moshe spoke of explicitly as required to say every day12—for blessing is to add, and there is no greater adding than a mind discovering new wisdom and insight into G-d and His world while it is bound to the Mind of the Creator. And no wonder this blessing includes the prayer for children and the entire people to know Torah, too, for one perspective and one generation could never suffice to discover what needs innumerable perspectives to be seen by endless seers dedicated to an evolving world and its Torah.
This blessing is an invitation to jump in and invest oneself, even at the risk of error.13
A person should never say, “The Torah was only given to the wise people who don’t make mistakes.” The Torah was given to all … This is explicit in the Midrash that teaches: “He brought me to the wine cellar; his banner on me is of love.” This verse is about the simpleton who mistakes reading “And love Him (v’ahavta)” as “And have enmity for Him (v’ayavta).” G-d says, “His mistake is a banner of love.” I believe that therefore we bless “to be involved in Torah” and not “to learn Torah.” Learning it is only when you get it right. Being involved is even in error.
In risking error, in the vulnerability of entering the unknown to discover what may be known of his Beloved, Man proves his love. For in this intrepid investment of self, Man says, “I only have myself, however inexact my mind may be for the quest, but it will be an honest quest. For it is You I desire, not my agendas and not my proving myself right, but a love built of a shared life, a covenant of kiss. And like You spoke to my ancestor Avraham, ‘Lech lecha,’ sending him to discover himself, you gave us, his children, a Torah meant to make us ourselves, in love. And I answer, ‘Here I am’ to seek You even as I learn what it is to be me.
“Blessed are You, G-d forever bringing into being—He Who is our power, Guide of a forever young world, Who sanctified us with mitzvot and commanded us to immerse in Torah.”
Please look out for more transcribed installments of Siddur Alive, and continue to follow @ HYPERLINK “https://www.instagram.com/elischwebel/” EliSchwebel on Instagram to see them in engaging video format.
1 Devarim 32:3.
2 רמבן סוף עשין להלכה
3 דור דור ודורשיו each uncovering understandings according to his times. Bereishit Rabbah 24, 2. See Tur, Orach Chaim 139: “The everlasting always growing life planted in us is the spoken Torah.”
4 Shir HaShirim 1,2; Avodah Zarah 35a and Rashi; Zohar, part 1, page 4: “Every innovative insight is taken on High and hugged and kissed in supernal love”—and Zohar part 2, 146: “Kisses of the mouth, for their breaths meet and cling to one another and become one. This is the love of union.”
5 “The meaning of ‘Torah lishmah’—learning Torah for her sake—is that each person learning Torah brings out from dormant potential into actuality her wisdom as it can only be known by his/her particular, unique person. Certainly, the new light which comes of this soul’s connection to Torah is different than that which will be revealed by another. In his/her learning, this person makes more Torah—enlarging it, originating new light. This is G-d’s desire: that the Torah be enlarged. And so the correct path in learning is to do it for the love of this great light for which G-d Himself yearns.” Rav Kook, Orot HaTorah, 2:4.
6 Zohar, Terumah 161.
7 Gittin 60a.
8 Pesachim 68.
9 See the continuation of the above passage: “Indeed the root drive is for himself, but his ultimate achievement is when he learns for the sake of all creation.” Ibid.
10 Sh’mot 24,7.
11 Sifrei V’Etchanan 33.
12 Though there is also a Torah command to say the Blessing After Meals, there is no requirement to eat every day.
13 Maharal, Tiferet Yisrael, Introduction.
