(If you’re not hot for stretchy, out-on-a-limb Jewish linguistic mysticism, best sit this one out. Otherwise, please enjoy.)
IT’S NO SECRET THAT JEWS love words. (After all, Torah begins with “God” speaking the world into being; if you need further convincing, check out almost any Jewish comedian.) Our tradition teaches that Torah contains no unintentional words nor letters – and that meaning can be extracted from it anywhere and everywhere you look. It’s all to play for, and we play hard.
Take, for example, the words “eved,” or “slave,” and “Ivri,” “Hebrew” – not the language, but a member of the tribe. Reading Fig. 1 and 2 from right to left, as one does in Hebrew, you’ll notice the third letter in each word looks very much alike: in eved, that letter is a dalet (D) and in Ivri it’s a reish (R). Another point is that the root word for Ivri is “eveir,” which means “to cross over.”
Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Now, stay with me here. It’s about to get weird.
Dalet is a 90-degree right angle, while reish is more of a sweeping curve. One way of understanding this difference may be that a slave is boxed in and constrained. A Hebrew, on the other hand, is a constraint-crosser: one who goes where the flow takes them in order to become more.
Mind you, this quality is not specific only to Jews, but to anyone who walks a way of self-transcendence. Jewish tradition teaches that anyone and everyone can practice growth – in skill sets, wisdom, spirituality, and character. But that osmotic, gut-level tradition is also one reason why there are so many Jewish doctors, scientists, philanthropists, Nobel Prize winners, and others devoted to improving the human condition.
And how exactly does one do that? See the last letter in Ivri? It’s a yod (Y), which symbolizes intuition and literally means “hand” – the appendage with which we effect change. Only good, hard, inspired and diligent work enables us to make a difference in this, the most interesting and problematic of all possible worlds.
Class dismissed.