From the time of Moses until Ezra, explication of the Torah was through the method of biur. This word comes from the root be'er, meaning a well of water. Like a well, the creative flow of learning was "like an overflowing spring and a river that never dries up." [Avot 6:1]
anochi kohelet, tafsaret mal'e mitzionim ...
I am kohelet, a scribe full of letters ...
The Scribal Art Of Tafsaret
Elucidating The Torah
Tikun & Transformation Of The Witch Of En-Dor
for Asara B'Tevet
Ezra promoted the approach of perush. This is an empirical method that examines each matter in reference to its details. Each detail is compared to the next.
Radiance shines through the words and letters of the Holy Tongue. Unshackled, the scribal art of tafsaret, brings light from darkness. Anochi kohelet, tafsaret mal'e mitzionim - may my novel words of Torah by pleasing to Hashem.
every soul is a witch ... R. Abraham Abulafia, Chayah Olam Haba
En-dor is a composite word of three roots: the first root - ayin yod nun - "emerges" from a second hidden (tzafun) root - ayin vav nun "to reckon units of time". The third root - dalet vav reish - means "to link together". Consequently, the witch's hidden witchery consisted of linking together units of time with 1 dor (generation). The 1 dor suggests a disconnection between hod and netzach, and between yesod and malchut [1]. In other words, she had no foundation (ha-shetiyah) to support the line of transmission; for she had no remembrance of her true name. A person's Hebrew name is intimately connected to one's essential purpose in life - and consequently, to one's eternal destiny and ability to transmit Torah. Torah is transmitted through time in cycles. A cycle of Torah is like a cycle of time. Perhaps the witch of En-Dor didn't follow the Hebrew calendar, which intercalates Torah with time. Perhaps her failure was to reckon time divorced from the cycle of Torah.
Sod ha-ibbur. During the time of her physical existence, the witch failed to recover her true Hebrew name. Recovering her name would have allowed her to overcome the silence of celestial darkness in the soul, link her to her eternal divine destiny, and inject into her words and actions the essence of divine potency. The witch's tikun is to remember her name, and through this remembrance, to establish an eternal link to divine destiny. The witch's elevation back into the realm of holiness is through becoming the medaberah, tafsaret. Tafsaret elucidates Torah like an overflowing spring, creatively (biur) examining the matter's "hidden" details (perush), intercalating together both approaches to explicating Torah.
Tafsaret (tet phey samech reish tet), with a gematria of 358, is the rectification of the attribute of judgment (din) and of the nachash (358) within her. The unrectified nachash (a masculine or active force of enchantment) is the source of deceiving grace, the fear of insanity, the inability to discern truth, and blemishes of the sexual impulse. With tikun and elevation, comes transformation of the yetzer hara into one's spark of mashiach (358).
Tafsaret is a rare type of sofer; tafsaret is a feminine scribal artisan described by a Hebrew word of Sumerian roots. From the language of ancient Sumer [2], sar means "write". Taf means "board". The Hebrew verb root samekh reish tet carries the meanings of "script", "a tool for designing" and "marking" [3].
The letters of tafsaret contain the root (samech phey reish) of the word sofer (scribe). Yet tafsaret also contains two letters tet in addition to the root letters of ha-sofer. These two letters tet have a combined gematria of 18 (chet yud) - thereby bestowing "life" into the scribal writing of tafsaret. Specifically, these two additional letters of chai represent the chayah and yechidah soul levels which pertain to actualizing messianic consciousness.
Taking all this together, we can see that the tikun, transformation and re-elevation of the witch of En-Dor is achieved through sod-ibbur (the secret of intercalating time using the Hebrew calendar) and through becoming the medaberah, tafsaret. Achieving this, the witch(soul) survives, and transforms to realize her spark of mashiach, able to give over words from the Torah of mashiach.
Footnotes:
[1] Gates Of Light, Avi Weinstein translation of Sha'are Orah, Yosef Gikatilla
[2] How The Hebrew Language Grew, Edward Horowitz
[3] Maskilon 1, Hebrew-English Dictionary based on Verb Roots, Abraham Solomonick and David Morrison
technorati tags: Torah kabbalah Judaism shechinah
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