T67 (Tinyana) PNC - Bereshis L'einei Kol Yisrael — Chibur Tchilas HaTorah B'sofah; M'oray Or v'M'oray Esh; Shem HaTzaddik k'Shem Hashem

**"Bereshis — l'einei kol Yisrael."** Rabbeinu opens by joining the *first* word of Torah to the *last* phrase of Devarim — *l'einei kol Yisrael* — into one teaching. Why join them? Because the issue at the deepest layer of both is **the eyes** — and specifically, *what is happening to the eyes of all Yisrael*. There are clouds covering the eye — *anenin di-mekas'yan al eina* — and these are *Romi rabbasi* and *Romi ze'irasa* (the great Roman exile and the inner exile, as in Ra'aya Mehemna Pinchas 252). The verse he uses to name them: **"וְשָׁבוּ הֶעָבִים אַחַר הַגָּשֶׁם"** (Koheles 12:2) — "and the clouds return *after the rain*" — which Chazal read as *me'or einayim that follows weeping*. As **Shabbos 151b** says: through bechiyah, the *me'or einayim* gradually departs and is removed. So the cosmic geography of weeping is: tears come, light leaves the eye, clouds re-enter the sky. **Now plot the suns**: in the *east* the sun rises, in the *west* it sets — so *ma'arav* is by definition the *place of the light's setting*. And **ma'arav (מערב) is itself a r"t**: **רָחֵל מְבַכָּה עַל בָּנֶיהָ** (Yirmiyah 31:14, per the Arizal). The Shechinah is in the west (Bava Basra 25a); she is *Rachel* refusing to be comforted; the *Kosel HaMa'aravi* is the place where she weeps and wails over the churban. So *the sun setting in the west = Rachel's weeping = the me'or-einayim leaving = the clouds returning over the eye.* Same event, four languages.

**M'oray or vs. m'oray esh** (Zohar Bereshis 20a): two opposing kinds of luminaries. They are *zeh l'umas zeh*. When *m'oray or* are strong, *m'oray esh* are subdued; when, c"v, *m'oray or* fall, *m'oray esh* gain power. **The churban**: bechinas **"מִמָּרוֹם שָׁלַח אֵשׁ בְּעַצְמֹתַי"** (Eichah 1:13) — the m'oray esh overpowered because the m'oray or had been weakened, and *Rachel m'vakah al baneha* is precisely the bechinah of *hisstalkus m'oray or*. The cosmic chain: weeping → me'or einayim leaves → m'oray or fall → m'oray esh rise → churban / fires. **Now Rabbeinu lifts the entire diagram into its solution**: *yesh tzaddik* who is the *yofi v'pe'er v'chen* of all the world — the world's grace and beauty in person. Bechinas **"וַיְהִי יוֹסֵף יְפֵה תֹאַר וִיפֵה מַרְאֶה"** (Bereshis 39:6); bechinas **"יְפֵה נוֹף מְשׂוֹשׂ כָּל הָאָרֶץ"** (Tehillim 48:3); see **Zohar Vayigash 206b**. This is *the* tzaddik in the bechinah of Yosef — the world's hidden hadar. **When this tzaddik is revealed and magnified in the world, the eyes of the world open.** Whoever is included in his *chen ha-emes* — i.e., draws near and becomes enclosed in him — finds his own eyes opening, and *the primary thing he sees is himself*: how he holds each middah, all of which are downstream of the four yesodos that flow from this tzaddik (the yesod ha-pashut, as developed last torah §66). Coming close to the true tzaddik is therefore the *only* means of opening the eye that the bechiyah and the clouds have been closing.

Now the chiddush that runs the entire torah: **shem ha-tzaddik IS shem Hashem.** When the true tzaddik is revealed and his *shem* is publicized in the world, *Hashem's own Shem is partnered into that shem* — "shemo meshutaf bi-shmenu" (Yerushalmi Taanis ch. 2; cited in T66 §4). Therefore: when the tzaddik's name is magnified, Hashem's Name is magnified, kivyachol; the more the tzaddik's name grows in the world, the more Shem Hashem grows in the world. **"ה' אֶחָד וּשְׁמוֹ אֶחָד"** (Zecharyah 14:9) at the source — but as it descends, *that one Name unfolds into the four letters*, and below into the *four yesodos*; before that into the **תְּלָת גְּוָנִין דְּעֵינָא וּבַת עַיִן** (the three colors of the eye + the pupil); before *that* into the bechinas tzaddik = yesod ha-pashut from which the four flow. **The Bezalel verse seals it**: **"רְאוּ כִּי קָרָא ה' בְּשֵׁם בְּצַלְאֵל"** (Shemos 35:30; Zohar Terumah 152a). *Re'u* dayka — *because* Hashem's Name was called *into* the name Betzalel, and through that the eyes opened and the world *saw*. The Name-fusion at the level of the tzaddik IS the optical mechanism by which the world sees at all. **Now the breathtaking part — Shabbos.** SHaBaT decomposes as **שִׁין־בַּת**: Shin = the *three colors of the eye* (the three-pronged shin), Bas = *bas ayin*, the pupil — see **Tikkunei Zohar Tikkun 70**. Plus: **Shabbos = Shema d'Kudsha Brich Hu** (Zohar Yisro 88b). And: the tzaddik is also Shabbos — "אַנְתְּ הוּא שַׁבָּת דְּכָל יוֹמַיָּא" (Zohar Naso 144b). So when the verse says **"רְאוּ כִּי ה' נָתַן לָכֶם אֶת הַשַּׁבָּת"** (Shemos 16:29), *re'u* dayka — *seeing* itself is Shabbos, because Shabbos is the koach ha-re'us composed of the three colors and the pupil. Therefore wherever the Mikdash is mentioned, Shabbos is mentioned alongside ("אֶת שַׁבְּתֹתַי תִּשְׁמֹרוּ וּמִקְדָּשִׁי תִּירָאוּ," Vayikra 19:30): the Mikdash is bechinas einayim ("גְּאוֹן עֻזְּכֶם, מַחְמַד עֵינֵיכֶם," Yechezkel 24:21; BB 4a) and Shabbos is the colors that illuminate the inside of those eyes. Shabbos *is* the seeing-organ of the world.

**Bereshis = ראש בית.** *Tikkunei Zohar Tikkun 3, 18a* unpacks the very first word as *rosh bayis* — "head of the house." *Rosh* = the bechinah of mochin (the four mochin: chochmah, tevunah, da'as, kol melachah — Shemos 31:3, per Tikkunei Zohar intro 13b). *Bayis* = the Beis HaMikdash, *and* the *batim* of the tefillin ("וַאֲמַלֵּא אֹתוֹ" — *va-amalei* dayka — fills the batim with the mochin). When the *rosh* (the tzaddik) and the *bayis* (Mikdash, tefillin) are both present and magnified, the world has a *baal habayis* — someone keeping its repairs in order. The tzaddikim are therefore called **"עֵינֵי הָעֵדָה"** (Bamidbar 15:24; BB 4a) — the eyes of the congregation — *because through them the world's eyes open*. The whole pasuk "בְּרֵאשִׁית — לְעֵינֵי כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל" now reads as one sentence: *because the world has a Rosh Bayis (the tzaddik) — therefore: in the eyes of all Yisrael.* Bereshis (rosh bayis) → l'einei kol Yisrael (their opened eyes). **And there is, c"v, the exact opposite**: when a *false mefursam* — someone with no Shem Hashem in him at all — is publicized and magnified, the false shem grows where the true shem should have grown, and Shem Hashem itself becomes diminished and concealed. Then *baalei sheimos* and *kedariyim* (Tatars, sorcerers, magicians) gain prominence; m'oray or fall, m'oray esh rise, fires come into the world — bechinas **"וַיַּצֶּת אֵשׁ בְּצִיּוֹן וַתֹּאכַל יְסוֹדוֹתֶיהָ"** (Eichah 4:11). *Yesodoseha* dayka — *her four yesodos* — the very four-element foundation that flowed down from the m'oray or were eaten by the esh. The mechanism of the world's seeing-and-being-built and the mechanism of its blinding-and-burning are the same mechanism, run in opposite directions, depending on whether the *true* shem or the *false* shem is what the world is magnifying.

**The practical avodah Rabbeinu draws out — chatzos.** "Rise at chatzos and mourn the churban." Why do *I* need to mourn? Two reasons in one breath: (a) maybe in a previous gilgul I was the one who caused the churban; (b) and even if not, *maybe right now I am one of the people delaying the binyan* — and *delaying the rebuilding is reckoned as if I caused the destruction* (Yerushalmi Yoma 1:1). On every Jew alive there is therefore the kovea-ness of being *causally implicated* in both directions of the temple-mechanism. And the gift Hashem promised the mourners is **"פְּאֵר תַּחַת אֵפֶר"** (Yeshayah 61:3) — *splendor instead of ashes*. *Pe'er* = mochin = tefillin (the very word for tefillin in the perek of Cohen Gadol's neginah is *pe'er*) = rosh bayis = the totality of the colors = the three colors + bas ayin = m'oray or = Shabbos that illuminates the Mikdash. *Tachas efer* = *m'oray esh* — exactly the *opposite* substance — being subdued. **The act of mourning IS the substitution**: when you sit in *afar/efer* over the churban, you weaken the m'oray esh that consume the Mikdash and re-empower the m'oray or that build it. **The acrostic seals it**: **מִתְאַבֵּל** = ר"ת **"לֹא תְבַעֲרוּ אֵשׁ בְּכָל מֹשְׁבֹתֵיכֶם"** (Shemos 35:3 — the Shabbos prohibition on kindling). The mourner is, letter by letter, the one who is *not kindling fire in his dwellings* — the m'oray esh of his world are quieted. **"לַעֲשׂוֹת אֶת הַשַּׁבָּת לְדֹרֹתָם"** (Shemos 31:16) — Zohar Pinchas 243b reads *l'dorosam* as *l'shon dirah* (dwelling): Shabbos *makes a dirah* — the Mikdash above and the Jewish home below (Shabbos 119b: "saved from fires"). The existence of Yisrael's dwellings hangs on Shabbos.

**Closing — the eulogy in Bereshis.** Rabbeinu now reads the entire torah we just learned as a *hesped* on the *histaalkus* of the tzaddik. Where? In *Bereshis* itself: **"אֵלֶּה תּוֹלְדֹת נֹחַ"** (Bereshis 6:9). The vort opens: "בראשית" is bechinas *rosh bayis* = the tzaddik who is the world's pe'er; and the next verse, "אלה תולדות נח," reads *as a lament*: when *the tzaddik (Noach) is removed*, the *toldos* — the children — are the *ye'somim she-nish'aru*, the orphans left behind. For the tzaddik himself there is no loss in passing — he becomes greater and *m'fo'ar* there in olam ha'ba ("אֶת הָאֱלֹקִים הִתְהַלֶּךְ נֹחַ" — bechinas walking with the Source). But for the *dor yasom* it is a *rachmanus gadol me'od*. For *all* the doros are downstream of the tzaddik who is the *rosh* — bechinas **"קוֹרֵא הַדֹּרוֹת מֵרֹאשׁ"** (Yeshayah 41:4): every generation flows out of the *rosh*, who is the tzaddik. When that *rosh* is present, there is *rosh* and there is *bayis*, and all of us are *bnei bayis*. When the rosh is removed, c"v, the false *rosh* of the sitra achra rises in his place — bechinas **"רֹאשׁ כָּל חוּצוֹת"** (Eichah 4:1) — the generation has no *bayis*, and Yisrael are *nis-galgelim ba-chutzos*, rolling about in the streets, holy stones poured out at the head of every street. Yirmiyahu's *m'konen* over the precious sons of Tzion is, on this reading, lamentation over the *toldos who are now without a rosh bayis*. **The whole torah's gentle cosmic claim**: *yiras shamayim, the building of the Mikdash, the rectification of the eyes of every Jew, and the very persistence of Yisrael's dwellings — all hang on whether the world is currently magnifying the true tzaddik or some false mefursam in his place.* Bereshis reaches forward to *l'einei kol Yisrael* across the entire Torah and says: this — *seeing-because-the-Tzaddik-was-revealed* — is what the whole sefer is for. And as long as the tzaddik is hidden, the avodah of every yasom in the dor is *chatzos, mis'abel, pe'er tachas efer* — until the rosh returns and the *einei kol Yisrael* are re-opened.