Of Cows and Divine Names

This week's Torah reading opens with the commandment of the red heifer. The ashes of the red heifer are used to purify a person from the impurity of death. "Death" is spiritually a falling from one state of divine consciousness to a lower one (or lack of one). Thus, the commandment of the red heifer contains within it the mystical explanation of evil and the purification from defilement of evil/death, i.e. loss of divine consciousness.

G-d spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, 'This is the statute of the Torah, which G-d spoke, saying, "Speak to the children of Israel, that they for you a pure, unblemished red heifer, which has never worn a yoke, and give it to Elazar the priest. He will take it outside the camp, and someone will slaughter it before him. Elazar the priest will take some of its blood on his finger and sprinkle it toward the opening of the tent of meeting seven times. Someone will burn the heifer in front of him; he will burn its hide, its flesh, its blood, and its innards…. (Num. 19:1-5)

This excerpt from the teachings of the Arizal follows the previous installment.

Regarding the essence of the [rite of the] red heifer, King Solomon, of blessed memory, said, "I said, 'I will become wise,' but it was far from me" (Ecclesiastes 7:23), as our sages explained. (Bamidbar Rabba 19:3)

King Solomon was the wisest of all men, but even he could not understand how, as happens in the rite of the red heifer, the individual administering the purification rite himself becomes defiled by doing so.

Know that [this is because] the basis of the [rite of the] red heifer is [that it expresses] how malchut receives from the back of the Holy Names, and not from their front.

Since the rite of the red heifer exemplifies a state of reality in which the Divine Name is not showing its "face", but rather its "back", we sense ourselves in this context as being removed, or "far" from G-d's presence. This is why King Solomon described his inability to fathom the workings of the red heifer rite as feeling "far" from wisdom.

Therefore the heifer must be red, to signify the state of severe judgment [to which malchut is subject].

Red is the color of gevura, severity. Someone who has been defiled by means of contact with death is in a state of extreme, severely limited divine consciousness. The stark confrontation with the reality of death carries with it the seeds of abject depression born of a nihilistic, fatalistic, pagan, or absurd attitude toward life. The individual must therefore "purify" himself from this defilement.

The retrogressive spelling of the 72-Name, i.e. tet-hei-gimel dalet-tet hei-tet-hei dalet-tet, which is similar to tet-dalet-hei-dalet [being produced out of] yud-hei-vav-hei, the numerical value [of this spelling] is 62.

The loss of optimistic, forward-looking divine consciousness is reflected by the name Havayah "recoiling" backward in the alphabet. The heifer embodies the retrogression of normal divine consciousness that results from contact with death….

When we consider the four letters of the name Havayah and substitute each letter with the letter preceding it in the alphabet, this is called the "retrogressive" spelling of the Name. Thus, yud-hei-vav-hei becomes tet-dalet-hei-dalet. There is also a "progressive" spelling of the name Havayah, in which each letter is replaced by the letter following it in the alphabet. In this way, yud-hei-vav-hei becomes kaf-vav-zayin-vav.

The spellings-out of the name Havayah can also be spelled retrogressively. Here, though, we must point out that since there is no letter before the letter alef, the alef remains an alef even when "retrogressed".

Following is the derivation of the usual and retrogressive spellings-out of the name Havayah:

Similarly, the numerical value of the retrogressive spelling of the 63-Name is 54, that of the retrogressive spelling of the 45-Name is 38, and that of the retrogressive spelling of the 52-Name is 43.

The combined numerical value of the four retrogressed root-letters, tet-dalet-hei-dalet, is 88.

Tet-dalet-hei-dalet= 9 + 4 + 5 + 4 = 22. 4 x 22 = 88

[This plus] the combined numerical value of the all retrogressed names [285] is the same as that of the Hebrew word for "heifer" ["parah"].

62 + 54 + 38 + 43 + 88 = 285.

Parah" is spelled: pei-reish-hei = 80 + 200 + 5 = 285.

Thus, the heifer embodies the retrogression of normal divine consciousness that results from contact with death.

Just as [the numerical value of the word for "heifer"] is produced from five instances of retrogressive spelling, so does it comprise five states of gevura, [as follows]:

It is termed "heifer" because of malchut, "red" because of hod, "pure" because of yesod, "unblemished" because of gevura, and "which has never worn a yoke" because of bina.

The sefirot in the above list are those on the left axis of the sefirot (bina, gevura, and hod) and the two final sefirot of the middle axis (yesod and malchut), which act as funnels for the preceding sefirot (including the three left ones).

Know also that the red heifer purifies the defiled by means of the divine attribute of mercy, as well. Specifically, [this is] by means of the regressive iterations of the four Names Havayah, [as follows].

The numerical values of the regressive iterations of these four names are 184, 166, 130, and 144, as follows:

The total of these four numerical values is 624.

When we subtract from this the four iterated names themselves, each of which has the value of 72, we are left with 336.

The regressive iteration of the name Havayah itself, not being spelled out, is:
yud yud-hei yud-hei-vav yud-hei-vav-hei = 10 + (10 + 5) + (10 + 5 + 6) + (10 + 5 + 6 + 5) = 72.

4 x 72 = 288.

624 – 288 = 336.

This is the numerical value of the words for "red heifer" [in Hebrew, "parah adumah"], plus the kolel.

"Parah adumah" is spelled: pei-reish-hei alef-dalet-mem-hei = (80 + 200 + 5) + (1 + 4 + 40 + 5) = 335."
335 + 1 = 336.

Translated and adapted by Moshe-Yaakov Wisnefsky from Sefer HaLikutim and Likutei Torah; subsequently published in "Apples From the Orchard."

Reprinted with permission from Chabad of California. Copyright 2004 by Chabad of California, Inc. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work or portions thereof, in any form, without permission, in writing, from Chabad of California, Inc.