Just What Are You Singing About?

For as long as I can remember the songs accompanying Simchas Torah dancing in yeshivas and kollelim have included:

ישראל ואורייתא וקודשא בריך הוא חד הוא

The Jewish nation, the Torah, and God are all one.

Since it’s been so many years since I last participated, I asked one of my sons for confirmation. Indeed. The song is still as popular as ever.

But through all the many hundreds or even thousands of times you repeated those words, did you ever wonder what they actually meant - not to mention where they come from?

What could it mean to be “one” with God? Perhaps it’s hinting to some version of the highly-problematic early modern kabbalistic idea of tzimtzum, in which physical creation is really an illusory element of God’s incorporeal infiniteness. Well then it shouldn’t be limited to just the Jewish nation, since the theory requires that all creation is illusory. And in any case do you really want to cheerfully sing about a universe in which making a beracha on your tefilin is a ברכה לבטלה since your arm doesn’t actually exist?

I suppose, through some generous use of poetic license, you could understand the words to mean that the Jewish nation, the Torah, and God are all unified through shared goals. Technically, that’s intellectually incoherent, since you can’t logically impute volition (goals) to a non-living object (Torah). But there’s nothing philosophically wrong with the approach.

The bigger problem though, is that words’ likely source (Ramchal in his early work, Adir Bamarom,¹ who cites a Zohar which we don’t seem to have) definitely didn’t think in those terms. And that’s something most of the people singing along at least intuitively understand.

In fact, at the very least, Ramchal envisioned Jewish souls as sharing an essential metaphysical intimacy and interconnectedness with God. Among modern kabbalists, it’s popular to misrepresent Iyov 31:2 (“chelek Elokah mima'al”) to describe their thinking - though even a casual reading of the verse itself shows no connection.

But what I find fascinating about all this is how deeply ingrained the modern kabbalistic mindset is specifically within the yeshiva and kollel world. Yeshiva world insiders have picked a side - and it’s not the side I used to think they’d pick. I’m aware of many senior roshei yeshiva and roshei kollel whose interest is insatiable. And the Ramchal’s works are (understandably) magnetic for many younger bnei Torah.

I expect to have more to write on that topic in the coming weeks. You’ve been warned.

1. See also Nefesh Hachaim 4:11