A young boy was refusing to eat. His parents brought him to a psychiatrist. After a long discussion alone with the boy, the doctor emerged. “The good news,” the doctor proclaimed, “is that he has agreed to start eating. The bad new is he says he’ll only eat rattlesnakes.” “Fine!” cried the parents, “at least our boy won’t starve to death.” They hurried to the local pet shop, purchased a rattlesnake, and brought it to the doctor’s office. The doctor nervously placed the snake in front of the boy. “I’m not going to eat it,” he said. “But why not?” asked the doctor. “It’s not fried,” said the boy, “I’ll only eat it if it’s fried.” The doctor hurried to the staff kitchen, fried the snake in a pan, and brought it back to the boy. “I’m not going to eat it,” he said. “But why not?” pleaded the doctor, increasingly disturbed. The boy answered, “I’ll only eat if you eat half of it first. Then I’ll eat my half.” The doctor, at his wit’s end, gobbled down half of the snake and glared at the boy. “I’m not going to eat it,” said the boy. “In G-d’s name, why not?” screamed the doctor. The boy replied, “Because you ate my half.”

* * *

Shemini: Splitting the Snake in Two

This week’s Torah portion includes the laws of kosher and non-kosher animals.[1] One law is, “Anything that creeps on its belly, gachon, (literally ‘that walks bending down’) is not fit for consumption.”

Rashi explains that “gachon” here refers to the nachash, the snake, for in order to walk, a snake first bends down, and then falls on its belly.

QUESTIONS
1.) Why does this passage use a word that means ‘bending’? If the Torah wants to say ‘belly’ it could use the word meiav. If it wants to say ‘snake’, it could use the word nachash.

2.) In this passage, the word gachon has an unusually large Vav: . The Talmud says the large Vav in gachon marks the half-way point of the Torah, when we count the letters.[2] What is the significance of all this?

3.) The portion of Shemini is usually read during the week of the Last Day of Passover, when we celebrate “the Meal of the Mashiach”.[3] What is the connection between the snake and Mashiach?

THE LETTER VAV
The letter Vav can be understood in three ways: its graphic design, its meaning, and its gematria–its numerical value.

Graphic design: The letter Vav resembles a hook that connects two sides of a tapestry, or a column that connects an upper space to a lower space.

Meaning: Vav literally means ‘hook’. When the letter Vav appears at the beginning of a word, it means ‘and’, connecting the word to preceding words.

Gematria: The numerical value of Vav is 6. When the word Vav is spelled out, Vav-Alef-Vav, the value is 13. Vav is the sixth letter of the Alef-Beis. When we add up the values of the first six letters, 1+2+3+4+5+6, the value is 21. The square of 21 is 441, which is the value of the word emes, ‘truth’.

NATURE OF THE SNAKE
The Torah uses the word gachon because it wants to emphasize the snake’s nature, not just its name. What is the significance of Rashi’s understanding–that a snake naturally bends down and then fall on its belly? The Zohar says a snake symbolizes the evil inclination within a person, for the evil inclination is what prompts us to bend down spiritually and then fall.

The Maharsha explains why the large Vav interrupts the word gachon. It does so to remind us that we can interrupt our ‘snake’ nature, our evil inclination, and split it in two.[4] In truth, our evil inclination is incomplete and divided against itself. It has no real power.

THE TWO HALVES
The Tzemach Tzedek explains that the Torah is made up of two sides. The right side alludes to chesed, kindness or expansion, and the left side alludes to gevurah, judgment or contraction. The evil inclination can only derive its nourishment from gevurah, for the great goodness of chesed would overwhelm it.

This large Vav, the central column of the Torah, connects its chesed and its gevurah, thereby reducing and sweetening the contractive force of gevurah. This prevents the ‘gachon‘, the evil inclination, from nursing any strength from the side of gevurah. Vav’s numerical value of 13 is the same as the value of the word echad, ‘one’. This again suggests the harmonious unification of chesed and gevurah.[5]

The Lubavitcher Rebbe explains that the letter Vav hints to the connecting column between the Upper and lower worlds.[6] When the lowly snake is connected to its source Above, its true holiness and purity is revealed. When the Jews in the Desert were bitten by fiery serpents, Moses made a copper snake and placed it high on a tree. Anyone who would look at this copper snake would be healed through its holy energy.

TO BEND
How does one connect the ‘snake’ of their evil inclination to its root Above? The evil inclination doesn’t directly tell a person to sin or violate the Law. It prompts a person to procrastinate, until that person on his own comes to neglect and then violate the Law.

This is why the Torah uses the word gachon, ‘bend’, instead of a word for ‘belly’. First the evil inclination suggests, “Bend on this one-don’t actually break the Law, but just compromise here and there.” The evil inclination knows that if we bend and give in, we will eventually fall down on our belly. Also, when we ‘bend’ down, we can’t ‘see’ the Upper World, and we aren’t aware of our connection to our Creator above. When we compromise on this connection, it is very easy to fall to the ground and immerse ourselves with earthly and degrading things.

Therefore, we should always look to the Heavens, reminding ourselves of our Source and of our responsibilities in connecting the light of Torah to this world. This is done by practicing the Oral Law, as revealed in the Six Books of the Mishnah. The Torah is called emes, ‘truth’, for it connects us to the Source of Truth. When we connect ourselves to G-d through Torah, we will transform the nachash (gematria of 358), into Mashiach (also 358).

A STORY [7]
The Baal Shem Tov once raised a storm of prayer pleading for the coming of the Mashiach. He then heard a heavenly voice begin to relate: “There was once a great clamor in Heaven urging the coming of the Redeemer. But many tzaddikim argued that the time for the end of the exile had not yet arrived, since many souls still needed rectification. Better that Redemption be delayed to spare these souls from being lost in the process. Other tzaddikim disagreed, saying, ‘Must all of Israel suffer because of those unrepentant souls?’ The two sides agreed to ask the view of the great unborn soul of the Baal Shem Tov. The Besht said, ‘It is written that G-d “devises means so that none should be outcast from before Him,” for He does not desire that any remain outside the fold, unredeemed.’ The tzaddikim asked the Besht, ‘And what will happen to the Jewish People, who suffer because of the outcasts who are slow to repent?’ After much discussion and debate it was decided that if the Besht maintained his position, then it would be fitting for him to descend to the world and bring all the outcast souls to repentance. If so,” the Heavenly voice concluded, “why are you demanding Mashiach now? You yourself rejected the early Redemption!”

The Besht did not accept the argument of this heavenly voice. He continued to work to bring lost souls back to their Source, and yet he also prayed with all his might for the immediate arrival of Mashiach.

ACTION: Cry out, “Ad mosai–How long must we wait…?” Inspire your friend to do a mitzvahin honor of Mashiach’s imminent arrival.

FOOTNOTES
[1] Leviticus, 11:42
[2] Vav symbolizes the sefirah of Tiferes, Splendor, which is the central column which harmonizes and unifies the sefiros of Chesed and Gevurah.
[3] See HaYom Yom 22nd of Nisan.
[4] Tractate Kedushin, page 30a
[5] On the verse from Kedushin, above
[6] Lekutei Sichos 17, p. 123
[7] The Light and Fire of the Baal Shem Tov by Yitzhak Buxbaum, p. 302, “The Besht’s Soul and the End”