Dear Friends,
As many of you know, I’m working on a book. This book is intended to be a re/introduction to torah and I’m writing it for folks who have never read a verse of the Torah in their life as well as for the ultra educated who need to be reignited. Below is a little taste of what I’m working on. DISCLAIMER: EVEN THIS CHAPTER MAY BE EDITED UNTIL UNRECOGNIZABLE WHO KNOWS?! I am very much still in the drafting process and paragraphs are changing all the time.
BUT, I’m excited and so I wanted to share a little behind the scenes preview. This piece below is like a meditation on the teaching that the Torah is “black fire written upon white fire.” I hope it sparks something for you!
As always, if you love what I do, please spread the word and share it far and wide. Thank you for being here.
Love, Meg
“How was the Torah written? It was written with letters of black fire on a surface of white fire.” – Midrash Tanchuma Bereshit 1
When I think about fire I think about cooking. Starting the stove or building a campfire. I think about transformation. Boiling water turns an egg firm and a potato soft. Fire is a doorway to change. Too much fire is a burnt marshmallow.
The second thing I think about is fire-activated seeds. While forest fires of course can devastate acres upon acres of ecosystems including human communities, there are some seeds that need to be in touch with fire in order to germinate. In a National Forest Foundation essay on the effects of fire on trees, Luba Mullen writes the following::
“The actual seeds of many plants in fire-prone environments need fire, directly or indirectly, to germinate. These plants produce seeds with a tough coating that can lay dormant, awaiting a fire, for several years. Whether it is the intense heat of the fire, exposure to chemicals from smoke or exposure to nutrients in the ground after fire, these seeds depend on fire to break their dormancy.”1
Fire can break a seed’s dormancy – wake it up. Waking up is itself a sort of transformation. Jewish tradition teaches that when we wake up after sleeping, it is as if our soul has returned to our body. When we sleep, our soul goes off and mingles with other souls, or maybe just sits somewhere and catches up on the crossword (not mine, but maybe some of y’alls). At this time, our soul is not in our body – there is a separation. And then every morning the first words we are taught to say are:
I offer thanks to You, living and eternal Source of Life, for You have mercifully restored my soul within me.
To wake up, in a Jewish imagination, is to be “re-ensouled.” To be reunited is to be transformed, in a sense.
The third thing I think about: Shabbat candles. Striking the match. Striking the second match when the first one doesn’t work. That initial smell of smoke. Running my finger through the flame the way I learned at some family dinner from some family member, many years ago. It was such a thrill that I could touch fire. Touch it! But only in passing.
The fourth thing I think about is motion. Fire is always moving because it is always burning something. Whether pine needles or propane, fire needs fuel.
It is taught that the Torah is fire on fire. The black fire of the Hebrew crackles upon the white fire of the page beneath.
“Rebbi Phineas in the name of Rebbi Simeon ben Laqish: The Torah which the Holy One, Praise to Him, gave to Moses, was white fire engraved in black fire. It was fire mixed with fire; hewn from fire, given from fire: That is what is written: From His right hand, the fiery law to them.” 2
If this is so, what is the fuel? What is being woken up or transformed? How can we relate to it without getting burned?
One of the most famous fires inside of the Torah is of course that of the burning bush:
“There the angel of God appeared to [Moses] in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”3
It was strange to Moses that the fuel (the bush) was not being consumed. Strange enough that it caught his attention and drew him closer to the Divine Presence. The fire’s entire purpose was to bring him near, but not too near. The same voice tells him to stop when he approaches too close. So what is the fuel of the fires of Torah? We might think of the fuel like that of the bush – the presence of a divine messenger. The visible fires of the Hebrew and the page mean that a deeper source exists. Fire does not sustain itself without fuel.
What is the fire of torah waking up or transforming? The obvious answer is the reader. As we run our minds through the ancient flickers of wisdom, like the seed, we prepare ourselves to grow. Something melts away or softens or strengthens or whistles inside of us. And like the soul returning to the body upon waking from sleep, there is a spiritual awakening that happens when a student reunites with the generative heat of torah. We move from being asleep to being awake to being Torah-awake – a new plane of thought and imagination.
What else does the fire of torah transform?
And when might the fire of torah burn us? As with passing a finger through a shabbos candle or Moses approaching the burning bush, there is an important boundary to hold. If we stay too long inside of torah – if we make our aim to climb between the letters and never emerge – we will be charred to a crisp. Ultimately, torah is to be lived outside of its pages.
“Which is greater, study or action? Rabbi Tarfon answered, saying: Action is greater. Rabbi Akiva answered, saying: Study is greater. All the rest agreed with Akiva that study is greater than action because it leads to action.” 4
The black and white fire of torah is not a destination in and of itself. Instead, these fires are calls to action. If we remain inside the world of torah too much, we die – if we only learn and never apply. And torah is precisely intended for the opposite.
“You shall keep My laws and My rules, by the pursuit of which human beings shall live.”5
“I gave them My laws and taught them My rules, by the pursuit of which a human being shall live.”6
Torah is a passageway. Torah is a transformation. Torah is for the sake of life.
Luba Mullen, “How Trees Survive and Thrive After A Fire” from Your National Forests Magazine, Summer/Fall 2017. National Forest Foundation. https://www.nationalforests.org/our-forests/your-national-forests-magazine/how-trees-survive-and-thrive-after-a-fire. Accessed Sept 9, 2022.
Jerusalem Talmud, Shekalim 6:1
Exodus 3:2-3
Kiddushin 40b
Leviticus 18:5
Ezekiel 20:11