Tevah

13 Tishrei 5782

“Indeed, You showed love for peoples; all his holy ones are in Your hand” (Devarim 33:3)

The souls of the righteous are hidden away with G-d. They cling on to Him, they do not turn away from Him. He in turn guards them. It is said that in times of hardship Jews should flee into the תֵבָה. The word תֵבָה has several meanings. It can refer to Noah’s Ark, his תֵבָה, into which he fled when the waters of the Great Flood came to cleanse the world of defilement. It can also mean a letter or word in Lashon Kodesh. When the flood waters come to bring the wicked down and cleanse the world, every Jew at every time has the possibility to flee into the words of the Holy Torah. Just as they are eternal and nourishing, they will eternally protect him and sustain him, in this world and in the world to come.

“Be for me a sheltering rock, to enter always.” (Tehillim 71:3)

Hashem is for us a refuge at all times and in all places.

“Everything is in the hands of heaven except for the fear of heaven” (Lessons in Tanya, Iggeret HaKodesh, beginning of Epistle 22)

How do we get there? By using the only thing we actually have control over, our fear of heaven. By cultivating an appreciation for the magnitude of Hashem through intellectual meditation, we can come to a point where every fiber of our being truly believes that it is created by Hashem at every moment. Then all other considerations go away and we can truly immerse ourselves in words, in תֵּבוֹת, of Torah.