Parshat Beshalach (Exodus 13:17-17:16) includes the famous Shirat HaYam, (Song of the Sea), that Moshe and the Bnei Yisrael (the Israelites) sing after crossing the Red Sea to safety.
Scribal tradition is to write this song out as a visual poem, where the layout is as important as the words. At the top of this page, you will find an excerpt from the poem.
Take just a moment to stare at it. And ask yourself: what is figure, what is ground?
Whatever you’ve observed, just hold that thought.
Many midrashim have been created to put into words what people see in this visual image. The most famous of these see the white spaces as surges of water. In one midrash, the white spaces represent the walls of water, while the black letters represent the Israelites crossing one by one, in a long winding line, along a narrow strip of dry land. According to this midrash, the poem retraces the inner journey of the Israelites as they leapt back and forth from fear to praise to fear to praise. In another midrash, the white spaces represent God’s tears, flowing between the words of victory, as God mourns the loss of the Egyptian charioteers, dutiful soldiers unwillingly obeying Pharaoh’s unjust orders.
Another famous midrash about the white spaces between the black letters sees the white spaces as surges of fire.
You may have heard this midrash.
It appears in many different sources, with subtle variations, as we will see.
Here is Rashi’s version:
“The Torah was written in primordial time, in the presence of God, with black fire on white fire.”
Think about it: a primordial Torah, written with black fire on white fire, in the presence of God. This is not the same as the physical Torah, written with black ink on white parchment, by a scribe in a studio, in the presence of co-workers. The primordial Torah is older than time as we know it, perhaps even timeless; it’s dynamic and always moving; it’s directly connected with the Ineffable, Infinite One. It’s not the same as the intellectual Torah that emerges at a particular time, in a particular language, through a particular culture.
The primordial Torah is larger than the physical or intellectual Torah, and somehow the primordial Torah is the source.
This is big – and all of classical rabbinic thought accepts this big idea. The written Torah that we have is a culturally relative document. It’s an expression of God, to be sure, but it’s the one that came through Moshe, in the wilderness, just as he was figuring out how to form a nation from an extended family of slaves. We hold this Torah precious precisely because of this history. But we have to remember that it is only an expression of primordial Torah. This is why the Yerushalmi (the Jerusalem Talmud), in its version of the midrash, speaks of the stone tablets that Moshe received: “The Torah that God gave to Moshe was given as white fire engraved with black fire.”
Accepting the primordial Torah is a matter of heavy responsibility. We take on the responsibility of stepping outside the words of the Torah, and sometimes questioning them from a larger spiritual or moral perspective. When we question the violence of some of the stories, for example, we are standing in the white spaces, in the fire of primordial Torah. We are expressing our deepest ideals, our belief in the miracle of a nonviolent world, a society our tradition dares only to call olam haba, messianic time, God’s time, the time of primordial Torah.
Here is something I learned from Rabbi Elliot Ginsberg, who learned it from his Hassidic teachers. It’s a reflection on the midrash that the Torah is written in fiery black letters upon fiery white letters. Every moment, the world begins as pure divine energy, and evolves through seder hishtalshelut, the continuous chain of creation, into less subtle forms: from spirit to intellect to physicality. What we see as physical black letters still contain the inner light from their origin in seder hishtalshelut, the continuous chain of creation. But the white spaces are direct expressions of this inner light. The white spaces are traces of the hidden letters from beyond.
There is a reason why these traces particularly shine through in Shirat HaYam(Song of the Sea). The intellectual Torah was revealed to Moshe on Mount Sinai, and Moshe brought it to the people. But before Mount Sinai was a revelation offered to all the Israelites: kriyat Yam Suf, the parting of the Red Sea. Every person saw the raw energy that is behind the moral and spiritual specifics of the written Torah. Metaphorically, our Hassidic teachers say, the black letters of Torah that are usually linked in a chain became stretched out, so that anyone present could see the light between the letters. This is why the Zohar, in its version of the midrash, reminds us that the Torah was given to all of Israel: “The Torah that was given to Israel was written with black fire upon white fire.”
Look again at the image of Shirat HaYam on the back of the handout. What is the figure, and what is the ground? What is primary, white space or black letters? What do you see? Do you see black letters with white openings left around them for our oral interpretations? Or do you see white spaces of possibility that are partially filled up with little black scrawls of interpretation?Midrash Tanchuma, in its version of the midrash, gives priority to the white spaces of possibility: “The Torah was written upon white fire with black fire.”
The conclusion is inescapable: it is our responsibility as students of Torah to live in the white spaces, to connect with the source of primordial Torah, to be critical readers and active interpreters of the black letters. The image of Shirat HaYam even gives us hints about how interpretation will come forth. One hint invites us to meditate; another invites us to feminist critique. Sometimes, what is said in the language of the black letters brings us to stunned silence, represented by the open white spaces. If we dwell in the silence, through meditation, the insight we receive there will bring us once again to language. At other times we may find ourselves miscast by the male-centered language of our tradition. At those times we need to dwell in the white spaces. The Hebrew word for “white,” levanah, is also the Hebrew word for “moon,” a symbol of femaleness that emerges month after month. The teaching is clear: when our perspective becomes biased, we must return to the white spaces of primordial Torah.
The Hassidic teacher Rabbi Elimelech of Dinov, also known as the Bnei Yissaschar, says, this is what it means to be Yisrael, one who wrestles with the Divine. His words bring us back to the words we say at the beginning of the Torah service: Shema Yisrael, listen God-wrestlers, find your way back to the One.
— Laura Duhan Kaplan, 2010
Image: www.hebcal.com