Parashat beShalaḥ - The Pillar of Cloud and the DIVINE GLORY

Parashat beShalaḥ
(Ex. 13:17-17:16) -
Dr. Yitzḥaq Ḥayut-Man

In the preceding Parashot in the Book of Exodus we have focused on items that came to be associated with the sanctuary (Mishkan). The staff of Moshe and Aaron was kept in the sanctuary and the gold of Egypt was dedicated for the sanctuary. In Parashah of Beshalaḥ there appear, beside the momentous events of the splitting of the sea – Yam Suf, additional components of the sanctuary: The Pillars of Fire and Cloud that guided and guarded the Israelites, and the Manna (Mann-מן) – which was provided as food but also given as a test of belief through the Shabbat (שבת) and its observance. In the following we shall deal just with the topic of the cloud.

The Pillar of Cloud and its movements

And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, … And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; that they might go by day and by night:  the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night, departed not from before the people. (13:21-22). It is difficult to tell whether this is two pillars or one pillar of cloud within which appear fire and lights. Since it is the nature of clouds to move and drift with the winds, the spectacle of a stationary cloud or which moves in specific directions is a rare and enchanting, supernatural spectacle.

When the Egyptians chased the Israelites into the sea, the pillar acquired an additional function – of separating between the two camps. "And the angel of God, who went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud removed from before them, and stood behind them"; (14:19). "And it came between the camp of Egypt and the camp of Israel; and there was the cloud and the darkness here, yet gave it light by night there; and the one came not near the other all the night" (14:20). The next sentence describes the dividing of the sea: "And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all the night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided" (14:21).

Each one of the three sentences above is made of exactly 72 Hebrew letters[1] - which is the Gematria value of the word ẠB ((עב which is the synonymous with the word ẠNaN (ענן) for cloud (The expression "ẠB HaẠNaN" - עב הענן – appears often in the Hebrew Scriptures). In the appendix we'll bring these letters and the structures that they construct.

"And the angel of God,[2] who went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud removed from before them, and stood behind them". Just like it is possible in regard of the Pillars of Fire and of Cloud to wonder whether the angel and the cloud are two different entities that act alike, or are they perhaps one and the same. As two, the Pillar of Cloud, which is made of water, is associated in the Qabbalah with the Sefirah (Divine attribute) of Mercy and thus with Abraham, and the Pillar of Fire associated with Judgement (DIN דין) and thus with Yiẓḥaq (Isaac). They can be also associated with the two brass pillars in the Temple of Shelomoh (Solomon): Yakhin (יכין) with Nekhonut (willingness, readiness) and Bo'ạz (literally "courage (is) inside him") with Judgment and Fire. Amplification to the understanding that this is one pillar, in which fire and cloud are mixed together , derives from the next verse that deals with the topic: "… the LORD looked forth upon the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of cloud, and discomfited the host of the Egyptians" (14:24).

The Appearance of the Glory and the Cloud-72

The possibility that we deal here with a pillar of cloud that has fire shining inside and through it is amplified by the mysterious show called "KaVOD" (כבוד – Glory of God). The first time the divine Kavod is associated with the cloud in the case of the first complaint of the people in the desert: "Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, … for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger." Moshe and Aharon brought all the people near towards the Lord – "they looked toward the wilderness, and, behold, the glory of the LORD appeared in the cloud" (16:10). The most stupendous appearance of the KAvod would be at the theophany of Mount Sinai, "And the glory of the LORD abode upon mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days… And the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel" (Ex. 24:16-17).

The Kavod-Glory that appears in a cloud is the visible side of the invisible and incorporeal divinity. So it is possible to inquire: what figure or form has this Kavod that shines in the cloud?

As we know that the Israelites saw the sounds that issued from the cloud at the Sinai epiphany, it is plausible to describe that figure-no-figure as beams of light –letters forming certain patterns within "the World of Letters" (Ọlam haOtiyot) – and then there might emerge words – and with them also Gematria calculations of words.[3]

We shall come across the cloud also in the travels of the Israelites in the desert. But its main importance would become clear at the Sinai Epiphany with the appearance of the "thick cloud' –ẠB haẠNaN – smoke and fog (19:9, 16, 18; 20:18), at the Tabernacle (33:9-10; 40:34) and the Sanctuary (40:34-38), as would also occur later at the dedication of the Temple of Shelomoh (I Kings 8:10-11).

At the wanderings of the Israelites in the desert, these movable pillars came to guide and illuminate the way (14:21-22). When those wanderings came to an end goal, to "the place (Maqom מקום) which the Lord your God shall choose to cause His name to dwell there" (Deut. 12:11) the pillar(s) of smoke and fire, which ostensibly were no longer necessary. On the contrary! Eventually, at the dedication of Shelomoh's Temple the cloud became identified with the Glory-Kavod of the Lord: "And it came to pass that the cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could ot stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord" (I Kings 8:10-11). There was an artificial cloud rising from the smoke of the sacrifices. The legend (Agadah אגדה) tells that the fire that came from below kindled a fire from heaven, in the form of a fiery lion that comes from above and devour the sacrifices. The cloud and fire belong also in the future Temple, and there they would reach their ultimate purpose – which is the spiritual guidance and illumination in the multidimensional space.

I hope to treat this topic when we will deal with the dedication of the sanctuary. There are several available articles in this website relating to the pillar of cloud and fire in the Temple of the Future: About the Temple Vision of Ezekiel, about the Temple Vision of Parashat Hazon (Vision), and about The Lucid Cloud and Smoke clouds of the Glory of the Lord. 

Appendix – The ẠB-72 Tablet

According to the Ramban (Nahmanides) the entire Torah is, or is made of, the names of God. In this story of the Crossing of the Sea there is a section that is already identified as a sacred name (or a group of names). Let us try to draw this section as a sketch for an intermediate state between the appearance of the Divin Glory (Kavod) on the sea and reception of the Tablets of the Testament.

The Zohar in the commentary to this Parashah has already gone deeply discussing the connections between these three sentences of 72 words each (where 72 is the Gematria value of the Hebrew word Ḥesed – Grace/Generosity) and the pillar(s) of cloud and of fire and "the Name of ẠB".[4] The entire set of 216 letters (Gematria of יראה – "will see" and as "Awe") in this section was regarded by thQabbalah masters as a hidden divine name that was revealed in the epiphany by the sea – a name that is actually a set of 72 small names, each made of three letters.

The way that these people derived the names from these sentences is to write the first sentence from right to left (as is the rule in Hebrew) on the first line, then writing the second sentence in the second line in reversed order - from left to right – and in the third line write the sentence by its order (right to left). The result is like a snake of the letters of the three sentences coiling back and forth:

ויסעמלאךהאלהיםההלךלפנימחנהישראלוילךמאחריהםויסעעמודהענןמפניהםויעמדמאחריהם

And the angel of God, who went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud removed from before them, and stood behind them" (14:19).

הלילהלכהזלאהזברקאלוהלילהתאראיוךשחהוןנעהיהיולארשיהנחמןיבוםירצמהנחמןיבאביו

"And it came between the camp of Egypt and the camp of Israel; and there was the cloud and the darkness here, yet gave it light by night there; and the one came not near the other all the night" (14:20). 

ויטמשהאתידועלהיםויולךיהוהאתהיםברוחקדיםעזהכלהלילהוישםאתהיםלחרבהויבקעוהמים

"And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all the night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided" (14:21).

The drawing below is like a screen-frame in a script for animation of the revelation of the letters of the name hidden in this section of the Torah, an instance of the revelation of the letters of the journey of the Israelites through the sea. The 216 letters of the story were inlayed back and forth over a flat tablet (a matrix of 8 columns and 9 lines). The letters would appear as sparkles of fire shining through the cloud in three hues: Blue (Tekhelet), Green and Red (the regular) RGB as the sentences above were colored. The thickness (the Ạve) of the cloud acts like a black-grey fire that obscures the letters. An unfocused contemplation of this table shows the letters shinning through the space of the Ạb (both "Cloud" and 72).