Choose Awe

The only exercise I get is playing fast and loose with language and I'm in need of some exercise, so come on along. If you dare to.

I meant, "if you care to." Sorry. Didn't mean to sound all ominous and such.

There are words (and I have a list) that sound very similar in English and Hebrew but don't share any obvious historical connection. Yes, I know about the book "The Word" which tries to argue a proto-language that is the source of all (not the argument for Atlantean as the mother tongue, but effectively, Hebrew) but I didn't find this one in there so I'm staking my claim. Mmmmmm...stake.

The Hebrew language is based on a 22(+) letter alphabet. The first letter is aleph. But the Torah begins with the second letter, Bet, which leads the word "B'reisheet" in the beginning. Reams of paper and rolls of scrolls have discussed why this is. I don't know if what I'm going to suggest has been brought up but who cares. It's my party and I'll write if I want to.

I was reading about a skier who went to St. Moritz which is, according to the really bad book I read, in the Alps. I thought to myself, "I wonder if it is called the Alps because it is thousands of feed high as that, thousands, would be Alafim in Hebrew." I don't seriously think that the words are connected but it was a cute piece of word play that kept me busy thinking on a quiet morning. But I recalled that eleph (thousand) and aleph used the same letters and the only difference was in the vocalization. So I thought more about the word and realized that the same letters also spell aluph meaning "chief" or "head." That made sense. As numbers go, Hebrew has a (biblical) word for ones, tens and hundreds, and then thousands. That is the largest biblical numerical marker (AFAIK), so it is the head of all the numbers. (post biblical Hebrew imported words like "milyon" for million but I'm being all biblical this AM). And the first letter of the alphabet, the chief of all the letters, is the aleph. So I felt pretty good tying them all, conceptually, together and let the actual (that is, Klein's and Clark's) scholarship be darned.

So I can tie together the letter and the idea of being in charge or the greatest. So what? My first realization was that the first word of the Torah doesn't start with the lead letter. Well, that's not actually my realization, nor was it my first thought, but it was shabbos so I couldn't write down the actual order of my thinking. Cut a man some slack.

There is a verse in Psalms (111:10 I think) which says ראשית חכמה יראת ה׳ (reisheet chochma yir'at Hashem), the beginning of wisdom is being in awe of Hashem. Being in awe of Hashem is the sine qua non of learning and properly approaching yahadut. In the gemara (Brachot 33b) we read  

“ואמר רבי חנינא: הכול בידי שמים, חוץ מיראת שמים; שנאמר (דברים י, יב), ‘ועתה ישראל מה ה’ אלוקיך שואל מעמך, כי אם ליראה’…”

Rabbi Chanina says "everything is in the hands of heaven, except for the awe of heaven..."

His argument is that choosing to be in awe of Hashem is the one thing that man does independently*. That makes it an incredibly important life choice, foundational to everything else, which is why it is essential before trying to learn that we accept our relationship to Hashem. We must begin by acknowledging that Hashem rules over us and only then we can begin our learning in earnest. Maybe this is why each tractate of the Talmud begins on page 2. The metaphorical page 1 has to be reserved for our decision to trust in Hashem and be in awe of Him. Only after that can we start with the text. But what does that have to do with the letters of the alphabet in the Torah?

I figure that if aleph is connected to "first" or "chief" or "largest" or "over" (like the chiefs who are over the people) then that would explain the first verse of the Torah. In the same way that we begin the Talmud with the Bet we begin the Torah with a Bet (B'reisheet). Even the very beginning is still a second step. 

So what is the first step?

Remove the Bet from the word B'reisheet and you have Reisheet as in Reisheet chochma as quoted above! Before we can have the second reisheet (beginning), the Bet-reisheet, we have to have the first Reisheet which is being in awe of Hashem. Even the universe has to first acknowledge that Hashem is the eternal and chief, separate from us in our physical world ("aloof" you might say. I wouldn't, but you do you). Hashem is the ultimate Aleph/Eleph/Alupf and awe of Him is the foundation for everything from the universe to our daily approach to living and learning.

Yes, I know that part of my exercise routine included substantial logical leaps but I need to do something to keep my churlish figure.

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*Clark says that aleph means "not independent" and "learning from others" so you can shoehorn that in any way you want. Or don't. I'll never know.