The Torah that we study and commemorate on Shavuot is, we believe, the same Torah that Moshe brought down from Mt. Sinai 3,312 years ago.



Yet, what is Torah, in the deepest sense? Here we have a mystical tug of war. On the one hand, Torah is water, "mayim chayim", which brings life from above to Earth below. Nothing - no one - can grow without water/Torah. But Torah is also fire - passion, fuel, dynamism, heat and light. Says the medrash: The Torah that Moshe brought down was black fire upon white fire." Just what does that mysterious phrase mean?



One idea: Not only are the black letters in the Torah kadosh and filled with knowledge, but also the white spaces are themselves full of meaning. The pauses are there for more than effect. Like the gaze between two people in love, we can often learn more from what is not said than from that which is out front and explicit. By tradition, the Torah is said to have 600,000 letters. Yet, a count of the Torah text produces only 304,805 letters. Perhaps it is by combining the black and the white that we ultimately produce that magic number of 600,000.



White fire is light, and it is ephemeral; black fire is starkly real and expressive. When the black penetrates the light, the entire enterprise becomes visible to the eye.



I suggest that this is a metaphor for life itself.



For if life was all sunshine and light, all pleasure and play, the essence of G-d could never be perceived. It is only in the totality of the human experience - generously sprinkled, alas, with challenge and pain, tears of sadness intermingled with tears of joy - that we can begin to detect the Almighty's imprint on the Universe.



We pray that we endure no negativity, and yet we know that healing generally involves discomfort and pain. We see this pattern throughout the Torah and Jewish history: Avraham's move to Israel requires separation from family; Sara is kidnaped; Yitzchak goes under the knife; Yaakov has no rest; Yosef is thrown in the pit, etc.



When the black fire mixes with the white, we color our world and perfect our souls, for Hashem inhabits both spheres. In the depths, as well as the heights, we come to know G-d. Let us be strong and walk through both fires, until we reach the "pleasant paths" that ultimately await.

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Rabbi Weiss is Director of the Jewish Outreach Center of Ra?anana.