Shortly before dying, our father Jacob gathered his twelve sons around his death-bed and gave them a tantalisingly brief glimpse into the future. To each son he gave some cryptic prophecy concerning the future of his respective Tribe, and the Tribe’s destiny and mission in Jewish history (Genesis Chapter 49).
To Judah he promised the kingship over Israel:
“Judah – your brothers will acknowledge you; your hand will be on your enemies’ neck, your father’s sons will bow to you…” (v. 8).
Most printed editions of the Chumash have an asterisk over the first word here, יְהוּדָה (Judah), and a footnote (or a note in margin) saying בְּרֹאשׁ עַמּוּד, סִימָן בְּיָ"הּ שְׁמוֹ.
This refers to the Massoret, the tradition which the Torah follows. Traditionally, the name יְהוּדָה (Judah) appears as the first word in the column, and is one of six words in the Torah to hold this special status.
To explain: –
The standard Torah-scroll is written over 245 columns. Traditionally, most of these columns begin with the letter ו, (vav), but six columns begin with specified letters:
The first column begins with the letter בּ (bet) of the word בְּרֵאשִׁית, “in the beginning”.
The 59th column begins with the letter י (yud) of the word יְהוּדָה, “Judah” (Genesis 49:8, in our parashah).
The 78th column begins with the letter ה (heh) of the word הַבָּאִים, “which were coming”, in the verse “the waters returned and inundated the chariots and horses of all Pharaoh’s army which were coming after them” (Exodus 14:28).
The 132nd column begins with the letter שׁ (shin) of the word שְׁנֵי, “both”, in the verse “And Aaron will place lots upon both the he-goats” (Leviticus 16:8), part of the Yom Kippur Service.
The 184th column begins with the letter מ (mem) of the word מָה, “how”, in the verse “How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, your sanctuaries, O Israel” (Numbers 24:5), part of Balaam’s blessings upon Israel.
And the 241st column begins with the letter ו (vav) of the word וְאָעִידָה, “and I will bear witness”, in the introduction to Moshe’s farewell song to Israel (Deuteronomy 31:29).
These six letters spell the words בְּיָ-הּ שְׁמוֹ, “with Y-ah, His Name”, taken from Psalms 68:5:
“Sing to G-d, praise His Name with song; extol Him Who rides through the Heavens with Y-ah, His Name, and exult before Him”.
This 68th Psalm begins:
“For the Conductor, by David, a song to be accompanied by musical instruments: Let G-d arise, let His enemies be scattered, and may those who hate Him flee from before Him; as smoke is blown away, so may they be blown away…”.
This entire Psalm is an ecstatic paean of praise to G-d as He Who bestows victory upon Israel in the sight of the great nations of the world.
It could be a lyricised account of the Exodus from Egypt, the victory over Amalek and others of his ilk, and the subsequent Giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai (Rashi, Ibn Ezra).
It could be King David’s prophetic vision of Israel’s victory over Sancheriv (Sennacherib), king of Assyria, who besieged Jerusalem in the days of King Chizkiyahu (Hezekiah) in the time of the First Holy Temple (Radak).
It could refer generally all the wars in which G-d granted Israel victory (Malbim).
In any event, this Psalm ascribes Israel’s victories over its enemies to G-d and His power and control over the world.
Jacob’s blessing to Judah continues:
“Judah is a lion cub; from the prey, O my son, you have risen up. He crouches, lies resting like a lion – and like a mighty lion, who dares arouse him?!” (Genesis 49:9).
We pause here to note that three times in this one verse, Jacob uses the imagery of Judah as a lion, using two different words for “lion”: the first two times he uses the word אַרְיֵה (aryeh), and the third time he uses the word לָבִיא (lavi).
The word אַרְיֵה is a generic term for lion; the word לָבִיא denotes a lion in its prime of life, connoting awe-inspiring power and majesty. Hence our translation here, rendering אַרְיֵה simply as “lion” and לָבִיא as “mighty lion”.
“He crouches, lies resting like a lion”, using the verb רָבַץ for “lie resting”. This is, I concede, an unusual translation: JPS, Margolin, Koren Jerusalem Bible, The Call of the Torah (Rabbi Elie Munk) and many others translate רָבַץ as “crouch”.
However, this portrays the wrong imagery: A lion crouches when it is preparing to spring on its prey, and this is not the implication of the Hebrew verb רבץ. Whenever the Tanach uses the root רבץ, it invariably describes resting peacefully (vide Genesis 29:2, Exodus 23:5, Deuteronomy 22:6, Isaiah 17:2 and 65:10, Jeremiah 33:12, Ezekiel 25:5, Zephaniah 2:14, Psalms 23:2, Job 11:19, Song of Songs 1:7 et al.).
So the translation of רָבַץ as “crouched” is – at best – misleading.
Better – far better – is ArtScroll’s translation “lie down”, or Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch’s translation “rests”.
The imagery that Jacob portrays here is immensely powerful and evocative: The Tribe of Judah is to inherit the Kingship of Israel. And Judah is to lie down peacefully, like a lion at rest. Not as a lion crouching, readying itself for attack; rather as a lion so powerful, so universally feared, that it is completely confident that nothing and no one will dare attack it.
We continue with Jacob’s blessing to Judah: “From the prey, O my son, you have risen up”. The Ba’al ha-Turim (Rabbi Ya’akov ben Asher, Germany and Spain, c.1275-1343) notes that the word עָלִיתָ (“you have risen up”) occurs three times in the Tanach.
The first is in Jacob’s blessing to Reuben: “Reuben, you are my firstborn…as unstable as water, you cannot lead, because עָלִיתָ, you rose up onto your father’s bed” (Genesis 49:4).
The second time is in his blessing to Judah.
The third time is in Psalms 68:19 – the Psalm which the י (yud) of the name יְהוּדָה, “Judah”, alludes to by being at the beginning of the column in the Torah-scroll: “You rose up (עָלִיתָ) to the Heights, you captured that which had been held captive, you have brought gifts for mankind” [1].
Here King David alludes to Moshe, who ascended Mount Sinai to bring the Torah down to the Children of Israel. The Torah was “that which had been held captive”, it was the possession of the angels in heaven, who attempted to prevent him taking it and bringing it down to earth.
The Talmud (Shabbat 88b) records that when Moshe ascended to Heaven, the ministering angels challenged him, demanding of G-d: “What is this mortal man doing here among us?!”
When G-d told them that he had come to receive the Torah, their response was that the Torah was far too precious to entrust to mortal flesh-and-blood. A treasure so holy had to remain in Heaven.
G-d told Moshe: “Answer them!”
After much trepidation, Moshe answered the angels’ challenge. He pointed out that the Ten Commandments begin, “I am Hashem your G-d, Who brought you out from the land of Egypt”. “Did you angels then descend to Egypt, were you enslaved by Pharaoh?!”
The Torah’s other Commandments – “Remember the Day of Shabbat to sanctify it”, “Honour your father and your mother”, “You shall not murder”, “You shall not steal”, “You shall not commit adultery” and so on – clearly cannot apply to angels: they don’t work for six days in the week, they have neither father nor mother, they obviously don’t steal, and so forth.
So – Moshe argued – the Torah, holy as it is, was clearly designed for humans, not for angels. He won the argument, and brought the Torah down from Heaven, from Mount Sinai, to earth.
Hence the Torah was “that which had been held captive”, until Moshe “captured” it from the angels and brought it down to earth as a gift for Israel.
Similarly – says the Ba’al ha-Turim – Jacob told his firstborn son Reuben: You would have been worthy of receiving the gifts of Priesthood and Kingship (following the Midrash, Bereishit Rabbah 98:4), but עָלִיתָ, you ascended onto your father’s bed and interfered in his marital relations, and thereby lost your chance.
Judah, by contrast, did merit the gift of Kingship: “From the prey, O my son, עָלִיתָ, you have risen up”. Judah raised himself above the prey, above the spoils, when at the beginning of last week’s Parashah, Vayiggash, he was willing to jeopardise everything in order to protect his little brother Benjamin, even offering himself as Joseph’s slave in order to release Benjamin from that punishment (Genesis 44:18-34).
The six columns in the Torah-scroll which begin with the six letters בְּיָ-הּ שְׁמוֹ all recount events which testify to G-d’s sovereignty:
The first column (the ב of the בְּרֵאשִׁית) records the Creation.
The 59th column (the י of יְהוּדָה) introduces Judah’s Kingship.
The 78th column (the ה of (הַבָּאִים recounts G-d’s defeating Pharaoh and all his army.
The 132nd column (the ש of שְׁנֵי) commands the Yom Kippur Service, the culmination of Rosh Hashanah when we “crown” G-d as King of the Universe.
The 184th column (the מ of מָה) recounts how G-d overpowered Balaam, turning his curses into blessings for Israel, defying the mighty kings of Ammon and Moab.
And the 241st column (the ו of וְאָעִידָה) records Moshe’s farewell Song, the Song in which he calls Heaven and earth to testify to G-d’s sovereignty.
When Israel defeats its enemies, as we defeated Pharaoh and shortly thereafter Amalek, as we defeated Sancheriv, as we defeated a coalition of seven Arab nations who launched a war of aggression and attempted genocide against us as soon as Israel became independent 75 years ago, as we defeated a vast coalition of 13 Arab and Muslim countries who launched a war of aggression and attempted genocide against us back in 5727 (1967) in just six days –
– then we testify to G-d’s sovereignty in His world, that is when we “Sing to G-d, praise His Name with song, extol Him Who rides through the Heavens with Y-ah, His Name, and exult before Him”.
When G-d arises, when His enemies are scattered, when those who hate Him flee from before Him; when they are blown away as smoke is blown away, then Israel – Judah – can lie down peacefully, like a lion at rest, completely confident that nothing and no one will dare attack them.
This doesn’t come easily, it doesn’t come painlessly. It demands sacrifice, sacrifice from us all, each in his or her measure, up to and including the ultimate sacrifice.
But that halcyon time is guaranteed yet to come, the time after we will have won the final conflict against our final enemies, the time when G-d’s sovereignty over His world will be unchallenged, the time when we will indeed lie down peacefully, like a lion at rest, completely confident that nothing and no one will dare attack us.
Endnote
[1] This is puzzling, because the word עָלִיתָ appears in three additional places – Kings II; 1:4, 6, and 16. I have no explanation for this apparent oversight of the Ba’al ha-Turim.
