Parsha Mitzvot: Ki Tavo: Mitzvah 607 – Concept 269

“When you have finished tithing every tithe of your produce in the third year, the year of the tithe, you shall give to the Levite, to the proselyte, to the orphan, and to the widow, and they shall eat in your cities and be satisfied. Then you shall say before God, your Lord, ‘I have removed the holy things from the house, and I have also given it to the Levite, to the proselyte, to the orphan, and to the widow, according to whatever commandment You commanded me; I have not transgressed any of Your commandments, and I have not forgotten. I have not eaten of it in my intense mourning, I did not consume it in a state of contamination, and I did not give of it for the needs of the dead; I have hearkened to the voice of God, my Lord,; I have acted according to everything You commanded me. Gaze down from Your holy abode, from the heavens, and bless Your people Israel, and the ground that You gave us, as You swore to our forefathers, a Land flowing with milk and honey.’” (Deuteronomy 26:12-15) We are commanded to read the Confession of the Tithes on the fourth and seventh years of the Shemittah cycle. (Rambam, Hilchot Ma’aser Sheini v’Neta Rivaii – The Laws of The Second Tithe and Fourth Year Produce)

Why did Moshe repeat his reference to heaven by calling it both “holy abode,” as well as “heaven?” If all Moshe had wanted was to tell us that God’s abode is a holy place he should simply have written, “From your holy abode , the heaven,” without the additional word, “from.”

I believe the Torah wants to make us privy to a secret, i.e. that God has prepared two distinct sources in the celstial spheres from which to exert His benevolent influence on mankind.

One source is the reservoir of spiritual input into man, i.e. the source from which the holy souls are despatched to inhabit our bodies.

The other reservoir is that which provides us with physical goodness, i.e. the sustenance enabling His creatures to stay alive by means of food, etc. In the language of the Zohar, the combination of these two are called, “Zivug,” coupling, pairing as in marriage. This term is applicable whenever one of the two of the pair is active, i.e. provides the input, and the other is the recipient of that input. (Ohr HaChaim Hakadosh – Ki Tavo)