佐哈尔·贝莱希特 3

1And the intelligent shall shine (Dan. 12, 3). This “shining” corresponds to the movement given by the accents and notes to the letters and vowel-points which pay obeisance to them and march after them like troops behind their kings. The letters being the body and the vowel-points the animating spirit, together they keep step with the notes and come to a halt with them. When the chanting of the notes marches forward, the letters with their vowel-points march behind them, and when it stops they also stop.

2So here: “the intelligent” correspond to the letters and the vowel-points; “the brightness” to the notes; “the firmament” to the flow of the chant through the succession of notes; while “they that turn to righteousness” correspond to the pausal notes, which stop the march of the words and bring out clearly the sense. These “cause to shine” letters and vowels, so that they all flow together in their own mystical manner through secret paths. From this impetus the whole was extended. Again, the words “and the intelligent shall shine as the brightness of the firmament” may be referred to the pillars and sockets of the “celestial palanquin” (apiryon). The “wise and intelligent” as the supernal pillars and sockets, since they ponder with understanding all things needful for the upholding of the palace. This use of the term “intelligent” (maskilim) has its parallel in the passage: “Blessed is he that considereth (maskil) the poor” (Ps. 41, 2). “They will shine”, for if they do not shine and give light, they cannot well consider and ponder the needs of the palace.

3“As the brightness of the firmament”, namely, of that firmament which rests upon those “intelligent” we have mentioned, and of which it is written, “And over the head of the Hayyah there was the likeness of a firmament, like the colour of the terrible ice” (Ezek. 1, 22). “The brightness” is that which illumines the Torah, and which illumines also the heads of the Hayyah, those heads being the “intelligent”, who shine continually and ever contemplate the “firmament” and the light which issues therefrom, to wit, the light of the Torah which radiates perpetually without cease.