Connecting the Dots

Pinchas 5785

Sometimes I just don’t have what to write about by the time Friday rolls around. Other times, I get stuck mid-inspiration. Maybe I need to take a detour, though it’s not clear to where. The dots don’t always connect how I want them to.

This is one of those weeks and I’m ok with it.

Could be that I’ll finish this on Motzei Shabbos. Perhaps I’ll just leave it as is.

Below is what I started writing, but I got stuck. If you have any insight, I’d love to hear.

---

This past week, on Shivah Asar B’Tammuz, as we were driving past Chatzor, my wife and I decided to stop to daven at the kever of Choni HaMa’agal.

I wasn’t planning to draw a circle and demand that Hashem answer me before I stepped out, Choni already did that better than I ever could, but I figured I could at least pray that in his merit, my prayers will reach God’s ear.

While walking around outside the kever, we noticed that it’s become something of an encampment. There’s a mikvah, a kollel, and what can only be described as a collection of random, discarded items: broken furniture, fans, old ovens, metal scraps. But then, in the middle of it all, something stopped me.

It was a chair. An ornate, beautiful chair. It looked like a broken Kisei Shel Eliyahu, the chair used by the sandak at a bris milah. Its frame was splintered, its back cracked, its wood faded from years of sun.

It looked forgotten and yet it stopped me in my tracks.

I’m sure there are many discarded Kisei Shel Eliyahus in this world, broken by time and use. But to see one like this, on this day, in this place, during the week of Parshas Pinchas, stirred something deep in me. There had to be something deeper here.

So I turned to my two most faithful tools for insight: ChatGPT and my WhatsApp status.

They both delivered.

ChatGPT helped me connect the dots to Parshat Pinchas, to the broken vav in shalom, to Eliyahu and the bris shalom, but the more it opened, the more questions it left me holding.

Then came something I didn’t expect.

A friend of mine, someone I only know through WhatsApp status, and who clearly journeys in more elevated spiritual realms than I realized, told me he had a dream about the broken chair. He woke up in the middle of the night, wrote it down, and sent it to me. I’m sharing it here with his permission, though he prefers to remain anonymous.

---

The vav / ו of גחון is what hints at the answer. גחון which means the belly is hinting to the נחש which goes on its belly and has no legs. The chair itself is only a chair as long as it has its legs. If one leg were to be missing then it would fall. This is why the נחש comes to bite at our heels. Our legs correspond to נצח and הוד and our legs get the opportunity to rest specifically when we sit on a chair. The נ of גחון is representing נצח and the midpoint of ג and ח which is ה is representing הוד. The attempt of the נחש is to bring about separation בין אדם למקום ובין אדם לחברו, this is why the word גחון is the midpoint of the תורה which hints at the separation between the right side and the left side. It is this aspect of the maintaining the legs of the chair which connect to upholding שלום. It is the bite of the נחש that leaves its mark on the vav and tries to cause a break in the תורה and this connects with the brokenness of the vav ketia. This is why the placement of the vav/ ו within גחון is the place of שלום. This 3rd letter placement is connected to the letter vav of the 4 letter name of HaShem which represents the תורה. The attempt at biting at the תורה , the vav, is this same midpoint which the נחש is attempting to separate the upper worlds of Atzilus and Beriyah from Asiyah by attacking Yetzira. This is why the פסוק says הִנְנִי נֹתֵן לוֹ אֶת-בְּרִיתִי, שָׁלוֹם. This can be read instead as I am giving to the vav, הנני נותן ל׳ו את בריתי שלום. That HaShem is giving to the Vav this aspect of שלום to allow that there is no separation and only שלום. To reveal that there is continuous flow of חסד from above is represented by מים. Within the word גחון the ג / , גימל is connecting to גומל חסד from above which is the מים that falls. The חון represents חוני המגול who is the one below that draws down the waters from above. He is the one that helps repair and complete what אדם davened for which was rain to fall which reveals that there is no separation between above and below. The circle he draws in the אדמה represents this circuitous aspect of

מים נוקבין ומים דוכרין

This doubled type of waters connects with the דם of פסח which is when the waters turned to blood, it is specifically that point that we say וָאֹמַר לָךְ בְּדָמַיִךְ חֲיִי וָאֹמַר לָךְ

בְּדָמַיִךְ חֲיִי

As we also say at a Bris, which is the time that אליהו comes to sit on the כסא של אליהו. Just as he comes on Pesach. The Gemara speaks on a filled cup left out in the open overnight it must be discarded for fear of poison from the נחש that had gone in. Interestingly on פסח night the night of חסד we have the כוס של אליהו which is saved for אליהו and we specifically do not drink which reveals that we are saving the final כוס to be revealed at the final and ultimate redemption. The כוס ישועות is hinted here with the כסא of אליהו and ultimately the כוס of אליהו

(אל תקרי כוס ישועות אלא כוס שועי)

and when that ultimate גאולה is coming it will be אליהו who comes to tell us that the time has arrived beH

Not sure I understood most of that, but it’s a cool dream to have and worthy of being shared… though it is now another dot that needs to be connected.

The seforim teach that this broken vav reveals a profound truth: peace doesn’t come from perfection. Peace is born out of brokenness that refuses to give up. -- need source

That’s what this chair is. It is broken and it still matters.

It is the vav of shalom, the midpoint of Torah. It is the chair of the prophet who tells us not to give up.

The Kisei Shel Eliyahu is fractured, but not forgotten.
The vav is cracked, but not erased.
The bris is incomplete, but still unfolding.

This was reflected in the state of the world during the days of Choni HaMa’agal. Choni couldn’t understand slow redemption. He asked how a man could plant a tree that wouldn’t bear fruit for seventy years. So Hashem put him to sleep, and when he awoke, the world had moved on. (Taanit 23a)

Redemption, it turns out, takes time. It grows through cracks and broken chairs and cups we haven’t yet drunk from.

Even when nothing seems to be changing, the roots grow beneath the surface. Even when the vav is wounded, it still connects heaven and earth. Even when the Kisei Shel Eliyahu sits forgotten in a pile of broken things, it still holds its name.

Perhaps this is part of the seeds that were planted and we are waiting to see the tree that will bear fruit.

Thank you to my amazing wife, Chedva, who helped me put this post together.

Previous posts on Parashas Pinchas