Tekoa First for Oil: Faith Fixed at the Alef

155a“Tekoa is alfa for oil” speaks of emunah, faith, which is a firmly fixed peg: Tekoa (תקוע) can be read taku'a, “fixed,” like a peg driven in.¹ Faith is in the spirit of “truth and faith, a law that will not pass away.”² One who believes in Hashem's Oneness without any investigation through idle talk and philosophy is one of “the wholehearted in the way, who walk in the Torah of Hashem,”³ with simple and complete faith. Such a person is like an iron pillar that will not give way: even if all the winds in the world come and blow against it, they will not move it from its place. But the men of “searchings of heart”⁴ probe and investigate Hashem with their own intellect and reason. It may seem to one of them that his investigation is the true one, and that with his pure, straight mind he has fully grasped the knowledge of Hashem. Then along comes his fellow, who imagines in his heart that he is the wise and clever one, the true investigator. He contradicts him and shows him that his words are wind, empty chatter, “like chaff that the wind drives away,”⁵ and that only his own mind is straight and only his own investigation true. “One said thus, and another said thus,”⁶ and the opinions and investigations multiply; but all of them are wind, “and the word is not in them.”⁷ The faithful of Israel, though, believe in the Life of the worlds without any investigation or speculative knowledge, for “those who know You have no knowledge, and no intellect can reach You.” Their faith is like a fixed peg that will not totter.

155bEven the knowledge of Hashem that a person is privileged to reach with his own mind must go together with faith: faith and investigation must be whole together. So we say in prayer, “our God and the God of our fathers.”⁸ “Our God” comes from knowledge, for we see and know with our own eyes that He watches over all, and that He is “God of all creatures, Master of all generations.”⁹ “The God of our fathers” comes from faith, for our fathers told us so. As the verse says, “Know the God of your father, and serve Him”:¹⁰ the service of Hashem is knowledge together with faith. The Ramban writes so on the positive commandment “And you shall know this day.”¹¹

155cThis is the meaning of “Tekoa is alfa for oil.” Oil alludes to wisdom, as Chazal say there,¹² and “Chochmah is the brain.”¹³ That is, the first (alfa) safeguard of the mind is faith. And chochmah (חכמה), wisdom, is ko'ach mah (כח מה), “the power of ‘what’”: a person knows in truth that he does not yet know or grasp anything, not even the smallest edge of it, and still stands at the beginning, at the alef. This is the essence of wisdom, and this is “alfa fixed for oil”: he knows that he is still at the alef, at the beginning. Then he believes in Hashem and His Oneness, and with this he unifies the One and Only, the Aluf, Master of the world, whose name has the letters of alef (אלף). Through this he draws down life from the thirteen attributes of mercy. As the holy Arizal writes, at a time of plague, Heaven save us, a person should have in mind to draw the Aluf of the world, the letter alef (א), into the word maves (מות), death, Heaven save us. With the alef, its letters make ve'emes (ואמת), “and truth,” and through this he draws down life.¹⁴ And in the kavanos, the mystical intentions, the holy Arizal assigns the attribute Ve'emes to this night. It follows that on this night the light of the seventh of the thirteen attributes of mercy, the attribute Ve'emes, is awakened, and the gates of mercy and of life are awakened through the unifying of the alef. Then a person is privileged to draw near to the Master of the world, to “the light of the King's face, which is life.”¹⁵ This is the hint in “they found one cruse of oil”:¹⁶ they were privileged to have faith, to believe in His Oneness and to unify the One and Only, the Master of the world.

156aThis is the meaning of what the holy sefarim write: on Chanukah a person repairs Netzach and Hod, two of the sefiros, the Divine attributes. The Tikkunei Zohar says, “The eighth is in thanksgiving (hoda'ah), and this is Hod.”¹⁷ We know Eliyahu's words in Patach Eliyahu: Netzach and Hod are “two halves of the body.”¹⁸ For Netzach and Hod are branches of Chochmah and Binah, wisdom and understanding, as is known: Netzach is a branch of Chochmah, and Hod a branch of Binah. The holy sefarim explain that Netzach and Hod allude to faith, and that through faith these two attributes are repaired. The point is that faith brings people together. One who believes in Hashem's Oneness knows that “one God is ours, and one Father created us.”¹⁹ Each person is only half a body, and only by joining with the community does he become a whole body, for each one depends on his fellow. Even if a hundred people bind themselves together and walk as one, they all count as walking behind the first. The last may be very far from the first, but he is joined to the man nearest him, and that man to the next, until all of them reach the first. So all of them count as walking behind the first and close to him, like the links of a chain. In this way a person joins himself to the community of Israel. This is why the holy sefarim say that Chanukah is a time suited to cleaving to the tzaddikim. And so on Chanukah a person repairs Netzach and Hod, through the faith that joins the halves into one body.

156bEven the tzaddik of the generation must join himself to the community, even to those who bear no fruit, and must know with true knowledge that he still stands at the alef. This is the meaning of the verse “Train (chanoch) a lad according to his way; even when he is old he will not turn from it.”²⁰ Even when he has become a zaken, which Chazal read as zeh kanah chochmah, “this one has acquired wisdom,”²¹ he will not turn from it, from his youthfulness. He knows that he is still like a lad: he has not known or grasped even the smallest edge, and he still stands at the alef, at the beginning, as we saw with “alfa for oil.”