Biblical HebrewThe Maharal of Prague warned the Jewish leadership of the problem of initiating young children immediately into Talmudic studies (learning Aramaic) and skipping a sound foundation in the grammar and content of Biblical Hebrew. As PA notes, "at 5 mikra, at 10 mishnah, at 15 Talmud etc." According to Sefer Yetzirah Adam and Chava spoke a pure transparent supernatural Hebrew in Gan Eden. The Tower of Babel represented a fall from this pristine linguistic state where sign and signifier are coterminous. Sefer Ha-Zohar (written in a unique Aramaic according to tradition by the Rashba and according to modern scholarship dictated via ruach hakodesh to Rabbi Moses De Leon of Spain) holds that Hashem divinely created in the beginnings of beginnings recounted in Bereishit with the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet and first 10 numerals. In fact Sefer HaZohar opens up that Hashem interviewed every one of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet and only found the Beth to be worthy of beginning because the Beth according to Midrash Rabbah was humbler than the Aleph, the Beth signifies Brachot, and the Beth cannot be pushed further to the right to inquire what was before "yesh mi-ayin" or creation ex nihilo. Yet the intertextual dimension of the Tanakh speculates based on verses such as that in Mishlei, where Women Wisdom says, 'in the beginning I was there" and midrashic texts elaborate regarding how Hashem wrapped Himself in a white garment of light stretching the worlds and then created uniquely, as the word "bara" signifies divine creation unique to G-d, while human beings if they make anything the Hebrew language indicates words such as "construct" or deconstruct and certainly not making something from nothing. Yet Sefer HaZohar notes that the Mikubalim can create light from darkness, good from evil, and the Rashba himself in the mantra "bar Yochai" sung on Lag B'omer attributes to the Kabbalist indeed powers beyond that of human making or poesis. The Besht (Baal Shem Tov) once noted that all the secrets of the universe are contained in the 22 otiot (letters) of the Hebrew alphabet and the sidur of the Besht employs letter combinations and permutations of the "22" otiot.
The sidur of the Besht employes letter combinations and permutations of the "22" sometimes added by ten, or multiplied by 26 or the gematria of the tetragramaton 13+13= ahavah + ahavah}. For example the Kabbalist the Tashbaz even in his Halakhic work Zohar HaRakiah writes in the Kadmah (daf yod daleth):
There is another allusion to this due the the masters of Kabbalah, based on the 32 paths of wisdom, which Abraham, our patriarch, mentioned in his well-known book, Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Creation). When you multiply this by ten [the number of utterances] in the Decalogue, which also corresponds to the 10 sefirot [of the mystical theory], you have 230. Multiply this number by two, one corresponding to the quality of love and the other to that of awe, and it also corresponds to the commandment of “remember” (Ex. 20:8) and observe (Deut. 5:12) and also to the two qualities of divine justice. This makes 640. Now subtract that from 27 letters of the Hebrew alphabet [the 22 regular letters] plus [the final forms of] mem, nun, tzade, pe, kaph, there remains 613. For this reason the Torah begins with the letter bet and ends with the lamed [numerical values 2 and 30, respectively] to correspond with the 32 paths of wisdom.
Thus in part the Tashbaz is noting that the Tanakh opens with the Beth and ends with the Lamed to hint at the 32 paths of wisdom (Beth=2 and Lamed= 30) familiar in the loshon of Lurianic Kabbalah as the “32 pathways of the loving heart" (lev= lamed + beth) which is the seat of understanding or binah according to tehillim.
DBL
