Bris Milah Holding Blessing

במדרש גדול השלום שניתן לפינחס כו' כלי מחזיק ברכה ע"ש

In the Midrash: great is the peace that was given to Pinchas, etc. — a vessel that holds blessing, as it is explained there.

The Sfas Emes opens with the Midrash's teaching that the peace given to Pinchas is compared to a vessel that holds blessing.

כי העיקר להיות האדם כלי מובן לקבל הברכה והוא ע"י שמירת הברית מילה דכ' בי' התהלך לפני והי' תמים

For the main thing is that a person become a fitting vessel to receive the blessing, and this comes about through guarding the bris milah, regarding which it is written, "Walk before Me and be perfect" (Bereishis 17:1).

The essential thing is that a person become a fit vessel to receive Hashem's blessing, achieved by guarding the bris milah, the covenant tied to being tamim before Hashem.

כי האדם יש בו רוחניות וגשמיות נפש וגוף

For within a person there is the spiritual and the physical, the neshamah and the body.

A human being is made of two components: a spiritual neshamah and a physical body.

והנפש הוא פשוט כמו מלאך

And the neshamah is simple, like a malach.

The neshamah is simple and unified, like a malach, with no composite parts.

אבל הגוף הוא מורכב מד' יסודות לכן אין בו השלימות

But the body is composed of the four elements, and therefore it does not possess perfection.

The body, by contrast, is built from the four elements, so by its nature it lacks the wholeness of perfection.

אך הקב"ה נתן לנו תורה ומצות וחוקים איך למצוא השלימות

Yet the Holy One, Blessed is He, gave us Torah, mitzvos, and chukim — how to find that perfection.

Hashem provided Torah, mitzvos, and chukim as the means by which a person can attain perfection even within the physical.

והנה ע"י ברית מילה מקבל הגוף קדושה כמ"ש וצאצאיו חתם באות ברית קודש שהוא אות שיש חלק לגוף איש ישראל בקדושה

Now, through the bris milah the body receives kedushah, as is written, "and He sealed their offspring with the sign of the holy covenant," for this is the sign that the body of a Jew has a share in kedushah.

Through bris milah the body itself receives kedushah, marking that a Jew's body has a real share in holiness.

שיש ברית הלשון וברית המעור

For there is the covenant of the tongue and the covenant of the bris.

He introduces two covenants: the covenant of the tongue and the covenant of the bris.

ברית הלשון הוא התורה שהוא תיקון הנפש

The covenant of the tongue is the Torah, which is the rectification of the neshamah.

The covenant of the tongue is the Torah, which rectifies and perfects the neshamah.

ברית המעור הוא תקון הגוף שהרי הוא חתום בגוף האדם וכמו הנפש שיש בו רמ"ח ושס"ה מצות

The covenant of the bris is the rectification of the body, for it is sealed in the very body of the person, and just as the neshamah has the two hundred forty-eight positive and three hundred sixty-five negative mitzvos,

The covenant of the bris rectifies the body, sealed into the flesh, paralleling the neshamah's full complement of mitzvos.

כמו כן ע"י ברית מילה נמשך הארה מהמצות אל מלבוש הגוף

so too, through the bris milah, an illumination is drawn from the mitzvos into the garment that is the body.

Just as mitzvos illuminate the neshamah, bris milah draws that illumination down into the body, the garment of the soul.

ולכן צוה להסיר הערלה שאין בו פנימיות ע"ז כתיב בדם בריתך שלחתי אסוריך מבור אין מים בו

Therefore He commanded to remove the orlah, which has no inner content; regarding this it is written, "By the blood of your covenant I have freed your prisoners from a pit in which there is no water" (Zechariah 9:11).

The orlah is removed because it has no inner spiritual content; the verse about freeing prisoners from a waterless pit alludes to this.

פי' שהגוף הוא מלבוש ויש בו פנימיות הארת הנפש

The meaning is that the body is a garment, and within it is an inner content — the illumination of the neshamah.

The body is a garment containing inner light — the glow of the neshamah within it.

אבל הערלה אין בו פנימיות והיא גוף בלא נפש לכן נק' בור אין מים בו

But the orlah has no inner content; it is a body without a neshamah, and therefore it is called "a pit in which there is no water."

The orlah, however, is empty of inner content, a body without soul, hence called a pit with no water.

ולכן הוא מעכב שאין הארת הנפש יכולה להתפשט בגוף

And therefore it forms an obstruction, so that the illumination of the neshamah cannot spread through the body.

Because it is empty, the orlah blocks the neshamah's light from spreading through the body.

ובנ"י בברית מילה נגלה להם הארת הנפש וזהו ברית המעור

But to Bnei Yisrael, through the bris milah, the illumination of the neshamah is revealed to them — and this is the covenant of the bris.

When Bnei Yisrael undergo bris milah, the neshamah's illumination is revealed — this is the covenant of the bris.

וזהו המשל כלי מחזיק ברכה כי אם יש בו נקב א"י לקבל וצריך להיות הכלי שלם בלי נקב

And this is the parable of a vessel that holds blessing: for if it has a hole it cannot receive, and the vessel must be whole, without any hole.

This explains the parable: a vessel with a hole cannot hold its contents, so it must be whole and intact.

וכמו כן הערלה הוא חלק הסט"א שנמשך אחר הקדושה ולכן אין הקדושה יכולה להתפשט שלא ירד לסט"א

And so too the orlah is the portion of the sitra achra that draws after kedushah, and therefore the kedushah cannot spread out, lest it descend to the sitra achra.

Likewise the orlah belongs to the sitra achra that latches onto kedushah, so before milah the holiness cannot spread without leaking to the other side.

אבל ע"י החותם אות ברית קודש נשמר הקדושה כמ"ש בור סיד שאינו מאבד טיפה

But through the seal — the sign of the holy covenant — the kedushah is preserved, like a lime-coated pit that loses not a drop.

Once sealed with the sign of the covenant, the kedushah is fully preserved, like a sealed lime pit that loses not a single drop.

וזהו חותם היו"ד במילה כמ"ש ז"ל י' באיש ה' באשה

And this is the seal of the letter yud in the milah, as Chazal said: the yud is in the man, the hei is in the woman.

This sealing is the letter yud imprinted in the milah, paralleling Chazal's teaching of the yud in the man and the hei in the woman.

וע"ז כתיב שתה מים מבורך ה' באשה

And regarding this it is written, "Drink water from your own cistern" — the hei in the woman,

The verse "Drink water from your own cistern" corresponds to the hei in the woman.

ונוזלים מתוך בארך י' באיש

"and flowing waters from your own well" (Mishlei 5:15) — the yud in the man.

And "flowing waters from your own well" corresponds to the yud in the man.

דכ' גן נעול זו בתולות גל נעול בעולות מעין חתום הזכרים ע"ש במד' שיה"ש

As it is written, "A garden locked" — these are the unmarried maidens; "a spring locked" — the married women; "a sealed fountain" — the males, as is explained there in the Midrash on Shir HaShirim.

The Midrash on Shir HaShirim reads the locked garden, locked spring, and sealed fountain as referring to maidens, married women, and males.

והכל חותם הנ"ל

And it all refers to the aforementioned seal.

All of these images point back to that same seal of the covenant.

כי הבתולה שנשמרת הוא הדל"ת ואח"כ מקבלת הארת היו"ד שבאיש ונעשה ה'

For the maiden who is guarded is the daled, and afterward she receives the illumination of the yud that is in the man and becomes a hei.

The guarded maiden is the letter daled, who upon receiving the yud's illumination from the man becomes a hei.

וגל נעול הוא רשימת היו"ד תוך הדל"ת ומעין חתום הוא היו"ד שרשום בברית מילה

And "a spring locked" is the imprint of the yud within the daled, and "a sealed fountain" is the yud that is imprinted in the bris milah.

The locked spring is the trace of the yud within the daled, and the sealed fountain is the yud imprinted through bris milah.

וזהו ענין הב' מנינים המנין שמנה משה רבינו ע"ה עם אהרן הי' בחי' ברית הלשון להיות לכל איש ישראל חלק מיוחד באותיות התורה

And this is the matter of the two countings: the counting that Moshe Rabbeinu, peace be upon him, conducted together with Aharon was the aspect of the covenant of the tongue — that every Jew should have a distinct share in the letters of the Torah.

He now applies this to the two censuses: the count Moshe and Aharon conducted reflected the covenant of the tongue, giving each Jew a share in the Torah's letters.

ומנין השני הי' בחי' ברית המעור להיות לכל איש ישראל חלק בברית קודש

And the second counting was the aspect of the covenant of the bris — that every Jew should have a share in the holy covenant.

The second census reflected the covenant of the bris, giving each Jew a share in the holy covenant.

והנה זה האות הוא מאותיות התורה ויצא ללמד על הכלל כולו שיש רשימה מכל אותיות התורה באיש ישראל

Now, this sign is one of the letters of the Torah, and it went forth to teach about the whole class: that there is an imprint of all the letters of the Torah within a Jew.

The single sign of the bris is itself one of the Torah's letters, teaching that the imprint of all the Torah's letters is found within every Jew.

ויש אותיות גדולות וקטנות

And there are large letters and small letters.

Among these letters there are large ones and small ones.

וכמו שחתם כ"ב אותוות בפה כן יש רשימות כ"ב אותיות בברית

And just as He sealed the twenty-two letters in the mouth, so too there are imprints of the twenty-two letters in the bris.

Just as the twenty-two letters are sealed in the mouth, so are imprints of those twenty-two letters sealed in the bris.

והוא רשימות הנמשכין מרשימות שבפה

And these are imprints that are drawn from the imprints that are in the mouth.

These bodily imprints are drawn from and dependent upon the imprints found in the mouth.

והם קרובין יותר אל הגוף

And they are closer to the body.

And being in the body, they are closer to the physical than the letters of speech.

ולכן ע"י הברית נעשה כלי מחזיק ברכה כנ"ל:

And therefore, through the bris, a person becomes a vessel that holds blessing, as explained above.

Thus through the bris a Jew becomes a complete vessel capable of holding blessing, as the Midrash taught.

Summary: The Sfas Emes builds on the Midrash that the peace given to Pinchas is like a vessel that holds blessing, teaching that a person must become a whole, unbroken vessel to receive Hashem's blessing. He distinguishes two covenants: the covenant of the tongue, which is the Torah that perfects the simple, malach-like neshamah, and the covenant of the bris, which sanctifies the composite physical body. Bris milah removes the orlah — a soulless husk likened to a waterless pit and belonging to the sitra achra — so that the illumination of the neshamah can spread through the body without leaking away, sealing the kedushah within like a lime pit that loses not a drop. This seal is the letter yud imprinted in the flesh, which he ties to the imagery of the locked garden, spring, and sealed fountain in Shir HaShirim. Finally he applies this to the two censuses of Bnei Yisrael — one expressing each Jew's share in the letters of the Torah, the other each Jew's share in the holy covenant — showing that through the bris every Jew becomes a vessel fit to hold blessing.