Among the prominent commandments in Parashat Ki Teitzei is the mitzvah of shiluach hakan, literally “sending away the nest.” According to Deuteronomy 22:6-7, if you come upon a bird’s nest with a mother bird sitting upon her fledglings or eggs, you must send the mother away before taking the young birds. What is distinctive about this commandment is that it is one of the very few for which the Torah promises a specific reward: “You shall surely send away the mother, and the young you may take for yourself, that it may go well with you and you may lengthen your days.”
This commandment receives considerable attention in the kabbalistic and later Hasidic writings. Nachmanides observed that the great reward promised to those who perform the mitzvah stems from the great secret hidden within it. The secret aroused great curiosity and has been interpreted in various ways, one of which we find in this passage from the Zohar:
And concerning the sending away of the nest, as it is written (Deuteronomy 22:7): “You shall surely send away the mother, and the young you may take for yourself, that it may go well with you, etc.” — this is the secret of the supernal world, regarding which no permission has been granted to gaze, and one must send away even the very asking and the gazing into it.
“And the young you may take for yourself” — as it is written “For ask now of the former days … from one end of the heavens to the other end of the heavens (Deuteronomy 4:32),” but above “the end of the heavens,” send away your thoughts from asking. And of this it is written, “that it may go well with you, and you shall lengthen your days.” It is not written “that I may do well for you,” but rather “that it may go well with you”; and it is not written “that your days may be lengthened,” but rather “and you shall lengthen your days” — “that it may go well with you” [refers to] that place which does good to all, and it is the hidden and concealed world; “and you shall lengthen your days” — just as it is written “take for yourself,” it is within a person’s own domain.
Zohar, part II, 93a–b
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In the Zohar’s imagination, the Torah’s reference to the mother and her young represent different sefirot. The mother is the sefirah of Binah, and the young are all the sefirot beneath it. Binah is the third of the 10 sefirot and belongs, according to the Zohar, to the “secret of the supernal world,” which no human being is permitted to attempt to comprehend. One cannot even attempt to grasp it, but must send it away, so to speak. The commandment to send away the mother is thus construed as a warning not to attempt to capture Binah through human intellectual faculties. At the heart of this stands the kabbalistic awareness that certain dimensions within the divine realm are off limits. The Torah is warning against the mystical impulse to bridge the gap between the human and the divine realms.
The Zohar does not suggest that the sublime stratum of the divine world is simply unattainable, rather that permission has not been granted to human beings to pursue it. This is not a self-evident directive and, for those of a mystical temperament, a complex one to observe. And indeed, the Zohar gives no reason for the prohibition. It may be that a fear of attributing human images to God is at play here. Or perhaps the Zohar is anxious about God’s honor, that an intrusion of flesh and blood into the divine soul carries the possibility of desecrating the sacred.
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Yet this passage has a second side, tied to the second half of the verse “…and the young you may take for yourself.” Following the same homiletical method, it says in contrast to Binah, which represents the sublime stratum within the sefirot, the “young” — that is, the seven lower sefirot, the lower strata of the divine realm — may be taken. These have been given over to gaze upon, and this is indeed the principal occupation of the kabbalists: To ask, to understand, to cling to, and to grasp what lies within the permitted mystical boundaries. This has been given into their hands through the commandment “take for yourself.”
Not only that, but the Zohar regards the striving to understand these dimensions as itself a mitzvah, linking it to another verse in Deuteronomy: “For ask now of the former days … from one end of the heavens to the other end of the heavens” (Deuteronomy 4:32). Days here refers to the sefirot, while heaven is the sefirah of Tiferet, the central sefirah among the seven lower sefirot. One end of the heavens to the other end thus defines the boundaries of the mystical space concerning which a person is permitted — and indeed, commanded — to inquire.
This interpretation of shiluach hakan challenges the kabbalistic temperament. On one hand, it encourages the attainment and understanding of the seven lower sefirot. On the other, it prohibits even attempting to understand the supernal sefirah of Binah. The awareness that there is great value in acquaintance with the divine world, yet only with its lower strata, demands practice, self-restraint, and above all, humility.
The Zohar expresses a similar idea in its discussion of Abraham’s journeys in the land of Canaan, where it is said that upon his arrival, he built altars to God. The text mentions Abraham’s altars twice in close proximity, but with a variation. In Genesis 12:7, it says Abraham “built there an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him.” In the next verse, it says, “and he built there an altar to the Lord” — with no note about God appearing. One may thus understand that he built the second altar to the God who did not appear to him. Abraham, who in the eyes of the Zohar is the archetype of the Hebrew mystic, relates both to the divine stratum that appeared to him and the dimension that did not appear to him.
This dual orientation — toward both the revealed and the concealed — is, for the Zohar, one of the very foundations of the Jewish religion. The balance between cleaving and recoiling, ascent and restraint, religious fervor and humility, attraction and reverence — is, in the Zohar’s view, the formula for the kabbalist’s service of God.
This piece was originally published as part of A Year of Zohar: Kabbalah for Everyone, an original series produced by My Jewish Learning and Sefaria. Sign up for the entire series here.
