ספר שמות

Exodus 26,4. “you are to make loops made from blue ‎wool;” this verse can be understood when we consider the ‎following statement in the Talmud Sotah 17. “‎תכלת‎, wool ‎dyed blue, resembles the ocean, which in turn is a reflection of ‎the colour of the sky, which in its turn is a reflection of the ‎throne of G’d.”‎Speaking allegorically, when a person begins with ‎constructing a building, he commences with an outline of the ‎appearance of the finished building in his mind. After that he ‎draws up plans for the building, and only as a last step does he ‎proceed with the actual construction. When the building is ‎complete it is assigned its original purpose, i.e. given to the ‎person or persons who will inhabit it. In other words, the project ‎has undergone four distinct stages. 1) original mental image of ‎the project; 2) clarification of the details, etc. 3) translating ‎thought into deed. 4) carrying out the intention which originally ‎prompted the project. When the original mental image of the ‎project is seen reflected after its successful completion, the ‎person inhabiting this building will experience a sense of ‎satisfaction and joy.‎Speaking allegorically, when a person begins with ‎constructing a building, he commences with an outline of the ‎appearance of the finished building in his mind. After that he ‎draws up plans for the building, and only as a last step does he ‎proceed with the actual construction. When the building is ‎complete it is assigned its original purpose, i.e. given to the ‎person or persons who will inhabit it. In other words, the project ‎has undergone four distinct stages. 1) original mental image of ‎the project; 2) clarification of the details, etc. 3) translating ‎thought into deed. 4) carrying out the intention which originally ‎prompted the project. When the original mental image of the ‎project is seen reflected after its successful completion, the ‎person inhabiting this building will experience a sense of ‎satisfaction and joy.‎The Creator experienced similar feelings from the moment He ‎had imagined the universe He was about to create and the ‎creatures which He planned would live in the completed universe. ‎Seeing that, as we pointed out repeatedly, the entire project ‎called “universe” had been planned only for the sake of the Jewish ‎people, it is clear that the Jewish people as the end-product ‎loomed large in His thinking. It follows that as soon as the Jewish ‎people realized that they had been the focal point of all of G’d’s ‎endeavours, they would be filled with immense joy. If G’d ‎performed so many overt miracles for the Jewish people, this was ‎in order to convince them of their pivotal role in this universe. ‎The author refers to a commentary on the word ‎מגילה‎ in the ‎benediction read before reading the scroll containing the Purim ‎story, in which he understood the word ‎מגילה‎ not simply as ‎‎“scroll,” but as a revelation, i.e. ‎מגלה‎ i.e. revealing events and ‎their purpose. The letter ‎י‎ in the word ‎מגילה‎ he understands as an ‎allusion to the heavenly involvement, though it was covert, in all ‎that happened at that time. He follows up by interpreting the ‎word ‎תכלת‎ usually translated as “wool dyed blue,” as being a ‎derivative of the word ‎תכלית‎ i.e. ‎תכלת‎ with the letter ‎י‎ added; this ‎conveys the same idea as the letter ‎י‎ in the word ‎מגילה‎ as we just ‎explained. When the sages in Sotah 17 referred to four sages ‎of tracing back the end-product ‎תכלת‎+‎י‎, they taught us about the ‎four stages involved in creating the world, the four stages also ‎paralleling the four letters in the holy name of G’d in the ‎tetragram as well as the name spelled ‎א-ד-נ-י‎. The final letter ‎ה‎ in ‎the tetragram alludes to the stage of the actual building, whereas ‎the first letters ‎יה‎ alludes to G’d’s thought processes, and the ‎letter ‎ו‎ refers to the stage when the plans are drawn up. The ‎name ‎א-ד-נ-י‎ refers to the completed product fulfilling its ‎function, ‎תכלית‎.‎