Vav and Matan Torah

Shofar is spelled shin-peh-vav-resh in 70 locations within Tanach. In two locations, however, it is spelled without the vav. Significantly, the first use of the term, during the revelation at Mt. Sinai, it is spelled without vav.  Why?

In an email today about the upcoming Shavuot celebration, Gilla Nissan, who studies the Hebrew letters, says:

I liked what Adin S. says about the voice  which was described in the revelation on Mt. Sinai, it was a loud voice which was heard all over, he says, but not only there at a certain time and place, but a voice which constantly sounds itself, constantly available to us. I am being reminded that the message of the Letter Vav is that very truth. Vav is; the preposition letter "and". Many opening sentences or chapters in the Torah start with "and"/vav. "And God said/says to Moses tell children of Israel..." Vav was turned into "the reversing Letter" which means God actually told  Moses because the story belong to the past.

Today Vav reveals this meaning that Adin S. speaks about a voice or vibrations which go on for all times. Vav at the beginning of verbs in the Torah, do not belong to any particular tense, the verbs  are on going, connecting all tenses, eternally moving in the now....This Letter is about the connectivity of all things in creation. Moses is still talking to Children of Israel, they are still listening....

Perhaps, at Sinai, we did not need the vav to say, and "God says to Moses to tell Israel..." because God spoke to us directly.

Another insight, according to the Zohar, 10:304:

Rabbi Yehuda said: In "the sound of the Shofar," the word "Shofar" is spelled without the letter vav, for it has the same meaning as in the verse, "It pleased (Heb. shafar) Daryavesh" (Daniel 6:1) and in the verse, "O king, let my counsel be acceptable (Heb. yishpar) to you" (Daniel 4:24) and the verse, "I thought it good (Heb. shefar) to report the signs and wonders" (Daniel 3:32) - Meaning that these are expressions which speak of glory and beauty, which alludes to Zeir Anpin, the secret of Tiferet (beauty).

 I do not understand this teaching. If you do, let me know your thoughts.

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UPDATED 2012-06-02

Rabbi TZiPi Radonsky maintains http://societyofthevav.blogspot.com. She describes its mission as:

Agudat HaVav:  The mission of the Society of the Vav is to generate thought, conversations and practice around the idea of holding multiple realities and truths – there is no hierarchy of pain or joy – and that our individuality is the gift we bring to our leadership in making the world a better place. And that through mindfulness practice, we can experience a visceral energy shift, honoring our interconnectedness, when we choose to use the word ‘and’ instead of ‘but.’

She writes: "The letter Vav in the Hebrew language is a ‘connector’ letter.  It is the when put before a noun the translation is usually ‘and.’ When put in front of a verb in Biblical Hebrew it indicates a change in tense of the verb, from past to present or future to past...

"The letter Vav, the sixth letter in the Hebrew AlephBet, the third letter of the Hebrew name for God also represents in the Kabalah the six Sifirot that encompasses the body: Chesed, Gevurot, Tifferet, Netzach, Hod and Sod. It the letter that represent interconnection and Unification and is the symbol of completion, redemption and transformation."

In recent email correspondence, she points to other places in Torah where, "within the context of the story, there is a meaning to the Vav's presence, absence and shape":

A "broken" vav in Parsha Pinchas (Numbers  25:16).

It has been explained as follows:

The text concerns a covenant of peace (brit shalom) that is offered to Pinchas the somewhat over-zealous and fiery priest who skewered Zimri, the leader of the tribe of Shimon and Kozbi a midianite woman. Pinchas' act stopped both the Israelite's bout of immoral behaviour and the plague they had been suffering because of it, and he was rewarded for it.

However even the Massoretes must have been shocked by the violence of Pinchas' action as they made his blessing only partial through the broken vav which explains that true peace cannot be brought about through violence and that the two concepts are incompatible.

Similarly the Talmud (Kiddushin 66b) notes that the service of a person must be perfect and without blemish, by reading shalom without the vav as shalem - whole, perfect, sound and translate Numbers 25:12 as ‘behold I give to him my covenant of perfection’ - only when he is perfect and not found wanting. (Mordechai Pinchas, http://www.sofer.co.uk/html/broken_vav.html 2012-06-02)

A "missing" vav in (Exodus 3:15)

זֶה-שְּׁמִי לְעֹלָם

13 And Moses said unto God: 'Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them: The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me: What is His name? what shall I say unto them?' 

14 And God said unto Moses: 'I AM THAT I AM'; and He said: 'Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel: I AM hath sent me unto you.'

15 And God said moreover unto Moses: 'Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel: The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you; this is My name for ever, and this is My memorial unto all generations.

Spelling l'olam with a vav means "forever." Without the vav, it can also be read to mean "concealed". The teaching, according to Talmud Bavli Pescahim  50a, is that the pronunciation of God's name is unknowable; "R. Abina pointed out a contradiction: It is written, this is my name, to be hidden."

Other examples of vav variations can be found via an online search of "missing vav" or similar terms.

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UPDATED 2012-Jun-24

Joy Krauthammer shared the following with me. It comes from a a teaching on Parsha Chukat in an e-mail she received today from Chanoch Ben Yaacov, "a student of Kabbalah" at www.yeshshem.com.

There are 87 verses in this Parasha of Chukat...  Let me give you another powerful Kabbalistic secret connected to the number 87... The first word in the Esser Debrot (10 Utterances - translated in a corrupt manner as the 10 Commandments) is Anoki which has a gematria of 87 (when it is spelled in full with a Vav).

(Nowhere in the Tanach is Anochi spelled with a Vav. The teaching is when Mashiach comes the letters of the Scroll will rearrange themselves and some of the leading Vav's will move to the 126 times the word Anochi appears in the Scroll. For additional information 126 is the gematria of the Hebrew word for Humble.)