Where the Lower Waters Come Before the King

On the second day of Creation, the Torah tells us that Hashem separated between the higher and lower waters, forming the heavenly firmament. The Zohar writes (Tikkunei Zohar 19b) that when the lower waters realized that they would be separated from the higher realms, they cried out to Hashem, “אנן בעינן למהוי קדם מלכא – We, too, desire to be before the King!” 

To comfort the lower waters and reward their desire for divine closeness, Hashem sealed a covenant with them. Rashi (to Vayikra 2:13) explains that He offered them two sacrificial services that would be performed in Yerushalayim, allowing the lower waters to draw close to Him: the salt applied to all korbanot in the Mikdash, and nisuch hamayim – the water libation –specially offered on the holiday of Sukkot. 

The nisuch hamayim was performed every morning alongside the morning Tamid offering. The kohanim would pour water and wine into two holes in the southwestern corner of the mizbeach. According to the Gemara Sukkah (53a), these holes emptied into the primordial shitin, ancient cavities that descended into the depths of the earth. 

But there seems to be a glaring problem with this “comfort.” I can understand why the salt would be appeased with the brit melach. After all, every korban offered on the mizbeach had to be salted. The salt would thus “ascend” with the smoke of countless offerings toward the heavens.

But the nisuch hamayim seems to do precisely the opposite. The water does not ascend toward heaven. It is poured into the shitin, disappearing downward into the depths of the earth. What comfort are the lower waters provided by being told that they would annually be poured deeper into the depths, leading to an even greater distance between them and their Creator?!

Perhaps the answer lies in understanding what the lower waters were really lamenting – and what the nisuch hamayim is ultimately meant to reveal.

In truth, there is no such thing as physical separation from our Creator. HaKadosh Baruch Hu is beyond the created concepts of space and time. Ultimately, the unity of the Ribbono Shel Olam remains absolute and unadulterated: אין עוד מלבדו – there is none other than Him. 

Yet as the process of Creation unfolded, Hashem introduced an appearance of separation. He progressively concealed Himself, allowing the physical world to experience itself as an independent reality. The world appears to exist on its own, disconnected from its Creator. Without this divine concealment, man’s free will would be impossible. Hashem desires us to voluntarily choose Him, to seek out His Presence. By following His divine will, we can slowly reveal that which was hidden in the primordial days of Creation. 

While Creation is defined by concealment, there is also a place where that concealment can be pierced.

That place is Yerushalayim.

Yerushalayim, where Hashem’s Presence is manifest in the physical world, is the center of this cosmic process. It is the place where the apparent separation between the physical and the Divine can be exposed as an illusion. In this sanctified environment, every aspect of Creation can be revealed as an expression of Divine will and used for Divine service. 

This is precisely what the nisuch hamayim accomplished.

Water is perhaps the most ordinary and ubiquitous resource imaginable. It belongs to the physical world. It flows downward and disappears into the earth. And yet, in Yerushalayim, even this most mundane element can become an avodah before Hashem.

Now we can understand the comfort offered to the lower waters. The lower waters of the physical realm became stuck in the vexing illusion of creation, in which we perceive ourselves as distinct from HaKadosh Baruch Hu. They were mourning this apparent distance. But this “distance” can be closed, this illusion dispelled. With the special avodah of the nisuch hamayim, the truth becomes revealed: that even the greatest depths of the earth are still filled with the Presence of Hashem. The comfort of the avodah flows from the awesomeness of its cosmic revelation. In truth, the lower waters were never separated from their King in the first place. 

Yerushalayim is the place where that concealment is lifted.

The lower waters cried, “We, too, want to be before the King.” The answer was not to bring them upward. It was to reveal that even at the lowest point, they had never left His Presence.

(Much of this approach is drawn from an incisive Torah of Rav Gedaliah Schor in Ohr Gedalyahu to Simchat Beit HaShoeiva.)

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