The Riddle of Fish on Dry Land

When Jacob blesses Joseph’s sons, he gives them a strange blessing: to multiply like fish in the midst of the land. This sounds impossible because fish can only live and multiply in water, and they die on dry land. According to Friedrich Weinreb, the sea represents the spiritual world of pure flow and life.

The dry land represents our material world, which is naturally rigid, limited, and strictly measured. Jacob’s blessing gave them the unique ability to live on the dry land of physical reality while maintaining the endless flow of fish in the sea—or to live the life of the concealed (water) in the revealed (land). He gave them the blessing of the secret (Sod) as Yesod, the foundation of the country. With no secret (Sod), there is no Yesod (foundation) to civilization.

Jacob Blessing Ephraim and Manasseh, *oil on canvas* Rembran[dt] / f. 1656

The Shechinah as the Moisture of Life

By itself, the material world is dry and lifeless, just like dry soil that needs water to grow crops. The Holy Spirit, the Shechinah, which is the Divine Presence, is described as a spiritual wind and moisture. It comes down into our dry reality, softens its harshness, and brings it to life. This explains the name Maymon (from which Maimonides derives) as a combination of Mayim, meaning water, and On, meaning power or strength.

Water represents the spirit and the moisture of the Shechinah. The name Maimon represents the exact moment when spiritual water takes shape and brings its life-power into the dry material world.

From the Right Side, the Tree of Life

Maimon comes from the word Mi’yamin (מימין)—from the right side, the side of belief—much like the name Binyamin (בן ימין), which signifies the son of the Tree of Life (Ben = son, and Yamin = the Tree of Life, the concealed, the potential, the One).

Connecting to Finances and Mimouna

This is exactly why the word Maimon evolved into the Hebrew word for finances: Mamon (ממון) means finances, and Mi-mun (מימון) means financing / to finance. Money and livelihood in this world must flow like water, because when money stops moving, it dries up and creates hardship. Financing means pouring spiritual water into our dry earthly efforts, allowing the Shechinah to turn our work into a flowing river of livelihood.

The festival of Mimouna happens exactly when the holiday of Passover ends, on the very night we celebrate the Splitting of the Red (Reed) Sea—Yam Suf (the end of bounds/time). The tearing of the finite sea demonstrated that there is only the Infinite.