Rabbi Hirsch is not only equating Messiah with the menorah (as tree of life), but with Adam Kadmon, represented by the Sefirotic tree of life.
The important sefirot so far as Rabbi Hirsch's tree is concerned are 1, 2, 3, 8, and 10. The left and right side of Adam Kadmon are represented by hokmah and binah. -----Rabbi Hirsch has these the same place they're found on the Sefirotic Tree. Keter, is "crown" or "head" or "ein sof" and Rabbi Hirsch abbreviates "God," the head, the crown, with the dalet ד׳. (Which is an abbreviation for "God.")
More important is malkut (10) and yesod (8). Malkut (10) is "kingdom" or the source/root for the kingdom, and yesod (8) is the means by which the kingdom procreates. Yesod is the mystery of the yod ( י–סוד), the yod being the mark of circumcision.
On his tree of life, the menorah, Rabbi Hirsch has malkut as geza גזע, the root of a tree, and yesod as hoter חוטר, a basal-shoot growing out of a root after the trunk has been cut down to size.
John
1614 גֶּזַע (gě·zǎʿ): n.masc.; ≡ Str 1503; TWOT 339a—1. LN 3.47–3.59 root-stock, stump, i.e., the part of a cut-off tree or plant in the dirt, from which new stock will grow (Job 14:8+); 2. LN 3.47–3.59 shoot sprouting from a root-stock stump (Isa 40:24+); 3. LN 13.104–13.163 source, formally, root-stock, i.e., the figurative extension of a person as a genealogical source, implying a renewal or resumption of a dynastic reign (Isa 11:1+)
Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
The word's meaning has multiple nuances. -----But Rabbi Hirsch is using the context of Isaiah 10:33-11:1,2. The nation of Israel (fancied a forest associated with a great Lebanon tree), and the temple itself (the Lebanon tree) are razed to the ground leaving only a stump. But Isaiah 11:1 says that out of the stump a
hoter חטר will sprout. The following passage of Isaiah makes it clear that this "
hoter" (basal-shoot) is none other than Messisah. -----Which makes Rabbi Hirsch comparing it to the menorah extremely revelatory.
2643 חֹטֶר (ḥō·ṭěr): n.masc.; ≡ Str 2415; TWOT 643a—1. . . . 2. LN 10.14–10.48 shoot, twig, i.e., new growth sprouting from a root-stock stump, as a figurative extension for a progeny from a particular lineage (Isa 11:1+), see also domain LN 3.47–3.59
Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
Israel is razed to the ground (twice), the temple is razed to the ground (twice). But Isaiah says fear not. Messiah will grow out of the root-stock (
geza) of the Lebanon as a basal-shoot grows out of the original root of a tree that's been razed to the ground.
If you cast your gaze to the upper right hand image of Rabbi Hirsch discussion of this menorah (shown below), you'll see highlighted text on the page adjacent to the image. What he says on this page (adjacent to the image of the menorah) lets us peer into what Rabbi Hirsch is so excited about that he includes this image in the written text of his writing (something very rare concerning his writing).
The text in the upper right hand corner says:
We should stress here once again that the menorah must never be made from מן הגרוטאות, scrap metal. This specification may well convey the message that the inclinations of man, which are to be bearers of the Divine spirit, must be those original unadulterated gifts with which man was endowed at the time of his creation, but not elements acquired from sources, artificially grafted onto his personality.
Collected Writings III, p. 225.
The fact of not using scrap metal implies that the inclinations of the spiritual man, Messiah, are not the evil-inclination associated with the grafting, artificially, of a new means of producing offspring that was not part of the original plan of God, which original plan was that all "mankind" would be a genet, genetic facsimiles of Adam, and not a Duke's mixture produced through sexual mixing. The prohibition of Jews interbreeding with non-Jews is based not on racial profiling, or racisim, but on the fact that the Jew represent the original man, such that brit milah represents the removal of the artificial means of procreation grafted onto Adam to produce the evil-inclination which, because of the nature of his birth, Messiah won't possess. The "scrap-metal" spoken of by Rabbi Hirsch is the brass-alloy from which the serpent was manufactured and grafted on to Moses' Messianic-rod, Nehushtan. The serpent represents the foreskin, which represents uncircumcision, which is wonderfully set in its original context, the Garden, in Sanhedrin 38b.
With all that in mind, it would only require just one more image to look like a mind-reader . . . reading a very valuable mind . . . the mind of Rabbi Hirsch concerning his treatment of the menorah:
The image in the lower right hand corner is
Masaccio's Trinity. -----It's one of the most important Christian images ever produced. It was produced in the fifteenth century, long before Rabbi Hirsch's statements, but was clearly known (or one of its spawn was known) by Rabbi Hirsch. It shows the cross of Messiah growing out of the skeleton of Adam, which is directly beneath the cross. Messiah is fancied a sprout, growing out of the bones of Adam, as though Messiah, unlike Cain, is a basal-shoot, a sprout, growing out of the root of the original man.
A fruit farmer would have bells and whistles going off at this point since he knows that if it were possible for a man to "sprout" out of the original root of the original man, without sexual mixing (shatnez), then this man, could be a facsimile of Adam prior to the adulterated grafting of the very rod, shoot, through which Cain was produced as scrap metal, through the mixing of the genes of two independent organisms. If Messiah could truly sprout out of the bones of Adam, without sexual mixing, then he could be the "firstborn of creation" as God intended everyone to be born, even though millions of humans may have been produced through adulteration of the tree grafted onto the original root of the first man.
If Adam had not sinned the world would have entered the Messianic state on the first Sabbath after creation, with no historical process whatever. . . Adam---- who at first was a cosmic, spiritual, supernal being, a soul which contained all souls ---fell from his station, whereupon the divine light in his soul was dispersed.
Professor Gershom Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism, p. 46.
As we have said, though G-d commanded Adam to procreate on the day He created him (the sixth day of the primordial week), the intention was that he should wait until Shabbat in order to fulfill this commandment. Had he done so, he and Eve would have given birth, on the very first Shabbat, to Mashiach.124
Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, The Mystery of Marriage, p. 356.
If not for Adam's sin, all mankind would have had the status of Israel. . . To some degree, circumcision restored Abraham and his descendants to the status of Adam before his sin.
Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, Handbook of Jewish Thought, p. 39, 47.
Thankfully, meiosis and polar-body provides a scientific basis for how the pre-lapse DNA of Adam is protected and secured so that if indeed a "sprout"
hoter חטר could grow out of the post-meiotic, pre-fertilization root of Adam (
geza גזע the female ovum) then that human would not only be the firstborn of creation, but Messiah, who, Messiah, isn't even subject to death.
If a person were familiar with the nature of the Sefirotic Tree (Adam Kadmon), and Rabbi Hirsch's menorah (which he associates with Messiah -- who is Adam Kadmon), they could see that
Masaccio's Trinity is an exact and complete exegesis of both the Sefirotic Tree, and Rabbi Hirsch's image (and statements) about the nature of the menorah, as the emblematic image of Messiah. ----- Unfortunately the nature of the Sefirotic Tree is mostly unknown, as Rabbi Hirsch's menorah is mostly unknown, as the nature of the Cross is mostly unknown, to Jews and Gentiles, Christians and Jews, such that the revelation of these things, far from drawing God-fearers together in a great feast of revelation, instead reveals the yawning chasm (and the literal yawning) created by television, sex, rug-rats, and all those multifarious things considered so much more important and real than the Word of God.
John