Kommentar zu Schemot 23:25

That is that we are commanded to serve Him. And this command is repeated several times: His saying, "And you shall serve the Lord, your God" (Exodus 23:25); and His saying, "and you shall serve Him" (Deuteronomy 13:5). And although this command is from the inclusive commands - as we explained in Principle Four (Sefer HaMitzvot, Shorashim 4) - it nevertheless has specificity, since it is the command to pray. The language of the Sifrei is, "'And to serve Him' (Deuteronomy 11:13) - that is prayer." And they also said, "'And to serve Him' - that is [Torah] study." And in the Mishnah of Rabbi Eliezer, the son of Rabbi Yose HaGelili, they said, "From where [do we know that] the essence of prayer is a commandment? From here - 'You shall fear the Lord, your God, and you shall serve Him' (Deuteronomy 6:13)." And they said, "Serve Him through His Torah; serve Him in His Temple." This means, direct [yourself] towards it, to pray [towards] there, as Shlomo, peace be upon him, explained. (See Parashat Mishpatim: Mishneh Torah, Prayer and the Priestly Blessing 1.)

AND YE SHALL SERVE THE ETERNAL YOUR G-D, AND HE WILL BLESS THY BREAD, AND THY WATER. The intention of this verse is as follows. Most idolators acknowledge and know that the revered G-d is G-d of gods, and Lord of lords,⁴³⁵Deuteronomy 10:17. and they do not intend to worship the idols themselves, but they think that because of these acts of worship they will have success in their endeavors. Thus when they worship the sun it is because they have found it to have a beneficial power over their crops, and they find the moon to have influence over fountains and all deep waters, and similarly [they attribute powers] to all the hosts of heaven. They are even more inclined to think that they will be greatly benefitted by worshipping the angels, since they are invested with dignity through ministering before the Great G-d. Therefore this verse states that only through the worship of the Holy One, blessed be He, can you have success and protection, and the uprooting of idolatry⁴³⁶As commanded in Verse 24. will not cause damage; on the contrary, it will add goodness and blessing to you, for the Holy One, blessed be He, will bless your “bread,” this being a term which includes all manner of food, and will bless your “water,” which is a generic term for all liquids that people drink. The blessing referred to means increase, so that you will have an exceeding abundance of them.

ועבדתם את ה' אלוקיכם, the manner in which you will demonstrate that you indeed serve Him is by destroying all the idols as mentioned in the previous verse. As a corollary of having destroyed idolatry and its representatives you will not need to worry about anyone in your midst trying to convert Jews to such alien religions and to thereby estrange them from serving Me.

ועבדתם את ה׳ אלוקיכם, "and you will serve the Lord your G'd, etc." Perhaps we should understand this verse as related directly to what the Torah wrote in 23,24. If Jews are careful to destroy all remnants of the idolatry practiced by the pagans in the Holy Land the result will be that they will serve the Lord with all their hearts and that G'd will bless them and protect them.

והסירותי מחלה, diseases caused by drinking polluted waters as I explained in connection with Marah (Exodus 15,25-26).

ועבדתם את ה' אלוקיכם, “You shall worship the Lord your G’d.” Nachmanides writes that seeing most of the idolaters are fully aware that the Creator in heaven is the supreme G’d, and they do not pay respects to such forces of nature as for instance the sun, except because they believe that some benefit will accrue to them on account of that, as they think that the sun influences the ripening of the respective crops in their fields, and that G’d has delegated some of His power to the sun for that purpose, the Torah is at pains to remind us that only exclusive dependence of the Creator directly is permissible. We are to realize that by wiping out traces of idolatry in the country this will not only not harm our interest, but, on the contrary will ensure that G’d’s blessing will be even more bountiful. This is why the Torah adds that our bread and our water will receive its blessing directly from Hashem, without recourse to any intermediary.

ועבדתם את ה' אלוהיכם, “and you will serve the Lord your G’d.” Seeing that the Gentiles believe that if they serve their various deities this in turn will assure them of success in their lives on earth, the Torah added the words: “but you will serve the Lord your G’d” as a contrast at this point. It is simply a reminder that it is not appropriate for the Israelites to serve any other deity which cannot grant them their desires anyway. The Torah adds: “for He blessed your bread and your water.”
והסירותי מחלה מקרבך, “and I will remove illness from amongst you.” There are certain sicknesses which result from the intake of certain foods, illnesses not visible on the surface of one’s body. There are other external illnesses which are due to changes in climate, etc. This is why the Torah assures the Jewish people that when they serve the Lord G’d will bless their food and water so that their bodies will be able to resist the sickness which may normally result from the consumption of food and drink containing invisible but harmful ingredients. This means that the righteous person will not have to have recourse to a physician. This is the meaning of Chronicles II 16,12: “but even though he (King Assa) was ill, he did not turn to the Lord but to physicians.” (This was sinful and the reason he was not cured.) The word מחלה, “sickness,” includes such deficiencies as sterility, propensity to not carry out an embryo for its full term, etc. Actually, the verse should have written the word והסיר, “and He will remove (in the third person) instead of והסירותי, “I will remove.” After all the previous reference to G‘d in that verse such as וברך, “and He will bless,” is in the third person. However, the correct interpretation of the whole verse is: “for the Lord will remove all manner of disease from our midst if we serve Him by addressing ourselves to His exclusive attribute, the tetragrammaton” (compare Nachmanides on the end of verse 25).

V. 25 u. 26. Nur ד׳, deinem Gotte, sollst du dich verpflichtet glauben und seinem Dienste, d. i. der Erfüllung seines Gesetzes dich weihen, und zwar, nicht ועבדת, nicht nur die Nation in ihrer Gesamtheitrepräsentanz, sondern ועבדתם, von allen einzelnen Gliedern der Nationalgesamtheit muss das Gesetz erfüllt werden, וברך את לחמך so wird das physische Gedeihen des Landes, das die Völker von der Verehrung der ,וגו׳ vermeintlichen physischen Gewalten erwarten, von Ihm gesegnet werden. והסרתי, das Überspringen in die erste Person spricht wohl den Gedanken aus: was die andern von dem Dienste der Natur erwarten, wirst du durch den Gesetzesdienst deines Gottes erhalten. Aber noch mehr. Ich werde diesen Segen in einer Weise und in einem solchen Grade gewähren, die weit den von andern erwarteten Segen übertreffen. Die natürlichen Erkrankungen und Schwächezustände, die man unter dem Regime der Natur als unzertrennlich von der Menschennatur betrachtet, werden unter dem Regime meines Gesetzes bei dir sich nicht zeigen. Krankheit, Kinderlosigkeit und frühzeitiger Tod werden in deinem Lande unbekannte Erscheinungen sein, nicht nur der Boden, die Menschen werden gesegnet sein.

וברך את לחמך ואת מימך, “He will bless your bread and your water.” A blessing of a general nature; the term לחם is a synonym for food of any kind, and the term מים for any drinkable liquids. Compare the use of these words in Hoseah 2,7: לחצי ומימי, “my food and drink.” In the same book in chapter 2,11, the prophet speaks of G-d retaliating by taking away from the sinful Israelites: ולקחתי בעתו את דגני ואת תירושי במועדי, “I will deprive them at the appropriate time of JMy grain (harvest) and My grape (harvest).” If only water had been meant, the prophet should have quoted G-d as saying: “My water.”

AND I WILL TAKE SICKNESS AWAY FROM THE MIDST OF THEE. That is to say, through them [the bread and water that I will bless], I will free you from disease, for when your food and drink are good and healthy, they do not cause sicknesses but, on the contrary, heal you. And He states⁴³⁷Verse 26. furthermore that there will not be amongst you a woman that miscarries, a miscarrying womb⁴³⁸Hosea 9:14. nor one barren of the womb and with dry breasts,⁴³⁸Hosea 9:14. for when food and drink and the air are blessed, human bodies become healthy and the organs of reproduction are able to function properly. The verse⁴³⁷Verse 26. singles out women because they are liable to miscarriage, and sterility too is more common amongst them than amongst men. It is possible that [male sterility] is included in the expression, and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee, for barrenness is a sickness in bodies. He addresses Himself without specifications to men, and afterwards He mentioned the women, as He said, there shall not be male or female barren among you.⁴³⁹Deuteronomy 7:14. The meaning of the expression in thy land, [None shall miscarry, nor be barren, in thy land],⁴³⁷Verse 26. is to include also the animals, just as He said there, or amongst your cattle.⁴³⁹Deuteronomy 7:14. The number of thy days I will fulfill⁴³⁷Verse 26. means that one will not die prematurely in battle, nor through an epidemic caused by a change in the atmosphere, but only at a ripe age, whatever happens to be the normal span of life during that particular generation, such as seventy or eighty years as in the generation of King David.⁴⁴⁰See Psalms 90:10. I have already mentioned⁴⁴¹Above at the beginning of Seder Va’eira, and on Genesis 17:1 (Vol. I, p. 215). that these are all miracles, G-d showing wonders in the heavens and in the earth⁴⁴²Joel 3:3. for the sake of those who do His will. And then He said that just as He will do on their behalf a sign for good,⁴⁴³Psalms 86:17. so will He do to their enemies for bad; He will give them a trembling heart,⁴⁴⁴Deuteronomy 28:65. — Ramban derives this from the phrase written here: I will send My terror before thee (Verse 27). and in the chambers terror.⁴⁴⁵Ibid., 32:25. — Ramban derives this from the expression here: And I will cause discomfort to all the people to whom thou shalt come. Moreover, He will send the tzir’ah amongst them,⁴⁴⁶Verse 28. this being a certain kind of hornet of the family of the bee. The Sages mention it continually:⁴⁴⁷Machshirin 6:4. “Bees’ honey, hornets’ honey.” The meaning of the verse is that He will send this plague through the atmosphere of their land, like the locust that He had sent in Egypt: the canker-worm, and the caterpillar, and the palmer-worm, His great army⁴⁴⁸Joel 2:25. which came in the days of Joel. The meaning of the expression, and she [the hornet] will drive out the Hivite etc.,⁴⁴⁶Verse 28. is that this will be the cause of their being driven out of the land, for since the hornets will cover the face of the earth⁴⁴⁹Above, 10:5. and darken it, they will not be able to go into battle. Moreover, it will eat up all their produce in the field, similar to that which is said in the imprecations, Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather little in; for the locust shall consume it, etc.;⁴⁵⁰Deuteronomy 28:38. All thy trees and the fruit of thy land shall the locust possess.⁴⁵¹Ibid., Verse 42. Similarly He said here that He will do such things to our enemies.
Scripture mentioned here the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite,⁴⁴⁶Verse 28. [and not the other four nations as well], because it adopted here a shortened form, and the intention is to all those mentioned above.⁴⁵²Verse 23. See Ramban above, 3:8 as to why the Girgashite [the seventh one] is omitted. The correct interpretation appears to me to be that the majority of these three nations [mentioned here] did not go out to battle and thus avoided being killed by the sword, because they remained strongly enclosed in their fortified places. It is against them that He sent only this form of death [through the hornet], in a similar manner to that which is said of Egypt, And thy houses shall be filled, and the houses of all thy servants, and the houses of all the Egyptians.⁴⁵³Above, 10:6. It is this which He said in the Book of Deuteronomy: Moreover the Eternal thy G-d will send the hornet amongst them, until they that are left, and they that hide themselves, perish from before thee,⁴⁵⁴Deuteronomy 7:20. and it is this hornet that crossed the Jordon with Joshua.⁴⁵⁵Rashi’s statement that the hornets did not cross the Jordan but merely “placed themselves on the east bank of the Jordan and from there injected the poison against them” applies to the hornet of the days of Moses. The one in the days of Joshua did cross the Jordan. This distinction is made in Sotah 36a. So did the Rabbis conclude in Tractate Sotah,⁴⁵⁵Rashi’s statement that the hornets did not cross the Jordan but merely “placed themselves on the east bank of the Jordan and from there injected the poison against them” applies to the hornet of the days of Moses. The one in the days of Joshua did cross the Jordan. This distinction is made in Sotah 36a. saying that the hornet injected a poison into them which caused their death, and indeed there is nowadays also in the hornet a poisonous substance which harms or even kills the victim. And it is written in the Book of Joshua: And ye went over the Jordan, and came unto Jericho; and the men of Jericho fought against you, the Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Girgashite, the Hivite and the Jebusite; and I delivered them into your hand,⁴⁵⁶Joshua 24:11. and it is further written there, And I sent the hornet before you, which drove them out from before you, even the two kings of the Amorites; not with thy sword, nor with thy bow.⁴⁵⁷Ibid., Verse 12. The phrase which drove them out⁴⁵⁷Ibid., Verse 12. refers to those that are left⁴⁵⁴Deuteronomy 7:20. amongst them, for after I delivered into your hand all the nations mentioned, I sent the hornet to drive out those that are left and they that hide themselves. He mentioned the two kings of the Amorites,⁴⁵⁷Ibid., Verse 12. meaning Sichon and Og whom He had referred to earlier. All this you have done not with thy sword, nor with thy bow.⁴⁵⁷Ibid., Verse 12.
Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra wrote that the tzir’ah refers to a disease in the body, the word being of the root tzara’ath (leprosy). But there is no need for this interpretation.
And ye shall serve the Eternal your G-d⁴⁵⁸Verse 25. means that service [by offering or prayer] is to be devoted to the Proper Name [i.e., the Tetragrammaton]. The verse stating and He will bless… and I will take, [thus changing from the third-person pronoun to the first-person pronoun], is similar to the verse and thou wilt keep all His statutes… for I am the Eternal that healeth thee.⁴⁵⁹Above, 15:26. In that case too the pronouns change. I have already explained it, and the person learned [in the mystic lore of the Cabala] will understand the verse here from what I have written there.

וברך את לחמך, so that it will prove nutritious instead of the source of a variety of intestinal ailments.

והסירותי מחלה מקרבך, “I will remove disease from your midst.” This is a promise that the food and drink grown or taken from existing sources will not be contaminated and will be healthy.

The Torah writes ואת מימיך, "and your water;" seeing that water is the source of all weakness, carrier of bacteria and origin of most serious diseases, G'd promises that He will ensure that our water will be turned into a source of healthy growth. We all know the importance of מים חיים, i.e. springwater, and man's efforts to reside near the source of such water. For all these reasons G'd's blessing is of such importance here. You may do well to study what the Talmud (Berachot 59) has to say about the quality of the water in the river Euphratus.

והסירותי מחלה מקרבך, “I will remove sickness from your midst.” In other words, “you will be healthy;” for what good is food to a sick person who cannot enjoy it?”

והסירותי מחלה מקרבך, diseases caused by polluted air or climactic conditions.

והסרותי מחלה מקרבך. "And I will remove sickness from your midst." G'd characterised the blessing as composed of three components. 1) Man (the Israelites) will be healthy in order to enjoy G'd's bounty. The Torah speaks about: "I will remove sickness," i.e. G'd will do this as an act of providence. Unless there is physical health and wellbeing all food will become repulsive instead of enjoyable. 2) There will not be a woman who miscarries, i.e. nature will co-operate; 3) people will live out their allotted years. In all these matters G'd demonstrated His blessing; without these conditions G'd's usual gifts, i.e. health, food, etc., His blessings would not be recognisable as true blessings.