Chasidut sobre Lamentaciones 1:8
חֵ֤טְא חָֽטְאָה֙ יְר֣וּשָׁלִַ֔ם עַל־כֵּ֖ן לְנִידָ֣ה הָיָ֑תָה כָּֽל־מְכַבְּדֶ֤יהָ הִזִּיל֙וּהָ֙ כִּי־רָא֣וּ עֶרְוָתָ֔הּ גַּם־הִ֥יא נֶאֶנְחָ֖ה וַתָּ֥שָׁב אָחֽוֹר׃ (ס)
Pecado cometió Jerusalem; por lo cual ella ha sido removida: Todos los que la honraban la han menospreciado, porque vieron su vergüenza; Y ella suspira, y se vuelve atrás.
Kedushat Levi
Numbers 25,11. Pinchas, son of Eleazar son of Aaron the priest has turned back My wrath.”
Before elaborating on this verse we need to explain a verse in Lamentations 111,8: חטא חטא ירושלים על כן לנדה היתה, “Jerusalem has become guilty of a sin; this is why she has become a wanderer (homeless).”
We have a rule that if someone commits a transgression of G’d’s law due to his natural urges having proved too strong for him to resist them, he is not subject to the same penalty as someone who has committed the same transgression in order to anger G’d. Concerning this distinction between penalties for the same transgression the prophet Ezekiel 20,38 speaks when he says: וברותי מכם המורדים והפושעים בי מארץ מגוריהם....ואל אדמת ישראל לא יבוא וידעתם כי אני ה' “I will separate from you those who rebel and those who transgress against Me; but to the soil of Israel none shall come. Then shall you know that I am the Lord.” The prophet makes clear that sins committed deliberately in order to anger G’d are not subject to repentance, i.e. the penalty of exile, for example, will not be reversed not even for a single one of such sinners. Not so when the sin was committed merely due to the weakness of the flesh to resist temptation.
Jeremiah, in the above quoted verse from Lamentations, makes it plain that the sin of Jerusalemites which was punished by exile, i.e. נדה, was not due to the arrogance of defying G’d deliberately, but was only the result of weakness of the flesh; hence in due course repentance of the sinners or their descendants, will enable them to return to their ancestral homeland. The prophet chose the word נדה to describe the Jerusalemites’ punishment, as we all know that a woman who is temporarily out of bounds to her husband due to her menses, will in due course, after immersion in a mikveh, ritual cleansing bath, be reunited with her husband. The purification of such a woman is unique amongst cleansing from ritual pollutions, as in all other cases of ritual pollution, -for instance the contact with any of the eight שרצים, “teeming creatures (listed in Leviticus chapter11)- the source of the contamination is not rehabilitated by the ritual bath, only its victim.
In fact there exists blood of a menstruating woman or a woman that has just given birth which is not considered as contaminated at all.
It is axiomatic (in our faith) that when G’d dispenses of His largesse to us this is invariably for our benefit, though sometimes it is not immediately manifest.
[If I understand the author correctly, he means that both these categories of blood come forth from the same part of the woman’s body. When a woman gives birth this indicates that her ovulation resulted in something positive, a new life, this is proof that what turns into something polluted when not resulting in pregnancy, can become the opposite when resulting in pregnancy. Ed.]
The prophet hints at this when describing Israel’s state after the destruction of Jerusalem as that of a נדה, the message being that just as a woman having her menses may become pregnant during her next cycle, so this status of the Israelites is also capable of resulting in redemption in due course.
When we apply this concept to the deed of Pinchas who had spilled Jewish blood, (without legal action having preceded his act), enabled the Israelites to realize that the result of his act was the saving of an untold amount of more Jewish blood. What had at first glance appeared as an act of cruelty, turned out to be a vehicle for thousands of acts of loving kindness.
Before elaborating on this verse we need to explain a verse in Lamentations 111,8: חטא חטא ירושלים על כן לנדה היתה, “Jerusalem has become guilty of a sin; this is why she has become a wanderer (homeless).”
We have a rule that if someone commits a transgression of G’d’s law due to his natural urges having proved too strong for him to resist them, he is not subject to the same penalty as someone who has committed the same transgression in order to anger G’d. Concerning this distinction between penalties for the same transgression the prophet Ezekiel 20,38 speaks when he says: וברותי מכם המורדים והפושעים בי מארץ מגוריהם....ואל אדמת ישראל לא יבוא וידעתם כי אני ה' “I will separate from you those who rebel and those who transgress against Me; but to the soil of Israel none shall come. Then shall you know that I am the Lord.” The prophet makes clear that sins committed deliberately in order to anger G’d are not subject to repentance, i.e. the penalty of exile, for example, will not be reversed not even for a single one of such sinners. Not so when the sin was committed merely due to the weakness of the flesh to resist temptation.
Jeremiah, in the above quoted verse from Lamentations, makes it plain that the sin of Jerusalemites which was punished by exile, i.e. נדה, was not due to the arrogance of defying G’d deliberately, but was only the result of weakness of the flesh; hence in due course repentance of the sinners or their descendants, will enable them to return to their ancestral homeland. The prophet chose the word נדה to describe the Jerusalemites’ punishment, as we all know that a woman who is temporarily out of bounds to her husband due to her menses, will in due course, after immersion in a mikveh, ritual cleansing bath, be reunited with her husband. The purification of such a woman is unique amongst cleansing from ritual pollutions, as in all other cases of ritual pollution, -for instance the contact with any of the eight שרצים, “teeming creatures (listed in Leviticus chapter11)- the source of the contamination is not rehabilitated by the ritual bath, only its victim.
In fact there exists blood of a menstruating woman or a woman that has just given birth which is not considered as contaminated at all.
It is axiomatic (in our faith) that when G’d dispenses of His largesse to us this is invariably for our benefit, though sometimes it is not immediately manifest.
[If I understand the author correctly, he means that both these categories of blood come forth from the same part of the woman’s body. When a woman gives birth this indicates that her ovulation resulted in something positive, a new life, this is proof that what turns into something polluted when not resulting in pregnancy, can become the opposite when resulting in pregnancy. Ed.]
The prophet hints at this when describing Israel’s state after the destruction of Jerusalem as that of a נדה, the message being that just as a woman having her menses may become pregnant during her next cycle, so this status of the Israelites is also capable of resulting in redemption in due course.
When we apply this concept to the deed of Pinchas who had spilled Jewish blood, (without legal action having preceded his act), enabled the Israelites to realize that the result of his act was the saving of an untold amount of more Jewish blood. What had at first glance appeared as an act of cruelty, turned out to be a vehicle for thousands of acts of loving kindness.
Ask RabbiBookmarkShareCopy