Halakhah sobre Génesis 1:11

One should not engage in conversation after the cup of blessing, and one should not say the blessing over a “cup of tribulations.” What is a “cup of tribulations”? A second cup. The reason for this is that pairs are bad luck. As they taught in a baraita, “Whoever drinks double – that is, a pair of cups – should not say the blessing, because of the verse “Be proper to meet your God, O Israel.”³²³Am 4:12: “Prepare to meet your God, O Israel!” (JSB), but this midrashic use of the verse picks up on the connotation of nakhon – being proper or correct – from the root of the imperative verb hikon “prepare.” And the reason for prohibiting pairs is because of witchcraft and beings composed of two who rule over anyone who eats and drinking something in pairs. And another reason to distance oneself from “twos” is that that are separated from the power of One, for pairs come from the power of “twos.” So in order to fix one’s heart on unity and distance oneself from dualistic faith, like what is alluded to in Scripture, “Do not mix with shonim,”³²⁴Pr 24:21: “Do not mix with dissenters” (JSB). However, R. Bahya is clearly playing on the connection between “shonim” – literally, “those who differ” and shnayim – “two. In other words, he reads the verse as, “Do not mix with dualists.” The Talmudic prohibitions on pairs probably had something to do with their Babylonian cultural context, i.e., the dualistic Zoroastrianism of the Sassanid Persian empire. those who believe in twos or more. Therefore they prohibited pairs even for things eaten and drunk, for it is appropriate for natural matters to be a sign and symbol of appropriate practices and beliefs,³²⁵Literally, “appropriate matters.” But some mss. of R. Bahya’s text read “intellectual and spiritual matters,” making his point clearer. in that you already knew that true beliefs thus require actions. And you see that in the story of Creation, it was not said, “that it was good” on the second day.³²⁶That expression ki tov, which appears after the descriptions of what was created on the other five days in Genesis 1, is conspicuously absent at the end of the account of day two. For we follow what they said in Genesis Rabbah, that on it dissent and Gehennah were created, and without a doubt, with things like these created on it, it is a dangerous day, on which it is prohibited to begin any work, as our rabbis z”l said, “One does not begin things on the second day, because whoever adds something to one, there’s no good in him [or it], and thus it was called yom sheni – “day two,” which is from the expression shinui – “change.” For in One there is no change, which is what is written: “For I am the Lord, I have not changed.”³²⁷Mal 3:6. But the second day was the beginning of change, and from then on, change in what was created is desirable, and on the rest of the days after it we have found basis for an accusation against all of them, e.g., on the third day God said, “Let the earth bring forth fruit trees,” but it actually brought forth only “trees bearing fruit.”³²⁸Gen 1:11,12. R. Bahya picks up on the slightly different phrasing: “fruit tree bearing fruit” (1:11) vs. “tree bearing, to imply that the earth did not do exactly as God commanded. Similarly on the fourth day the moon made an accusation saying, “It isn’t fair for two kings to use one crown.”³²⁹B. Hullin 60b. This is the midrash told there:
And God made the two great lights? but later it says: “the great light and the small light”! The moon said before the Holy One: Master of the world, is it possible for two kings to use one crown? God said to her: Go and diminish yourself! She said before God: Because I asked a good question, I should diminish myself? God said: Go and rule both in day and in night. She said: What advantage is that? A candle in the daylight is useless. God said: Go and let Israel count their days and years by you. She said: They use the daylight [of the sun] to count seasonal cycles as well…Seeing that she was not appeased, the Holy One said: Bring a (sacrificial) atonement for me that I diminished the moon! This is what R. Shimon ben Lakish said: What is different about the ram of the new moon that it is offered “for God” (And one ram of the flock for a sin offering for God…Numbers 28:14). Said the Holy One: This ram shall be an atonement for me that I diminished the moon. And likewise on the fifth day, God killed the male Leviathan,³³⁰Though in his commentary to the Torah on Gen 1:4, R. Bahya uses the version of this midrash found in b. Bava Batra 74b: God castrated the male Leviathan and killed the female Leviathan. For had they mated with one another, they would have destroyed the world. which can be interpreted as He hid the heavenly light. And likewise on the sixth day, Adam sinned and changed the will of Ha-Shem, and about this it is said, “altering his face, you sent him out.”³³¹Job 14:20, which R. Bahya interprets as “you (Adam)– changed God’s face, and so ‘made” Him (God) send you out of the Garden of Eden.” See how the second day is the cause behind all of this, because all of these things come from its power and follow it. To the extent it said “Prepare to meet your God, O Israel,”³³²Am 4:12. who is one, and it added “O Israel,” who is the one singular nation of the one God, as it is said, “And who is like Your people, one nation on earth,”³³³I Chr 17:21. you should prepare and direct yourself to meet the One. So you should not eat or drink things in pairs, so that you will not think dualistic things in your heart.

(Alef) The Psalmist said in Ps. 50:18, 20, “When you see a thief, you fall in with him, and throw in your lot with adulterers. You are busy maligning your brother, defaming the son of your mother.” It appears to me [that this can be explained] according to that which is written in Netsach Israel, chapter 25:⁶⁸Maharal, Netsach Yisrael, pp. 126-127 in London edition.
We were asked, “How is it that Israelites are constantly yearning to [do] bad, etc.? As he seeks evil for the one who is his compatriot in Torah and in the commandments. And [yet] the Torah states (Lev. 19:18), ‘and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” And I answered him, etc. However this trait is not in Israel from the angle of ‘an evil soul desires evil.’ As from the angle of their essence, this holy people is deserving of all the importance and status, etc. And the one who is important based on his own nature will [naturally] seek status (and this is what causes the Jews to hurt each other). As you will not find a villager jealous of a great minister, but rather a sage of another sage, a wealthy man of a wealthy man and a strong man of a strong man, etc. Rather this thing comes from [their appropriate] sense of importance. And the proof to this is that it is perfectly obvious that when one of them is in distress, all of them step forward like ‘a brother for adversity.’ And that is because Israel is one nation, etc. And it is not like the traits of licentiousness, etc., as that thing would show great lowliness, etc. And they are stiff-necked from repenting, etc. Because they are far from physicality, they are not [easily] impacted, but rather hold on to their traits, etc. [See there.]
And for this reason, he said, “When you see a thief, you fall in with him, and throw in your lot with adulterers” – and that is from the side of crass physicality and it is lowliness. But, “You are busy maligning your brother, etc.,” is from the side of an elevated form, and as is written in Netsach Yisrael. And they are two opposites of one issue. And ‘there should not be [lowliness] like this in Israel’ – the holy people that comes from a good nature. And that which is in Parashat Netzaivm (Deut. 29:21-26) is elucidated by this:
And later generations will ask—the children who succeed you, and foreigners who come from distant lands and see the plagues and diseases that the Lord has inflicted upon that land. All its soil burnt by sulfur and salt, etc. And all the nations will say, “Why did the Lord do thus to this land; wherefore that awful wrath?” And they will be told, “Because they forsook the covenant that the Lord, etc. And they turned to the service of other gods and worshiped them – gods whom they had not known and whom He had not allotted to them. So the Lord was incensed at that land, etc.”
And Rashi explained [the phrase], “whom they had not known,” [as] they had not known the strength of divinity in them. And Onkelos translated [it as, these gods] did not do good to them – as the one they selected for a god did not give them any inheritance or portion. See there. And at first glance, [this needs] precision – as had it given them an inheritance and a portion, the ‘prohibition [against worshiping it] would still stand in its place. [It is] as we expound in the Gemara,⁶⁹See Bamidbar Rabbah 20:9. “He exalts (masgi, which can also be read as fools) nations, then destroys them” (Job 12:23); such that it appears to them that they are healed by idolatry, etc. And see that with the generation of the flood it is written (Gen. 6:13), “and behold I will destroy them with the earth.” And the Rabbis, may their memory be blessed, expounded [it as] (Bereishit Rabbah 31:7), “with the land” – three handbreadths of the depth of a plow were despoiled. And the sin of the land was that the Lord said (Gen. 1:11) that the land should give forth “trees of fruit” – that the taste of the tree be like the fruit; but it made “trees that made fruit” (Gen. 1:12).⁷⁰Bereishit Rabbah 5:9. [It did this] because [its] material was coarse; and this caused man to incline towards physicality. And [so] the Lord said (Gen. 3:17), “Cursed is the earth for the sake of man” – as the damage was evident in man. And for this reason, [people] in the generation of the flood also sinned in physicality – violent theft, sexual immorality and murder; and this was because of the sin of the land. And therefore it was punished. And in the Guide⁷¹Guide for the Perplexed 1:36., [Rambam] wrote that we only find [the terms], awful wrath and jealousy [attributed to God] with idolatry, [since it is understandable that] the Lord has awful wrath about this. See there. But the sin of idolatry is from the angle of the form (the spiritual side) – and that it is the loss of the intellect, as it is written in Gur Aryeh.⁷²Perhaps the reference is to Gur Aryeh on Exodus 22:30. That is why the verse stated, “And all the nations will say, ‘Why did the Lord do thus to this land’” – since if their sin was from the spiritual side, the land did not sin. But if we say that the sin was from the side of physicality; you would still ask, “‘wherefore that awful wrath,’” as this is only with idolatry – as is written in the Guide – and that is from the angle of the intellect. “And they will be told, ‘Because they forsook, etc. and worshiped other gods’” – and the awful wrath was for that. And “whom they had not known and whom He had not allotted to them” – meaning that they did not apportion them any good and they did not know them [to be] with divine powers, and this was not from a confused intellect, such that ‘He fools the nations.’ Rather it was from the side of crass physicality that [such] anarchy was pleasing to them. And that was the sin of the land, and hence, “all its soil was burnt.” However, if people do righteous deeds, ‘the desolate land will be worked.’