הלכה על בראשית 3:17

The one who breaks the bread when he breaks it should grasp the loaf in his two hands with ten fingers because of his love for the blessing [over the bread]. And thus you will find ten words in the blessing “ha-motzi.” And likewise the verse [from which it is derived]: “You grow grass for cattle, herbage for man to work to bring forth bread from the earth.”⁶⁴Ps 104:14 in Hebrew is ten words: Matzmi’ah hatzir le-behemah va-esev le-avodat ha-adam le-hotzi’ lehem min ha-aretz. And we find ten mitzvot that were given regarding produce: (1) “You shall not plow [with and ox and ass together];” (2) “You shall not muzzle [an ox while it is threshing];” ⁶⁵Dt. 22:10; Dt 25:4. (3) terumah for the priest; (4) the first tithe for the Levite; (5) the tithe of the tithe that the Levite gives to the priest; (6) the second tithe; (7) the tithe for the poor; (8) gleaning; (9) “the forgotten sheaf;” and (10) leaving the corners of the field for the poor.

And know that the participle “ha-motzi’” implies both past and future action. For example, “who brings you forth [ha-motzi’] from the land of Egypt”⁶⁶Lev. 22:23. has a future sense. It alludes to the same time about which our rabbis z”l taught this midrash: “In the future the land of Israel will bring forth [totzi’] cakes and fine woolen clothes, as it is said, ‘Let a slice of grain appear in the land.’⁶⁷Ps 72:16, pisat bar is usually translated “abundant grain,” but the midrash here from b.Ketuboth 111b interprets pisah hyper-literally as a “slice of grain,” i.e., a piece of a ready-made baked good from the land. And we allude in the blessing “ha-motzi’” to the future time when our food will appear without effort and toil, and the land will bring forth actual bread like the bread which we eat and over which we say the blessing. For thus the world would have behaved in the time of Adam had the land not been cursed because of his sin, as it said, “Cursed is the land because of you.”⁶⁸Gen 3:17. And in the future when the sin has been atoned for, the world will return to the way it’s supposed to be.

(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.’