Tafsiran yang Mengutip untuk Mazmur 51:12

ברא, “He created;” the term ברא is used on occasion as applying to something which is not of physical substance such as in Numbers 16,30 when Moses predicts that G’d will “create, יברא” a gaping hole in the ground wherever members of Korach’s clan and supporters stood, into which they would disappear. Clearly, the earth’s crust opening into a fissure is not something tangible, something of substance. The word ברא always means that no “matter” was involved in what G’d is described as “creating.” Job 23,13 makes such a point when referring to G’d: ונפשו אותה ויעש, “whatever He desired, He did.” [He does not have to operate within given parameters]. Similarly, Isaiah 43,7 describes G’d as saying: כל העולם הנקרא בשמי ולכבודי בראתיו, יצרתיו, אף עשיתיו, meaning that “the entire world which is called by My name in My honour, is so called in order that people will say that I have created it, I have formed it, I have completed it.” The message is that G’d created it out of “nothing,” not using existing materials. According to the great sage Maimonides, the word לכבודי, may mean “according to My will.” However, one can also understand the word in its literal sense, i.e. that the world and all that is in it represents G’d’s glory. This would conform to Isaiah 6,3 מלא כל הארץ כבודו, “the entire universe is full of His glory.” Seeing that G’d Himself is invisible, we can only recognise Him and His glory by means of His accomplishments, including His creatures.

7) The kind of person the Torah envisages is the one who has a pure heart as David prayed in Psalms 51,12 where he pleaded with G'd to fashion a pure heart for him. At the same time such a person must not hate other people, nor be jealous of them or feel himself to be in competition with them. Moses alluded to this quality in a Torah personality when he said ולבן, the expression "white" symbolising all that is pure.

Regarding the Torah's prohibition of foods, many of the commentators have thought that it is because of the body's health and medical care, those foods being bad, and generating a harmful moistness. This is the view of the Ramban, on the verse, "these you shall abhor among the birds" (Lev. 11:13). But God forbid that I should believe this, because if that were the case, the divine Sefer Torah would be on the level of a minor book among the books of medicine -- short in both words and reasoning. And this is not the way of the divine Torah, or the depth of its purpose. Further, we can see with our own eyes that the nations that eat the flesh of the pig, the creepers, the mouse, and the other impure birds, beasts, and fish are all alive to this day, "firm as a mirror of cast metal" (Job 37:18), and there is none tired or weak among them. Also, there are other animals that are well known to be harmful, like the viper, snake, serpent, and scorpion, that are not mentioned here among the category of prohibitions. And there are also grasses and plants that are very injurious and deadly poisonous, like the alisor and its like, among those mentioned by the medical experts, and the Torah does not prohibit their consumption. And all of this shows that the divine Torah does not come to heal the bodies, or to seek their health, but rather to promote the health of the soul and to heal its ailments, and therefore, it forbade foods that sully and abominate the pure and sublime soul, and that engender in the human temperamental mixture an impenetrability and a distortion of desires, by creating a bad mixture that gives rise to a spirit of pollution that defiles the mind and the deeds, and that expels the spirit of purity and holiness for which David prayed: "Do not take Your holy spirit away from me" (Ps. 51:13). And he said "Fashion a pure heart for me, O God; create in me a steadfast spirit" (id. 12). And it was because of this that He, may He be blessed, said, "You shall not draw abomination upon yourselves through anything that swarms; you shall not make yourselves impure therewith" (Lev. 11:43). For in this consists the idea of impenetrability and impurity. And Scripture does not call them "injurious" or "disease-causing," but "impure" and "abominable," showing that the rationale for the prohibition is on account of the soul and not on account of the body and its health. It was necessary for the wholeness, clarity, and purity of the soul that the bodily temperament would be right, and that its food would create blood that was pure and refined, and not gross and thick and not right, as would be created by the forbidden foods. And also the forbidden foods were related to the idolaters. And even today in the land of India, it is forbidden to eat from the herd or from the flock, as the Master [Rambam] says in his Guide. And in other countries, they eat forbidden foods because of their religion, and that is why these foods are called "abominations," as idolatry is called "abomination."