Tafsiran yang Mengutip untuk Ulangan 28:12

From a rational, investigative point of view, the appearance of the two letters ת in our word where they appear as if facing one another, suggest that heaven and earth are in opposition to each other, the first letter ת referring to heaven, the second to earth. This concept is found in Proverbs 25, 3 where Solomon wrote השמים לרום והארץ לעומק. “As the heavens in their height, so the earth in its depth.” In order to ensure that we do not remain with the thought that earth is inferior to heaven by definition, the Torah reverses the order in which the names heaven and earth appear in the very next line by writing ארץ ושמים, in that order. All phenomena in the universe are the product of the same Creator; one part is not inferior or superior to the other. Heaven “faces” earth, i.e. is oriented towards earth, and earth faces heaven, i.e. is oriented towards heaven. It is even possible that this was what G-d had meant to tell Moses when He answered his question in Exodus 3,13-14 concerning which name of G-d he should mention to the Israelites when identifying himself as G-d’s messenger. At that time G-d described Himself as אהיה אשר אהיה, ”I shall be (remain) who I am.” He meant: “I will always respond in kind to whatever you (the Jewish people) will do. If you will give charity, as you are directed to by the Torah in Deut. 15,8, פתוח תפתח את ידך, ‘be sure to open your hand (to the needy),’ I shall distribute charity, as is written in Deut. 28,12 יפתח לך ה' את אוצרו הטוב, ‘G-d will open for you His good treasure.’”

"Let there be a firmament:" The Holy One, blessed be He, wanted to inform Israel that neither the sun nor anything else controls the rain, to bring it down or not to bring it down. Therefore, He told about the existence of the higher waters before the existence of the luminaries. "Firmament (rakiya):" [It is] a body that stretches out like a plate, [as in] the expression, "To the One that stretches out (rokea) the earth over the waters" (Psalms 136:6); "And they flattened (yiraka'au) the gold [into thin plates]" (Exodus 39:3); and [also] "And over the heads of the living creatures there was the likeness of a firmament, like the color of the terrible ice" (Ezekiel 1:22). And here it portrayed the air between the earth and the clouds as a body that extends and separates between the waters on earth and the waters in the clouds, and carries the waters upon it; and by the will of God, the water descends from there to the earth. And it is like it states (Deuteronomy 28:12), "And God will open for you His good storehouse, the heavens, to give the rain of your land in its time;" and in the Curse, when it states (Leviticus 26:19), "And I will give your skies to be like iron," to prevent the descent of water upon them; and so [too] below (Genesis 7:11), "and the windows of the heavens opened." But afterwards, in the time of Yishiyahu, it appears that they knew that there are no storehouses of water above, and that rain waters return above; since behold, he says (Isaiah 55:10), "For just as the rain and the snow come down from the skies, and do not return there except when the earth is satiated;" [which] implies that after it is satiated, it does return to there, see my commentary there. And so [too], Yirmiyahu said in the way of a question, "do the heavens give raindrops?" (Jeremiah 14:22); [which] implies that [the heavens] do not give them by themselves, since they do not have storehouses of water in them. And so [too], they called the vapors that rise up from upon the earth [and become clouds] the name, nissi'im (raised up ones), as [in], "He raises nissi'im from the end of the earth" (Psalms 135:7); "He raised the nissi'im from the end of the earth" (Jeremiah 10:13; 51:16); and so [too], "Nissi'im and wind, but no rain" (Proverbs 25:14). And we do not know from what time this word (nissi'im) became common; as Psalm 135 is not attributed to David and it is not clear that the Book of Proverbs from Chapter 25 is by Shlomo. And in Job, he says (Job 38:22), "Did you come to the storehouses of snow, did you see the storehouses of hail?" - and this is a proof of the antiquity of that book. And since the word, rakiya, is based on the belief in higher waters - "the waters that are above the heavens" (Psalms 148:4) - that the rakiya supports, and that belief became antiquated and forgotten; the word, rakiya, also became antiquated. And [rakiya] is only used to indicate the skies in three [other] places. Two are in Psalms - "and the acts of your hands, does the rakiya proclaim" (Psalms 19:2); "praise Him in the rakiya of His strength" (Psalms 150:1) - since the word remained in poetic use; as it is the custom in all languages for the poets to use antiquated words. And the third place is in Daniel 12:3, "And the enlightened ones will shine like the splendor of the rakiya;" and there also, it is a poetic expression. And so [likewise], in Malachi 3:10, "I will open for you the windows of the heavens," is by way of poetic expression. And we have also found a variant of rakiya referring to the heavens in Job 37:18, "Tarkiya (Did you spread out) the skies with Him;" and this too is a sign of the antiquity of this book. And he finishes [this verse], "they are as strong as a molten mirror," as they carry the weight of many waters. And so [too] did Shlomo say (Proverbs 8:28), "And in His strengthening of the skies above." And behold, the Torah spoke as in the language of people, and stated, "let there be a firmament," according to their thought (that it actually existed). And nonetheless, what was intended does not deviate from being true and solid, and that is that God implanted in the nature of water to rise upwards and to descend afterwards down to the earth. And in the Greek translation attributed to the seventy elders (the Septuagint), rakiya is translated as strauma, [which] is a matter of strength, and so [too] did they translate it afterwords into Latin [as] firmāmenta and this came to them from the use of the root, raka, in Syriac, which denotes strength; and so [too], rakiya in Syriac is strong and hard. And Johannes Clericus says that they translated it thus, because it was the opinion of some of the ancient philosophers that the heavens and air that surround the earth on all sides, prevent it and everything on it from getting detached and crumbling apart; and behold, they cause the earth to stay hard and its parts to remain fastened together. And he explains the expression to be one of hitting and trampling, as in "hit with your hand and stamp (reka) with your foot" (Ezekiel 6:11); "because you hit with your hand and you stamped (rakacha) with your foot" (Ezekiel 25:6); because the heavens are stamping on the earth and stopping its parts from detaching. And all of this is far from the simple meaning of the verses. And nonetheless, [his] words, that the origin of the root, raka, is from stomping and hitting, are plausible. And because something that is hit [becomes] flat and stretched out, the root, raka, is borrowed to indicate stretching out and flatness.

AND THE ETERNAL G-D PLANTED A GARDEN ‘MIKEDEM’ (EASTWARD) IN EDEN. Rashi explained that “in the east of Eden He planted the garden.” But Onkelos translated mikedem to mean “previously,” [that is, before man was created]. And so have the Rabbis said in Bereshith Rabbah,³¹⁰15:4. and this is the correct explanation.
The meaning of vayita (and He planted) is not that He brought the trees from another place and planted them here for it was from that place that He caused them to grow, just as it is said, And out of the ground the Eternal G-d caused to grow every tree.³¹¹Verse 9. But the purport of the expression, and the Eternal G-d planted, is to state that it was the planting of the Eternal,³¹²Isaiah 61:3. for before He decreed upon the earth, Let the earth put forth grass,³¹³Above, 1:11. He had already decreed that in that place there be a garden, and He further said: “Here shall be this tree, and here that tree,” like the rows of planters. It was unlike the rest of the places on the earth concerning which He said, Let the earth put forth grass… and fruit-tree,³¹³Above, 1:11. and it then grew without order. Now concerning the trees of the garden of Eden He decreed that they grow branches and bear fruit forever, the root thereof was never to wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof was never to die in the ground.³¹⁴See Job 14:8. These trees were not to need any one to tend and prune them. For if they were in need of cultivation, who tended them after man was driven therefrom? This also is the meaning of the expression, And the Eternal G-d planted, that they were His plantings, the work of His hands,³¹⁵See Isaiah 60:21. and existing forever, even as it is said, Its leaf shall not wither, neither shall the fruit thereof fail … because the waters thereof issue out of the sanctuary.³¹⁶Ezekiel 47:12. If so, what then is the meaning of the verse: And He put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and to keep it?³¹⁷Further, Verse 15. He put him [man] there so that he should sow for himself wheat and all kinds of produce, and every herb bearing seed, and rows of spices, reaping and plucking and eating at his will. This also is the meaning of to cultivate it and to keep it³¹⁷Further, Verse 15. — to cultivate the ground of the garden by the rows he [man] would make there, for the part of the garden where the trees were was not to be cultivated.
It is possible that [in the words le’ovdah uleshomrah — literally, to cultivate her and to keep her,] He refers to the garden in the feminine gender, just as in the verses: And as the garden causeth the things that are sown in her to spring forth;³¹⁸Isaiah 61:11. And plant gardens.³¹⁹Jeremiah 29:5. Ganoth (gardens) is here in the feminine gender. Our Rabbis noted this use of the feminine gender, saying in Bereshith Rabbah:³²⁰16:8. “Le’ovdah uleshomrah (to cultivate her and to keep her) — these words refer to the sacrifices, as it is said, ‘Ta’avdun’ (Ye shall serve) G-d upon this mountain.³²¹Exodus 3:12. It is this which Scripture says, ‘Tishm’ru’ (Ye shall keep) to offer unto Me in its appointed season.”³²²Numbers 28:2. The intent of the Rabbis in this interpretation is that plants and all living beings are in need of primary forces from which they derive the power of growth and that through the sacrifices there is an extension of the blessing to the higher powers. From them it flows to the plants of the garden of Eden, and from them it comes and exists in the world in the form of “rain of goodwill and blessing,”³²³Taanith 19a. through which they will grow. This conforms to what the Rabbis have said:³²⁴Bereshith Rabbah 15:1. “The trees of the Eternal have their fill, the cedars of Lebanon, which He hath planted.³²⁵Psalms 104:16. Rabbi Chanina said: Their life shall have its fill; their waters shall have their fill; their plantings shall have their fill.” “Their life” refers to their higher foundations; “their waters” refer to His good treasure³²⁶Deuteronomy 28:12. which brings down the rain; and “their plantings” refer to their force in heaven, just as the Rabbis have said:³²⁷Bereshith Rabbah 10:7. This text is also quoted above 1:11 (Notes 135-6). “There is not a single blade of grass below that does not have a constellation in heaven that smites it and says to it, ‘Grow.’ It is this which Scripture says, Knowest thou the ordinances of the heavens? Canst thou establish ‘mishtara’ (the dominion thereof) in the earth — [mishtara being derived from the root] shoter (executive officer).”

God too will give good He will open His treasury, the heavens, to give rain, in order that His land yield its produce.