Chasidut su Esodo 15:11

Deuteronomy 26,17. “this day you have guaranteed that ‎the Lord will forever be your G’d;” as a general rule the ‎largesse dispensed by G’d for mankind is known as ‎דבור‎, as we ‎know from psalms 33,6: ‎בדבר ה' שמים נעשו וברוח פיו כל צבאם‎, “by ‎the word of G’d the heavens were made and by the breath of His ‎mouth all their host.” Whenever the Jewish people are on a ‎spiritually lofty plateau, it is as if they cause G’d to dispense His ‎largesse for them, whereas if, G’d forbid, they have fallen from ‎that level the Talmud (Gittin 56) likens them to Exodus ‎‎15,11 ‎מי כמך באלם ה'‏‎, which according to the Talmud should be ‎read as ‎מי כמך באלמים‎, “who is like You amongst the “dumb, i.e. ‎silent ones, O Lord?”
‎[The Talmud arrives at this interpretation because the ‎word ‎אלים‎ is written defectively, without the letter ‎י‎ which would ‎indicate the plural mode, Ed.]
This is the allusion in ‎our verse where the Torah speaks –in a complimentary fashion- ‎of Israel as causing G’d to “speak,” i.e. dispense His largesse. ‎Moses adds the word ‎היום‎, “this day,” to indicate that as far as ‎Israel’s status is concerned, each day is viewed as a separate unit, ‎so that they can be credited with their spiritual accomplishments ‎anew each day.‎

The Psalmist said (Tehillim, 140:9), “Do not further his evil plan, lest he go and laud himself because of this.” This is as it is written in the Midrash Rabbah (Tavo), “One who learns Torah and does not fulfill it receives a greater punishment than one who did not learn it at all. From where do we derive this? It is written (Yeshayahu, 26:10), ‘Favor will be shown to the wicked, who did not learn righteousness.’⁴¹³The Midrash is freely interpreting this verse. The literal reading is: “Even if an evil person is shown favor, he will still not learn righteousness..” Whereas, if he learned the Torah and does not fulfill its commandments, he is not shown favor.” It may be asked, “Perhaps a person is wicked because he did not learn the path of righteousness?” This question is addressed in the Talmud (Megillah, 6a): Rav Yitzhak also said: What is the meaning of the verse, “Favor will be shown to the wicked, who did not learn righteousness”? Yitzhak Avinu said to the Holy One, blessed be He, “Master of the Universe, show mercy upon Esav.” God replied. “He is wicked.” Yitzhak said to Him, “He did not learned righteousness!”⁴¹⁴Meaning, Esav did not learn Torah, and thus should not be requited for his evil deeds. God replied (with the continuation of the verse), “Even in a land of uprightness (nekhochut), they continue doing evil.” Yitzhak said, “If so, ‘let him not behold the majesty of God.’” When Yitzhak said, “He has not learnt righteousness,” he sought to judge Esav favorably. He argued that Esav’s actions were determined by the limits of his understanding. God answered Yitzhak, “Even in the land of the nekhochut (“uprightness,” or “presence”) he will continue doing evil.” That is to say, even if Esav were in the presence of God, he would still not act righteously, but use his elevated consciousness to deliberately and knowingly sin. This being the case, Yitzhak said, “Let him not behold the majesty of the God.” ⁴¹⁵Yitzhak asks G-d to show compassion on his brother, Esav, the sinner. He argues that Esav is unaware of the greater context of his actions. Like one who sins withough having learned Torah (Torah, here, being synonymous with an awareness of G-d’s plan.) Esav’s sins are only in terms of his own, constricted consciousness. From G-d’s perspective, even in sinning, he is fulfilling G-d’s will. However, G-d responds that even if Esav saw things from the higher perspective, he would still intent to rebel against G-d. If so, Yitzchak replies, then do not let him see Your Glory; that is, do not let him see how he is fulfilling Your will through his sins. What does it mean to not see the majesty of God? It means that even though God uses his entire creation, including the wicked, for His own purposes and to achieve His desired ends, nonetheless, the wicked cannot see how God is using them as an agent of His design. This is, “he shall not see the majesty of God,” even when it is actualized through him. Similarly, we find that the glory of God was revealed through Pharaoh. The Mekhilta (Ch. 8) has Pharaoh saying, “Who is like You among the powers O God!” (Shemot, 15:11) This was also true with Haman in the days of Purim. The Talmud says (Megillah, 10b), “‘And it shall be to God for a name’ (Yeshayahu, 55:13)⁴¹⁶Just before this the verse said, “and from under the brier shall sprout the myrtle tree (Hadas, in Hebrew.) The point is that Hadas is another name for Queen Ester. – this refers to the days of Purim. (The verse continues) ‘For an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off’ – this refers to the reading of the Megillah.” Though Pharaoh and Haman were used as God’s agents to perform miracles and reveal the Glory of Heaven in the world, they themselves had no portion whatsoever in that sanctification of God’s name that came about through them. This is as it is written in the Talmud (Megillah, 6a), “What is the meaning of the verse (Tehillim, 140:9), ‘O God, do not grant the desires of the wicked, do not further his evil plan, lest he go and laud himself because of this?’ Yaakov said before the Holy One, blessed be He, ‘Master of the Universe, Do not grant the evil Esav the desire of his heart.’ ‘Do not further his evil plan,’ this refers to Germamia of Edom (an evil king that would descend from Esav).” Study this passage in greater depth, and see how God confounded them.⁴¹⁷This passage in the Talmud continues, “this refers to Germamia of Edom, for should they but go forth they would destroy the whole world. Rav Khama ben Khanina said, ‘There are three hundred crowned heads in Germamia of Edom and three hundred and sixty-five chieftains in Rome. Every day one goes forth to meet the other, one of them is killed, and they have all the trouble of appointing a new king.” The words, “lest they praise themselves (pen yaroomu),” could also mean, “they shall be raised above.”⁴¹⁸The verse from Tehillim would then read: “Do not further his evil plan, for [Your hidden purposes] are far above him [above his comprehension].” This means that God leads them in a place far above their ability to comprehend, and they themselves take no credit from the Glory of God which is magnified through them.

Genesis 40,10. “and there were three branches on the ‎vine.” According to one (Rabbi Eleazar hamodai) of numerous ‎allegorical explanations in Chulin 92, the vine is symbolic of ‎Jerusalem; whereas the three branches are symbolic of the ‎Temple, the King, and the High Priest, respectively. The words: ‎והיא כפורחת עלתה נצה הבשילו אשכלתיה ענבים‎, usually ‎translated as: “it had barely blossomed when out of it came its ‎blossoms and its clusters ripened into grapes,” is understood ‎allegorically by the Talmud. The reference is to the young priests ‎who will mature and offer libations in the Temple. In order to ‎explain this somewhat far fetched allegory, although the one ‎preferred by the Talmud, our author quotes Yuma 29 where the ‎rhetorical question of why Queen Esther has been compared to an ‎אילה‎, a gazelle, hind, the Talmud defining the gazelle in psalms ‎‎22,1 as ‎אילת השחר‎, Queen Esther as being like a gazelle in the ‎morning, i.e. at the end of the night, sees in Esther and her ‎experiences the last chapter belonging to the period of history ‎described in the Bible. No overt miracles in Jewish history have ‎been reported in the Bible subsequent to her period.
What did the Talmud have in mind when suggesting that ‎after Mordechai and Esther, [in whose time these ‎‎”miracles,” were already not overt, Ed.] no more miracles ‎occurred?‎
We must distinguish between two kinds of wars. Usually, ‎when we speak of “war,” we refer to an armed confrontation ‎between warring nations.
The second type of “war,” is one that originated in G’d ‎subjecting the Jewish people to attacks by external enemies, in ‎order to strengthen their faith in Him when He would save them ‎from a fate which they were powerless to escape by any other ‎means. Psalms 91,2 refers to the psalmist acknowledging such ‎miraculous escapes of the Jewish people. It is remarkable that the ‎psalmist, in referring to his trust in the Lord, does so in the ‎future tense, i.e. ‎אלוקי אבטח בו‎, “my G’d in Whom I will put my ‎trust,” instead of, as we would have expected, “in Whom I have ‎put my trust.” The psalmist acknowledges that he now ‎understands the purpose of the “war” that had befallen his ‎people as having been a test, teaching the Jewish people to put ‎their trust only in the Lord. The same theme is found in psalms ‎‎118,10 ‎כל גויים סבבוני בשם ה' כי אמילם‎, “all nations have ‎surrounded me; by the name of the Lord I will surely cut them ‎down.” The psalmist does not predict what he is about to do, but ‎refers to what G’d had in mind by allowing His people to face such ‎impossible odds, i.e. to strengthen their faith when they will be ‎saved by Him. The psalmist makes it even plainer In verse 21 of ‎the same psalm, when the words ‎אודך כי עניתני ותהי לי לישועה‎, must ‎be understood as: “I will express my thanks to You for having ‎afflicted me so that You could demonstrate how You will be my ‎salvation.”‎
When G’d “rescues” the Jewish people, this occurs in either of ‎two ways. The most easily recognizable way are overt miracles in ‎which His mastery over nature is demonstrated by His breaking ‎all the “rules” that scientists have taught us are inviolate. The ‎best known examples of this are the 10 plagues G’d visited upon ‎the Egyptians, crowned by the splitting of the sea of reeds in ‎which the Egyptian army drowned to a man, while the Israelites ‎crossed the bottom of that sea safely. Although in the song of ‎thanks by the Jewish people after the drowning of the Egyptians ‎the text is full of G’d being lauded for His performing “wonders,” ‎‎(Exodus 15,11) what are “wonders” performed by G’d in our eyes, ‎are, of course, nothing extraordinary when viewed from His ‎vantage point, seeing that He had made the rules, He is certainly ‎able to suspend them when it suits Him. The Jewish people ‎praised Him not so much for what He had done, but for having ‎found the Jewish people worthy to be saved by such spectacular ‎means, involving the undoing of what G’d had done during the ‎six days of creation.‎

Exodus 15,11.“Who is comparable to You ‎among the divinities O Lord?” G’d’s intention ‎in splitting the sea had been to humble the idol ‎worshippers and to reveal their idols as impotent. The ‎Egyptians’ major deity had been the river Nile (since it ‎was the source of their economic survival) According to ‎our sages in Sh’mot Rabbah 21,6) at the time ‎of the splitting of the sea of reeds all bodies of water, ‎world wide, experienced a similar “splitting.” The ‎‎Midrash derives this from the words ‎ויבקעו המים‎: ‎‎“the waters split, (plural mode) instead of ‎ויבקע המים‎ ‎singular mode. (Compare 14,21) If all the waters that ‎had been created during the six days of creation split, ‎the waters of the river Nile were included. What better ‎way was there to prove to the Egyptians (and other ‎nations) that there is only one Creator of all the ‎phenomena in the universe?‎

Another approach to the line:‎ מי כמוך באלים ה'...נורא ‏תהלות עושה פלא‎, “Who is like You o Lord, among the ‎celestials, …awesome in splendour, working wonders!” ‎It is an accepted criterion of our faith that when a ‎person denies his ego the way is paved to his ‎becoming wise. This concept is spelled out in Job ‎‎33,33: ‎אם אין אתה, שמע לי החרש ואאלפך חכמה‎, “if you are ‎‎(prepared to be) ‘nothing’, listen to Me, and be still, ‎and I will teach you wisdom.” As the author has ‎mentioned several times, ‎חכמה‎, true wisdom, is the ‎result of divesting oneself totally of one’s “ego;” as we ‎know from another verse in Job 28,12 ‎והחכמה מאין תמצא‎, ‎‎“and wisdom you will find through negating “ego”, ‎becoming “nought,” i.e. ‎אין‎. A closer look at the word ‎אלף‎ which symbolizes the beginning of everything in ‎our world, will show you that when read backwards it ‎reads ‎פלא‎, “something transcendental, miraculous.” ‎Moses alludes to this when describing G’d as the ‎source of ‎פלא‎, “wonders.” What we have previously ‎described as ‎אין‎, is also a reference to ‎בינה‎, insight, ‎which, as the word indicates, is something internal, ‎therefore invisible, hidden, another aspect of the root ‎פלא‎ or ‎מופלא‎. Negation of self, of ego, results in one’s ‎becoming privy to the hidden insights, ‎פלא‎.‎
The author sees in Exodus 31,14, ‎‏ ושמרתם את השבת כי ‏קודש היא לכם‎, “you shall “observe” the Sabbath for it is ‎holy for you,” an allusion to our “viewing” the concept ‎of the Sabbath as our looking at its holy origin. The ‎word “seeing” is understood as the person who “sees” ‎receiving an image, i.e. he is a recipient of revelations ‎of one sort or another. A painter cannot paint a ‎painting until he has first seen an image which he tries ‎to reproduce on canvas, or paper, or any other suitable ‎surface. In the case of “observing” the Sabbath, we are ‎privy to receiving “images” from the ‎אין‎, from a ‎dimension of the universe, the celestial dimension, ‎that is devoid of a body and its attendant limitations. A ‎Sabbath properly “observed,” is a day in which we ‎distance ourselves from most of our physical needs, ‎‎[except, of course, fulfilling the ‎commandments that are prescribed and make our ‎bodies participants in this holy experience. ‎Ed.].‎

Still another exegesis of the words: ‎‎נורא תהלות ‏עושה פלא‎, “awesome in splendour performing ‎miracles.” Every activity, project, is propelled by ‎a “cause,” and its successful conclusion is meant to ‎provide the person performing it with some pleasure ‎or satisfaction. The “cause,” though experienced in the ‎material world, originates in the spiritual world, even ‎though it underwent many changes on its path to its ‎eventual destination. Its origin was the ‎אלף‎, also known ‎as ‎אין‎, the “nought,” the domain totally devoid of such ‎concepts as “ego.” Moses refers to this origin as being ‎lofty, far removed from our means of perception, so ‎that it is ‎פלא‎, hidden from the eyes of mortal human ‎beings.‎