Chasidut su Levitico 18:78
Kedushat Levi
Leviticus 18,4. “you shall observe My social laws and My statutes you shall guard carefully;” the “statutes” are the commandments in the Torah concerning which the Torah did not reveal why the Creator has commanded that we observe them, neither do they commend themselves to our intellect. We must remember that the true test of a Jew’s belief in G’d is if and how he observes these statutes. If he keeps these statutes meticulously he thereby refines his character. If one chooses to perform only those commandments for which the Torah has either provided a rationale, or concerning which we think that we understand what G’d had in mind when He decreed them, one demonstrates thereby that he does not have any intellect at all, i.e. he will not even understand the true reason behind commandments that he has chosen to observe. This is the true meaning of the line: את חקותי תשמרו. The Torah promises that if we observe the statutes without knowing their reason our reward will be that we will truly understand the משפטים, the rules that appear first and foremost to address themselves to the relations between man and his fellow man. When the Torah wrote (18,5) אשר יעשה אתם האדם וחי בהם, “which man is to perform in order that he may live through them,” it alludes to this effect of performing those commandments that we cannot understand..
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Kedushat Levi
Levitcus 18,6. “none of you shall come near anyone of his own flesh to uncover nakedness; I am the Lord.”
I first wish to explain what King Solomon said in Proverbs 3,6 בכל דרכיך דעהו, “in all your ways you are to acknowledge Him.” Solomon means that all our activities should have as their ultimate aim to provide our Creator with satisfaction and pleasure. When man marries a woman this should not merely be a legal means of satisfying his sexual urges, but should be fulfillment of the first commandment in the Torah. When having marital relations with one’s wife, the object should not be to satisfy one’s libido. The words: איש איש אל כל שאר בשרו refer to his wife as being שאר בשרו. The words: לא תקרבו לגלות ערוה, mean that when you engage in intimate relations with your wife you are not do so only for the purpose of satisfying your sexual urges. The reason why the verse concludes with the words: אני ה', is a reminder that even while engaging in the most physical act, one not only legally condoned by G’d but commanded by Him, you should never forget that you are doing so in order to fulfill one of His commandments.
I first wish to explain what King Solomon said in Proverbs 3,6 בכל דרכיך דעהו, “in all your ways you are to acknowledge Him.” Solomon means that all our activities should have as their ultimate aim to provide our Creator with satisfaction and pleasure. When man marries a woman this should not merely be a legal means of satisfying his sexual urges, but should be fulfillment of the first commandment in the Torah. When having marital relations with one’s wife, the object should not be to satisfy one’s libido. The words: איש איש אל כל שאר בשרו refer to his wife as being שאר בשרו. The words: לא תקרבו לגלות ערוה, mean that when you engage in intimate relations with your wife you are not do so only for the purpose of satisfying your sexual urges. The reason why the verse concludes with the words: אני ה', is a reminder that even while engaging in the most physical act, one not only legally condoned by G’d but commanded by Him, you should never forget that you are doing so in order to fulfill one of His commandments.
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Sha'ar HaEmunah VeYesod HaChasidut
The main disciple to emerge from the house of study of the Seer of Lublin was Rabbi Simha Bunem of Prshisha. He was fiercely brilliant, great in Torah and the fear of God. He was “the man raised up on high,”154See Shmuel 2, 23:1. raising the yoke of Torah.155BT Avoda Zara 5a, “R. Shmuel ben Nakhmani said in the name of R. Yonatan: What is the meaning of the verse, ‘The saying of David the son of Yishai, and the saying of the man raised on high.’ It means, the saying of David the son of Yishai, the man who elevated the yoke of repentance.” This is a play on words, for the word for “on high” – ‘ol – is the same as the word for “yoke.” In his youth he studied under the pre-eminent Talmudic and Halachic authorities of his day, and from them he received rabbinic ordination. 156It is reported that he was very close to Rabbi Akiva Eiger, recognized as one of the greatest Talmudic scholars of history. Then he discovered the Hassidic masters of his generation. He drew close to such masters as Rabbi Moshe Arye Leib of Sassov, the Maggid of Kozhnitz, Rabbi Dovid of Lelov, and the Holy Yehudi of Prshisha. However, his main teacher and master was the Seer of Lublin. He loved him greatly and became one of his private students. In particular, the Seer imparted unto him the secrets of the Torah. From all these masters he learned the way and conduct of the Hassidic master, raising many holy students, all seekers who thirsted for the knowledge of God, who constantly learned and reviewed his teachings. Almost all of his holy students were sanctified with the blessings of the Torah, among them those who went out and delivered the Torah’s message to the masses. We were not privileged to hear a great amount of the knowledge he had to offer, and what we do have is but a drop from the ocean. 157R. Simkha Bunem’s Torah commentary is called the Kol Simkha. There was no one, not even among his greatest students, who properly arranged and published his teachings, and sadly, most of them were forgotten. This is the sad truth about most of the great Hassidic masters. Though we live from the words of their mouths, we did not merit any clear all-inclusive volumes that express the things, “that man shall do and live by them.” (Vayikra, 18:5)
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Kedushat Levi
5,21. “you (the Jewish people) said, here the Lord has shown us……..we have seen (realized) this day that when G’d speaks with man he is able to survive this experience., etc.”
Why should we die when the great fire consumes us, etc,.? The difficulty in these verses must strike any reader! Why should a people who had survived the experience of being addressed by G’d personally, suddenly become afraid of the thunder and lightning which accompanied the revelation?
I believe that a look at the Zohar on Parshat Pinchas, will help us understand this enigma. Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair is quoted there as saying that when a member of the gentile nations says something spiritually significant his body does not automatically move as a result of his speaking. Not so when an Israelite speaks of the same subject. The fact is that an Israelite has a soul equipped with the sprit of life, רוח חיים, i.e. life of a spiritual dimension. [There is no such Zohar quoting Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair that this editor has been able to find. Ed.]
Following the concept outlined by our author, seeing that we have been equipped with a spiritually more sensitive soul than the gentiles, as soon as a Jew opens his mouth in order to utter matters related to sanctity, even his entire body reacts to this by moving, as it feels that contact has been established between it and its origin, i.e. the Creator, its ultimate root. On the other hand, if G’d were to address members of the gentile nations directly, their bodies would not respond at all, seeing that their souls lack the sensitivity to holiness that is second nature to the Jew. Seeing that Jews are so sensitive to being exposed to holiness, it is not surprising that they were afraid that this phenomenon was a prelude to their death, i.e. the separation of their souls from their bodies. This feeling expressed itself in the kind of ecstasy that burns within man threatening to engulf him totally and burn him.
Tossaphot on Avodah Zarah 3 write concerning a question raised there on the exegesis of Deuteronomy 7,11: where the Torah writes that the commandments which had just been revealed to the people were to be preformed היום, “this day,” i.e. from this day onwards. The Talmud explains that the emphasis on performing the commandments “this day,” is meant to inform us that although performance of the commandments is scheduled for life in this world, the reward will be paid in a different world, i.e. the after death of the body.
According to the Talmud in Pessachim 56 it was the custom of the people of Jericho, when reciting the daily keriyat sh’ma in which we encounter line: היום על לבבך “this day, on your heart;” contrary to the Israelites in other cities not to pause before the words: על לבבך. Although the sages are on record as having disapproved of some of the customs of the people of Jericho, this was not one of the customs of which they disapproved. Tossaphot, in light of what we have written earlier, states that the word היום emphasizes the “here and now,” and ask why the sages while disapproving did not demand that they change their custom as they did concerning other matters they had disapproved of.
The answer offered is that whereas in Deuteronomy the Torah does not speak about the reward of the performance of the commandments but about the manner of their fulfillment, the words היום is to be understood literally. However, the performance of the commandment is obligatory daily, i.e. every “day” is היום, as far as the subject of the verse is concerned. When reward for performance of good deeds is the subject, there is a difference between Jews and gentiles, as the latter do not automatically qualify for an afterlife, so that G’d has to pay the their reward in this life.
In order to follow this subject better we must refer to the Talmud in Baba Metzia 114 where the point is made that whereas the Jewish people have been distinguished with the title, “אדם,” we never find that the gentiles are referred to by that complimentary title. The Talmud derives from this that when the Torah wrote in Numbers 19,14 that אדם כי ימות באהל that when a Jew, i.e. אדם, dies while in an enclosed space, house or tent, then the laws of ritual impurity that apply to people present in that same airspace apply only if the dead person was a Jew. A similar lesson can be learned from our verse here (5,21) where the Torah did not write אדם but האדם to alert us to the fact that not only Jews but any human being is included in the reminder that G’d may directly address any human being. The gentile, due to the limitations of his soul which we discussed, may not survive the experience of being addressed by G’d directly, whereas אדם, without the prefix ה i.e. a Jew, has no reason to be afraid of this. The line commencing with למה נמות, usually translated as “why should we die?,” is not to be understood as a question, but as a statement, albeit a reflexive one, meaning: “we, being אדם and not merely האדם, have no reason to fear that we will die, the reason being that we have been imbued with this great fire of religious fervor, האש הגדולה, which effectively shields us against the dangers faced by the souls of the gentiles if addressed by G’d directly. In fact, the Israelites, i.e. Moses as their mouthpiece, re-affirms that there is no other people than the Jewish people who is so endowed spiritually that they have survived the revelation at Mount Sinai with both mind and body intact. Moses spells out clearly that the reason why his people survived that tremendous experience was that enthusiasm, this fiery ecstasy, with which they acted at the time, [an example of which was their giving Moses a blank cheque by saying about the Torah to be received: נעשה ונשמע, “we will observe it as soon as we have studied it.” Ed.] This enthusiasm was so exhausting that they fainted and looked almost as if they had died.
Why should we die when the great fire consumes us, etc,.? The difficulty in these verses must strike any reader! Why should a people who had survived the experience of being addressed by G’d personally, suddenly become afraid of the thunder and lightning which accompanied the revelation?
I believe that a look at the Zohar on Parshat Pinchas, will help us understand this enigma. Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair is quoted there as saying that when a member of the gentile nations says something spiritually significant his body does not automatically move as a result of his speaking. Not so when an Israelite speaks of the same subject. The fact is that an Israelite has a soul equipped with the sprit of life, רוח חיים, i.e. life of a spiritual dimension. [There is no such Zohar quoting Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair that this editor has been able to find. Ed.]
Following the concept outlined by our author, seeing that we have been equipped with a spiritually more sensitive soul than the gentiles, as soon as a Jew opens his mouth in order to utter matters related to sanctity, even his entire body reacts to this by moving, as it feels that contact has been established between it and its origin, i.e. the Creator, its ultimate root. On the other hand, if G’d were to address members of the gentile nations directly, their bodies would not respond at all, seeing that their souls lack the sensitivity to holiness that is second nature to the Jew. Seeing that Jews are so sensitive to being exposed to holiness, it is not surprising that they were afraid that this phenomenon was a prelude to their death, i.e. the separation of their souls from their bodies. This feeling expressed itself in the kind of ecstasy that burns within man threatening to engulf him totally and burn him.
Tossaphot on Avodah Zarah 3 write concerning a question raised there on the exegesis of Deuteronomy 7,11: where the Torah writes that the commandments which had just been revealed to the people were to be preformed היום, “this day,” i.e. from this day onwards. The Talmud explains that the emphasis on performing the commandments “this day,” is meant to inform us that although performance of the commandments is scheduled for life in this world, the reward will be paid in a different world, i.e. the after death of the body.
According to the Talmud in Pessachim 56 it was the custom of the people of Jericho, when reciting the daily keriyat sh’ma in which we encounter line: היום על לבבך “this day, on your heart;” contrary to the Israelites in other cities not to pause before the words: על לבבך. Although the sages are on record as having disapproved of some of the customs of the people of Jericho, this was not one of the customs of which they disapproved. Tossaphot, in light of what we have written earlier, states that the word היום emphasizes the “here and now,” and ask why the sages while disapproving did not demand that they change their custom as they did concerning other matters they had disapproved of.
The answer offered is that whereas in Deuteronomy the Torah does not speak about the reward of the performance of the commandments but about the manner of their fulfillment, the words היום is to be understood literally. However, the performance of the commandment is obligatory daily, i.e. every “day” is היום, as far as the subject of the verse is concerned. When reward for performance of good deeds is the subject, there is a difference between Jews and gentiles, as the latter do not automatically qualify for an afterlife, so that G’d has to pay the their reward in this life.
In order to follow this subject better we must refer to the Talmud in Baba Metzia 114 where the point is made that whereas the Jewish people have been distinguished with the title, “אדם,” we never find that the gentiles are referred to by that complimentary title. The Talmud derives from this that when the Torah wrote in Numbers 19,14 that אדם כי ימות באהל that when a Jew, i.e. אדם, dies while in an enclosed space, house or tent, then the laws of ritual impurity that apply to people present in that same airspace apply only if the dead person was a Jew. A similar lesson can be learned from our verse here (5,21) where the Torah did not write אדם but האדם to alert us to the fact that not only Jews but any human being is included in the reminder that G’d may directly address any human being. The gentile, due to the limitations of his soul which we discussed, may not survive the experience of being addressed by G’d directly, whereas אדם, without the prefix ה i.e. a Jew, has no reason to be afraid of this. The line commencing with למה נמות, usually translated as “why should we die?,” is not to be understood as a question, but as a statement, albeit a reflexive one, meaning: “we, being אדם and not merely האדם, have no reason to fear that we will die, the reason being that we have been imbued with this great fire of religious fervor, האש הגדולה, which effectively shields us against the dangers faced by the souls of the gentiles if addressed by G’d directly. In fact, the Israelites, i.e. Moses as their mouthpiece, re-affirms that there is no other people than the Jewish people who is so endowed spiritually that they have survived the revelation at Mount Sinai with both mind and body intact. Moses spells out clearly that the reason why his people survived that tremendous experience was that enthusiasm, this fiery ecstasy, with which they acted at the time, [an example of which was their giving Moses a blank cheque by saying about the Torah to be received: נעשה ונשמע, “we will observe it as soon as we have studied it.” Ed.] This enthusiasm was so exhausting that they fainted and looked almost as if they had died.
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