Halakhah su Esodo 15:26

Some of the meals prepared in the world to come are bodily and intellectual – for both the body and soul. And there are some intellectual meals for souls who stand alone without the body, and they enjoy forever those very worlds where each and every one resides according to their level. The bodily meals have been reserved for them from the beginning, the refined and pure foods created from the supernal light through a chain of causes. And they are: Leviathan among the fishes, Bar-Yokhnai among the birds, which were created on the fifth day, and Leviathan is called what it is because it is ordered for the righteous, and likewise the Behemoth of the thousand mountains,¹Ps 50:10. which was created on the sixth day with the creation of the human being, but before him. And the quality of these foods is very profound; they can penetrate into the intellect and purify the heart, like the manna which the generation in the desert merited, which was “like wafers in honey”,²Ex. 16:31. and was an offspring of the upper light, about which it is written, “Sweet is the light, and good to the eyes, to see the sun.”³Eccl. 11:7. And it is possible that their quality will be greater than those who ate the manna, for insofar as perception at the end of days will be greater and more elevated than all the times before, so will the hearts be wide enough to include knowledge of Ha-Shem (May He Blessed) in its completeness, like “waters covering to the sea,”⁴Is. 11.9. and this will be in the time of the Messiah greater and greater than the generation of the desert who went out of Egypt, habituated to hard labor, raising their hands out of mud, and their “palms just passed from the kettle.”⁵Ps. 81:7. For this time will be the perfect and elevated time, following the will of the One Who dwells in the bush, what is not so in this world, because it does not follow what His will was. And that is why they fixed the wording of the Kaddish to say, ‘be-alma dibra khe-r’utay‘ [‘in the world He created according to His will’], so consequently we pray for the time of the King Messiah which in the future the Holy One Blessed be He will create according to His will. And the compelling proof of this is that this world which we stand in now, in its conduct indeed does not follow His will, because here – when Adam sinned because of the serpent, it was against His will, because it was indeed His will that Adam live forever, that he never die. And thus the intention of creation was originally that no creature ever cross the line of serving its Creator, and because the design of the Holy One Blessed Be He was not fulfilled, but instead, the design of the Adversary, nevertheless, this world itself necessarily will return to the end which was the desire of its Creator at its beginning. And because we pray for this very time, the formulation of the Kaddish was fixed in the Aramaic language, so that the ministering angels won’t recognize or understand it, for if they did understand, they would be jealous of our status at that time, and they would pray for the delay of the redemption. Therefore we seek mercy for the name YAH as it written regarding it, “By the hand on the throne of YAH,”⁶Ex 17:16. Both kise and Yah are spelled defectively, that is without an aleph and hay respectively, according to R. Bahya’s midrashic reading of Ex 17:16 and the Kaddish. See Mahzor Vitry. that His name will be “made greater and sanctified”, that is, the “name Yah will be great and blessed” [yehay shmay (= shem yah) rabah mevorakh], namely, that both His name and His throne will be complete, in that world which He created according to His will, all of it will return to like it was at its beginning. And I have compelling proofs for this that there is no need for me to go into at length, for it is my intention in this Gate only to give an explanation of the bodily and intellectual meals prepared for the righteous in their body and soul, and for the intellectual meals which are for the soul alone without the body. And no one with understanding ought to be astonished if the righteous will have actual physical meals, that they will delight in both in body and soul. For see, in the Garden of Eden which had in its land a tree of life which could bring about eternal life for those who ate from it – whether good or bad, and there was water and grasses in it, which without a doubt, some of them were life-giving, others deadly, some of them healthful, others which would make you sick. And thus it is written in the Torah, “There He made for them a fixed rule, and there He put them to the test.”⁷Ex 15:25, which R. Bahya understands to apply to the Garden of Eden as well, not just to the grumbling Israelites’ experience in the desert.And the view of our rabbis z”l was that the wood was bitter, and the Holy One Blessed Be He sweetened the bitter with something bitter, a miracle within a miracle, and so our sages z”l taught in a midrash:⁸Mekhilta Be-Shalah Vayisa’ 1. “‘The Lord showed him [Moses] a piece of wood.’⁹Ex 15:25. Rabbi Elazar says it was hardofaney,¹⁰A kind of ivy with berries poisonous to animals. R. Nathan says it was olive wood,¹¹According to the Mekhilta, ibid., there is no wood more bitter than olive wood. and there are others who say it was the roots of a fig tree.” In any case, it was bitter. And so you find it written about Elisha, “The water is bad and the land causes bereavement,”¹²2 Kings 2:19. and it is written, “Bring me a new dish, and put salt in it,”¹³Ibid. 2:20. and that “healed” the water.¹⁴Ibid., 2:22.Rabbi Simon ben Gamaliel says how much more wonderful are His ways than the ways of flesh and blood! He puts a harmful thing inside a harmful thing to make a miracle inside of a miracle.¹⁵Mekhilta, ibid. Moreover, we are able to teach even more midrash about this, for you know Torah has seventy faces, because when it said in the verse, “There He put them to the test,”¹⁶Ex 15:25. that is to say, there Moses tested this plant, and it was out of the science the Holy One Blessed be He taught him that he knew the power of this plant, about its nature or its virtue, which was to sweeten the bitter. And so it uses the expression: va-yorehuHa-Shem (i.e., “the Lord instructed him”), instead of va-yar’ehu (“He showed him”),¹⁷Ex 15:25. Actually, va-yorehu is just a defective spelling of va-yarehu, and so its literal meaning is the same: “He showed him,” but R. Bahya exploits the spelling anomaly for the sake of midrash.because he had to have Him teach him about this; the Holy One Blessed be He taught him the science of the plants He created – about their nature to revive and to kill, to heal and to sicken, to sweeten and to embitter. And this is the connotation of the expression hok u-mishpat (“statute and law”):¹⁸Here R. Bahya is drawing upon the classic Jewish medieval philosophical distinction between laws whose rationale are not immediately accessible to reason – “hukim” (e.g., the rules of kashrut) and those which any rational being would derive through reason – “mishpatim” (e.g., “Thou shalt not kill”). The Torah consists of both types of laws, but the hukim are known to us only because God revealed them. R. Bahya suggests here that the “laws of nature” (e.g., the nature of plants in this case) are analogous to laws governing human behavior – mitzvot. In other words, eh believe we can discern some qualities of the natural world through natural science, but other qualities are made known to us only through supernatural revelation. hok is its virtue whose reason is not known, and about mishpat, our rabbis z”l said, “And the Lord instructed him [about] the tree” – that is, its nature, that it is by law to be so in its nature. And it is connected immediately to “If you will heed the Lord your God diligently, doing what is upright in His sight, giving ear to his commandments and keeping all His hukim [“statutes”], then I will not bring upon you any of the diseases that I brought upon the Egyptians, for I the Lord am your healer.”¹⁹Ex 15:26.Scripture has warned us not to entrust the core of our well-being to the power of plants, but rather to keeping the commandments, for they are the core. And with keeping the commandments He will keep them healthy, and prevent them from getting sick. And it was necessary to say this, because it is possible that mortals, erring and stumbling through their knowledge of the powers of these plants, will entrust the core of their well-being to them, and despair of seeking mercy from the Master of Mercy (may He be blessed) “in whose hand is every living soul.”²⁰Job 12:10. And this is the reason why King Hezekiah hid the Book of Cures, so that human beings would not stumble over them, and the sages z”l thanked him for this.²¹B. Pesahim 56a.

And our rabbis also taught in a midrash: “Leviathan is a pure fish” [i.e., a kosher fish with fins and scales] as it is said, “The layers of his flesh stick together,”⁶⁰Job 41:15.and it is written, “his underparts are jagged shards”⁶¹Job 41:22. – these are the scales fixed to him.⁶²In other words, R. Bahya takes these particulars of the Book of Job’s lengthy description of Leviathan as references to its fins and scales. And the intellectual meal for both the body and soul will occur at the time of the resurrection of the dead. And now I will explain to you in what follows about the world of souls, which will come to human beings after their separation from the world, and the matter of the world to come, which is after the resurrection and the matter of the joy that the soul has in all these worlds together. Know that the intellectual meal for the body and soul at the time of the resurrection of the dead, because the routine for the body will be cancelled completely, and another routine – marvelous and new – will replace it, and moral rot –zohama’ – will cease from the world,⁶³According to b. Shabbat 146a: When the serpent came upon Eve, he infected her with zohama’ (“filth” or “moral lasciviousness”). Israel, who stood at Mt. Sinai – their filth ceased. The nations of the world, who did not stand at Mt. Sinai – their filth has not ceased. Thus, R. Bahya must be referring to the cessation of the whole world’s moral rot that will occur in the world to come after the resurrection of the dead (Chavel). and the Accuser will be swallowed up, “there is no adversary [satan] and no mischance,”⁶⁴1 Kg 5:18. “the Lord will make something new on earth,”⁶⁵Jer 31:21. and the souls will be made anew like the eagle is renewed;⁶⁶An allusion to Ps 103:5: “He satisfies you with good things in the prime of life so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” all of them shall be new, “the work of the Artist’s hand,”⁶⁷SS 7:2. so much the more so than with vessels of glass.⁶⁸B. Sanhedrin 91a: “Just as vessels of glass, which are the work of the breath of flesh and blood, are broken and it is possible to repair them, how much the more so with flesh and blood, who were through the breath of the Holy One Blessed be He.” Then the “children of the resurrection of the dead” whose body and their soul have been renewed shall take delight in the intellectual meal in the world to come, which is after the resurrection, in which there is no bodily meal at all, and it is regarding this meal that our rabbis z”l said,⁶⁹B. Berakhot 17a. “Rav was accustomed to say, ‘In the world to come, there is no eating and no drinking, no envy, no hatred, and no rivalry, but rather the righteous will sit with crowns on their heads and enjoy the splendor of the Shekhinah.'” And this statement should teach they will exist there in that world in a body and a soul, which is why he said “no eating and drinking.” For if they did not have there a body and soul, there would be no need for Rav to say “no eating and drinking for souls,” but rather they will certainly be there in body and soul, and despite that there will be no eating and drinking. For their bodily powers will be suspended from them, as they were suspended from Moses and Elijah⁷⁰Ex 34:28: “And [Moses] was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he ate no bread and drank no water;” 1 Kg 19:8: “And with the strength from that meal [Elijah] walked forty days and forty nights.” (peace be upon them). And if you would say that the “vessels” of their bodies and soul serve no purpose, they do serve a purpose, because they receive the reward and enjoyment together, just as they toiled in the Torah body and soul together. For the Holy One Blessed be He does not rob any created being of its reward, and He wants the body to receive its reward and He will not hold back on His judgment. For even though the soul is the most important, the body is nevertheless not superfluous; for it too is of great importance, for it is the tool through which the soul reveals its activities, and it has no power to realize them in action without it. That being so, the body should be destined with the gift of its reward together with the soul. And what “and their crowns on their heads” meant was a reference to the brilliant light that hovers over them, as it is written, “On that day the Lord of Hosts shall become a crown of beauty and a diadem for the remnant…”⁷¹Is 28:5. which our rabbis z”l interpreted in a midrash: It will be like someone who puts scraps on himself, though they are indeed “children of the resurrection of the dead.” ⁷²I.e., these crowns of light will be so commonplace among those rewarded with them that they’d think nothing of it. And more could be said about “and their crowns on their heads” – in the image of the crowns that were given to them at Mt. Sinai. This the finery which they merited at their receiving of the Torah, as it is said, “And the Israelites were stripped of the finery from Mt. Horeb.”⁷³Ex 33:6. That is, the finery must have already been given to them at Mt. Horeb (Sinai), if now, after the sin of the Golden Calf, it was stripped from them. Our rabbis taught in a midrash:⁷⁴Exodus Rabbah 45:1. “The armor of God’s Ineffable Name girded them. But when they sinned, they were taken from them, and Moses earned them back, and this is what Scripture meant by ‘from Mt. Horeb. And Moses would take the tent.’⁷⁵Ex 33:5-6. “And Moses took the tent” immediately follows “from Horeb,” and thisjuxtaposition implies that Moses took back what the Israel got “from Horeb” but lost after that because of the sin of the calf (Chavel). That is to say, he took all these marks of status and kinds of lights back for them – that is, ‘the tent –ha-ohel,’ which is like the expression: ‘be-halo nero– when His lamp shone [over my head].'”⁷⁶Job 29:3. By “creative philology” the midrash associates the similarly sounding words ha-ohel – “the tent” and be-halo – “when it shone.” And just as their measure of delight is like Adam’s measure of delight in the Garden of Delights before the sin, so the crowns on their heads are in the image of the crowns on at Mt. Sinai before the sin.

This is the topic of what “the sages of the truth” said here:⁹¹B. Sukkah 46b. The expression “sages of the truth” is an epithet for the Talmudic sages who received the Oral Torah, which is the truth, to explain the Written Torah. Rabbenu Bahya frequently employs this expression in his books (Chavel, p. 508). Come and see how the way of the Holy One Blessed be He is not the way of flesh and blood. For flesh and blood, an empty vessel can contain something, a full one cannot. But it is not so for the Holy One Blessed be He. The full vessel can contain, the empty one cannot, as it is said, “If only they would surely hear.”⁹²Ex 15:26. The explanation of this is that insofar as bodily things have measure and dimension, when they are empty they can filled, but when one fills it, they cannot contain any more since they are already filled to their capacity, and nothing with a capacity can contain something more than its capacity. But among the upper things, full contains, since it has no measured capacity.

Human intervention in causing or speeding the therapeutic process is, then, in a sense, interference with the deliberate design of providence. The patient, in seeking medical attention, may be seen as betraying a lack of faith in failing to put his trust in God. This attitude is reflected in the teaching of a number of early and medieval Christian theologians who counseled against seeking medical attention. The Karaites, in turn, rejected all forms of human healing and relied entirely upon prayer. Consistent with their fundamentalist orientation, they based their position upon a quite literal reading of Exodus 15:26. A literal translation of the Hebrew text of the passage reads as follows: "I will put none of the diseases upon you which I have put upon the Egyptians, for I am the Lord your physician." Hence, the Karaites taught that God alone should be sought as physician.

On the seventh of Pesaḥ, the nights before the holiday, we sanctify it with Kiddush over the wine, and we do not need to say the blessing Sheheḥeyanu over the season. And here ¹ Pesachim 102b:5 is the proof. As it says there: Because Rav did not say that one recites the blessing over the season, learn from that that we are discussing the seventh day of Pesaḥ. Whatever wine he had, he already consumed, and does not have enough for two more cups. And the explanation for this is that the season is included within the pilgrimage. And we pray as on the first two days of Pesaḥ, for the evening and for the morning, but in the Musaf prayer we add to the verses of And you shall present ² Numbers 28:19-24, and we say, And on the seventh day a sacred gathering it will be for you, all laborious work you will not do.³ Numbers 28:25 And its offerings, etc. And we take out two Torah scrolls and read from And it was when he let them go⁴ Exodus 13:17 to For I am the LORD your healer ⁵ Exodus 15:26, since on the seventh day the Israelites of the exodus said the Song at the Sea. And the mafṭir reads from And you shall present to the end of the part⁶ Numbers 28:19-25, and concludes in Samuel, from And there was again fighting in Gath⁷ II Samuel 21:20 to the end of the song of David⁸ II Samuel 22:51, because it is a song, and it has language within it showing similarity to language of the exodus from Egypt, like Smoke went up from His nostrils⁹ II Samuel 22:9 or And he let loose bolts¹⁰ see II Samuel 22:9. And a minor translates it all into the Aramaic translation verse by verse, from And it was when he let them go¹¹ Exodus 13:17 and from the entire song, for this very day Israel crossed the sea, and the section is translated to publicize miracle. And just as it is our custom to translate the Torah into the Aramaic of Onkelos, so too we translate the Prophet into the Aramaic of Jonathan. And we also translate the readings on Atzeret that is to say, Shavuot, but not on the other festivals. On the eighth day we read Every firstborn to the end of the reading¹² Deuteronomy 15:19-16:17, and conclude with Isaiah, at That same day at Nob up to Shout and cheer¹³ Isaiah 10:32-12:6, because the downfall of Sanḥeriv was on Pesaḥ.