Halakhah su Esodo 33:24

What goes for this blessing, al netilat yada’im, that it is worded with both the explicit second person singular pronoun “You” and the “hidden” pronoun implicit in the third person singular past tense verb form,⁴²The original Hebrew is much more elliptical: “be-lashon nigleh ve-nistar.” These are technical grammatical terms. See note 46. is the rule for the rest of the blessings that are fixed according to this formula. This is the secret of blessings, that “the World” is what “sanctified us by His commandments,” and we bless it with the phrase melekh ha-‘olam – “King of the World,” and thus you will find it in the Song at the Sea, “Adonai yimlokh le-‘olam va’ed” – “YHWH will be King for ‘olam forever.”⁴³Ex 15:18, ordinarily translated “The Lord will reign forever and ever” (JSB). And this has been evoked by the expression “YHWH will be King,” the word “world” and the word “forever.” This is a reference to the three names for God in “The Thirteen Attributes,” which is similarly evoked by the expression “Barukh YHWH ha-mevorakh le-‘olam va’ed” – “Blessed be the Lord to Whom blessing is due as ‘World’ forever,”⁴⁴That is, the usual communal liturgical response to the call to worship: “Barekhu et YHWH ha-mevorakh.” Clearly, R. Bahya is interpreting it midrashically, not in its ordinary sense. and likewise in the prayer “Aleynu le-shabe’ah” by the expression, “Before the Kings of Kings, the Holy One Blessed be He, Who spread out the heavens and established the earth.”⁴⁵Here too, the title melekh (King) is associated with “the World,” that is, “the heavens…and earth” which He spread out and established. It is precisely in this manner that the phrasing of blessings was fixed and ordered. But for the experts on the literal meaning of the text, it seems grammatically inconsistent, since it would be better to say, “us whom You sanctified and by Your commandments You commanded.”⁴⁶Asher kidashtanu bi-mitzvotekha vetzvitanu as opposed to asher kidshanu bi-mitzvotav ve-tzivavanu. However, there are pretty good reasons for it to be phrased exactly as it is with its literal meaning, in order to fix in the heart that the Holy One Blessed be He is both revealed and hidden:⁴⁷Nigleh ve-nistar, which are also the grammatical terms R. Bahya uses at the beginning of this paragraph. See note 41.revealed in regard to His ways and actions; hidden in regard to His essence and His very Selfhood. Therefore you will find that when Moses Our Teacher (peace be upon him) asked about knowing Him (may He be Blessed) in regard to his ways, he said to Him, “Pray let me know Your ways.”⁴⁸Ex 33:13. He replied, “I will make all My goodness pass before you.”⁴⁹Ibid., 33:19. But when he asked to know Him in regard to his very Selfhood, and said to Him, “Oh let me behold Your Presence,”⁵⁰Ibid., 33:18. He replied, “You cannot see My face.”⁵¹Ibid., 33:20. He explained to him these two ways: that He is revealed, and that it is possible to conceive of Him in regard to His ways and actions; and that He is hidden in regard to His Selfhood, and there is no power or device to conceive of Him in this way. And therefore, here when we say “Barukh Atah” – “Blessed are You” – with a present participle [and the pronoun “You”], we should focus on how He (May He be Blessed) is revealed through His actions. And when we continue speaking using the third person singular (be-nistar), saying “asher kidshanu bi-mitzvotav ve-tzivanu” – “who sanctified us by His commandments and commanded us” – we should focus on how He (May He be Blessed) is hidden and invisible to our power of conception. An analogy to this is that the sun, which is one of His servants,⁵²R. Bahya’s Hebrew wordplay here “she-ha-shemesh she-hu ehad mi-shamsav” is lost in translation.and of which human beings can conceive through its actions, such as how it works in the lower world with its heat on the speaking species, animals, and plants, and through its light and heat. And thus it is written, “nothing escapes (nistar) his heat.”⁵³Ps. 19:7 (JSB); “his” refers to the sun. But if trying to conceive the sun itself, one looks into the light itself, the light of his own eyes will be extinguished, and understand this! So in order to hint at Him being revealed and hidden, Scripture has said, “And your faithful ones shall bless You,”⁵⁴Ps. 145:10. that is to say, “in this way they shall bless You:” revealed and hidden, and this what is meant by “They shall talk of the majesty of Your kingship [kevod malkhutkha],”⁵⁵Ibid., 145:11. using the present tense, to teach about Him being revealed.⁵⁶Actually, in the Hebrew the verb is in the imperfect tense. And it said, “to make His mighty acts known among men,”⁵⁷Ibid., 145:12. to teach about Him being hidden.

And in connection to this you will also find it plainly stated in Perek Helek³⁴B. Sanhedrin 100a, a well-known passage from the Talmud describing the world to come. that in time to come the human height [komot] will return to two hundred cubits, and they also taught this in a midrash likewise in Perek Sefinah:³⁵B. Baba Batra 75a. “I will lead you komamiyut,”³⁶Lev 26:13, literally, “I will make you walk erect” (JSB), but the midrash plays on the similarity between komamiyut “erect” and komot – “height.” R. Meir says: [it means] two hundred cubits – twice the height of Adam. R. Judah says: A hundred cubits; corresponding to the [height of the] temple and its walls. For it is said: ‘carved after the fashion of the Temple.³⁷Ps 144:22. But insofar as it said,³⁸B. Baba Batra, ibid. The Holy One, Blessed be He, will in time to come bring precious stones and pearls…and will cut out from them [openings] ten by twenty cubits, and will set them up in the gates of Jerusalem, as it is said, “and your gates of stones of carbuncle,”³⁹Is 54:12. it seems from this that the height will be no more than twenty cubits. So therefore it must be said that the gates of the houses are not being spoken about, for how could they enter them at that height?! But rather, it’s certainly the gates of the windows that are being spoken about. And you already knew that parashat “Im Behukotai” is a promise of what will happen in the future, for what it says there never existed in the two Temples, neither in the First nor the Second Temple. For what is destined in the Torah through its promises is not al shlemut, but will happen in time to come after the ancient sin has been atoned for, which has never occurred at any time, and this is what our sages z”l taught in a midrash:⁴⁰B. M.K. 16b. When David went out to war he killed eight hundred at one time, but was sorry for the two hundred [he would have killed], to fulfill what has been said, “How could one have routed a thousand?”⁴¹Dt 32:32, from the future promises enumerated in Deuteronomy. A voice from heaven went out and said, “Were it not for the matter of Uriah the Hittite.”⁴²1 Kings 15:5, and see the story in 2 Samuel chapters 11-12. King David fell in love with Uriah’s wife Bathsheba, and so sent Uriah off to the front lines of battle to be killed so that he could marry her.

And this was the subject of what Moses asked when he said, “Please, let me behold Your Presence!”⁵⁰Ex 33:18. Here it should be asked, was Moses asking for something possible or impossible? If for something possible, why did God refuse him and say, “You cannot see my face”?⁵¹Ibid., 33:20. And if for something impossible, why did he ask? And the answer to this strictly speaking, is that Moses sought to perceive something while he was still in a material body what he would perceive only after he had been separated from matter. And the reason that it occurred to him to ask was because he saw that he had already stood on Mt. Sinai for forty days, and the power of his flesh had attenuated and the earthy matter in him weakened with the increase of light over him, by which the beams of light shone from his face. So he asked while he was still made of matter as if he were not, that he not be hindered from perceiving what he would perceive after the separation (of his soul from his flesh). And the Holy One Blessed be He replied to him, “For man may not see me and live,”⁵²Ibid. that is to say, no matter what, because you are still a man, it is impossible for you to perceive while you’re still material what you will perceive only afterwards. And so they said in the Midrash,⁵³Sifra, beginning of Vayikra 2. “‘For man may not see me and live:’⁵⁴Ibid. while alive they do not see, but upon their death the do see.” And this is after the separation of the soul from its material form. And it is possible to specify further that “upon their death” means when they are about to die, as in the topic they discussed in Midrash Deuteronomy Rabbah Parashat Ekev,⁵⁵Though it doesn’t appear in the printed editions of Deuteronomy Rabbah (Chavel). “How abundant is the good that You have in store for those who fear You.⁵⁶Ps 31:20. ‘It happened that when R. Abbahu was about to die, he saw the gift of his reward, what the Holy One Blessed be He was going to give him in the time to come, and all the good prepared for the righteous themselves in the time to come. So when he saw all these consolations which had been prepared, he exclaimed, “All these are for Abbahu!” and immediately he desired to die, and began reciting: “How abundant is the good that You have in store for those who fear You.”⁵⁷Ibid.

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.

And now that I have explained the topic of the world of souls, which is called “Garden of Eden” among our rabbis z”l, and I have revealed to you the reason why the Torah did not mention it explicitly except to the “engaged intellectual” (la–maskil ha-nilvav), I will now expand upon for you my explanation of the matter of the pleasure that will be experienced in the measure it was originally experienced by Adam in the Garden of Eden before the sin, in that you already knew that the nature of the pleasure there was very great and deep, and that the greater part of it was the soul’s pleasure, the lesser the pleasure of the body, which had quiet, ease, and peace of mind unlike any you can imagine, and because he was all intellectual -body and soul in complete agreement to conceive of his Creator, and even the power of the Tree of Life to cause eternal life was at first not kept from him, but after the sin, when he ate from the Tree of Knowledge – it was only after this eating that he was made to follow his desires and strive for the needs of the body more than the needs of the soul, acting “all as we act now here today.”¹³¹Dt 12:8 And therefore he had to have his days limited and for death to hold sway over him. But before the sin, he could take pleasure in the Garden of Eden and delight himself as he wished, and this it what meant by, “And He placed him in the Garden of Eden to till it and tend it,”¹³²Gen 2:15. that He placed him in the Garden of Eden so that he would work the soil of the Garden, and sow in it every kind of produce, and plant all kinds of fruit trees, and his sustenance came from the trees of the Garden, and his drink from the rivers of Eden. And his clothes were “the clouds of glory,” until the ministering angels got jealous of his status, and things changed for the reasons you know.¹³³According to the story in Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer 13, it was the angel’s jealousy of Adam that led them to tempt Adam and Eve through the serpent. It is to this status and to this measure of joy that the dead who are resurrected will in time to come return, to take delight in together in both body and soul, and the greater part of the pleasure will be the soul’s, the lesser part the body’s, as it was with Adam before the sin. Therefore, it will be necessary for any one among those raised from the dead to live a long or eternal life, for thus the world will return to its perfection as its Creator (may He be exalted) originally intended.

And now I shall make known to you the subject of the upper light, which I mentioned above, and that’s how I will end this Gate. Know that the upper light I mentioned above is called “day” [yom] in the story of creation, and about it the prophet said, “there shall be one day – only the Lord knows when – of neither day nor night, and there will be light at evening time.”¹⁶⁷Zech 14:7 (JSB). The explanation of this verse: “There will be [ve-hayah] one day”. The word Ve-HaYa”H consists of the same letters of God’s proper name, and so it is written “YHVH is my light and my help, whom shall I fear? YHVH, etc.”¹⁶⁸Ps 27:1. This is YHVH is “light.” “One day of light – only the Lord knows” – He alone knows where it is. As they taught in a midrash, “He hid it for Himself, He made it separate for Himself.”¹⁶⁹Ber. R. 3:7. “Neither day nor night” – that is to say, a time will come when this day shall serve for the righteous, and time won’t consist of day and night like it works now with light and darkness, but rather, “there will be light at evening time” – a great light. And “evening” [‘erev] is the secret of “the sixth aleph,” which is the evening of Shabbat, as in “yom ha-shishi” – “the sixth day.” And this is the light that Moses our Rabbi (peace upon him) earned in “the cleft of the rock,”¹⁷⁰Ex 33:22.”the reflecting mirror”¹⁷¹B. Yebamot 49b. out of which he was able to prophesy, and thus earned the “radiation from the skin of his face”¹⁷²Ex 34:29. that was as bright as “the face of the sun.”¹⁷³B. Baba Batra 75a. And in an interpretation they said, “a variety of the upper light is the globe of the sun,”¹⁷⁴Ber. R. 17:7 (as translated by Jastrow). because the light of this level is the level of Moses’ prophecy, and the globe of the sun, which is a variety of this, is the “radiation from the skin of his face.” And this is what is written, “rays [karnayyim] given off from every side, and therein His glory is enveloped,”¹⁷⁵Hab 3:4. that is, the “radiation from the skin of his face.” This came directly from the hand of the Holy One Blessed be He to Moses, and this radiation is the fruit of what was his in this world, distinct from the eternal radiance that would be his in the world to come, and that is the level of the upper light. If so, then the word “karnayyim” – “rays” -includes both the fruit and the eternal radiance.¹⁷⁶Karnayyim is the dual form of keren, which can mean either “ray”, or more ordinarily, “horn.” From this ambiguity comes the misinterpretation of Ex 34:29 that led artists such as Michelangelo to represent Moses with horns coming out of his forehead. R. Bahya is playing upon the dual form of keren, karnayyim, which is the normal plural form for body parts, like horns, which come in pairs. And all this was because of the tablets – luhot – that he was holding. And so this is hinted at in the word “LU’a”H,” which is an acronym of the words in Habakkuk 3:4: karnayyim mi-yado Lo Ve-sham Hevyon ‘uzo. And they said in a midrash, ¹⁷⁷M. Tanhuma Ki Tisa 37. “‘[They saw] the rays of the skin of his face,’¹⁷⁸Ex 34:30. all the majesty that Moses got was but temporary fruit, a gift he earned, but the eternal radiance would be his in the world to come, as it is said, ‘rays [karnayyim] from His hand to him.'”¹⁷⁹Hab 3:4, reading mi-yado midrashically as “from His [God’s] hand,” i.e., two kinds of “rays” one in this world, one in the world to come, from God’s hand to Moses. And they went on in another midrash,¹⁸⁰M. Tanhuma Ki Tisa 37. “‘I will put you in a cleft of a rock’ – from ‘the cleft of the rock’ Moses earned the radiation from the skin of his face, and thus it says, ‘rays from His hand to him, there from a secret place [hevyon] His glory.'”¹⁸¹Hab 3:4.

3. We take out two Torah [scrolls]. From the first, we read "Look, you have been telling me..." [Exodus 33:12] and the maftir reads from the sacrifices corresponding to the possible day. The haftarah is from Ezekiel, "It will come to pass on the day that Gog comes..." [Ezekiel 38:18].