Pensiero Ebraico su I Samuele 17:25

Anyone who interests himself too much in his comfort, can do so only at the expense of neglecting useful things and by not allocating enough time to the pursuit of the things his mind is capable of. On the other hand, he, who concentrates most of his energies on the pursuit of purely intellectual matters, will sacrifice some comfort and the attainment of useful things in the process. What is to be aimed at then, is the proper balance between the three disciplines. Anything that interferes with the pursuit of that objective is the fourth discipline, teshukah, adherence to the yetzer hara.. Our sages have described remedies against this teshukah for all the three disciplines. 1) If one is overly interested in one's bodily comfort, the regulatory device is the woman, i.e. one's wife. In other words, marriage is a regulator, safeguarding man against the excessive pursuit of physical comforts, gratifications. 2) The teshukah of rain is that it is restricted to falling on the earth. (in this way the danger of excess rain creating a deluge is regulated) 3) The teshukah of the Almighty (His wide ranging intellect) is that it is concentrated on Israel. This is a voluntary restriction that G'd imposes on Himself. 4) The teshukah of the yetzer hara is that it is restricted to Cain and the likes of him. This shows that even the yetzer hara is subject to self imposed limitations.(see the text of this in Bereshit Rabbah 20) Since all excesses in any of the aforementioned three areas are anathema to G'd, He gave the Jewish people a land, which, in the words of the Torah, supplies all our needs without leading to our indulging in excesses in any area. We read in Deut. 8,7, "for the Lord your G'd brings you to a good land, a land of wheat and barley, rivers etc., where you will not eat bread in paucity; you will not lack anything therein, you will be satisfied and bless the Lord. Be careful that you do not forget the Lord, and over-indulge..." In the paragraph quoted above, we can clearly see that the mitzvot are to act as built in regulators against excessive pursuits of material objectives. The Talmud Menachot 43, points out that the promise of the adequacy of that land to meet our needs, is followed by the line "what is it that the Lord your G'd asks of you, except to observe all the commandments etc." The word mah- is to be read as mey-ah, i.e. one hundred. There is a hint in this that we are to recite one hundred benedictions daily. Israel's trek through the desert for forty years taught them that man and be-er, the manna and the well, were adequate sustenance, that over-indulgence in food and drink were not our purpose.

If liberty and freedom are the goals desired by all intelligent persons, then subservience to those who deserve homage, and the humility displayed towards those entitled to subservience are an even more desirable objective.