Musar su Daniele 9:28

And the order of the confession is - “We have sinned, we have been iniquitous, we have transgressed (chatanu, avinu, pashanu).” And sin includes inadvertent sin and peshiyah. And the meaning of peshiyah, according to the Sages of Israel, is when one is not careful about a matter about which it is the way of most people to be careful, as we have already mentioned. And iniquities (avonot) are volitional sins. And transgressions (peshayim) are acts of rebellion, from the usage (in II Kings 3:7), “The king of Moab has rebelled (pasha) against me. And - according to His great Kindness, God, may He be blessed, forgives even those who rebel against Him, when they repent to Him with all of their hearts. And it is stated (Daniel 9:9), “To the Lord, our God, belong mercy and forgiveness; for we rebelled (pashanu) against Him.” And it is stated (Psalms 25:11), “For the sake of Your name, O Lord, pardon my iniquity (avoni) though it be great.” And it is stated (Psalms 65:4), “All manner of iniquities overwhelm me, it is You who forgives our transgressions (peshaeinu).”

Since atonement for sins by means of a sacrifice is possible only in ארץ ישראל we could have concluded that outside the Holy Land there is no need for that confession. To tell us that this is not so the Torah writes והתודו את עונם, "they shall confess their sins." This is written in Leviticus 26,40, a paragraph that describes the Jews as already in exile. Daniel 9,7 said: לך ה' הצדקה ולנו בושת הפנים, "Yours is righteousness O Lord, whereas shame is on us, etc." Daniel, of course, lived outside the land of Israel.

The Levites' cities absorbed those forced to go into exile because of their having committed involuntary manslaughter. When disaster struck the nation, the Levites too were sent into exile as we know from Psalm 137,3 which tells of the Levites being asked to sing the songs they used to sing in Zion. They responded by refusing, claiming they could not possibly do so on foreign soil. Our sages (Midrash Tehillim 137,5) say that they amputated the tops of their fingers so as to be unable to play their instruments. Israel without a rebuilt Temple is compared to כאדם עברו ברית, "just as Adam who had violated the covenant with G–d," in the words of Hoseah 6,7. Midrash Eichah Rabbah elaborates on this, Rabbi Abahu saying that G–d describes how he had placed Adam into Gan Eden, commanded him a single commandment, which he transgressed. G–d consequently punished him with expulsion and personally elegized him with the word איכ-ה, Ayekkoh, (Genesis 3,9), which can be read as Eychah, an expression of mourning as in Lamentations, and also as used by Moses in Deut. 1,12 in the same sense, until He was able to bring the Jewish people into the Holy Land. Jeremiah 2,7 describes this in the words ואביא אתכם אל ארץ הכרמל לאכול את פריה. "I have brought you to the land of the Carmel to eat its fruit." Proof that G–d commanded Israel to observe commandments in the Holy Land is derived from Numbers 34,2: "Command the children of Israel, say to them…when you enter the land of Canaan, etc." Israel transgressed these commandments as described in Daniel 9, 9-11. Daniel includes the whole people as having violated G–d's teachings, as a result of which the curses in the Torah were poured out over them. Our exile, too, was a result of such conduct as is stated in Hoseah 9,9: "I will expel them from My House." The expulsion was not only to a country adjoining their homeland, but also to far off places as is indicated by Jeremiah 15,1: שלח מעל פני ויצאו, "Dismiss them from My Presence; let them go forth!" In His elegy, G–d refers to the lonely and isolated situation Zion finds itself in as a result; cf. Lamentations 1,1. Thus the introduction of Midrash Eicha.

The מגדל עז, "tower of strength," which the Zohar had described as referring to the ark, refers to the three separate levels of accommodation in the ark. It symbolises the three domains of עולם העשיה, the lower level; the עולם היצירה, the middle level; and lastly the עולם הבריאה, the highest level of the emanations. The lowest level contained a lot of garbage, comparable to our world. The middle level which contained the animals may be understood to symbolize a world in which creatures can fly, similar to the Zohar's understanding of the commandment in Genesis 1,20: "let the waters swarm with living creatures and birds that fly over the earth, over the expanse of the heavens..”

The Zohar sees in this a reference to the angels who fly and whose residence is in the עולם היצירה. The word ועוף in that verse is understood as specifically referring to the archangel Michael, of whom we are told in Isaiah 6,6: "Then one of the Seraphim flew over to me with a live coal." The second time that word occurs, i.e. יעופף, refers to the archangel Gabriel of whom we are told in Daniel 9,21: והאיש גבריאל … מעף ביעף, "and the man Gabriel was lifted in flight, etc."

We perceive Eliezer setting out on his mission with Mattaron hovering over him, invisibly. Whenever the Torah employs the word עבד in this narrative, the reference is to Eliezer the earthly עבד. Whenever the Torah mentions the word האיש in the narrative, the reference is to the עבד עברי של מעלה, to Mattatron. We have other examples when such an angel is referred to by the Torah as איש, and our sages have defined such an איש as מלאך, an angel. One such example is Genesis 37,15. Rashi, quoting Midrash Tanchuma, says that this was the angel Gabriel. In 24,17, we find “וירץ העבד לקראתה, followed in verse 21 by והאיש משתאה לה.” Onkelos translates this latter verse as meaning that Eliezer remained standing looking on silently. He was reflecting on whether the Heavenly input indicated that his mission was succesful or not. The word לדעת, to know, in verse 21 is a veiled reference to the tree of knowledge.