Musar su Esodo 12:16

“No work at all shall be done on them; only what every person is to eat, etc.” (Exodus 12:16). Our Rabbis said (Beitzah 12a), “From transporting being permitted for the sake of food for people, it was also permitted not for its sake - so long as it is for the sake of the day.” And it is like the matter that they said, “We transport a Torah scroll on a holiday to read it on that day.” But it is forbidden to transport for the needs of weekdays - only for the needs of the holiday. And many of the people sin by transporting a key for their containers into the public domain on the holiday, even though there is no food that can be eaten on the holiday in the container.

Every addition of holiness to our status has a mystical connection with the Additional Sacrifices and furthermore contains allusions to a future time. The Torah says in connection with ראש חודש: "This month shall be to you the first (head) of the months" (Exodus 12,2). It means that the Jewish people's calendar is patterned after the lunar cycle. Shemot Rabbah 15,26, comments on this that the great achievements of the Jewish people from the time of Abraham to that of King Solomon spanned 15 generations during which they rose to ever greater stature. At that point, when the light of the moon is at its most potent, "Solomon sat on the throne of the Lord" (Chronicles 1,29,23). Just as the light of the moon diminishes progressively from the fifteenth of the month onwards until it is totally extinct at the end of the month, so the generations of the Jewish people after Solomon progressively declined in greatness until, after another fifteen generations, the last Jewish King, Zedekiah was totally blinded, as stated in Kings II 25,7: "He blinded the eyes of Zedekiah." In the future, however, a new light will shine upon Zion, "and the brightness of the moon will match the brightness of the sun" (Isaiah 30, 26). The "light of the sun" referred to in that verse is the mystical dimension added by the offering of the מוסף-sacrifices on the days we celebrate the appearance of the New Moon. The mystical dimension provided by the Sabbath is the concept of a world which is constantly wrapped in the holiness represented by the concept of the Sabbath. The mystical dimension provided by the Passover sacrifice is that it is the anniversary of our original redemption from the bondage in Egypt, which is also the date of the month on which the redemption of the future will occur. (Rosh Hashanah 11) The scriptural source for this opinion is found in Michah 7,15: "I will show miracles as in the days when you departed from the land of Egypt." Israel will then become endowed with an additional level of רוח הקודש, Holy Spirit, and the earth will be filled with the knowledge of G–d. The festival of Tabernacles, devoted to our reposing in "shade" i.e. the shade offered by the covering of the huts being the spiritual equivalent of sitting under G–d's direct protection- will provide an even greater amount of the Holy Spirit. New Year's Day, of which it says in our מוסף prayer: "This day is the day that recalls the beginning of Your handiwork, a reminder of the first day of Creation," will become the date on which the work of Creation will be renewed once it will resume the direction envisioned by G–d originally. At that time G–d will truly enjoy His works (Psalms 104,31). יום כפור, of course, represents the day in the future when all sins will have been atoned for, and the time of which the prophet Jeremiah 50,20, says: "The sins of Israel shall be sought and there shall be none; the sins of Yehudah, and none shall be found; for I shall forgive those I allow to survive." In the future then these are "My holidays." As long as Israel was steeped in sin, however, we are told in Isaiah 1,16: "Your new moons and holidays fill Me with loathing; they have become a burden to Me." In contrast with this, they will be called: "Holy Convocations," proclaimed by a holy congregation, at a time when we shall have merited eternal life. At that time body and soul will have achieved the mystical union hinted at by the words אך אשר יאכל לכל נפש, in Exodus 12,16. "Eating" is a dimension of the body's needs. The word נפש in that verse describes a dimension of the soul. The "food" (nourishment) of that element of man then is "knowledge of the Lord," as we know from Isaiah 11,9. The verse in Exodus hints at a time when even the body, i.e. "secular" matter, will be filled with such knowledge of the Lord. At that time we will experience fulfilment of the promise or commandment "שאו את ראש," in Numbers 26,2, which is a moral imperative to the Jewish people to elevate themselves to the highest moral/ ethical level they are capable of. The people who were counted at that time were rightly described by our sages as דור דעה, a generation which possessed knowledge (of G–d). This count took place "after the plague," after all those involved in the sin of בעל פעור had died. The term "אחר המגפה" can be understood more broadly as also referring to that time in the future of which it is said in Isaiah 25,8: "He will destroy death forever." During the first count of the people in the desert, the attribute of Justice predominated over the Jewish people, seeing they were all going to die during their trek through the desert, and would not be found worthy to enter the Holy Land. [That count had taken place after the episode of the golden calf, Ed.] Of this latter count, however, it states: "To these (the people to be counted now) the land will be distributed as an inheritance" (26,53). The prophet Isaiah (60,21), has already said of this future ועמך כולם צדיקים, לעולם יירשו ארץ "And your people, all of them righteous, shall possess the land for all time." The story of Pinchas is an allusion to this point in the future.

We may understand the word שלי as referring to what is material, whereas the word שלך in the Mishnah in question refers to the mind, the abstract. When a person proclaims: שלי שלי ושלך שלי, it is as if he said: The body and the mind both belong to the secular, to earth-bound values. This is typical of the wicked person who wants to make life a totally physical experience and to drag down the spiritual part of man to the level of the merely physical. When a person declares: שלך שלך וגם שלי שלך, he is described as pious because he expresses his striving to elevate what is physical to the level of the spiritual. The person who says: שלי שלך ושלך שלי is similar to the person of whom Solomon said in Kohelet 2,24: "Is it not good for a man to eat and drink and enjoy?" Solomon refers to the person who wishes to partake of "both tables," i.e. life in the here and now as well as life in the Hereafter. When he refers to the enjoyment, he refers to the joy of studying Torah. Whereas some of our sages consider this attitude as average, i.e. tolerable, others consider it as the attitude espoused by the people of Sodom. The Rabbis who see in this attitude an average attitude believe that a philosophy of זה נהנה וזה לא חסר, "The fact that one person derives pleasure but not at the expense of his fellow," is something morally tolerable. It is similar to someone who lights his candle from another candle. He secures light for himself without diminishing the existing light for others. These rabbis compare such conduct to the verse in Psalms 34,11: ודורשי ה' לא יחסרו כל טוב, "Those who turn to the Lord are not failing to do something wholly good." The motto of: "What is mine is yours and what is yours is mine," is equivalent to turning the laws of nature upside down. When a person turns the weekday into the Holiday by denying himself all physical pleasure on weekdays, whereas he uses the Holidays for unbounded physical enjoyment, he reverses the order G–d has established for this world and is clearly ignorant of G–d's plans. The Torah has spelled out that only certain activities are allowed on the Holidays in order to ensure our minimal physical comfort on such days. This is the meaning of Exodus 12,16: אך אשר יאכל לכל נפש הוא לבדו יעשה לכם, "Only what every person has to eat, that alone may be prepared for you." When we examine what the author of Emek Berachah writes in connection with the above Mishnah we find that the desire to enjoy both the physical parts of this world as well as the spiritual ones is not enough for a person who wants to qualify as pious. People such as the prophets Elijah and Chanoch learned how to cope while availing themselves of less and less of the comforts available for the body in this world. In order to establish the closest possible ties with G–d the physical part of this world cannot be enjoyed in its own right. The enjoyment of the Holiday should comprise the life-force of the body, נפש הגופני, as well as the life-force of the soul, נפש הרוחני, through the study of Torah and engaging in prayer.