Musar su Genesi 20:76

The sixteenth principle is the rectification of that which is twisted, in as much as one is able to rectify it - as the matter is stated (Jonah 3:10), "God saw what they did, how they were turning back from their evil ways." And it is stated (Jonah 3:8), "Let everyone turn back from his evil ways and from the extortion that is their hands." For with things that are between a man and his fellow - such as robbery and extortion - his iniquity is not atoned until he returns what was robbed. And likewise, if he pained his fellow, harassed him, whitened his face (from embarrassment) or spoke evil speech about him, he is not given atonement until he requests forgiveness from him. And likewise did our Rabbis, may their memory be blessed, say (Bava Kamma 92a) that even though he gave him the money of the embarrassment and the pain of the strike - the pain and the embarrassment of the strike are not forgiven until he requests forgiveness from him, as it is stated (Genesis 20:7), "Therefore, restore the man’s wife - since he is a prophet, he will intercede for you - to save your life."

There are several kinds of hatred. There is one who hates his companion because he harmed him in money matters or struck him, or shamed him, or slandered him. For all of these and similar causes, a person should not hate his companion and be silent about his grievance as it is said in connection with the wicked: "And Absalom did not speak with Amnon either bad or good for Absalom hated Amnon" (II Sam. 13:22). But it is a mitzvah that he let his companion know that he feels he has been wronged and say to him, "Why did you do thus and thus to me?". As it is said: "You shall surely rebuke your neighbor" (Lev. 19:17). And if the offender repents and asks the person who was wronged to forgive him, he must forgive him and the one who forgives should not be cruel it is said: "And Abraham prayed to God" (on behalf of Abimelech who had wronged him) (Gen. 20:17). And even if the offender does not ask him to forgive him, the one offended should not hate him but should conduct himself towards him with love, and in the end it will come to this — that the one in the wrong will correct what he has spoiled.

How did G–d prove that point? Whereas in the days of Anah a mule had to be the product of crossbreeding, Isaac became the owner of mules which were not the result of crossbreeding but a heavenly gift. Even the scoffers who lived around him became aware of this. This is why Isaac became "great" in their eyes. They realised that if G–d performs such miracles with the livestock of a צדיק, how much greater would be the miracles He would perform with the צדיק himself! When the people said that the dung of Isaac's mules was worth more than the silver and gold of Avimelech, they meant that the fact that Isaac possessed mules which were not the result of crossbreeding proved more about his status as a holy man than the thousand silver pieces Avimelech had given to Sarah to demonstrate that her virtue had not been compromised while she was in Avimelech's palace (Genesis 20,16). Why does the Midrash quote the Philistines as also referring to Avimelech's gold? The Torah does not report Avimelech giving gold to either Sarah or Abraham! We need not understand the word כסף, silver, in the Torah as silver literally, but as an expression of the value of the gift in terms of silver coins. We now have demonstrated how the gift of the land of Israel is specifically connected with Isaac.

Sarah, whose function was the perpetuation of the species, is therefore "Mother Superior" as per the words of Abraham to Avimelech in Genesis 20,12 אחותי בת אבי היא אך לא בת אמי. "she is my sister, the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother." Sarah's distinction was rooted in the spiritual domain called אם. When compared to the spiritual domain known as אב, she is אחות and בת, but not אב. Once you appreciate the foregoing you will understand why the description אם כל חי, which was Adam's description for Eve, can be applied in equal measure to Sarah.

I have found a similar interpretation by the Rekanati who writes as follows: "The plain meaning of the prayer in 21,8: 'do not burden the people of Israel with the guilt of shedding innocent blood' is undoubtedly the spilling of blood of the innocent. We must ask, however, why there is a need to pray to G–d not to burden us with a guilt we have not been guilty of? Who could imagine that G–d would punish without due process of law? Was this not precisely the response of Avimelech to G–d when he knew that he had not actually raped Sarah (Genesis 20,5)? He claimed that Sarah had misled him! King David in Psalms 7,5 said: "If I have dealt evil to my ally, etc." He defended himself against G–d not considering him worthy of intervention because of a sin he might have committed quite by accident. A similar passage is found in the Book of Jonah when the sailors about to go down with their ship reluctantly agreed to save themselves by throwing Jonah overboard (Jonah 1,14).

– neither could he be faulted for marrying Zilpah and Bilhah, though the latter were sisters of Leah and Rachel respectively. Since they were both only half-sisters, i.e. shared the same father with Leah and Rachel but not the same mother, and, according to Jewish law, we can never be certain of the paternity of pagans, they could not legally be considered "sisters" (cf. Rashi on Genesis 20,12 where Abraham explained to Avimelech that Sarah was his sister from his father's side). Should you want to know what relevance the question of Jacob marrying two sisters has, seeing that when a person converts to Judaism such a person has legally severed all former relationships, and the convert is considered as being a newly born person, we would have to answer that as long as the Torah had not been given, the Jewish people were part of the general human society and could not claim to be a nation totally distinct from all others. Leah and Rachel then were sisters from their mothers' side. Jacob did have reason to be concerned. G–d did not only accept Jacob's prayer, but it was Rachel's son יוסף הצדיק who became the antidote to Esau. The "mother" that Jacob had worried about as a potential victim of Samael, produced Samael's nemesis.

We observe that the whole subject matter revolves around the Ineffable Name, the name representing G–d's Essence. It seems evident that Yitro knew something about the name of G–d, and this is why he said: "Now I know that י-ה-ו-ה is greater than any אלוהים (Exodus 18,11)." His statement included both idols and other aspects of G–d's names. Our sages have reported that Yitro in his search for truth had not omitted a single one of the religions practised during his time (Mechilta). He first came to the conclusion that there are several names i.e. manifestations of the true G–d, and that there was also a name that signified G–d's ability to effect changes in the laws of nature. He arrived at the conclusion that the four-lettered Ineffable Name was that Name.

The Baal HaTurim draws our attention to the opening verse of our פרשה, and compares it with the last verse in the previous פרשה which speaks about performance of the commandments. He arrives at the conclusion that whereas the commandment has to be performed in this life, the reward for its performance, עקב, will have to await the Hereafter. Whereas the Baal HaTurim arrives at the same conclusion as the Talmud in Eruvin 22a where the word היום is stressed as opposed to the מחר, i.e. the Hereafter, when the reward is to be collected, he derives it from a different nuance in the text of the Torah. The reason may be that the Baal HaTurim found some problems with the exegesis of the Talmud. Had the interpretation of the Talmud been correct then all the Torah had to write in 7,11 is the whole verse without the word לעשותם at the end Furthermore, the Torah could simply have written לעשות instead of לעשותם. It seems therefore that the suffix ם is to contrast the difference between לעשותם and לעשותך. The difference between these two wordings is an allusion to the motivation which governs performance of the commandments. The Torah does not want us to perform the commandments for the sake of the eventual reward but לעשותם, for their own sake, i.e. לשמה. The fact that a new פרשה begins with the reference to the reward emphasizes that the reward is a corollary, a consequence of performance, but is not in a relationship of על מנת, "on condition that," to our performance of the מצוה. The humility implied in performance of the commandments on the basis of לעשותם (as we have explained the word) is further underlined by the Torah in 7,7: לא מרובכם מכל העמים .. כי אתם המעט מכל העמים, "It is not because you are the most numerous of all the nations that G–d took a liking to you….indeed you are the smallest of all the nations, etc." There was no need for the Torah to write that we are not the most numerous nation and to follow it up with the statement that we are the smallest nation. The last statement would have sufficed. The Talmud Chulin 89a concludes from this that the Torah's choice of language means that G–d likes us because, even when we are granted importance by G–d, we do not make this a pretext to become haughty, but we deprecate ourselves, behave humbly and modestly, ממעטים את עצמכם. This is reinforced in the lesson that Rabbi Levitas in Avot 4,4 urges us to heed: מאד מאד הוה שפל רוח, "Be exceedingly humble in spirit."

The second introduction needed to understand the whole issue is the fact that Esau and Jacob were twins inside Rebeccah's womb, and that she was the mother of both of them. This means that she was like the crucible within which Jacob was refined, whereas Esau at the same time absorbed all the residual polluted material of the original serpent that had still cleaved to Rebeccah in her capacity as Laban's sister. Esau inherited all the falseness of Laban. This left Jacob like pure, refined silver. That is what our sages had in mind when they referred to Jacob's beauty as equaling that of Adam (before his sin). The fact that Esau had absorbed all the negative residual elements within Rebeccah had enabled Jacob to become the pious person he was. Rebeccah loved Jacob; Isaac loved Esau more. The deeper reason for this is, as we have already explained, that there was some affinity between Isaac, whose root was the emanation of דין, the same emanation as the one the serpent=Satan=Esau was rooted in. Rebeccah, on the other hand, loved Jacob, seeing that her appearance was just like that of her mother-in-law Sarah, as we have explained. When Sarah is described in Genesis 20,3 as בעולת בעל, the Talmud Ketuvot 61 describes this as meaning that her husband was in a state of ascension at the time. The Torah compliments Sarah by testifying that together with her husband she ascended to higher spiritual regions. Rebeccah experienced something similar. We know that Isaac was described as עולה תמימה, an unblemished total offering [ עולה in the sense of something that ascends Ed.], at the time he was bound on the altar at Moriah. Our Rabbis say that nonetheless Isaac was like a קרבן עולה ויורד, in the matter of the עקדה, meaning that at different times he was at different spiritual levels. While he was bound on the altar, for instance, he was on a higher spiritual level than when he descended from the altar, aware that he was not to be sacrificed after all, seeing that G–d had appointed an alternative offering in his stead, namely the ram that was caught in the thicket by its horns (Genesis 22,13). Jacob was called an איש תם, the word תם referring to his spiritual ascension. Esau, on the other hand, though from a holy source as we explained when we described his head as being cradled by Isaac , was of the caliber that was liable to descend rather than to ascend spiritually.

The Sages relate in Bereishis Rabbah (Parashas Bereishis 20:12) regarding the verse, “And God made tunics of leather [ohr, spelled with an ayin (עור)] for Adam and his wife” (Bereishis 3:21): “In the Torah scroll of Rabbi Meir it was stated, ‘tunics of light’ [or, spelled with an alef (אור)].” This Midrash is very perplexing. Why did the spelling, “tunics of light,” appear specifically in Rabbi Meir’s Torah rather in any other? [See what my illustrious father Rabbi Shmuel Kaidenover writes about this matter in Birkas Shmuel, Parashas Bereishis, 6c, in the name of the illustrious Rabbi Leib Zunz, z”l.]