Musar su Isaia 1:14

מועדי ה' אשר תקראו אותם מקראי קודש אלה הם מועדי . The thrust of the legislation is that the בית דין proclaims the dates when the various festivals are to be observed (23,2). You determine when to rejoice, when to eat festive meals. These festive meals should serve a spiritual purpose, just as did the delicacies Isaac ordered before blessing his son. When one approaches the חגים, Holidays, in this spirit, the second half of the verse אלה הם מועדי, "These are My festivals," will be true. If, however, these days are observed only as days when you fill your stomachs, indulge your body, then they are not "My festivals," but are vomit, excrement, concerning which the prophet has quoted G–d as saying: מועדיכם שנאה נפשי, "My soul hates your festivals” (Isaiah 1,14). I have discussed this at greater length in my treatise about the laws applicable to festivals.

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.

I have found an allusion along these lines in the portion dealing with expansionary wars in Deut. 20,1-9, participation in which is restricted to certain categories of people outlined there. It is clear that the paragraph speaks about מלחמת רשות, a permissible expansionary kind of war, as distinct from מלחמת חובה, an obligatory war against the seven Canaanite nations in which no potential soldier of military age was exempt. In connection with this מלחמת חובה, the Torah writes: לא תחיה כל נשמה, "you must not allow any soul to survive" (Deut. 20,16). The sequence of the paragraphs dealing with the capture of a physically attractive woman prisoner (Deut. 21,11), followed by the paragraph of a man who has two wives and wishes to appoint the first-born of his more beloved wife as his principal heir, though the son in question is junior to another son from his first wife whom he grew to hate in the meantime (Deut. 21,15), is intriguing. The two wives which the Torah describes as האחת אהובה, והאחת שנואה, may be understood as referring to the "harlots" mentioned in the Zohar. The אהובה, refers to מחלת, the happy and beautiful one. The שנואה refers to לילית, the melancholy one. When the Torah speaks about a beautiful woman whom you see in captivity, this is a woman captured during a מלחמת רשות in one of the surrounding countries where the קליפות are permanently at home. The duty to subjugate these קליפות is part of the injunction to do good. This has to be done in one of two ways. In order to defeat and humble Lilith, harsh measures are required. Prayer "a la" Lilith, has to originate from a crushed heart, has to be accompanied by tears. Lilith can only be rehabilitated in this way. In order to be successful, the process of subjugating and rehabilitating Machalat, the happy-go-lucky one of these two harlots, needs to be handled differently. We have to demonstrate to Machalat the joyful aspects of Judaism, the Sabbath days, the holidays, the joy experienced in helping the less fortunate, etc., as well as to convey some of our knowledge about the goodness and grandeur of G–d. As long as we are exiled from our homeland all our joy on holidays is subdued due to the קליפות surrounding us on all sides. It is extremely difficult to totally defeat the קליפות of Machalat in such circumstances. When the Torah refers to the beautiful woman prisoner as: וראית בשביה אשת יפת תואר, this is to tell us that under conditions of exile, i.e. שביה, the קליפה מחלה continues to exist. We have only succeeded in eliminating the קליפה לילית. When the Talmud teaches that all gates are sometimes closed except the gates of tears, this is a hint that at least the קליפה לילית can be overcome at all times.