Musar su Isaia 43:4

After having reached the goal which is the attention of the worshipper who loves, we may ask: Now what benefit comes from all of this? And we answer that the all-embracing benefit which comes from the service of the Creator, blessed be He, and His love, is that the Creator should love the man that worships him, as it is said (Isaiah 43:4), “Since thou art precious in My sight, and honorable, and I have loved thee.” And it is written (Deuteronomy 7:13), “And He will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee.” Now it is incumbent upon us to search out the meaning of the love of the Creator, blessed be He, for man, how it comes about and what it is. We say that in the case of simpletons and fools, it does not suffice for them that God’s love for them should be the sole reward of their worship of Him, so they wait for Him to give signs and proofs that they will attain great goodness and much pleasure. If you say to them that there will be given to them no other thing, except the love of God for them, it will not suffice for them, and they will think that His love is like the love of human beings who do not find love of a person sufficient unless there is with that love some advantage or pleasure. I wish to make clearer to you that there is no greater benefit than the love of the Creator for man. If God loves him he needs no other reward. He ought not to seek and ask whether his soul will live on or not after his death. For in the love of the Creator is contained all good reward. Obviously, he should believe that when a man dies in the midst of good deeds and has conducted himself piously, the Creator, blessed be He, loves him. Since He loves him, there is no greater reward than this. For since He does love him, there is no doubt that He will give him a good reward for all of his deeds. We ought not to explore just how this good reward will be given; however, if there is in a man a great lust or folly, all this great glory will not suffice. They will seek to discover whether there will be continuing life to their soul after it has separated from the body or whether the soul will be lost, as though the pathways of the world to come were known to them. They will try to discover in what way those who are deserving of the world to come will have their reward. This is impossible to know. Only if we were angels that walked among celestial creatures, would we know the way of reward of the souls and the nature of the life in the world to come. But for the man of intellect, one general rule should suffice for him, to know that there is a reward in the world to come for every deed. There is punishment for the wicked and there is reward for the righteous. But it is not for us to explore and search the method of the punishment or the reward, or of what it consists. But if a man should persist in searching out what will be after death, he can understand and believe that there is a reward after death, by twenty signs.

The mystical dimension of the firstling of the pure male animals is an allusion to the people of Israel who have been described by G–d (Exodus 4,22) as His בכור, His first-born. They are without blemish, a perfect congregation whom G–d (Ezekiel 34,31) has also called צאן מרעיתי "sheep of My pasture." This is why they may only be eaten by the priests. The deeper reason why when such firstlings have become blemished and been redeemed, they may be eaten by ordinary Israelites is, that the Israelites themselves also possess some degree of sanctity, have been called אדם. Adam used to be holy. He would have remained holy had he not sinned. This firstling animal was also holy until it contracted a blemish, the equivalent of sin. Just as sinful man can redeem himself, as we know from Isaiah 43,4: "ואתן אדם תחתיך," | give men in exchange for you," so also can this animal be redeemed. This is the mystical dimension of the Azazel which carries our sins. The Torah (Leviticus 16,22) speaks of ונשא השעיר עליו את כל עונותם, which our Rabbis read as on עונות תם, that the he-goat of the Azazel carries on its head the sins of a firstling animal contracting a blemish. On the other hand, we are forbidden to inflict a blemish on it in order to be able to consume it (after redemption). It is quite obvious that such one must not benefit from such an action. It is also forbidden to use animals consecrated as an offering for any mundane task and to use their hair after it has been shorn. The reason for this is easy to understand when one considers that the tablets which Moses had shattered also retained their sanctity.

After having reached the goal, which is the attention of the worshipper who loves, we may ask: Now what benefit comes from all of this? And we answer that the all-embracing benefit which comes from the service of the Creator, blessed be He, and His love, is that the Creator should love the man that worships him as it is said (Isaiah 43:4), “Since thou art precious in My sight, and honorable, and I have loved thee.” And it is written (Deuteronomy 7:13), “And He will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee.”

Abraham ibn Ezra writes that the animal offerings are in the nature of a תמורה. As is well known, we are not allowed to swap animals that have been designated as sacrifices for other animals, be they inferior or even superior (Leviticus chapter 27). An animal which has once been designated as holy to G–d does not revert to become חולין, profane.

The mystical dimension of all this is that the sacrifice is designated for G–d in His capacity as the Ineffable Name, not for any of the non-essential attributes of His. It is in the nature of what the prophet Isaiah 43,4 said: ואתן אדם תחתיך, that G–d will forego the offer of any other human beings to serve Him in lieu of the Jewish people. Our sages have revealed the reason for all this in Menachot 110a where they quote Rabbi Shimon ben Azzai as saying that it is remarkable that the name for G–d used in the entire קרבנות legislation in פרשת ויקרא is invariably the four- lettered Ineffable Name of G–d. We do not find such names as אלוקים, אל, צבאות, but only the four-lettered Ineffable Name regardless of the type of sacrifice the Torah discusses. Nachmanides discusses the implication of this statement at length.

The second function of the קרבן, that of being an exchange for one's own life, is a moral lesson which man has to apply to himself in two ways: 1) G–d admonishes those whom He loves. The afflictions man undergoes [and the way in which he accepts them, Ed.] are what ultimately secure him his entry into the Hereafter. When he has undergone these afflictions he, himself, has been elevated to the level of being the קרבן. This is the other meaning of the words: אדם כי יקריב מכם (הוא) קרבן לה'. 2) Sometimes the element of תמורה, exchange, is an exchange for something that is part of the system of nature. We know that phenomena which exist in this universe are subject to exchange from (Isaiah 43,4) ואתנה אדם תחתך, "I give אדם, men, in exchange for you. When the Torah says: מן הבהמה מן הבקר ומן הצאן תקריבו את קרבנכם, this means "your sacrifice which was the one suitable for you, which corresponds to your position in the universe." Cattle, sheep, etc. will serve as an exchange for your life. This principle is valid even when the sacrificial offerings can no longer be presented due to the absence of the Temple. G–d, in His mercy, is the Guardian of those who love Him and He finds for Himself an exchange to take your place in order to afford you an opportunity to achieve atonement. This occurs when man attempts to draw close to his G–d.

The truth is that this test was due to Ishmael's and Isaac's dialogue, a competition who could serve the Lord better. Such a dialogue certainly reflected the "right" side of the emanations. Rabbi Yossi the Galilean describes the matter in Bereshit Rabbah 55,5 when he says that the words והאלוקים נסה את אברהם must be understood as "G–d placed Abraham on a high mast, like that on a ship." His meaning is that G–d simply wanted to demonstrate to the whole world the devotion of an Abraham to the most difficult demand G–d could make upon him. Nonetheless, there is no denying that Abraham had found a detractor in Satan, and we have it on the authority of the Zohar that any accusation leaves some impression that G–d has to address Himself to, even if He does not do so immediately. In such a situation G–d hands someone else to Satan as a ransom, as alluded to in Isaiah 43,4: ואתן אדם תחתיך, "I give men in exchange for you." Abraham was afraid that the effect of Satan's accusation against him might have negative effects on Isaac's descendants. This is why G–d told him immediately after the binding of Isaac (Genesis 22,21) that the ransom had already been assigned to Satan: עוץ בכורו, "Utz the first born of Nachor," otherwise known as job, as we know from Job 1,1 "there lived a man in the land of Utz, Job was his name." We know that G–d delivered the fate of this man into the hands of Satan (ibid.). The mechanics of how this ransom works are discussed at length in the Zohar.

The Talmud's discovery of an allusion to Mordechai in the Torah can also be viewed in this light. The passage in the Torah dealing with the various ingredients of the incense offering is written after the tax of the half shekel was imposed which every male Jew above the age of culpability, i.e. the age of 20, had to give to the Temple treasury as part of the expiation for his share in the sin of the golden calf. The Torah anticipated that Haman would offer an amount of 10,000 talents of silver (600,000 half shekels) to Ahasverus to secure permission to kill the Jews. The amount that Haman offered equalled the amount contributed by the Jewish people in Moses' time in expiation of their sin. There is therefore a conceptual bridge between the place in the Torah where we find a reference to Mordechai, and to the happenings during his lifetime. The whole subject of the half-shekel the Jewish males had to contribute to the building of the sockets of the Tabernacle as a symbol of their expiation could be explained in terms of the Mazzalot, the signs of the zodiac. The system of the zodiac signs presupposes that history is predetermined, i.e. הכל קצוב, שקול לומדוד ומנוי, "everything has been pre-cut, weighed, measured and counted." Haman drew lots in order to find out under what zodiac sign the Jews were most vulnerable. He miscalculated, for he did not know that if someone had paid כופר נפש, the name used by the Torah for this half-shekel payment of atonement, he would be immune to the horoscopic constellations governing his fate. Isaiah 43,4 refers to this ואתן אדם תחתיך ולאומים תחת נפשך, "I give men in exchange for you and peoples in your stead." The prophet continues by telling us not to be afraid since G–d is near us, etc. We have proof of G–d's protection during the Haman period from Psalms 124,2: לולא ה' שהיה לנו בקום עלינו אדם, "Were it not for G–d who was on our side when man assailed us." The verse does not mention persecution by a king or kingdom but by אדם, in this case Haman who was not a king. Here we have the mystical dimension of how the כופר נפש, the soul's ransom paid by the Jewish people frees them from the influence on their fate exerted by the signs of the zodiac. Instead of Haman governing our fate, a "king," i.e. G–d, took our fate in hand. This is why the legislation of the half-shekel contribution had to precede Haman chronologically. The Mishnah Shekalim 1,1 tells us that on the first of Adar each year people were reminded to contribute the shekels. The plural of the word shekel used here is indicative of the fact that these contributions covered both of the sins the people were guilty of during the reign of Ahasverus.